Chapter 566: Okay

Yu Sheng stood by the path near the farmland outside the fairy-tale town, looking at Luo, who was beside him with a crestfallen expression, and spoke with a smile.

“I think you can look on the bright side.”

Luo looked up at the sky, then into the distance, sighed as if resigned to fate, and with a few flicks of her mechanical appendages, quickly reassembled them into a silver-white chair, plopping down onto it.

Yu Sheng couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at her actions. “...I wanted to say this back at the square—so this pile of mechanical appendages can do anything except fight?”

Luo’s face twisted with exasperation at this. “No, what is wrong with all of you... I’ve said it so many times, I’m a scientist! Why do you all insist on talking to me about fighting? I’m even a pacifist. I formed a guard just to have a quiet research environment, alright?”

Yu Sheng was stunned, listening to her. Seeing that she seemed genuinely a bit angry, he scratched his head awkwardly, thought for a moment, and only managed to say, “Alright, maybe that’s a stereotype of scientists...”

Luo was dumbfounded. “No, that’s even worse. Why would your stereotype of scientists be that?!”

What else could Yu Sheng say? He felt the lady had a point...

Then he rather stiffly changed the subject. “Let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about your arrangements. You’ll stay in town for a few days. If you need anything, just tell Little Red Riding Hood or the council staff in town. Those teachers are all fine. Don’t worry about anything else. Just think of it as... a vacation. You’re somewhat of a victim in this chaos—at least that’s how I see it.”

“Well, I appreciate your understanding,” Luo sighed, then a clear hesitation appeared on her face. She held it back for a few seconds before speaking. “There’s one more thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“...What happened to my space station?”

“I took it.”

Luo: “...That blunt?!”

The blonde elf’s eyes widened. If circumstances weren’t forcing her, she would have flown up and cursed at him. Even so, she stewed on the spot for half a minute before finally couldn’t help speaking again: “Under normal circumstances, wouldn’t you be more tactful? At least out of politeness, you could tell me the space station was temporarily seized as compensation for the disaster. Or at worst, you could lie and say it exploded, then repaint it and claim you found it out there—I wouldn’t say anything...”

Yu Sheng listened and nearly laughed. He found this “Black Dot Warlord” even more interesting than he had imagined, but in the end, he managed to hold the laughter in his throat—mainly because laughing out loud would be rude at the moment.

“I’m a pretty straightforward person,” he waved his hand, explaining to Luo. “At the time, the situation didn’t allow me to think too much. I had to complete the assimilation and dismantling of the Boundary Bridge in the shortest possible time—and your space station had practically already melted into part of the Boundary Bridge by then. It was quite an achievement just to detach it from the bridge under those circumstances.”

He paused, then added, “The assimilation process has a lot of uncontrollable factors, and the result is irreversible—have you seen that spaceship by the Black Forest? Long Hair the Big Mouth seems to have already introduced it to you. That ‘Blackstone Station’ is essentially the same now. It’s not a matter of whether I want to or not; the space station has practically become a part of me.”

Luo opened her mouth, seeming to have a lot to say, but eventually swallowed most of it back. She just raised a hand and vigorously scratched her messy hair, her voice sounding a bit muffled as she asked, “Then where is it now?”

“I temporarily sent it to the Feather Star Domain—I have an industrial planet there,” Yu Sheng said casually.

Luo’s hair-scratching motion paused. She raised her head slowly, somewhat bewildered. “...Why do you have an industrial planet?”

Yu Sheng: “I took it.”

Luo: “...?”

The elf oil baroness was dumbfounded. She had originally only assumed Yu Sheng had extensive connections and great abilities, exerting significant influence in the Borderlands and the Feather Star Domain through his ‘Angel hunting’ skills. That was why during the fight at the Boundary City, the ‘Inn’ side had produced a steady stream of reinforcements. But she had never imagined... that this ‘Angel Hunter’s’ prowess was even more absurd than her boldest predictions.

Yu Sheng, however, seemed not to notice the vivid expression on Luo’s face, continuing on his own: “To be fair, that space station was pretty badly damaged. Basically, aside from not falling apart, it was as good as completely scrapped. I sent it to the Feather Star Domain mainly to repair it...

“Actually, I’m pretty puzzled. The main area eroded by the Boundary Bridge should have been the core laboratory, right? So how is there a huge penetrating wound running from the edge district all the way to the core area inside the station? It looked like it had been punched through by some kind of mass weapon at a single shot...”

“If you’re asking me, who am I supposed to ask?” Luo said somewhat irritably. “You’ve already openly taken it. What does it have to do with me anymore?”

Yu Sheng thought about it and realized she had a point, so he smiled sheepishly and said nothing more. He just watched the distant scenery with her.

Time was approaching dusk. Though there was no sunrise or sunset in the valley, clouds were slowly gathering in the sky, along with the twilight from the ‘Fairy Tale’ subset. Night was rising from the direction of the Black Forest, gradually moving toward the town.

A knightly procession carrying the flag of the Cat King passed along the road outside the town. Heavy-laden drones hummed from afar toward the town, their cargo baskets full of mushrooms and berries from the Black Forest. A Titan giant carrying a massive log was building a small bridge on the riverbank in the distance, while the snake demon that had been freeloading in town was also crawling around busily beside it.

From the amusement park in town came the shouts and frolicking of children, too far to be heard clearly. Outside the town, in the farmland, stood the first crop of wheat planted by Luna, the seedlings swaying in the wind. The children from the orphanage had made a scarecrow together in last Wednesday’s craft class; it now stood ugly at the edge of the field.

A mass-produced puppet wandering outside the town swayed over to the edge of the field. After a moment of blankness, it dully stretched out its arms, imitating the scarecrow’s pose—no idea which thread of Erin’s had come up with this abstract move.

A melodious tune echoed through the valley, like the cheerful strumming of a bard when adventurers return to the tavern in the evening, accompanied by a lovely humming.

Luo listened intently but could not trace the source. She only felt that the beautiful sound seemed to linger in the background of the entire world.

She sighed softly, feeling that it had been many years since she had heard such a pleasant sound—the last time she felt this relaxed seemed to be long, long ago, before she had embarked on this long and arduous ‘quest for knowledge,’ when she was still just an ‘Algrad Elf.’

“A mermaid is singing,” Yu Sheng’s voice came from beside her. “She sings every evening to remind the children playing outside that it’s getting dark. Her song is the BGM for the whole valley.”

Then he paused and added, “I’m heading back. There’s a phone in your temporary lodging, sent over by the Special Service Bureau. Bai Liqing currently forbids you from contacting the outside world, but the internal network works. You can use it to pass the time.”

Luo blinked, turned her head toward where Yu Sheng was, but only saw a door closing in front of her. Yu Sheng had already left.

She stared blankly for two seconds, then slowly turned back, gazing absentmindedly at the sky.

The beautiful ‘singing’ still echoed in the valley. The clouds above the town slowly closed in from both sides like a curtain. She saw the edges of the clouds gradually congealing into words, and upon reading them, realized it was not an illusion—

A line of text floated in the sky: “Eat what you want, drink what you want, don’t hold anything in your heart,” followed by a smiley face.

Luo let out a breath, unsure what expression to make. Amid the mermaid’s song, she felt herself slowly sinking into a gentle, inescapable laziness.

Sinking toward a bizarre dream.

Yu Sheng returned to the living room at No. 66 Wutong Road. He saw Hu Li curled up on the sofa with her big tail, watching TV. Luna was wiping a table nearby, but Erin was nowhere in sight.

Bai Liqing, who had been sent over earlier, had definitely left—she was very busy after all—but where was the little puppet who usually monopolized the living room TV?

“Where did Erin go?”

Yu Sheng scanned the surroundings and turned to ask Hu Li.

“The one that came back with you went upstairs. From the sound of it, I think she went to the attic. The others—I don’t know where they are,” Hu Li quickly scooted to the edge of the sofa, rubbed her head against Yu Sheng’s arm, then pointed at an ad on TV. “Benefactor! I want to eat this!”

Yu Sheng glanced up, saw it was just a snack ad, and nodded. “Alright, I’ll buy you two boxes later.”

With that, he greeted Luna and walked up to the attic.

The attic was also quiet.

On the large table used for making puppets were still some scattered materials from before. On the shelves nearby were newly bought clay and makeup tools. Yu Sheng’s gaze swept over these things, and he suddenly noticed that the small ventilation window leading to the roof was open.

The window was small, but enough for a 66.6 cm tall creature to squeeze through.

Curiously, Yu Sheng walked over, poked his head out the window, and looked around.

A small figure was sitting on the roof right by the window.

Erin was holding her frying pan, gazing somewhat absently at the sky. The Blight Omen Star floated above her head, spinning slowly, round after round.

The little doll narrowed her eyes slightly.

The sky was so high, so high and wide.

When she had first come home, the sky was very blue, clear and beautiful. Now it was almost dark, and the evening glow was like poured paint, dyeing from the clouds all the way to the rooftops.

People in the city were busy, the wind blew through the alleys of the old town, and many leaves had fallen from the big trees at the intersection—the valley was like spring all year round, but winter in the Boundary City was almost here.

It would rain soon, and the temperature would drop further. Later, it might snow, and after the snow, the whole city would be white... Hu Li would also become fluffy.

‘Pulu’ was also an animal that shed its fur. It was grey-black in summer and grey-white in winter.

She thought, long, long ago, the people who told her stories in the temple seemed to have told her all this—about the clear blue sky, the beautiful evening glow, the bustling cities, the snow that fell in winter, and the days when the seasons cycled normally.

A new feeling spread in her heart, calm and joyful.

The little doll hugged the frying pan in her arms even tighter, smiling happily.

“Okay.”