Chapter 68 – Hu Li’s Hometown Memories

A beautiful black-haired girl with clear, bright eyes, wearing ill-fitting men’s clothing and curiously looking around as she walked down the street, cradling in her arms a gothic doll that radiated an eerie atmosphere as if it had died with its eyes open—such a combination appearing in a crowded area was, frankly, rather eye-catching. To be honest, Yu Sheng felt he had underestimated the “difficulty” of taking both Hu Li and Eileen out at the same time.

He had lost count of how many curious glances had swept their way along the route. Some of them naturally fell on Hu Li as she looked around in every direction, but the other half were aimed at him.

Yet Yu Sheng had no choice but to steel himself and accompany the fox girl beside him, because she truly knew nothing about anything.

She didn’t even know what money looked like in this world—in fact, the mere fact that she knew you had to pay for things was already impressive enough, and she only knew that thanks to having lived in some civilized society many, many years ago.

On the other hand, the differences between the social order in Hu Li’s memories and Boundary City always brought unexpected trouble.

For instance, when they passed a parking lot, she was especially curious about why so many “immortal carriages” were parked inside yet remained so quiet, and why those vehicles were all so patient—honestly, when this question first popped out of her mouth, Yu Sheng couldn’t even process what she meant.

“Back in my homeland, carriages and boats all had artifact spirits. The artifact spirits of vehicles were mostly the type that loved to run and jump, and most of them refused to sit still outside the sect gates,” Hu Li explained to Yu Sheng in a low voice. “So where I’m from, when immortals or demons needed to stop somewhere while traveling, they’d hand their vehicles over to the attendant, and the attendant was responsible for taking the vehicles on ‘runs’ nearby. There was also a type of large venue with its own pocket dimension inside, where you could put vehicles in and let them run around and play freely. That was called a ‘self-service parking lot’…”

As she spoke, she raised her hand and pointed at a car by the roadside that looked like it was being driven by a beginner—someone who couldn’t manage to park in the spot after ages of trying. “That one is so stiff and clumsy. Where I’m from, even children’s hobby horses would laugh at it.”

Yu Sheng quickly pushed the fox girl’s hand down. “Things are different here from your homeland. Don’t point at random things.”

Hu Li nodded in confusion. “Oh.”

Yu Sheng silently wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, suddenly intensely curious about what this fox girl’s homeland actually looked like. When he first met Hu Li, he had assumed her homeland was the classic immortal-demon cultivation civilization, but then the Tour Guide Immortal had appeared, and after that “several hundred Law-Enforcement Immortals besieging a great demon fox for violating forest protection laws and sentencing her to five hundred years” had come up, and now even children’s toys (hobby horses) came equipped with artificial intelligence (artifact spirits)—his mind was getting a bit foggy, and he kept feeling that…

The aesthetic of this fox girl’s homeland was rather hard to imagine.

Could this really be something that a normal universe could produce?

Unfortunately, Hu Li herself couldn’t clearly describe what her homeland was actually like—not only because she had been young when she left home, but also because those long years of torment in the Otherworld had caused her to forget many things.

“I can’t remember a lot of things. I just remember the elders saying that our homeland wasn’t originally like that,” Hu Li recalled the yellowed, blurry memories of her homeland in her mind, doing her best to describe them to Yu Sheng. “They said beings of great power—’people from the heavens’—suddenly arrived and enlightened the beings on the ground who had been endlessly fighting each other. Then after a very long time, we began living alongside the heavenly people, ‘traversing billions of miles among the stars in an instant.’ I also remember the elders saying that the stars in the sky would shift position every few years—that was the heavenly people adjusting some kind of shipping lane… My father also worked on the shipping lanes. His job was to push things that strayed into the lanes back out, and then issue them fines…”

At this point, the fox girl grew somewhat excited. “My father could pilot a really, really huge Immortal Shuttle—bigger than a whole building! He said it was called a ‘Star Ship.’ The artifact spirit of a Star Ship was even more incredible. You only needed one person to lie down in a pool inside the Star Ship and give commands to the artifact spirit, and the thing could fly. It could catch things faster than light, using a kind of treasure called something like… ‘lunar-arc severance-breath’…”

Yu Sheng listened in stunned amazement, then turned to glance at Eileen, who was being held in Hu Li’s arms, motionless and pretending to be an ordinary doll. He muttered inwardly, “Can you understand any of this?”

“Not a word,” Eileen’s voice came from the depths of Yu Sheng’s mind. “You’re actually taking this seriously? She’s probably making it all up… I suggest you wait a couple months until Hu Li’s mental state stabilizes before asking her about these things. By then, the story will probably be a completely different version.”

Yu Sheng furrowed his brow. He also had some doubts about the truthfulness of the fantastical things Hu Li was describing, but at the same time felt that if this girl’s mind were truly still muddled, she would be incapable of fabricating such imaginative and “intricately designed” stories.

Regardless, everything Hu Li described to Yu Sheng left a deep impression in his heart.

“Alright, stop overthinking it,” Eileen’s voice came from deep within, interrupting Yu Sheng’s wandering thoughts. “You’d better hurry up and get Hu Li some normal clothes—your moment of challenge has arrived.”

The moment Yu Sheng heard this, his expression turned bitter.

Many things always seem like they’ll go smoothly during the planning phase, but once execution reaches the point where details must be considered, that’s when the troublesome parts emerge.

How would he know how to pick out girls’ clothes! He’d never even set foot in a women’s clothing store!

Yet he could only forge ahead—after all, he was the one who had said he’d take Hu Li in. It was too late for regrets now.

But just as Yu Sheng was leading Hu Li toward the shopping mall with the resolute determination of a man marching to his execution, a familiar figure suddenly flashed past the corner of their vision.

It was a somewhat petite girl with short hair, around seventeen or eighteen, her lips pressed together, her features carrying a silence and maturity slightly at odds with her age.

Yu Sheng didn’t recognize her at first, only felt a sense of familiarity. Two or three seconds later, he realized where that sense of familiarity came from.

It was the girl who called herself “Little Red Riding Hood”—she wasn’t wearing that dark red outfit today, but had changed into a brightly colored jacket, making her unrecognizable at first glance.

Yu Sheng instantly knew he had found his savior.

Almost simultaneously, “Little Red Riding Hood,” walking on the other side of the street, sensed the gaze falling upon her. She immediately looked up—and for one brief instant, her eyes were as alert as a wolf’s.

But that wolf-like gaze vanished in a flash, so brief that no one could have noticed it. She recognized Yu Sheng and let a look of mild surprise cross her face.

Little Red Riding Hood quickly crossed through the traffic and walked over, regarding Yu Sheng with a hint of surprise. She looked him up and down for several seconds before finally managing a sentence: “…You’re out shopping too?”

“…Is it that strange for me to be out shopping?”

“Ah, sorry, I just feel it’s quite a coincidence.” Little Red Riding Hood realized her words were a bit off and immediately lowered her head in a crisp apology, though the puzzlement in her eyes hadn’t diminished one bit—

Because she already knew that Yu Sheng lived inside an Otherworld called No. 66 Wutong Road.

The moment she had left that Otherworld, she had guessed that this “human” who called himself “Yu Sheng” probably had a questionable percentage of actual human in him. His extremely authentic human behavior was likely some kind of “mimicry.”

She truly hadn’t expected that she would run into this “person” who permanently resided in an Otherworld… out on the street, shopping.

…Could this guy actually eat human food?

This absurd thought (or so she believed) popped involuntarily into Little Red Riding Hood’s mind.

Then she noticed Hu Li standing nearby, and the doll held in Hu Li’s arms.

Little Red Riding Hood frowned slightly, taking a moment to recognize Hu Li’s face, then raised her hand and pointed at Eileen, who was completely motionless, her eyes having even lost their highlights.

“That one—is it dead?”

Yu Sheng watched as Eileen’s eyes nearly regained their highlights—the Little Doll twitched ever so slightly in Hu Li’s arms, and then a torrent of colorful language erupted in his mind: “She’s the one who’s dead! May she spontaneously combust and explode on the spot eight hundred times! She @#$%&*—Yu Sheng! Curse her out! Curse her back for me!”

“She’s cursing you out,” Yu Sheng said, raising a hand to point at Eileen, who still didn’t dare move, his expression perfectly calm as he addressed Little Red Riding Hood. “Really foul stuff. I’m a man of culture—I couldn’t even bring myself to repeat it.”

Eileen immediately cursed even harder.

Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t hear any of it.

But she could imagine.

“This is… actually pretty creative,” she couldn’t help looking Eileen up and down several times. “To think you could use this method to bring her out in broad daylight… Anyway, judging by the looks of things, you’re here to buy clothes for her?” She indicated Hu Li.

“Got it in one,” Yu Sheng spread his hands, directly blocking out the ongoing stream of beeping noises from Eileen’s direction. “I was just worrying about it when I spotted you—mind helping out?”

“I can roughly guess what kind of help you need,” Little Red Riding Hood figured it out in less than two seconds, her gaze sweeping over Hu Li’s obviously ill-fitting outfit, a trace of a smile appearing on her face. “This is… certainly something I’ve never experienced before.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes lit up. “So you’ll do it?”

Little Red Riding Hood wore an unconcerned expression. “Of course. It’s no trouble at all—but you’ll have to help me with something afterward.”

(End of Chapter)