Chapter 606: Huli's Gift

The snow continued to fall intermittently throughout the night, with a strong wind seeming to blow through at some point.

The wind howled low and muffled beyond the windows, and paradoxically, it helped Yu Sheng sleep more soundly that night.

Another reason he slept so soundly might have been that Ailin was relatively well-behaved that night—maybe she was tired from playing in the snow for so long after returning home this time. For once, she didn't subject him to her usual spinning flying kick followed by knee strike and then elbow attack. She only headbutted him twice...

Snowy days are always perfect for sleeping in. When Yu Sheng opened his eyes, the sky outside was already bright and clear. Through the window, he could hear children shouting and playing downstairs. The little doll that had slept in his bed was nowhere to be seen, and three of the four boxes in the corner were empty. Only Ailin remained, curled up in one box, playing with her phone watch. When she saw Yu Sheng get up, she lazily raised an arm and pointed out the window. "The big golden retriever is having a snowball fight with a bunch of kids outside."

Yu Sheng sat on the edge of the bed for a moment to clear his head, then walked over, pulled back the curtains, and opened the window.

A blast of cold air hit him in the face, filling his lungs and instantly dispelling all his drowsiness, shocking him fully awake.

The laughter and noise outside became sharply clear.

A group of kids who had run out from the valley were frolicking on the open ground in front of 66 Wutong Road. The heavy snow that had fallen all night had piled up thickly on the road, but Luna had already gone out early to clear a path from the door to the main street. The snow elsewhere had been left untouched, and now it had become a battlefield for the children. Some were having snowball fights, some building snowmen, and some were simply rolling around in the snow. The most eye-catching among them was a golden-furred ball that looked like a tumbleweed, darting around everywhere.

In the distance, Yu Sheng also spotted a shadow scurrying through the thick snow. It looked like two connected black iron pies, burrowing in circles like a gopher. He squinted from the second floor, puzzled for a long time, before realizing it was Ailin dragging her frying pan...

He also saw Little Red Riding Hood—probably worried that Rapunzel couldn't handle the kids on her own, so she had come specifically to keep an eye on them.

The girl was wearing a bright red coat, with a faint silhouette of a beast vaguely visible behind her. She stood with her hands in her pockets on the open ground between 66 Wutong Road and the package collection point.

Mature, calm, cool—like a lone, proud wolf from the north.

But unfortunately, she wasn't a northern breed, and the wolves of the Black Forest hadn't given her resistance to the cold. Little Red Riding Hood's face was flushed red, and she stomped her feet every now and then, probably on the verge of freezing a snot bubble.

"Bro!" Rapunzel, with her keen perception, noticed the gaze from above and immediately looked up, waving happily at Yu Sheng. "Wanna come down and play?"

Yu Sheng waved his hand. "You guys go ahead. I'm too lazy."

Rapunzel didn't mind. She used a strand of her golden hair to scoop up a snowball and threw it at the second floor. When she saw Yu Sheng catch it, she shouted cheerfully, "Bro! Why didn't you tell us it was snowing out here? I only saw it when I checked my phone! Hey, bro, can you make it snow in the valley too? It's always sunny there, and it's getting kind of boring..."

"Go to the 'Match' subset instead," Yu Sheng said casually. "The wind and snow never stop there all night long. The valley's climate is stable. Where am I supposed to get 'winter' for you?"

"Just open a big enough hole in the sky, with the other end over the Special Operations Division building. They're used to it by now..."

Yu Sheng stopped paying attention to the big golden retriever downstairs, who always had one wild idea after another.

He turned and went down to the first-floor living room, where he saw Huli had already heated up breakfast. A steaming bowl of fox stew sat on the table, paired with sesame flatbread bought from the morning market. Huli was in the kitchen scrubbing the pot she had borrowed from Zheng Zhi yesterday. When she smelled Yu Sheng approaching, she immediately wiped her hands and ran over happily, pulling something out from her tail and handing it to him.

It was a white scarf.

Yu Sheng blinked, looking at the scarf the fox girl handed him, then at her big tail behind her. He was a bit stunned for a moment, but then a vague guess crept into his shock.

"A gift!" the fox girl said happily. "I knitted it myself! With my own fur~"

So it really was that?!

Yu Sheng felt a warmth in his heart. At the same time, he recalled that this girl had been collecting her shed fur for a while. Sometimes when she didn't have enough shed fur, she even grew extra tails just to pluck them... So she had been using it for this!?

But then he became a bit puzzled. He carefully examined the fox girl's fluffy tails and scratched his head. "Wait, how did you spin it into yarn... Can fox fur be spun into yarn?"

"It can," Huli nodded vigorously. "It's not easy to turn into thread, but with some immortal arts, it works..."

Yu Sheng was astonished, marveling that the nine-tailed fox's immortal arts were truly convenient to the point of being omnipotent. He reached out and took the white scarf from her—it felt warm and soft to the touch, a sensation he had never experienced from any other fabric. He unfolded the scarf and saw that at both ends, nine tassels shaped like fox tails had been deliberately woven in. Even the front and back of the scarf had cute fox-head patterns, though he had no idea how she managed that.

The fox girl, who usually seemed to do nothing but eat, sleep, and bask in the sun... had this kind of skill?

A strange feeling welled up in Yu Sheng's heart. He held the scarf, which still seemed to carry a trace of body heat, and looked up at the girl. Her golden-red eyes were sparkling, full of smiles.

"In my homeland, foxes learn this from a young age," Huli said happily. "A gift made with one's own shed fluff is the most precious~~"

Yu Sheng was moved. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could speak, the great fox in front of him blurted out another line: "Benefactor, benefactor, there's more!"

Then Huli turned around and fished through her tails again, pulling out a silvery-white object: "I also knitted you a pair of woolen underwear..."

The stirring emotion Yu Sheng had just cultivated shattered like the little golden-haired Ailin he had just picked up earlier.

He stared at the other "gift" in Huli's hand, completely dumbfounded. It took him a full half-minute to speak, his lips trembling. "Is this... also a custom from your homeland?"

The fox girl beamed. "Ailin came up with the idea!"

Yu Sheng felt a thud in his heart. Whether it was relief or final defeat, he couldn't tell. He had a feeling that this world had finally gone completely crazy. He turned his head to look for the little doll to ask, but only caught a glimpse of a small figure scurrying out through a crack in the window in the corner of his eye—without even forgetting to pull the window closed with a thread...

Huli, on the other hand, seemed entirely unaware of Yu Sheng's subtle expression and was cheerfully continuing her introduction: "Benefactor, let me tell you, I studied it for a long time. Just a couple of days ago, I finally used immortal arts to solve the itchiness problem..."

Yu Sheng was deeply touched, but he still told Huli to stop talking.

With the most complicated expression of his life, he accepted the most absurd gift he had ever received, silently deciding to bury it deep in the earth of the Shackleland. At the same time, he hoped in his heart that this silly girl wagging her tail right now would never bring up this matter again.

Huli, on the other hand, was very happy—she had finally given the gift she had been preparing for so long, and her benefactor seemed quite pleased (?). Humming a tune, she returned to the kitchen to continue scrubbing the pot.

Yu Sheng finished breakfast with mixed feelings. Just as he was about to go to the door and drag Ailin back for a proper talk, a rapid phone ring interrupted him.

He pulled out his phone and saw it was Bai Liqing calling.

"Got a moment?" Her voice on the other end was as calm as ever, but Yu Sheng thought he detected a hint of sleepiness in it. "Come to the Special Operations Division. It's related to Zheng Zhi's recent experience."

Yu Sheng's expression turned serious after just a few words. He hung up and immediately raised his hand to summon a door leading to Bai Liqing's office, while calling out to the kitchen: "I'm heading out—going to the Special Operations Division!"

The next second after receiving a response, he was already standing in Bai Liqing's office.

In front of the familiar huge floor-to-ceiling window and the familiar wide desk, Bai Liqing sat behind it. Seeing him, she got straight to the point: "The technical department worked through the night analyzing the data Zheng Zhi transmitted back. Now we can confirm two things:

"First, the 'illusions' he saw earlier did indeed come from a secret lair of the Grand Temple Ascetic Order. Preliminary assessment suggests this lair is located in a gravity-shielded zone within the Dark Flow Nebula or the Triangulum Nebula range. The specific coordinates are still being analyzed, but due to limitations in equipment and recording conditions at the time, the available data is heavily distorted. There's not much hope at this point.

"Second, Zheng Zhi's work phone recorded environmental data from 'the other side.' Among it, we discovered key parameters that are almost identical to those produced when the Boundary Bridge opens a spatial rift."

Yu Sheng had known before arriving that the Special Operations Division must have found something serious, but the two pieces of information she directly threw out still caught him off guard. After a moment of stunned silence, he immediately reacted: "Are you saying those people from the Grand Temple Ascetic Order... are really building another Boundary Bridge?!"

"More and more clues are pointing toward this possibility—from the suspicious logistics information and communication records Luo found, to your encounter in the dark alley, and now Zheng Zhi's bizarre experience..." Bai Liqing's tone was grave. "As it appears now, the Grand Temple Ascetic Order probably had their eyes on the 'Boundary Bridge' from the very beginning. They might have even known about its 'Gloom Angel' nature a long time ago. Their actions started years ago."