A faint, dim light flickered within the door leading to the valley. Yu Sheng stepped across this "boundary," and the next second, bright daylight greeted his eyes. He narrowed them, looking up into the distance, then gazed at the sky dotted with wisps of broken clouds.
After that giant eye covering the sky had departed, this foreign domain once called "Nightfall Valley" had come to the end of its eternal night. But Yu Sheng hadn't expected that it would still be daytime here now—when in the real world it was already evening at this moment.
Could it be that this place had no day-night cycle at all? After the eternal night caused by the "Murky Angel" ended, had it instead become an eternal day? A few conjectures rose in Yu Sheng's mind, while at the same time he raised his guard to the fullest, carefully watching his surroundings.
The "landing point" he'd chosen for opening the door was still around that ruined temple's ruins. Everywhere he looked, the devastation caused when Entity-Hunger had lost control back then still remained. The ruined temple, already broken down into rubble, now had essentially nothing but a ground littered with broken bricks and tiles left, not a single standing wall to be seen. The wasteland around it looked even more as if it had been "deeply plowed" over and over; huge gullies visible everywhere stretched from the ruins all the way to the edge of his sight. And the woods of former days were now nothing but withered remains. Rubble of every size piled up at the far end of the valley floor, and the nearby mountain rocks had been scraped clean away, exposing bare soil.
But apart from that... there was no sign of danger at all.
Yu Sheng frowned and carefully picked his way across gully after gully until he reached an open stretch of ground strewn with broken bricks and tiles.
He still remembered this place. This was where he had opened the feast—where the first entity to come under his "influence," Entity-Hunger, had opened its huge maw and begun devouring other entities. Now all traces of the entities had dissipated; even the bloodstains seemed to have evaporated, vanishing without a trace.
The valley was utterly quiet, with only the occasional breeze blowing up from the valley floor—yet it was no longer as icy cold as before, and the unpleasant stench of rot was gone from the wind too... Compared with the gloomy, night-shrouded place it had been before, there was now somehow a hint of... a "peaceful pure land" about this place.
If one ignored those gullies, that is.
So Yu Sheng stood there amid the ruins, gazing somewhat blankly at this quiet little world.
Was this what that "Director" had wanted him to see? Or... did she not actually know what the situation here was now either, which was why she'd wanted him to come over and confirm it?
At this moment, Irene's voice suddenly came from the depths of his heart, cutting off Yu Sheng's thoughts: "Hey! Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, come in if you can hear me—are you dead or not, dead or not?"
"I hear you, I hear you," Yu Sheng answered at once, frowning slightly. "Honestly, can't you say something nicer? What do you mean, 'are you dead or not'..."
"Cut the crap—how many times have you dropped dead out there? You go through the door and there's just no sound at all; I thought you'd been taken out again by a regenerated Entity-Hunger..."
The doll's tone was at once self-righteous and asking for a smack. Yu Sheng could almost picture the little thing standing on the table, hands on hips, looking smug—but right now he had absolutely no mood to bicker with Irene.
"No entities," he said flatly.
The doll lady on the other end was clearly stunned for two seconds. "...Huh?"
"I haven't seen any entities yet. The valley is very calm, and I can't sense that all-pervading malice and hunger from before either," Yu Sheng said as he walked out of the ruined temple's ruins and bent down to grab a handful of soil. "The stench of rot in the soil and the air... it's gone too."
"What about if you walk further out?"
"I'm walking out as we speak," Yu Sheng said as he walked. "Could it be that there hasn't been enough time, and Entity-Hunger hasn't regenerated yet? After all, the commotion I kicked up last time was pretty big..."
Before he could finish, he was cut off by Irene's clamoring: "Impossible! How long has it even been?! An entity's regeneration speed after being destroyed is measured in hours—some only need a few dozen minutes! It's been more than twenty-four hours since we made our escape from there; if Entity-Hunger could reproduce, by now it'd have five generations living under one roof!"
Yu Sheng sat down on a big boulder at the edge of the ruins, gazing into the distance as he said casually, "But there really is nothing here now. And honestly... I even think the air here is pretty good, and the scenery is much easier on the eyes."
"Huh?"
Ignoring Irene's surprise, Yu Sheng just pressed his foot against the soft soil around the boulder.
He could feel that subtle link; after returning to this place, that subtle sense of connection had strengthened once again... Though it didn't, as before when the connection's strength had peaked, directly produce a "perspective" with the valley as its "carrier," he could still clearly sense a great many things around him.
The hard stone, the gentle wind, the soil beneath his feet, and also the pool hidden at the foot of the mountain in the valley bottom, and also...
Yu Sheng suddenly froze, and turned to look beside him.
A tender green grass sprout was just poking its tip out of the soil, like a tiny living creature seeing daylight for the first time, trembling faintly and uneasily in the wind. Tenacious life.
Yu Sheng looked at that sprout in some astonishment. For some reason, seeing the way it pushed out of the soil, he even felt his heartbeat quicken a little, and a... very strange stirring leaped in his heart. This stirring was perhaps because of his link with the valley at this moment, or perhaps for some more sentimental reason—he unconsciously reached his hand out toward that patch of soil.
And so the soil began to writhe.
The deep gullies began to close up, and tiny tender sprouts broke through the earth. Life was growing, like rebirth after death.
Dumbfounded, Yu Sheng stared at this scene, and finally couldn't help but let out a cry of shock: "Holy shit?!"
Irene instantly started clamoring: "Huh? What? What what? Why'd you suddenly yell—are you hurt?!"
Yu Sheng abruptly rose and pulled open the illusory door with a single motion: "It's hard to explain—you and Hu Li had better come take a look too!" The next second, his figure returned to the living room, coming face to face with Irene, who was standing on a chair, both of them staring wide-eyed.
"Hu Li's still washing dishes," Irene said, stunned for a moment, then raised a hand to point at the kitchen. "Should I go call her now?" Yu Sheng nodded, but just as he was about to speak, he felt a series of vibrations from his pocket.
He pulled out his phone and saw that several missed calls were popping up one after another on the screen—two from Li Lin, two from Xu Jiali, and a few more all from the same unknown number.
Yu Sheng's expression immediately turned a little strange. He was just wondering whom to call back when he saw that unknown number calling again.
He answered before the ringtone even sounded and put it to his ear. A somewhat familiar female voice came through: "It's me, Baili Qing."
The corner of Yu Sheng's mouth twitched, and he thought to himself, Just as I figured, but he couldn't hide the awkwardness in his voice: "Ahem, I just now... stepped out for a bit. Should I have let you all know, I guess?"
"That's fine. As long as we can confirm it was a 'tremor' caused by you opening a door," Baili Qing's somewhat cool voice came through the receiver, with no discernible change in emotion. "We'll try to record more sample parameters, so that we can promptly distinguish your 'signature' the next time the alarm goes off."
This bland, non-pursuing attitude of hers actually made Yu Sheng feel even more awkward. He didn't know whether this was just this "Director's" style, and could only give an awkward laugh: "Ahem, sorry for the trouble I've caused you all..."
Baili Qing seemed not to pay attention to what he was saying: "Are you going to 'step out' again in a bit?"
"...I probably still have to," Yu Sheng said, then as if remembering something, hurriedly added, "I'm checking on the situation in Nightfall Valley." He was certain he heard a faint intake of breath.
Sure enough, Baili Qing's tone changed next: "You successfully got in? It still exists?" Yu Sheng keenly noticed a word the other party had used: exists.
So Baili Qing had thought Nightfall Valley "didn't exist"? Why would she think that?
Thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, and Yu Sheng said, "Of course it exists. But I've only just gone over for a look, and I'm not sure what the situation inside is yet. I'm just getting ready to bring a full team and go again."
As he spoke, he looked up at the little doll on the chair—that was his "team"—and there was one more washing dishes in the kitchen.
But Baili Qing didn't probe further. After a moment of silence, she said, "Alright. If there's ever a situation where you need the Special Affairs Bureau's support, you can contact me directly. This number is always open."
The call ended, and a short series of beeps came from the receiver.
"It's that 'Director' from the Special Affairs Bureau," Yu Sheng said to Irene. "It's nothing major." With that, he turned and went into the kitchen, planning to call Hu Li along.
Then, the moment he pushed open the door, he saw the fox spirit girl using her tail to wipe a bowl—and secretly eating the sesame paste that had originally been in the cupboard.
For a moment, he didn't even know which thing to comment on first.
"Ah, benefactor..." the fox ears on the fox girl's head also suddenly twitched twice. Hearing the sound of Yu Sheng opening the door and coming in, she turned her head in some fluster. "I... smelled this and it was just too fragrant, and I couldn't hold back. I'm sorry."
Yu Sheng looked at Hu Li—and at the sesame paste all over her mouth—not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "Clean yourself up first. Come out with me for a bit."
Chapter 78