Chapter 44 – Engulfed

The ancient black oil painting frame drifted through the dim, murky dream world, and the puppet girl sealed within the painting was utterly bewildered by the current situation.

“This shouldn’t be happening! I already broke free from this thing’s control, and I even have a body in the real world now!” Eileen paced in circles inside the oil painting. “I accepted having to carry this painting around on my back when I was ‘outside’ — I figured it was just like having extra luggage. So how is it that things are even worse in the dream world… In theory, shouldn’t I be freer after entering a dream?”

She raised her head and stared directly at Yu Sheng.

“You’re asking me? Who am I supposed to ask? I also thought you’d be freer after entering a dream,” Yu Sheng shrugged helplessly. “I was even curious to see what you’d look like at a meter sixty-seven, but you’re still just a paper cutout.”

Eileen seemed thoroughly irritated, without even the inclination to bicker with Yu Sheng. After circling the chair inside the painting who knows how many times, she finally resigned herself and sat back down in the chair, absentmindedly grabbing the fluffy toy bear and kneading it vigorously in her arms.

“Now I’m locked up with this thing again… But, it’s fine, I suppose. At least I genuinely have the ability to move freely in the real world. The dream world isn’t that important. Mm, not that important.”

“…Sometimes I really do envy your optimism.” Yu Sheng said sincerely.

Eileen immediately bared her teeth at him, but whether in reality or in the dream world, her toothy grimaces had never carried any real sense of threat.

Yu Sheng stepped around the oil painting floating in the air and came to stand before the slumbering silver fox.

“What’s next? Same as last time — I lie down on her tail, and then the two of us ‘sink’ down together?”

“Same as last time, but this time the connection will be more ‘direct.’ I’ll find a way to keep Hu Li’s consciousness in a state close to wakefulness, which will make it easier for you to communicate with her and sense what’s around her afterward,” Eileen said, drifting to Yu Sheng’s side. “But at the same time, ‘Hunger’ will notice you, and it will come looking for you… What happens after that, I won’t be able to help you with. Confrontation and struggle at the level of consciousness can only be handled by you yourself.”

She paused, then, as if wanting to reassure Yu Sheng, added: “But I can serve as a last line of defense. Once I sense that your spirit is rapidly destabilizing, I’ll forcibly yank you out — it’ll be just as unpleasant as that sudden awakening last time, so you’d best be mentally prepared.”

“…Honestly, I really don’t want to go through that again,” Yu Sheng let out a sigh, but he quickly nodded. His earlier resolve had not wavered in the slightest. “Alright then, let’s begin.”

He once again found a stable hollow among Hu Li’s great tails to settle into, then caught Eileen as she leapt down directly from midair. One person and one painting, leaning against the fox tails, they began to sink downward once more through this hazy dream.

Whether because the previous connection had laid some kind of foundation, this second descent was even faster and smoother than Yu Sheng had imagined. He barely felt a momentary dizziness before his perspective stabilized, and he found himself already looking at the figure of the foxgirl.

She was quietly crouching amid a field of rubble, staring vacantly at something in front of her.

Yu Sheng’s perspective arrived behind Hu Li, and he followed her gaze forward —

He saw a vast stretch of wreckage, as if some large aircraft had crashed and crumbled. Through the twisted metal framework and shattered decks, one could still faintly make out its former grandeur, and a faint luminescence drifted slowly through the shattered remains like spirit energy that refused to dissipate.

The entire wreck had fallen at the foot of a mountain. The collapsed and then molten rock had nearly swallowed and fused it into part of the mountainside. Even at a single glance, one could see what a devastating impact this must have been.

If ordinary humans had been aboard when it crashed, there likely would have been no survivors at all.

Yu Sheng cast a startled look at the crash site but did not forget his original purpose in coming here. He drew close to the foxgirl and spoke softly, careful not to startle her: “Hu Li.”

The ears atop Hu Li’s head instantly perked straight up. She sprang to her feet and swept her gaze around, seemingly trying to find the source of the sound. After her search turned up nothing, she hesitated before responding: “…Benefactor?”

“It’s me. Don’t bother looking — I’m communicating with your consciousness directly.”

“Benefactor! You really are here! I thought last time I had just heard wrong… Benefactor? What is… what’s going on?” A look of delighted surprise appeared on Hu Li’s face, though she still instinctively searched her surroundings with her eyes. “I, I was lost in a daze in the valley, and then suddenly I was… here. Am I, am I dreaming? Is this a dream?”

“Yes. I… used certain methods on my end to forcibly guide your dream. Only under these circumstances can I make contact with you — but now isn’t the time to explain the details,” Yu Sheng said quickly. “Listen, Hu Li, I am going to come rescue you. To do so, I need to open a special door, and that requires your cooperation — do you trust me?”

“Come… rescue me?” Hu Li was momentarily stunned, then suddenly realized what he meant and immediately shook her head. “No, don’t, don’t come here, benefactor. You worked so hard to get out. This valley is very strange — once you enter, it’s very hard to escape! You — don’t come! Whatever you do, don’t…”

Yu Sheng cut off the somewhat panicked girl: “I have a way! Hu Li, listen to me. I have a way. I’ve already found a stable method for entering and leaving that valley. All I need now is your help to open that door, and you don’t need to worry about that monster — I can handle it. Do you understand? I’m very capable, and this time I’ve also found a helper, who is also very… mm, capable.”

Yu Sheng did his best to reassure Hu Li, working to put her at ease. But a look of confusion flickered across Hu Li’s face. Her thoughts were slow, as though she was struggling to keep up with Yu Sheng’s words. After quite a long while, with no way of knowing how much she had truly understood, she finally spoke in puzzlement: “So… Benefactor is also an immortal?”

Yu Sheng had absolutely no idea how Hu Li’s thinking had jumped to that conclusion.

But he could be.

“A very capable immortal.” He did his best to make his voice sound reassuring.

And so the foxgirl smiled.

“Benefactor, what do you… need me to do?”

“You don’t need to do anything. Just concentrate on sensing your surroundings from now on. You’ll feel as though someone is peering into your heart, or even feel as though someone is looking at everything around you through your eyes — don’t resist it. That’s me.”

“Mm, alright.”

Deep within Yu Sheng, something quietly relaxed. Negotiating with Hu Li had been even easier than he’d imagined. So next… he only needed to face the second problem.

“Eileen,” he called out softly in his mind, “let’s begin.”

The next second, accompanied by a faint dizziness, Yu Sheng felt an indescribable… pull.

A brand-new “connection” had appeared, established between him and Hu Li. Unlike the subtle link that had been formed through blood before, he could clearly feel that this newly established connection was far more robust, and far more… forceful.

A part of his consciousness broke free from his control and was merged into an entirely new set of perceptions — as though nerves had suddenly been connected to a whole additional set of limbs. Though the sensations that came through were somewhat blurry and sluggish, he could still… begin to feel the aura surrounding Hu Li.

Ice-cold. Decaying. Carrying a putrid stench of universal decline. Wind stirred through the valley, sweeping over the dark forest.

Night was eternal. Hunger was everlasting.

The foxgirl stood among the trees, eyes wide open, doing her best to observe her surroundings.

She didn’t really understand what her benefactor was doing, nor did she know whether simply staring wide-eyed and observing was the right approach. She was simply following her own understanding, trying to accomplish what Yu Sheng had instructed.

And then, she felt the “connection” her benefactor had mentioned.

She was startled, but she sensed no malice.

Hu Li had always been acutely sensitive to even the most subtle malice, but this time, not a trace of it came through.

She only felt a slight sense of comfort, and even… her belly didn’t seem quite so hungry anymore.

……

The moment that overwhelming hunger — and the tide of madness buried deep within that hunger — came surging toward him, Yu Sheng felt as though an enormous wave were crashing down onto him from overhead. Like a great mountain collapsing in the pitch-black night, hunger and frenzy took on tangible weight, like a colossal shadow, like congealed darkness, and in what felt like an instant, every inch of his perception was submerged.

Yu Sheng didn’t even have time to call out Eileen’s name. He only managed, at the very last moment, to hold onto the “characteristics” of the valley that had come through from Hu Li, and then was completely swallowed by the raging black tide.

Yet deep within the black tide, he found that he still maintained his clarity.

Hunger gnawed at his soul. His soul withered and died. In the dark and frenzied surge, Yu Sheng watched “himself” be devoured in the blink of an eye, as though from the detached perspective of an indifferent bystander.

The hunger receded. The withered and dead soul awakened once more. Yu Sheng opened his eyes in the darkness, momentarily uncertain whether he had experienced another “death,” or whether it had simply been an illusion of being swallowed for a single instant.

He drifted through the depths of the darkness, unable to feel the passage of time or the edges of space, not even certain whether he was truly moving at all.

All he could feel was… a gaze that remained fixed upon him at all times.

Not a single gaze, but this entire expanse of black chaos — all of it was part of that gaze.

He was like a grain of sand, so small it was no bigger than the tip of a needle, watched and engulfed by an endless, boundless gaze of hunger.

And then, after some unknown stretch of time, he finally glimpsed, in the depths of that darkness… enormous drifting limbs, or perhaps shadows.

(End of chapter)