Chapter 55 – The “Professionals” Right Before His Eyes

The enormous eye had departed, leaving as silently as it had arrived, without revealing a single secret.

The people inside the cave exchanged bewildered glances, seemingly at a loss for what to do. The oppressive aura that bizarre eyeball had brought was so staggering that even now, after it had vanished, a lingering tremor of dread and disbelief still remained in everyone’s hearts.

“It really just left like that?” Eileen murmured to herself, clearly uneasy. “Could it just be hiding behind the clouds?”

But Yu Sheng shook his head. “It really ‘left.’ At the very least, it’s no longer anywhere in this Otherworld.”

He was certain of this, because he could clearly feel that the ever-present “gaze” that had blanketed the valley had truly disappeared.

“But why?” Eileen was still muttering. “What was that thing even here for? It hid here for so long, then suddenly woke up to scare everyone, even affected the entities here, and now it’s just suddenly gone… What was the point of all that?”

Yu Sheng thought about it. “Maybe it was just resting here, and now that it’s rested enough, it left.”

Eileen blinked in surprise, eyeing Yu Sheng with some skepticism. “Is… is that so?”

This time it was Yu Sheng’s turn to be stunned—she actually bought that?!

“No one knows the purpose of a Twilight Angel,” Xu Jiali’s voice cut in from the side, interrupting the utterly pointless discussion between Yu Sheng and Eileen. “In fact, we can’t even confirm whether they possess the concept of ‘purpose’ at all. These things have always appeared at random—sometimes it takes enormous sacrifice to drive them away, and sometimes… they simply leave on their own before long. There’s no point in analyzing a Twilight Angel’s behavior. We should feel grateful that eye wasn’t one of the more active individuals.”

Yu Sheng gave a thoughtful “oh,” stroking his chin in contemplation. Just then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed Li Lin standing at the cave entrance, observing the situation outside.

That inexplicable sense of familiarity welled up from deep within him again. Yu Sheng couldn’t help but gradually furrow his brow as memories churned in the back of his mind. Then suddenly, a scene flashed through his head—

“Wait! Haven’t we met before?” Yu Sheng’s eyes went wide as the realization hit him, staring straight at Li Lin. “Recently—we’ve definitely met! Where was it… the convenience store, that’s right, the convenience store!”

He took two steps forward, scrutinizing Li Lin up and down—that utterly unremarkable face that would vanish into any crowd, impossible to recall without serious effort. This time, it finally matched perfectly with the memory in his mind. “You bought a case of instant noodles, right?”

Li Lin’s mouth twitched slightly. He had realized in that instant that Yu Sheng had recognized him, but he felt no panic or surprise whatsoever—because back when they first met in the ruins of the Ruined Temple, he had already recognized Yu Sheng’s face.

Though they had only crossed paths once in a convenience store, as a professionally trained operative of the Special Operations Bureau, his memory and observational skills far surpassed those of ordinary people.

Mutual recognition was only a matter of time.

Seeing the other’s reaction, Yu Sheng’s mind immediately made a series of connections. Understanding gradually dawned on him as his gaze swept over to Xu Jiali standing nearby, and then to Little Red Riding Hood resting not far away.

“Where exactly are you people from?” Yu Sheng asked, his brow furrowing slightly.

“Let me reintroduce myself,” Li Lin sighed, then straightened up and pointed at himself. “Li Lin, operative of the Second Action Squadron under the Borderland Council’s Special Operations Bureau.”

Xu Jiali walked over as well, adjusting her posture before speaking in a low voice. “Special Combat Unit attached to the Second Action Squadron. Senior deep-cover agent, Xu Jiali—that really is my real name.”

Yu Sheng’s jaw dropped. After a long, stunned moment, he turned to look at Little Red Riding Hood, who looked for all the world like a high school student. “So you’re also part of that Special Operations…”

“I’m not,” Little Red Riding Hood said, arms crossed, tilting her chin up toward Xu Jiali. “I’m child labor they hired.”

Yu Sheng froze, looking at Xu Jiali in astonishment. “Your organization hires child labor?”

“Child labor my foot!” Xu Jiali immediately shot Little Red Riding Hood a glare. “Part-time work! Would it kill you to say ‘work-study program’ instead?!”

Yu Sheng’s head was spinning. His first thought was that high schoolers in the Borderland were seriously hardcore—their idea of a work-study program during school break was running into an Otherworld to fight monsters. His second thought was that he had finally encountered those “professionals” Eileen had mentioned, though these professionals had a rather different vibe than what he’d imagined. As for his third thought…

“So you came here for me?” Yu Sheng looked at the three “professionals” before him, feeling like he was finally putting the pieces together. “You followed me all the way into this Otherworld just to find me?”

He hadn’t expected that the moment these words left his mouth, Xu Jiali and Li Lin would let out a long, simultaneous sigh, and even Little Red Riding Hood hung her head with a sigh, switching from clutching her arm to burying her face in her hands.

Xu Jiali fished a cigarette from her pocket, lit it with an expression full of worry, and inhaled a third of it in a single drag.

“If we could have avoided it, we wouldn’t have wanted to either—this wasn’t our original plan…”

Yu Sheng: “?”

He got the feeling the burly woman before him wasn’t exactly thrilled, and after a moment’s thought, decided not to press the matter. Fortunately, things here had finally been resolved—there were still plenty of unanswered questions, but they could all wait until everyone had safely returned to the real world.

Eileen returned from Hu Li’s arms to Yu Sheng, and Yu Sheng carefully cradled the battered little doll as he became the first to step out of the cave they’d been hiding in.

“It’s gone completely quiet,” Eileen said, sitting on Yu Sheng’s shoulder with her broken arms wrapped around his head. She gazed toward the depths of the valley with an expression of wonder mixed with disbelief. “…What a mess.”

“Yeah, a total mess. But at least the Hunger Entities are gone,” Yu Sheng nodded, looking at the valley whose surface had been entirely “gnawed” away by a whole layer. “…Speaking of which, will those things show up again later?”

“They will. As long as the Otherworld still exists, entities will reappear, and Otherworlds never disappear. Even if you bombed one ten thousand times, it would restore itself,” Eileen said softly, hugging Yu Sheng’s head. “It’s just that… this time it will probably take a very long while.”

“Time to leave this place,” Yu Sheng let out a long breath. Now that the Hunger Entities had temporarily vanished, even the air in the valley seemed to have grown noticeably fresher. A crisp wind blew in from the distance, and bright daylight had driven away the eternal night sky. Despite the scene of utter devastation before his eyes, he still felt a wave of relief wash over him. “Hu Li, how are you feeling now?”

The foxgirl had been following closely behind Yu Sheng, and she immediately looked up. “I’m fine! Not cold, not hungry anymore—I ate a lot just now!”

As she spoke, Hu Li broke into a happy smile—the first time she had smiled so freely, so unburdened, bright as sunshine.

Yu Sheng smiled back and reached his hand out to his side. “Then let’s go home.”

Yet just as he was about to open a door home, Hu Li stepped forward without warning and gently tugged at his sleeve.

Yu Sheng stopped in confusion, looking at the foxgirl before him.

“Are you worried about the food we left at the Ruined Temple ruins? Most of it was probably wrecked by the Hunger Entities. You still want to go back for it?”

Hu Li gave a small nod, but then immediately shook her head.

“Benefactor, I want to go somewhere. I…”

She began haltingly, seemingly worried that she was asking too much, worried that what she wanted to do was too selfish. She looked deeply conflicted.

Watching the hesitant foxgirl, Yu Sheng didn’t understand at first what she wanted to do. But then suddenly, he recalled the scene he had once witnessed in the deepest part of Hu Li’s dream.

After a moment of silence and deliberation, Yu Sheng nodded. “I understand. It’s in that grove, isn’t it?”

Hu Li looked up in surprise, meeting Yu Sheng’s eyes.

Then she gave a small nod.

Li Lin and the other two didn’t understand what was going on and cast questioning looks at Yu Sheng, but he didn’t explain in detail, merely waving his hand at them. “Don’t worry. I have a way to get everyone back shortly, but give me a moment first—I need to go somewhere with Hu Li. If you’re not comfortable with that, you’re welcome to come along.”

“Then let’s all go together,” Xu Jiali was the first to nod. “This girl seems to have been here for a very long time. Before she leaves, there must be things she needs to settle. I understand.”

And so the group left the Back Mountain, made their way around the Ruined Temple—now even more devastated than before, reduced to little more than a few crumbling walls—crossed the valley floor’s stone beach riddled with ravines and fissures, and finally arrived at what had once been the small grove.

The grove had long since vanished. Those dark, mutated plants had been devoured clean during the earlier feast. All that remained now was a stretch of blackened wasteland, pockmarked with deep pits of various sizes and suspicious dark debris.

“Is this the place?” Yu Sheng glanced at Hu Li walking beside him and asked quietly.

“Mm,” Hu Li nodded slowly. “Mom and Dad… they’re right here.”

Only then did Eileen finally understand what Yu Sheng had come here with Hu Li to do.

The little doll’s eyes went wide. She recalled the scene from the deepest part of Hu Li’s dream—the temptations, those memories impossible to tell real from false, and those phantoms born of cold and hunger. For reasons she couldn’t quite name, she felt a rising sense of unease, and the countless pits scattered all around only made that unease grow rapidly.

“They… they’re probably impossible to find now!” she couldn’t help blurting out, deliberately speaking loudly. “A whole layer of ground got gnawed away! They were probably already taken by those tendrils that came up from underground…”

But Hu Li simply shook her head, cutting Eileen off.

“No. I buried them very deep,” she said with quiet certainty. “Mom and Dad told me to bury them deeper, so I buried them very deep.”

(End of Chapter)