Chapter 109 – Construction

Chapter 109 – Construction

It was a delightful shopping spree, especially after Yu Sheng discovered that many things were cheaper than he’d imagined.

Having lost count of how many times they’d “stored” goods by now, Yu Sheng led his two companions to an unnoticed corner, then had Hu Li materialize her tails and stuff the newly purchased chicks inside.

Watching Hu Li’s eyes gleam with golden light as she grabbed chick after chick and stuffed them into her tails, Yu Sheng couldn’t help feeling a subtle sense of wrongness. Meanwhile, Eileen, temporarily draped over his arm, had long since given up on commenting: “You actually bought them… You’re really planning to raise chickens in the valley!”

“Why not? It’s such a huge space—no worry about losing them, no worry about stray dogs snatching them. Just scatter them across the hills and fields—free-range chickens!” Yu Sheng couldn’t help envisioning a beautiful future. “Let me tell you, I couldn’t find any piglets for sale, otherwise…”

“Otherwise you’d want free-range pigs too, right? You sure plan far ahead. You’re just going to scatter chicks this small out there to fend for themselves?” Eileen let out a sigh. “Besides, that place barely has grass starting to grow. Are you sure it can sustain animals?”

“…That’s why it’s a future plan. For now, we’ll keep the chickens in cages when we go over there.” Yu Sheng scratched his hair a bit awkwardly. “I’ll spend some time researching how to accelerate the valley’s ecosystem development, and pick up a couple books on vegetable farming and chicken raising while I’m at it.”

Eileen froze for a moment: “…So you have absolutely no idea how to do any of this?!”

Yu Sheng kept a straight face, looking perfectly matter-of-fact: “Obviously. Do I look like someone who knows how? All I’ve got is a wealth of theoretical knowledge and imagined experience!”

“And yet you’re this enthusiastic about it.” Eileen’s tone was exceptionally exasperated. “Watching you plan so intensely, I thought you were some kind of expert in this area—looking like you were about to turn Night-shrouded Valley into some Otherworld farmstead resort.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Yu Sheng cast a deeply mysterious glance at the little doll drooping on his arm. “Farming is in the soul.”

“I certainly wouldn’t understand. After all, dolls don’t need to eat,” Eileen snuck in an eye-roll when she confirmed no one was watching. “The Ancestral Doll never imparted any knowledge about this to us, and when my sisters share experiences remotely, I’ve never heard of any doll studying agriculture.”

“See, that’s why I say your whole education system of prenatal lessons and kindergarten correspondence courses is totally unreliable…”

“I’ll bite your skull! Is that any way to describe a lady?!”

By then, Hu Li had finished stuffing the last chick into her tails. She looked up at Eileen and Yu Sheng, who were engaged in their daily bickering, hesitated for a moment, then asked timidly: “Benefactor, can I raise them?”

Yu Sheng blinked in surprise: “Do you know how?”

Hu Li nodded eagerly: “I do! They taught us at school!”

Yu Sheng felt something was off about this, but seeing the fox girl’s eyes shining with excitement, he quickly nodded: “Then I’ll leave it to you.”

Eileen was instantly shocked: “…You’re letting a fox raise chickens?!”

Yu Sheng finally realized what was wrong, and hastily added a reminder to the great fox spirit before him: “Wait until they’re grown before eating them!”

By this point Hu Li was already so happy her eyes had narrowed into crescents. Whether she’d actually taken the warning to heart was anyone’s guess—she just nodded cheerfully again and again: “Mm-hmm~”

Yu Sheng had a feeling right then that he might never see this batch of chicks grow up to run freely through the valley…

His only hope now was that when Hu Li ate them, she’d at least remember to cook them first.

“We’ve got everything. We’ll skip the building materials market for now.” Yu Sheng glanced over the shopping list he’d prepared before leaving, confirmed nothing was missing, then let out a long breath. He looked down at the doll draped on his arm. “How about you? How’s the body you left at home?”

“Doing great. We’ve come all this way and there’s not the slightest sign of ‘disconnection,'” Eileen replied immediately. “I’m trying to have that body walk around the room right now.”

As she spoke, she wiggled her arms slightly, propping herself up from Yu Sheng’s arm, stretching her limbs in small movements. “At this distance, there’s no change in how either body handles. My proficiency at controlling them separately has improved a bit—I can basically adapt to and distinguish between two simultaneous fields of vision now. But I still can’t really let loose here. More advanced testing will have to wait until we’re in the valley.”

“Alright, then let’s head home first. We’ll sort everything out and then go to the valley.”

“How are we getting back? Taxi?” Eileen looked up, her tone slightly wary. “We’re not going to ‘happen upon’ another Special Operations Bureau ride-share this time, are we…”

A faint smile crossed Yu Sheng’s face. “Getting back, of course, means Door Opening. You two wait here a moment—let me notify the Bureau first.”

As he spoke, he pulled out his phone, but the moment he unlocked it, his eyebrows rose in mild surprise.

“Frontier Communications just popped up a software update notification,” he said, instinctively tapping the confirm button. “What could this thing possibly be updating… It’s done already?”

The software update completed almost instantaneously. Yu Sheng nearly suspected something was wrong with his phone, and then he saw Frontier Communications automatically restart before entering its main interface.

“Doesn’t look like anything’s changed… Huh?”

He’d barely finished muttering when he suddenly noticed a new button in the bottom-right corner of the Frontier Communications main screen.

Eileen immediately crowded over with curiosity: “What what what, let me see, let me see! What did it update?”

Yu Sheng pointed at the button with a wooden expression.

“…’One-click Door Opening Report’?” The little doll froze for a moment, then looked up at Yu Sheng. “A custom update made specifically for you alone?”

“I’m guessing nobody else’s Frontier Communications has this feature,” Yu Sheng’s lip twitched. “Looks like that midnight phone call to Baili Qing really made an impact.”

While speaking, he’d already casually pressed the one-click report function, then turned and opened a door leading to No. 66 Wutong Road.

After returning home, he first had Hu Li empty out the mountain of goods from her tails, sorted everything by category, put the rice, flour, cooking oil and other staples in the kitchen, then headed upstairs to the Second Floor with Eileen on his shoulder to check on Eileen’s situation in the bedroom.

Honestly, even he felt like that sequence sounded like a grammatical error when strung together.

Eileen was pacing circles on the master bedroom floor, looking like she was having quite a good time.

Nothing at all like this morning, when having both bodies awake at once meant she couldn’t even stand steadily.

“I think I’ve almost found the trick to controlling two bodies simultaneously,” both Eileens said in unison—the one on his shoulder and the one on the floor. “And I think there might be an even simpler method than direct control. The shell serving as the ‘secondary body’ doesn’t seem to need very direct or detailed commands to operate. Watch—”

As she spoke, the Eileen pacing circles on the floor suddenly stopped. Her expression went utterly blank, but this seemingly “disconnected” doll didn’t collapse. Instead, after a brief moment of blankness, she began wobbling unsteadily toward Yu Sheng.

“Okay, okay, I get it, but that’s seriously creepy.” Watching this red-eyed doll that looked like something out of a cursed movie shamble toward him with stiff, swaying steps, several horror films instantly flashed through Yu Sheng’s mind. He quickly waved his hands and told her to go back to normal, then bent down and picked the little doll up from the floor, placing her on his other shoulder.

With an Eileen on each shoulder, he headed downstairs. The moment he reached the living room, he spotted Hu Li leaning against the dining table. The girl wore a blissfully silly grin on her face, and two little chicks were pecking at a handful of millet on the table before her, looking completely devoid of any sense of danger.

The fox-spirit girl was even chatting with the chicks: “Eat up now, grow quickly. I have big plans for you two… Poached, and Salt-baked.”

It took Yu Sheng a moment to figure out what was going on, and when he did, a cold sweat broke out on the spot: “Those are the names you gave them?”

Hu Li beamed, eyes narrowing happily: “Yep~”

“…Fine, whatever makes you happy.” Yu Sheng’s face twitched. “Grab your Poached and Salt-baked. We’re heading to the valley.”

“Coming!”

Just as Yu Sheng had expected, it was still daytime in the valley.

A sky of clear, thin clouds stretched over the vast valley floor. Bright daylight traced the craggy silhouettes of distant mountains, with not the slightest sign of dimming.

By now, Yu Sheng had entered this valley at various times throughout the day. He was essentially certain that this place truly had no cycle of day and night.

The valley perpetually maintained this state of bright sunshine and comfortable temperature.

This had both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage was that such an environment was genuinely pleasant—at least far better than the previous state of perpetual nightfall, bone-piercing cold winds, and the stench of decay permeating the air.

The disadvantage was that he seriously doubted whether such an environment could still support his grand “vegetable farming enterprise.”

After all, plants also need the alternation of day and night to grow properly.

But that was something to verify later. For the current phase, Yu Sheng still needed to first clear out a plot of land—and clean up those obstructive ruins of the Ruined Temple while he was at it. That probably wouldn’t take long.

Considering that he’d likely be spending a lot of time in this valley going forward, he planned to first rough out a “campsite” here before taking Eileen through her planned “testing” program.

The Ruined Temple ruins had been through a “feast” and now had barely anything left—scattered fragments of broken bricks and tiles mixed into the pitted, uneven soil, serving no purpose whatsoever except getting in the way of his farming.

Under Yu Sheng’s influence, the earth began to gradually “awaken.”

The soil churned, swallowing bricks and tiles, breaking them down, burying them. Stones large and small were pushed together and stacked at the far edge of the open space. A flat expanse of land took shape beneath Yu Sheng’s feet and began slowly extending outward, tracing the rough outline of a plot.

He stood at the edge of the open space, carefully sensing the connection between himself and this valley—feeling the wondrous process of soil, stone, even air and water all reshaping themselves according to his will—and gradually lost himself in it.

Without realizing it, he felt that his “mastery” over this place… had advanced another step.

(End of Chapter)