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Going out? Hu Li froze for a moment at Yu Sheng's words, then quickly dried the last few bowls with her tail and casually grabbed a tail to wipe the sesame paste off her mouth: "Okay, I'll be ready in a moment..." Yu Sheng watched her, the corner of his eye twitching: "There's no rush—you wipe your mouth with your tail?" Hu Li looked down at the sesame paste on the tip of her tail and only then belatedly caught on. She put the tail back into the sink to scrub it, and once it was clean, vigorously shook it in front of Yu Sheng. "I'm used to it..." she muttered under her breath. "I forgot there are handier things to use at home." "It's fine, no big deal," Yu Sheng wiped the water off his face. "Also, next time you shake off water, watch out for the people beside you—and the appliances." "Ah, sorry, benefactor!" Only then did Hu Li realize she had splashed Yu Sheng's face with water, and she hurriedly leaned in, using another dry tail to messily wipe his face as she asked, "So... where are we going? Do we need to fight?" "Stop, stop, stop—I can wipe it myself—" Yu Sheng frantically fended off the tail scrubbing away at his face and spat out two silvery-white downy hairs from his mouth. "We're going back to that valley, but this time we probably won't need to fight." Hu Li instantly stopped moving, her whole body tensing as she stood frozen in place. The tension and fear in her eyes couldn't be hidden from anyone—in fact, Yu Sheng had known before he even opened his mouth that this would be her reaction. But precisely for that reason, he felt he had to let Hu Li see for herself the strange changes the valley had undergone now. "Don't be afraid, I'm here," he stepped forward and gently patted the fox girl's hair. "I know you're very reluctant about that place, but some strange changes have happened over there, and I think you need to see it with your own eyes. Don't worry—you won't be trapped inside again." Hu Li stared blankly at Yu Sheng, and only after several seconds did she give a stiff nod, as if it had taken enormous courage to make this decision. Yu Sheng led her back to the dining room, brought along the little doll who had been waiting for a good while, and after opening that door leading to the valley's foreign domain, the three of them—though the human content was rather low—stepped through. The valley under the sunlight came into view, a fresh breeze blowing across the valley floor, the distant crags and wasteland bathing in the daylight. After the night had receded, everything seemed so bright and vivid. Even the devastation left behind after that "feast," bathed in this daylight, seemed to have become... soft and reassuring. Irene sat on Yu Sheng's shoulder, her eyes wide as she took in the valley's present scenery, and after being stunned for a long while, blurted out: "This really is 'Yu Sheng crawls into an alchemy furnace'—bizarre as all get-out." Yu Sheng instantly forgot what he had been about to say, turned his head, and looked at Irene on his shoulder with a complicated expression: "Could you please not use me to invent your allegorical sayings?" "Then first explain to me what's going on here—" Irene raised a hand and pointed at the valley before them. "The aura of Entity-Hunger has really completely faded! This place, I feel, isn't even the 'foreign domain' it used to be!" "Not the same strange city anymore?" Yu Sheng caught Irene's wording, his expression shifting slightly. "What does that mean?" "The environment has completely changed. I don't know if you can sense the difference in the 'atmosphere,' but this place now has a certain..." As she spoke, Irene frowned slightly, turned to size Yu Sheng up and down several times, before hesitantly continuing, "a certain atmosphere of yours—or rather... the atmosphere of No. 66 Wutong Road." Yu Sheng: "...?" Just as Yu Sheng was spacing out, Hu Li had also spent a long while nervously sizing up her surroundings. She had been tense all over when she first came through the door, but now only confusion remained on her face—she didn't have Irene's peculiar and precise "perception" of foreign domains, but as a fox spirit, she had an instinctive sense for the things in an environment that had once threatened her. Entity-Hunger had truly vanished completely from here, and even after all this time there was not the slightest sign of it regenerating. Just then, Yu Sheng's voice cut through Hu Li's and Irene's attention: "What I want you to see is more than just this." As he spoke, he crouched down on the spot and reached his hand toward the patch of pitted, uneven muddy ground ahead. It was covered with the gullies and corrosion left behind after Entity-Hunger's tentacles had once preyed there. Hu Li and Irene didn't understand, but both instinctively looked in the direction Yu Sheng was pointing. They saw the soil there slowly beginning to stir. They heard faint scraping sounds coming from deep within the earth. The ground began to heal, the gullies gradually filling in, the corrosion rapidly fading away. Hints of green appeared among the earth and stone—delicate, fragile, yet those tiny flecks of green were enough to leave anyone stunned. The valley was "healing"; this was the only word that came to Irene's mind at that moment. She turned her head stiffly and looked at Yu Sheng's face beside her. Yu Sheng let out a long breath and slowly rose to his feet. Within a radius of several dozen meters around him, the ground had gradually recovered, but this was already the limit of what he could do at the moment. As for the land farther out, he could sense the subtle link between himself and it, but he couldn't simply "activate" or "reshape" it directly the way he just had. Even so, he could feel that what he was doing now had affected the entire valley, as though he had planted a seed and set off a slow, ongoing reaction. He felt the whole valley was gradually awakening, bit by bit regaining its vitality. "How did you do it?" Irene finally couldn't hold back and asked. "I'm not clear on the exact principle, but this should also be a link established through 'blood,'" Yu Sheng said slowly, thinking it over. "Ever since that incident ended last time, I've felt some kind of stable 'link' form between me and this valley—probably because I've died too many times in this lousy place, lost enough blood to water the fields... Anyway, from a certain moment on, I could sense it, just like this." He pointed at the patch of healed ground beneath his feet. Irene stared into Yu Sheng's eyes in shock, even a little horrified, and after holding it in for a long while, blurted out: "Just what kind of bizarre thing is your blood?!" Then she caught on again: "Wait! You even used your blood to shape a body for me, and smeared it on my picture frame—doesn't that mean you can control..." "I can't," Yu Sheng sighed at that. "If I could control you, would I still get kicked all night long while I sleep?" Irene thought it over and relaxed: "Oh. That's true." Then she turned to Hu Li, who had stayed silent the whole time: "Your hometown is a place of cultivation, so your perspective is different—what do you think?" Hu Li looked at Yu Sheng with an adoring face: "Benefactor, your divine arts are so profound they can work the transformations of nature—you could be a gardening immortal!" Yu Sheng: "..." For a moment he couldn't even tell whether this fox girl was actually praising him; he'd just take it as praise. "I shouldn't have expected you to have any real opinion," Irene sighed after hearing Hu Li's answer, then reached out and poked Yu Sheng's head. "Anyway, this 'link' between you and the valley can be set aside for now. The most important thing right now is the 'entity' that's been lurking in this place—it hasn't regenerated for so long. Could it really be gone for good?" "Something like this has really never happened before?" Yu Sheng was somewhat doubtful. "Of course not—at least I've never heard of it," Irene answered without the slightest hesitation. "Entities are an 'inevitable phenomenon' of how a foreign domain operates, not independent individuals that can be eliminated. As long as the foreign domain exists, the entity exists. But then again—" The little doll paused, looking around with a somewhat subtle expression. "The 'atmosphere' of this whole valley has now changed. At least as far as I can sense, it truly is no longer the foreign domain that bred Entity-Hunger. And if that's the case, then Entity-Hunger really will disappear forever..." The doll knitted her brows tightly, as if she had logically found an explanation, yet rationally still couldn't bring herself to believe it was true. Hu Li, on the other hand, didn't understand what Irene was agonizing over. She had understood only one thing: that monster seemed like it would never come back. She reached out and tugged Yu Sheng's sleeve: "From now on, that monster won't come out and hurt people anymore?" "Seems that way," Yu Sheng thought for a moment and gave a slight nod. "Unless this valley breaks off its link with me and can also change back to how it was before on its own." Hearing this answer, Hu Li stared blankly at Yu Sheng, and for a moment didn't seem to know what she was thinking. Then she suddenly threw herself at him and hugged Yu Sheng tightly—with such force that even Yu Sheng's body, which was now stronger than an ordinary person's by who knew how many times, instantly creaked and groaned. And that wasn't all; she even wrapped a whole bundle of tails around him: "Benefactor, this is wonderful! Wonderful!" Yu Sheng hadn't expected this at all; in that instant the air in his lungs was nearly squeezed out. Never mind whether the fox spirit's embrace was warm—he just felt as if seven or eight hydraulic clamps were wrapping around him from every direction: "Le... let go... I'm dying... your tails..." Only then did Hu Li catch on; she hurriedly let go and jumped to the side in alarm: "Ah! Sorry, benefactor—I just got too excited and..." Having narrowly escaped death, Yu Sheng braced both hands on his knees and panted hard; it took a long while before he had the strength to wave a hand: "Your... your tails are so strong too?!" "You scared me too!" Irene protested vigorously. "You just swung a tail over and nearly swept me off!" Hu Li stood there apologizing over and over, her fox ears nearly plastered flat against her scalp... But it was clear she was still very happy. It was a thoroughly reassured joy that even surpassed what she'd felt when she first escaped the foreign domain. By this time Yu Sheng had finally caught his breath (and fixed the several minor hairline fractures on his body along the way). He raised a hand and patted Hu Li's hair, calming the girl down, then straightened up and looked off into the distance. Irene noticed the change in Yu Sheng's movements and expression in an instant. The little doll immediately said to Hu Li: "I think he's about to get another idea..." "Want to head a bit farther out?" Yu Sheng indeed spoke up. "What do you think lies outside this valley?"