Chapter 28: “Hunger”

Falling, tossed upward, then falling again, repeating endlessly in a realm of extreme cold and emptiness. His thoughts were tangled into a mess, chaotic perceptions like sharp knives stabbing relentlessly into his brain until his consciousness nearly broke. Only then did a feeling of sudden liberation, as if escaping the edge of drowning, finally wash over him, jolting Yu Sheng awake from that infinite fall in the cold darkness.

He sat up abruptly from the bed, then lost his balance entirely, nearly toppling off the side. At the last moment, he grabbed the corner of the bedside table, barely steadying himself, his head spinning.

The sharp, persistent ache made him suspect his brain was literally boiling.

But fortunately, the feeling didn’t last much longer. Once he was truly awake, those unbearable sensations receded like the dream itself, leaving behind only a few unpleasant impressions.

Yu Sheng sat at the edge of the bed, gasping a few times, and looked out the window. The setting sun was already approaching the rooftops in the distant city, and the sky was gradually darkening.

“…A whole day passed…” he muttered in surprise. Gripping the bedside table, he stood up, first went to the table to pour himself a glass of water and down it, then patted his face, trying to recover some energy from that less-than-restful sleep, and left the bedroom for the first floor.

“I really didn’t think your ‘Rude Awakening’ would actually be this painful,” he complained to the painting on the dining table as soon as he entered the dining room. “I thought at worst I’d get dizzy or my heart would pound for a bit. Man, when I opened my eyes, I almost threw up last year’s New Year’s Eve dinner…”

When he finished complaining, Erin didn’t immediately respond with a series of beeps as usual. Instead, she was eerily quiet. Sensing something off, Yu Sheng turned to look at the painting on the table and saw Erin slumped in the chair upholstered with red velvet, clutching her teddy bear, staring blankly at an upward angle, occasionally rolling her eyes and then sitting up to dry heave.

Yu Sheng: “…How did your ‘Rude Awakening’ manage to make yourself this miserable too?”

Erin looked up at him, about to speak, when another wave of nausea hit—but as a doll sealed away for who knows how many years, she didn’t have New Year’s Eve dinner in her belly, not even stomach acid (in fact, Yu Sheng doubted she even had a stomach). So she could only slump beside the chair, suffering, dry heaving as if her head might come off the next second.

It took a long time for that unfortunate doll to recover. She looked up at Yu Sheng, breath as faint as the dying: “I didn’t ‘wake’ us up—you did.”

Yu Sheng: “…Huh?”

“That last shout of yours scared the fox awake, and I didn’t even react!” Erin said with a look of tragic indignation. “Why did you yell so loud!”

Yu Sheng was a bit stunned as he listened, but he understood what she meant. He scratched his hair awkwardly: “I didn’t know. I just wanted to warn Hu Li—I felt like her state was dangerous.”

“Well, your feeling was right,” Erin said, then she gave another “uurrggghh” and slumped against the chair, dry heaving a couple more times before catching her breath. She looked at Yu Sheng with annoyance. “Alright, good news is you managed to wake that fox before she sank deeper. Even though she ‘bounced’ us out when she woke up, she should be able to stay conscious for a while on her own.”

Yu Sheng walked over, pulled out a chair at the dining table, and sat down across from Erin, his expression growing serious: “And the bad news?”

Erin was silent for a moment, then nodded gently: “You probably guessed it—she doesn’t have much time left.”

Yu Sheng frowned and said nothing.

Yes, he had sensed it. He had felt it while trapped in the valley—that deep-rooted hunger and madness buried in Hu Li’s heart, like some kind of proliferating evil that kept eroding outward. Though at first he didn’t know what it was, during the final confrontation with that flesh monster, he realized that the “hunger” wasn’t as simple as it appeared on the surface.

And what he had just seen deep in the dream only gave him a more accurate grasp of Hu Li’s situation.

“If you want to help that fox, you’d better act quickly,” Erin said from beside him. “Whatever is corrupting her is trying to turn her into some kind of… ‘nourishment.’ Killing people isn’t its goal; what it wants is the ‘madness born of hunger.’ That fox’s willpower is strong enough to withstand it until now—that’s incredible—but the longer she holds out, when the ‘transformation’ happens… the more ‘fuel’ she can provide. Things will get troublesome, very, very troublesome.”

Yu Sheng listened with a grave expression, piecing together what he knew so far based on Erin’s description. But suddenly he caught something and looked up at the painting across from him.

“Erin,” he said seriously, “do you… know something? About the valley and the thing inside it?”

Erin hesitated, first shaking her head, then nodding lightly.

“I don’t remember most of it, including what exactly happened with that valley. I don’t remember that either. But I think I have some impression of the situation that fox encountered. I must have read material about this before.”

She paused, frowning, as if trying to sift through her fragmented and incomplete memory for useful content.

“…Entity-Hunger, that seemed to be the name,” Erin recalled as she spoke. “An entity with clear malice and high danger level. It spawns in sealed zones, where the environment is poisoned and hunger spreads. It’s very aggressive itself, but even more dangerous is its ‘influence.’ People targeted by this entity fall into a terrifying hunger, and their will is severely tested. I don’t remember specific incidents, only that… it was dangerous, harmed many people. And worse…”

Erin stopped, looking up into Yu Sheng’s eyes.

“Hunger turns people into beasts, simultaneously devouring dignity and life. Most people probably can’t hold out, and those who fall become part of Entity-Hunger itself, without end.”

As he listened to Erin’s account, Yu Sheng’s expression tightened, a heavy sense of oppression weighing on his heart. Then another thought struck him suddenly—

That urge to eat he felt when he clashed with the flesh monster!

Was he already affected by “Hunger” too?!

Yu Sheng’s heart tightened, and he quickly spoke: “Wait, what are the main ‘symptoms’ after being affected by ‘Hunger’?”

Erin looked at him with a strange expression: “…‘Hunger,’ of course.”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m saying…” Yu Sheng waved his hand quickly, organizing his words. “Like when I saw that monster, I really wanted to take a bite. I even thought the thing tasted pretty good. I came back and stir-fried two dishes. Could that reaction also be the influence of ‘Hunger’?”

Erin’s expression was visibly blank for a moment. Her first thought went to the “local specialty” Yu Sheng had brought back, along with the four-color, five-flavor meal.

“Right, right, you did eat…” the doll muttered, but then she suddenly reacted, her tone changing. “No! That’s definitely not it! The influence of Entity-Hunger makes you go mad and devour others, not devour it! It lures people into madness by what, using itself as bait?”

Erin’s outburst startled Yu Sheng, but he quickly realized the logic—hunger and appetite were connected, but in the context of “Abyss Regions” and “Entities” that operated on strict rules, these were two clearly distinct definitions. Especially when an entity had active malice, its influence would always strictly follow its own rules.

To put it plainly, if Yu Sheng had truly been affected by “Hunger” in that valley, he should have been devouring Hu Li—not the monster that was the source of the seduction.

Of course, the first time he bit that monster, there was some reluctance involved; let’s not mention that.

Realizing this, Yu Sheng let out a sigh of relief, confirming he hadn’t been eroded by that strange entity. He also recalled that after eating before bed, he had felt a normal fullness, which set his mind at ease. He exhaled long: “That’s good then—I guess I’m still normal.”

Erin stared blankly at this, then muttered quietly: “No, I think the fact that you even developed an appetite for that thing is already abnormal…”

Yu Sheng waved his hand dismissively and immediately switched topics: “So, the monster with the very abstract appearance but decent taste is Entity-Hunger, right? Killing it would free Hu Li from its influence—I know entities can’t be completely destroyed, but I mean temporarily taking it out.”

“Actually… I’m not sure either,” Erin’s answer was somewhat hesitant. “’Hunger’ is a relatively special entity. The monster you saw is its ‘manifestation,’ but as I understand it, the real ‘Hunger’ permeates the entire valley. Do you understand what I’m saying? What you encountered was just its ‘tentacles’ coming out to feed and perceive its surroundings. Its true body… as the name implies, is the hunger that pervades the entire valley.”

Yu Sheng listened, his expression gradually turning blank.

Yes, he understood.

“Damn, a rules-based one?!”