Hunger

Hu Li sat on the steps of the ruined temple with her head drooping, looking somewhat hurt. Yu Sheng also sat on the steps of the ruined temple with his head drooping—he was genuinely hurt. Miss Fox Immortal had taken a bite that tore away a huge chunk of his flesh along with the skin! He knew canines guarded their food, but he had never expected a fox immortal to put up such a fuss when guarding hers! "Benefactor..." Hu Li finally spoke up from beside him, the white-furred fox sounding like she was on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry, I... I couldn't help it. I've hurt you... again..." "Yeah, you hurt me again, but it's way lighter than when we first met." Yu Sheng sighed, weary of life. Looking at the trace of blood at the corner of Hu Li's mouth, he thought to himself that thankfully it was just a bite. When he had first met this girl, that subsonic headbutt she delivered had caused a much bigger wound—that was an amputation from the neck down... Hu Li only tilted her head in confusion upon hearing this. She clearly still couldn't recall what Yu Sheng meant by their "first meeting"—he had probed her about it several times just now, and each time she had reacted much the same. "Benefactor, what you said... Did we really meet outside the ruined temple earlier?" "You don't remember at all?" Yu Sheng couldn't help frowning. "I was fighting some messy, grotesque monstrosity, and you rushed over saying you'd help. Then, *bam*—my vision went dark, and when I woke up, I was here, while you were wandering around outside." Hu Li narrowed her eyes, as if struggling to recall something. After a moment, the pair of fluffy ears on her head drooped down as well; the effort of remembering seemed quite difficult for her. Yu Sheng looked down at the wound on his hand. Where Hu Li had bitten him, the flesh was healing at a visible rate. Countless tiny sprouts were emerging between the torn muscle and flesh, and his blood seemed to have an independent life of its own, writhing and roving through the crevices of the wound. He... could even swear he heard faint sounds coming from the injury: tissue regenerating, severed skin knitting together, everything... returning to an intact state. Within just a few minutes, he could hardly feel any pain anymore, with only a slight tingling itch lingering around the wound. This wasn't normal. He knew that, of course—human wounds couldn't heal at this speed. But compared to a rapidly healing wound, coming back from the dead was even stranger. The physical changes in his body made him uneasy. Even though they all seemed like "good things" so far, he constantly worried there might be some unknown hidden danger behind them, or rather... a "price." Humans instinctively resist the unknown and loss of control. For Yu Sheng now, his own body was gradually becoming the greatest unknown in his mind. Just then, however, a strange sensation suddenly interrupted his thoughts. He couldn't quite describe what it was; he only felt as if he heard some sound, or perhaps some thoughts had abruptly "intruded" into his head—thoughts and memories that... didn't belong to him. He felt a small area in his mind stir uncontrollably, and then, within that restless patch of thought, he sensed another consciousness— *Mama is gone, Papa is gone, all the uncles and aunts are gone, so dark, poisonous, cold, scared, hungry, so cold, so hungry, starving, the fruit is poisonous, can't eat bark, can't eat leaves, can't eat dirt, can't eat stones... can't eat, can't eat any of it, hungry, starving, starving, starving...* An overwhelming hunger, almost violent enough to crush the spirit, swept across Yu Sheng's mind. Though it was merely a stray wisp of foreign information intruding upon his head, he still had the illusion that his very sanity was about to be completely devoured by that starvation. The frenzied thoughts roared through his mind, and only when they finally began to subside did Yu Sheng slowly regain the ability to think, gradually looking up at Hu Li beside him. The fox-demon girl was slowly licking the corners of her mouth. Yu Sheng saw his own blood writhing on the tip of Hu Li's tongue as if alive, sinking into her skin, sinking into her teeth, sinking into... her soul. Hu Li sensed his gaze. Licking clean the last trace of blood from her mouth, she looked up at Yu Sheng and gave an innocent, harmless, silly smile. Yet as Yu Sheng looked at her, it felt as though he were gazing straight into her soul. He saw... the part bordering on madness, saw the frenzied hunger surging and festering beneath that smile. She was hungry. She was still hungry, far more ravenous than she appeared—perhaps even... hungrier than she herself realized. "Benefactor..." She eyed Yu Sheng's pockets warily with a goofy smile on her face. "Do you have... any more food? I feel like... my tummy doesn't hurt anymore, but I'm still... a little hungry." Yu Sheng felt a slight chill run down his spine. He seemed to grasp something faintly, and at the same time, he grew even more curious about the process by which he had "read" that information in his mind just now. Why... had he seen Hu Li's thoughts and memories? He thought back to the scene he had just witnessed: his blood rapidly sinking into her skin. Was it because of that? Just then, he noticed several swift shifts in Hu Li's expression. As if suddenly remembering something, her eyes grew dazed, and that daze quickly turned into astonishment. Hu Li slowly stood up from the steps, staring blankly at Yu Sheng as though recognizing the person before her all over again. Then she shook her head hard and pointed a finger at him in disbelief: "Benefactor... you... you're not dead?!" Yu Sheng froze for a moment. Hu Li pressed a hand firmly against her forehead. Her body swayed unsteadily; the conflicting, tangled memories pushed her already fragile sanity to the brink of collapse. Then, she finally began to recall the "truth" that had once vanished from her mind— She remembered her first "encounter" with Yu Sheng, remembered her terrible "slip-up" back then, remembered the sight of her "Benefactor" broken into pieces, remembered the warm blood of a living human, and then... that blood gradually dissolving into nothingness, the remains vanishing, and the process of Yu Sheng's "death" fading away from her memory... She slowly steadied herself, her golden-red eyes muddy and chaotic as she muttered to herself, "Ah, I remember now, Benefactor. We met just now, out in the open clearing. I slipped up and... you... but..." She trailed off hesitantly, the rest of her words turning into indistinct mumblings. Her muddled consciousness seemed to be regaining dominance, rapidly throwing her thoughts back into confusion. Yu Sheng blinked. Clearly, Hu Li had remembered their first meeting, as well as the incident with the subsonic headbutt. He didn't know how she had suddenly recalled it all—perhaps it had something to do with him suddenly seeing her thoughts and memories just now—but now was clearly not the time to investigate the cause. Hu Li was visibly not in a normal state. Her body swayed again, as if she might lose her balance at any second. Yu Sheng instinctively took half a step forward—but her immediate reaction stopped him dead in his tracks. Hu Li raised her head, her golden-red eyes seemingly flooded with bloody light. She stared fixedly at Yu Sheng, a low, beast-like whimper and snarl issuing from her throat. She slowly bent her back. The tangled tails behind her spread out bit by bit, flaunting and expanding into the darkness of the night, eerie blue flames leaping and blazing at the tip of every tail. In a feral posture, she unreservedly released the aura of a predator. Hunger grew wildly in those blood-tinted eyes. Through some vague, tenuous connection, Yu Sheng could almost hear the voice echoing ceaselessly at the depths of the girl's heart— *Benefactor, you smell so good...* Yu Sheng swallowed hard with difficulty and took a cautious half-step back. Right at that moment, the corner of his eye caught sight of a certain... shadow behind Hu Li. It was an enormous shadow spreading out from the darkness, inching closer behind Hu Li. The fox demon's eerie blue spirit flames flickered in the night, and under their illumination, the shadow gradually revealed its silhouette—as if countless ferocious, twisted beast limbs were mashed haphazardly together. Upon a several-meter-tall mass of flesh and blood grew a crisscrossing tangle of mouths, eyes, and sharp claws. Like the incarnation of hunger and predation, this monstrosity issued low, garbled, urging hisses behind Hu Li. Amid those muffled hisses and urgings, Hu Li crouched even lower. Silver-white fur covered her skin, her cheeks deformed, fangs grew, and human features swiftly receded. In almost the blink of an eye, the girl who was always smiling foolishly vanished—a colossal silver-white demon fox stood in the night, the eerie blue spirit flames on her tails casting their glow upon the crumbling ruins of the temple, and upon Yu Sheng's face. Yu Sheng heard a voice carrying an intense beguilement and a mind-piercing power, drifting faintly toward him: "Eat... Eat, and you won't be hungry anymore... "Feed... "Feed, together with us... "You're hungry, eat..." At first, Yu Sheng thought he was hearing the thoughts deep in Hu Li's mind, but soon realized it was actually what Hu Li was hearing—the true source of the voice was that messy, grotesque monstrosity. It was urging Hu Li to feed, urging the fox-demon girl to succumb to that hunger, its tone like someone waiting for something nurtured for a long time to finally bear fruit. Yu Sheng wanted to shout a warning, to tell Hu Li not to be seduced by that voice, because he had already vaguely guessed parts of the truth. But before he could open his mouth, he felt the terrifying... hunger radiating from deep within Hu Li's mind. That hunger was enough to devour all reason and block out every outside voice. All he could do was smile wryly and spread his hands before the demon fox. "I'm telling you, pretty soon your mouth and your stomach won't be on speaking terms, and the next time we meet, you're going to be so embarrassed..." Having finished his sentence, as though reciting his last words, he steeled his heart and set his face, dropping his hips into a bow stance and striking the opening stance of military boxing. Military boxing certainly couldn't defeat a nine-tailed demon fox (or maybe seven-tailed, or eight-tailed), but military boxing could at least let him die with some dignity. Besides, what if? His constitution had inexplicably grown much stronger. Yu Sheng thought that maybe, just maybe, before he died he could land a punch on Hu Li's nose and make it ache for a good while... Just as this silly thought crossed his mind, a violent gust of wind blasted against his face the next second, and the silver-white demon fox's massive body leaped into the air—the fierce wind pressure made Yu Sheng instinctively close his eyes. The expected death did not arrive. Puzzled, Yu Sheng opened his eyes. He saw the silver-white demon fox twist her body mid-air, lunging instead straight at that nauseating monster—letting out a furious roar bordering on a wail, she opened her maw and bit into the creature. Yet in the next second, countless jet-black keratin spikes and pitch-black bone fragments burst from within Hu Li's body, piercing every part of her flesh and skewering her firmly in mid-air. Yu Sheng watched the scene in shock, seeing the silver-white demon fox turn her head with difficulty in mid-air. Golden-red blood flowed from wounds all over her body, steaming beneath the night sky. "Benefactor... run..." *{You smell so good...}* "I'm not a monster yet..." *{So hungry...}* "Run!" *{Run!}*