Chapter 67: Hu Li's New Life

Regardless, Yu Sheng now understood why Hu Li could launch her tail.

He didn't know how other fox spirits in this world operated, but apparently, Hu Li's lineage had taken the path of the Super Beast Warriors when it came to inheritance...

At the moment, the fox-spirit girl was sitting across the dining table, clumsily gripping a pair of chopsticks as she shoveled food from her bowl into her mouth with lightning speed.

It was just the simplest noodles—some leafy greens, sliced ham, and two fried eggs added in—yet Hu Li ate as if it were the most exquisite delicacy in the world. Her table manners were far from elegant, but the enjoyment was absolute.

Strictly speaking, this was the first hot meal she'd had in years. The biscuits and instant noodles Yu Sheng had brought her before were nice, but sitting here at a safe dining table with steaming food in her bowl was an entirely different feeling.

"Slow down. There's more in the pot if you need it," Yu Sheng said with a hint of sympathy as he watched Hu Li polish off her first bowl in the blink of an eye. He gently touched her hand. "That's not how you hold chopsticks. Watch me."

Hu Li lifted her eyes from the bowl, glanced at Yu Sheng's right hand, then adjusted her grip on the chopsticks clumsily while still chewing a piece of fried egg.

She learned quickly.

"Benefactor, am I eating too fast..." After finishing the entire bowl, Hu Li looked up with some embarrassment. She saw that Yu Sheng had only eaten half of his noodles, and the bowl in front of Ai Lin, who was sitting nearby, hadn't been touched at all. "I... I just feel like if I don't eat quickly, it might disappear at any moment."

"It's fine. You'll adjust slowly. With your constitution, wolfing down a few meals won't hurt your health," Yu Sheng couldn't help but laugh. "If that's not enough, I'll get you more."

"Mm-hmm."

Before Yu Sheng could get up, Ai Lin, who was sitting on the table, spoke up: "Let her have mine first."

The little doll pushed the bowl in front of her toward Hu Li with both hands.

Hu Li said thanks, didn't ask why there was a serving of food for a doll that didn't need to eat, and immediately lowered her head to start eating again at lightning speed.

After the meal, Yu Sheng discovered that the bowl and chopsticks Hu Li had used barely needed washing—she'd licked them so clean they could reflect light...

Once the kitchen was cleaned up, Yu Sheng changed into clothes suitable for going out.

He also found a set of his own clothes and an outer jacket for Hu Li—honestly, they didn't fit well at all. Yu Sheng was much taller than the fox-spirit girl, and no matter how they adjusted, his clothes hung loosely on her.

Pajamas could get by with a few sizes too big, but going-out clothes weren't as easy to fudge. In the end, Yu Sheng had to use a bunch of hidden safety pins and some improvised needlework to make his clothes fit stably on Hu Li without looking too off.

Even so, a girl around 1.6 meters tall wearing obviously ill-fitting men's clothes would definitely look a bit odd outside, but luckily—Hu Li's looks made up for it.

As it turned out, being pretty really let you get away with anything, and a fox spirit's face was indeed beautiful. So when she went outside, she looked at most like a pretty girl with slightly weird fashion sense.

While Yu Sheng was busy adjusting Hu Li's clothes, Ai Lin sat cross-legged on top of the shoe cabinet nearby, resting her chin in both hands and watching the show. When Yu Sheng was almost done, she couldn't help muttering: "Hu Li, you can 'retract' your ears and tail, but can't you change your height too? And what about clothes—I 'conjure' mine myself. Can't your fox-spirit 'transformation' ability do that?"

"Powerful fox spirits can!" Hu Li immediately stood up for her kind. "Dad said powerful fox spirits could even become as tall as a mountain in the blink of an eye! They'd run through mountains and forests with thousands of Peacekeeping Immortals chasing after them. If caught, they'd get over five hundred years of prison time. But I can't! I only learned to refine my ears and tail..."

Ai Lin listened with a blank expression, looking rather weird. "Uh... well, that doesn't sound like something to be proud of anyway... Hey, you're speaking more fluently now?"

Hu Li's eyes immediately narrowed, looking very pleased. "I'm getting used to it as I talk."

Ai Lin's gaze shifted to Yu Sheng. Her mind was clearly racing with something, and she suddenly spoke again: "So you two are going out together..."

"Of course," Yu Sheng nodded. "She doesn't have any clothes or shoes, and she can't go shopping alone. I have to go with her."

Ai Lin rested her chin in her hands. "I want to go out too."

Yu Sheng was startled. He finally realized what this doll had been pondering ever since she woke up this morning, but this caught him off guard. "You? How? A sixty-plus-centimeter living doll strolling around outside? You'd scare the hell out of people!"

"You could carry me," Ai Lin said matter-of-factly. "I'll disguise myself."

Yu Sheng didn't catch on immediately. "How would you disguise yourself?"

Ai Lin immediately flopped down, letting her limbs go limp and her eyes open wide in a dead, unseeing stare.

Even the highlights in her eyes disappeared.

Her voice echoed in Yu Sheng and Hu Li's minds: "See? That looks normal enough—there are plenty of third-scale dolls in toy shops. If you tossed me in a display window right now, no one would notice me even after a whole day..."

Yu Sheng was dumbfounded, suddenly amazed by Ai Lin's creativity.

But he felt even more awkward. "Then wouldn't I look like some pervert walking around outside carrying a third-scale doll..."

Ai Lin's eyes instantly regained their highlights, and the next second she leaped off the shoe cabinet and latched onto Yu Sheng's head. "So when you carried me into the Other Realm to fight monsters, that wasn't pervy?! But now you're unwilling to take me out after the fight?! Believe me, I'll gnaw a row of teeth marks on your head—you won't even be able to stick a band-aid on!"

Yu Sheng scrambled frantically to deal with the doll clawing at his head. Finally, he managed to peel her off and tossed her straight to Hu Li, who was standing there dumbfounded. "Fine, fine, I'll take you out. But she has to carry you."

Ai Lin was immediately satisfied—she just wanted to go out. As long as she could leave, it didn't matter who carried her.

In fact, she wouldn't even have minded being dragged out in a suitcase with the zipper open so she could peek outside.

It had been so long since she'd seen the outside world.

"It's just that painting of yours that's a problem," Yu Sheng frowned, looking at the picture frame strapped to Ai Lin's back. Because of it, Hu Li had to hold the doll in an awkward position while also avoiding the frame blocking her sight. "It stands out, but more importantly, it's in the way."

"Then I'll take it off and carry it separately?" Ai Lin reached back and removed the frame. "Just don't let it get too far away, that's all."

Hu Li nodded without waiting for Yu Sheng to speak, then took the doll's picture frame. Suddenly, a huge bundle of tails burst out from behind her with a *bang*, and she stuffed the frame into one of them.

This time, Yu Sheng couldn't hold back. He realized that Hu Li's method of hiding things in her tail wasn't what he'd imagined. "...How did you even stuff it in?! Is that a dedicated storage space?!"

Hu Li blinked, then belatedly turned around and spread her tails, introducing them to Yu Sheng in detail for the first time: "This one is for storage. These two are for hugging to keep warm when I sleep. These few can be used as blankets or for grabbing things flexibly. Except for the storage one, the others can all be used in a fight..."

Yu Sheng's expression went blank. "...You mean launch them?"

"Right."

"These are all results of 'refinement'?"

"Right."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then could only sigh at how amazing fox spirits were.

Much more amazing than humans.

...

Second Brigade, Special Operations Bureau. Song Cheng walked into the office more than twenty minutes later than usual today.

Almost as soon as he sat down at his desk, the monitor lit up, and the always-cool face of Bai Liqing, Director of the Special Operations Bureau, appeared on the screen.

"Looks like you've already been to the 'Train,'" came Bai Liqing's calm voice from the speaker beside the monitor. "Not going smoothly?"

"Yes, but it's not that it went smoothly," Song Cheng wasn't surprised by the director's sudden contact; he just shook his head with some embarrassment. "The train car structure today was more complicated than usual. When I returned to the real world, I found I'd passed my stop."

"How did the exchange with Passenger 22 go?" Bai Liqing asked directly.

"...Director, something doesn't seem right," Song Cheng immediately adjusted his sitting posture, leaning forward slightly. "Regarding 66 Wutong Road, the passenger answered, 'There is no such stop.' That's unusual, but not too outrageous. The weirdest thing was when I asked about 'Nightfall Valley'..."

He paused, his expression turning extremely grave. "Passenger 22 replied that the stop had been canceled."

For the first time, he saw obvious surprise on Bai Liqing's face.

He'd always thought the director's face was frozen solid.

"That answer has never appeared before," Song Cheng observed the changes in Bai Liqing's expression cautiously. "What do you think..."

"Immediately arrange for a Deep Diver to execute a Deep Dive," Bai Liqing said rapidly.