Chapter 48: The Day of Eating

The fox-girl’s eyes went wide as she stared at the pile of things Yu Sheng had set on the ground. She stood frozen for several seconds, as if she couldn’t quite process what was happening, until Yu Sheng opened a can of eight-treasure congee and brought the food to her lips.

“Eat. I brought all this for you. There’s more if it’s not enough.”

The aroma of food. Real food.

Not stones, not dirt, not bricks or wood—not the phantom images from her dreams that she could never fill her stomach with no matter how hard she imagined.

Hu Li’s eyes slowly widened. Then, as if breaking free from a freeze-frame, she snatched the can from Yu Sheng’s hand. Without even using the spoon, she tipped it straight into her mouth, making muffled whining sounds as she gulped it down.

In just over ten seconds, she finished the entire can. Then she began meticulously licking the rim, but soon grew agitated—she couldn’t get at what was left inside. Just as Yu Sheng moved to help, Hu Li pinched the can with her fingers and tore it open. With a sharp screech of metal, she ripped the sturdy can into a continuous strip, licking every drop of food stuck to it as she went.

“There’s more here,” Yu Sheng quickly dug into his pocket, pulled out a bread roll, and handed it over along with a bottle of water. “Take it slow.”

A blur flashed before his eyes, and the food was already in Hu Li’s hands.

The fox-girl wolfed it down. Eating became the only thing she did for the next while. Neither Yu Sheng nor Ailin spoke. The only sounds in the ruins were Hu Li eating and the occasional indistinct noise from her throat—as if she wanted to speak but couldn’t bear to stop eating.

Then, suddenly, Hu Li began to cry.

Tears rolled down her face without warning. She stuffed bread into her mouth without sobbing or making a sound. The tears just slid quietly down her cheeks, falling onto the bread, which she then shoved into her mouth.

Startled, Yu Sheng reached out and wiped at her dirty face. “Don’t cry. You’ll choke and get a stomachache. Don’t cry. There’s more. And from now on, there will be…”

Only then did Hu Li seem to come to her senses, finally having the spare attention to think about other things. She stared blankly at Yu Sheng for a long moment, then suddenly held out the half-eaten bread to him. “Benefactor, you—eat too.”

Yu Sheng quickly waved his hands. “I ate before I came. I’m not hungry.”

But Hu Li didn’t move. She stubbornly kept her hand out. Even though all the food here had just been brought by Yu Sheng, she insisted on sharing the bread with him—as if doing so held some special significance for her.

Finally, Yu Sheng reached out and took the half loaf from Hu Li.

The fox-girl smiled. Then she picked up a pack of compressed biscuits from the ground. This time, instead of wolfing them down, she carefully tore open the wrapper and nibbled at them bite by bite, as if trying to prolong the process as much as possible.

She seemed to be not quite so hungry anymore—at least for now.

“It’s good,” she said quietly. “Benefactor, it’s good…”

“Don’t put ‘Benefactor’ in front of ‘it’s good,’” Yu Sheng flinched, recalling something unpleasant. “Just… as long as you’re full.”

“Mm-hmm.” Hu Li nodded gently.

“So you’ve finally calmed down,” Ailin spoke up at last. She looked at the fox-girl, whose mental state seemed somewhat more stable, and let out a relieved breath. “You really held on for a long time…”

Hu Li gave a small start, as if only now noticing the doll on Yu Sheng’s shoulder—or rather, only now realizing that this 66.6-centimeter-tall thing could talk and move. She looked stunned. “This… is alive?!”

Ailin’s eyes went wide. “No kidding! Of course I’m alive! I helped you bite open a ham sausage just now!”

“She’s Ailin, a living doll from Alice’s Cabin,” Yu Sheng quickly introduced. “This is the helper I mentioned. Don’t let her size fool you—she’s really capable. I was only able to contact you in the dream earlier thanks to her help.”

Ailin held a kitchen knife in one hand and placed the other on her hip, looking quite proud as she stood on Yu Sheng’s shoulder.

Hu Li thought for a moment. She didn’t know what a living doll was, nor did she understand why such a tiny “person” could talk and move. But she understood that this was a friend of her benefactor. After a few seconds of hesitation, she held out the compressed biscuits. “Ailin, you eat too.”

Ailin’s proud expression turned awkward. “Uh… I can’t eat that. Dolls can’t eat…”

Hu Li immediately withdrew the biscuits and continued nibbling.

Ailin: “Hey! You didn’t even offer them a second time?! You weren’t like that when you shared the bread with Yu Sheng!”

“Dolls can’t eat,” Hu Li murmured. “Giving it to you would waste food.”

Ailin puffed up her cheeks in annoyance, but no one paid her any attention.

At that moment, Yu Sheng’s attention shifted to the dark, cold night around them.

He could sense that, with his arrival, the atmosphere in the valley was gradually changing. The “entity” lurking in this strange realm had become active. The food he had brought, the act of temporarily relieving Hu Li’s hunger, had already provoked that monster.

Today, his first goal was to save Hu Li; the second was to find a way to eliminate the hunger entity lurking here. Originally, this hadn’t been something he had to do, but now that he had established a “connection” with that monster and knew it was gradually learning to think, he had to deal with this threat.

Yet, for some reason, the monster still hadn’t shown itself to him.

A flicker of doubt rose in Yu Sheng’s mind. Just then, a faint sound drifted in on the night wind, reaching everyone’s ears.

It was the distant howl of wolves.

Yu Sheng and Ailin exchanged glances. After a pause, the latter said, “Yu Sheng, did you hear that?”

“It’s the sound of wolves. I thought I was hearing things…” Yu Sheng frowned, then turned to look at Hu Li, who was earnestly nibbling on her biscuit. “Are there wolves around here?”

“No. It’s just me and that monster,” Hu Li replied, looking equally confused. “This is the first time I’ve heard such a strange sound.”

Just then, the howling sounded again, interrupting their exchange.

It seemed a little closer now.

The wolf pack was approaching, chasing something—or being chased.

In the dark forest, the massive, fleshy beast drifted like a nightmare wandering among the trees, constantly shifting its position within the forest shadows, sometimes appearing in the mist and sometimes vanishing abruptly from sight.

But no matter which direction it ran, the monster would always reappear nearby in an uncanny fashion, attacking from a tricky angle.

Wolves took shape from the shadows, leaping up among the trees and pouncing at the fleshy giant that surged through the darkness. Then more wolves swarmed in from all sides, trying to lock down the monster’s movements.

But countless tentacles and bone-covered limbs studded with barbs suddenly stabbed out from within the giant’s body. The wolf pack that had just gathered was forced back, leaving a huge gap in the encirclement.

At the same time, the giant’s many eyes locked onto a figure outside the wolf pack—Little Red Riding Hood, riding the largest wolf, her calm eyes meeting dozens of icy gazes from the monster in a distant standoff.

The next second, the middle of the monster’s body split open, and a black, scaly “long tongue” shot out with a piercing sound, straight toward the girl’s throat like a malevolent arrow.

Little Red Riding Hood just tilted her body slightly. At the exact moment the tongue was about to touch her, she raised her right hand sharply.

The slender arm suddenly burst apart, expanding. Flesh hissed and steamed, smoke rising, blood and mist interweaving in an instant to form a huge black wolf’s head. Then the head bit down fiercely, locking the “tongue” that could no longer change course in its jaws.

The monster reacted, jerking backward, but Little Red Riding Hood held on stubbornly. She and her mount stayed rooted like spikes, locked in a deadlock with the monster. In that brief moment, a figure leaped out from the shadows of the dense forest.

Li Lin charged like a swift leopard toward the monster’s side, a short blade in his hand glinting coldly in the night—a spare weapon Xu Jiali had lent him. The monster noticed this sudden ambusher at once; several of its eyes swiveled, and a raised claw slammed down straight at Li Lin.

But the real ambush was still waiting. Mid-charge, Li Lin suddenly lowered his body, dodging the monster’s claw with a movement an ordinary person couldn’t possibly make. A tall figure jumped out from the blind spot behind the monster—a burly man nearly two meters tall, raising the beam saber (which for others would be a short knife) high and stabbing it straight at a tumorous growth on the monster’s back.

With a sizzling sound, the hot blade sank smoothly into the growth, even cutting the whole thing off.

But the monster only let out a chaotic, piercing roar. Then it spun around, throwing off Little Red Riding Hood, who was barely holding on, and sent the man flying before he could pull back in time.

Xu Jiali tumbled into a bush nearby with a grunt.

Li Lin hurried over and dragged his colleague out of the bushes. Together, they looked toward where the monster had been.

But the monster’s figure had already vanished without warning.

The mist in the forest grew denser. In the undulating, drifting fog, countless twisted, grotesque phantoms could be seen germinating, crawling out of the earth, swaying gently in the cold wind.

Layer upon layer, endless.

The entire forest seemed to have turned into a giant mouth waiting to feed.

Xu Jiali gasped sharply. “We can’t stay. Keep running out of the woods!”

(Chapter end)