Chapter 273: Days Spent with the Fox Spirit
For many people in the technical department of the Special Services Bureau, today was another good day for overtime—not only could they enjoy the thrilling activity of continuing to work after work, but they could also work overtime alongside their esteemed director...
But the "root cause" of this overtime was utterly oblivious.
After eating and drinking her fill, Hu Li was happily tagging along beside Yu Sheng as the two of them strolled along a small river at the edge of the old city.
For Yu Sheng, it had been a long time since he'd enjoyed such a relaxed and carefree moment. From the moment he arrived in this " ," his nerves had been tense most of the time. By the time he finally adapted to life here, trouble kept cropping up, big and small. Being able to walk around outside like this, thinking nothing and worrying about nothing, felt like a lifetime ago.
Even though his previous lifetime hadn't been that long ago.
And for Hu Li, following Yu Sheng around outside was a very, very happy thing—even though frolicking in the valley was also fun, it was a different kind of happiness.
She enjoyed the way Yu Sheng slowly helped her get familiar with the city—even if it was just memorizing one more street, learning about one more shop, seeing one more animal from this world, or spotting a blade of grass, a flower, a tree...
This process made her feel gradually at ease, even though she couldn't quite explain why she felt that way.
The evening wind blew, carrying a chill, and in the wind, faint music could be heard from the commercial street in the distance.
Yu Sheng ambled along the riverbank, watching Hu Li run happily around him—"strolling" was a generous term; the girl could barely manage to walk slowly beside him for more than a few minutes. She spent most of her time running around, sometimes on the grassy bank, sometimes on the concrete ledge of the river, and sometimes even diving into the nearby bushes, never able to stay still.
Sometimes, when he turned his head, Yu Sheng couldn't see where the girl had run off to. But as soon as he looked around a few times, the fox-eared young woman would suddenly pop out of some unexpected nook or cranny, usually excitedly showing off some "good thing" she'd found nearby.
"Benefactor! I found a flower! It's blooming in winter!"
Hu Li came running back from the nearby grass, her eyes sparkling, shaking a handful of small flowers in front of Yu Sheng.
Yu Sheng smiled helplessly and introduced it to her: "I don't recognize it. Let's just call it a wildflower."
"Okay!" Hu Li nodded happily, stuffed a few small flowers into her mouth, turned around, and ran off again.
A few minutes later, she came running back excitedly: "Benefactor! A stone from the embankment!"
"Mm, a stone."
"Benefactor! A stick! A very straight stick!"
"Mm, a stick... Hey, give that to me. I can use it at home."
"Benefactor! A drink bottle!"
"...Throw it in the trash."
"Benefactor! A balloon!"
"Mm, a bal—where did you get a balloon!?"
The next second, the sound of a child crying came from the roadside. A little tot, half a head shorter than Xiaoxiao, was sobbing heartbreakingly a few meters away: "Big sister stole my balloon—"
Yu Sheng broke out in a cold sweat and quickly pushed Hu Li: "Give the balloon back to them..."
Hu Li grumbled as she went over to return it: "The balloon floated out of his hand. I thought he didn't want it anymore..."
Half a minute later, Hu Li clapped her hands and returned to Yu Sheng, still looking very cheerful.
Yu Sheng could see that the fox-eared young woman was very happy, but he felt that something was a bit off about bringing her out for a walk. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was...
And in that moment of distraction, Hu Li seemed to find something interesting again. With a "whoosh," she darted out of his field of vision, and a few seconds later, with another "whoosh," she darted back, holding up something in her hand happily: "Benefactor! A mouse!"
Yu Sheng was startled: "...Holy crap, you don't need to show me that—and you're not allowed to eat it!"
"Fine," Hu Li pouted regretfully, and the mouse in her palm was instantly refined into a ball of scorching residual glow. "Actually, there's a dish I used to make back home..."
Cold sweat dripped down Yu Sheng's forehead. He first subconsciously checked that no one was around, then looked at the fox-eared girl with some helplessness: "Just stop running around everywhere, or you'll scare people. Why not just walk slowly with me for a while?"
"Okay!" Hu Li nodded happily at once—even though this process had already repeated several times, at least she quieted down again and started following Yu Sheng at a leisurely pace.
"Why are you so happy?" To keep this overly excited big fox calm beside him for a few more minutes, Yu Sheng decided to find a topic to distract her.
"I'm happy just to go out for a walk, and even happier to go out with you, Benefactor!" Hu Li said with a grin. Dressed in pure white, her bright smile bloomed in this winter day, so beautiful it was almost overwhelming. "Too bad Eileen didn't come out. Bringing her along would have been fun too..."
"If she heard you say that, it would inevitably cause a fuss," Yu Sheng shook his head helplessly. "She's only interested in going to the mall to shop. She finds walking outside boring—unlike you. You're happy as long as you're out."
"That's just how we fox spirits are. In ancient times, we cultivated in the mountains and wilds..." Hu Li said seriously, but before Yu Sheng could respond, she suddenly ran off again, then in a flash came back. "Benefactor! A screw!"
Yu Sheng: "..."
He finally understood what the uncanny feeling was about when taking Hu Li for a walk—Holy crap, a nine-tailed cyber-cultivation touring fox-dog!
This wasn't a walk at all! All he needed was to put a leash on this girl...
Yu Sheng thought about Hu Li's strength, thought about the speed and seemingly endless energy she had when darting around, and felt that if he actually put a leash on her, he would most likely be the one getting walked. So he didn't dare keep thinking...
Then, the streetlights came on.
Yu Sheng stopped worrying about the gleefully rampaging fox-eared young woman. Instead, he breathed in the night breeze, slowly exhaled, and with an unprecedented sense of relaxation, quietly admired the night sky over the .
Once upon a time, this night sky only made him feel eerie and tense.
But before he knew it, even the eerie "illusions" that appeared after dark in this city had become things he was especially familiar with here, even feeling a bit... "familiar."
The nearby streetlights flickered slightly, and in the flickering light, a tall, slender phantom gradually emerged. The hollow, tall ghost stood silently in the light, staring at Yu Sheng.
Yu Sheng stared back. Noticing there were no outsiders around, he cheerfully greeted it.
Between the distant buildings, the steam locomotive that traveled through the night sky appeared again. It billowed white steam, silently dove into one building, emerged from the glass curtain wall of another, and disappeared into the depths of the sky in the distance.
But Yu Sheng could almost hear the sound of its whistle—illusory, hazy, as if penetrating many layers of space-time.
He now knew that, compared to the dangerous entities generated in the various "alien realms," these things that only appeared after dark in the and that ordinary people couldn't even see were just gentle, harmless phantoms. There was no need to be nervous at all.
Just then, Yu Sheng heard the pleasant ringtone of his phone coming from his pocket.
Taking out his phone, he saw that the caller was Bai Liqing.
...Calling at this hour? Doesn't she get off work?
Surprised, Yu Sheng answered the call casually: "Hey, good evening..."
"Good evening," Bai Liqing's voice came through. "Two things. Is it convenient to talk now?"
"It's convenient. I'm free," Yu Sheng said while keeping an eye on Hu Li's movements. "I'm taking a walk nearby."
"Good. First, can you open a few portals right now? It doesn't matter where to."
Yu Sheng was taken aback: "Open portals? Why?"
"We've recently launched an automatic identification and filtering system," Bai Liqing's voice was still calm, but Yu Sheng could sense a hint of unusual cheerfulness in it. "It can automatically identify the space-time rifts you open, suppress warnings, and switch to automatic recording. The system is already online. I hope you can cooperate with the testing—if it runs normally, you won't need to report when you open a door from now on."
Yu Sheng immediately brightened up when he heard this. He finally understood why Bai Liqing, with her steel-faced stoicism, could show such cheerfulness in her tone: "That's easy. Wait a moment. I'll find a secluded corner and open a few small doors to try..."
As he spoke, he moved behind a large billboard nearby and, without prior reporting, casually opened a door leading to the basement of 66 Wutong Road.
"Alright, I've opened a door. How is it?"
From Bai Liqing's end came some vague reports, as if technical personnel nearby were reporting the situation.
"The system is taking effect. Please try a few more times."
"Okay," Yu Sheng was happy to cooperate. He opened several more portals to various places—some within the Borderlands, some leading to the "Valley," some to the "Museum," and even one to some desolate alien planet. He tested almost every type of portal he was familiar with, while simultaneously updating Bai Liqing: "...I've opened them all. What's the response on your end?"
"Apart from a slight acceptable delay when opening portals to alien realms, the entire identification and filtering system is functioning normally," Bai Liqing's tone was even more cheerful than before, almost as if she was smiling. "From now on, you don't need to go through the reporting step when opening a door."
"Great! Congratulations to you too. That'll save a lot of trouble in the future," Yu Sheng said happily. Then he asked, "What about the second thing?"
Bai Liqing was silent for a second or two.
"The second thing," her voice suddenly seemed a bit hesitant for some reason. "I wanted to ask, after you brought Hu Li to eat at the Special Services Bureau cafeteria last time, do you still have any of those 'iron ingots' she used to pay with?"
Yu Sheng: "...Huh?"