Chapter 81: Peach Blossom Spring

The outside was still mountains, endlessly repeating mountains, layer upon layer, like ripples formed by space wrinkling on a tiny scale.

After recovering from the dizzying series of accelerations and decelerations, Yu Sheng saw the "endlessly repeating mountains" that Hu Li had described.

Continuous mountain ranges spread out like ripples, extending infinitely in his field of vision. A faint mist shrouded the mountains, and in that hazy veil, no outline other than "mountains" could be seen.

Yu Sheng frowned, staring at those endlessly repeating mountains that seemed cloned from one another for a long time. Then, suddenly, he recalled the café where he had met Bai Liqing. Back then, that café had also repeated and extended infinitely like this, stretching to the edge of sight.

But there was a difference: that café had only repeated and extended in two directions—forward and backward. At least its street-facing window had still been a clear "boundary." But the mountains surrounding them here... no matter which direction he looked, he couldn't see any obvious "end."

"So... we can't walk out of here, can we?" Ai Lin grabbed Yu Sheng's head and peered nervously over the ridge. "Are we still going forward?"

Yu Sheng fell silent, simultaneously concentrating his mind. He recalled the perspectives he had "seen" when he first established a connection with this valley, and he sensed his surroundings.

After a moment, he suddenly bent down, picked up a small stone from the ground, and threw it hard into the distance.

The stone flew into the air but vanished before everyone's eyes before it could land.

"Hey?" Ai Lin exclaimed in surprise at the sight.

Yu Sheng walked forward slowly, cautiously approaching the spot where the stone had disappeared.

Ahead seemed empty, but there seemed to be an invisible "boundary." He bent down again, picked up another pebble from the ground, and gently tossed it forward.

This time, he saw the pebble's disappearance process more clearly. It instantly crossed a "threshold," and at the moment of its vanishing, a brief, faint ripple appeared in the air, like the surface of water.

Yu Sheng raised his head, looking left and right along the ridge.

He could sense it.

The mountains rose and fell, then closed in at the distant ends, and that invisible boundary enveloped the entire valley—above to the sky, below to the earth's depths.

After hesitating for a few seconds, Yu Sheng finally took a light breath and stepped forward.

"Hey, hey, hey! We're really going forward!" the little puppet on his shoulder shouted. "This feels kind of creepy! What if we cross it and—"

Before she could finish, Yu Sheng had already stepped across the invisible boundary. With the spreading ripples shaking faintly in the air, a brief sensation of weightlessness appeared and disappeared. Their vision blurred, and they found themselves standing back at the center of the valley.

"—can't come back..." Ai Lin was still shouting by inertia, but after the last two words, she blinked, looking around in disbelief. "Huh? We're back?"

Then, a larger ripple appeared beside her. The massive silver-white fox surged through the air, landing beside her and Yu Sheng.

"Benefactor!" Hu Li hurried over, looking around anxiously. When she saw Yu Sheng and Ai Lin standing safely nearby, she relaxed and carefully rubbed her tail tip against Yu Sheng's body. "You suddenly disappeared—you scared me!"

"The space loops back on itself at the boundary, unidirectionally pointing toward the center of the zone," Yu Sheng said after a long pause, breaking the silence. "I wonder if other alien realms have the same structure."

Ai Lin listened, dazed for a moment, then reacted: "So, no matter which way we go, we can't reach the 'outside'?"

"There is no 'outside,'" Yu Sheng shook his head. "This valley is the only 'effective' area in the entire space. Those endless mountains we saw were actually 'shadows' created by the closed spatial boundary, repeatedly stacking and reflecting in curved spacetime. If you look closely, they're actually infinite copies of these tall mountains surrounding the valley."

Ai Lin's eyes widened. After a long while, she finally showed a semblance of understanding: "...Whoa."

Hard to tell if she really understood or just pretended to.

After another moment, Ai Lin poked Yu Sheng's head: "What do we do next?"

Yu Sheng turned his gaze to the silver-white fox beside him.

"Since this place is no longer generating entities and has become a safe location... maybe we can properly re-bury your parents, at least build a proper grave. What do you think?"

The fox girl tilted her head. After a moment, she nodded slightly.

Finding the burial site of Hu Li's parents didn't take much time, and for Yu Sheng, building a grave was not difficult.

The two sets of hastily buried remains were carefully cleaned and gathered. Yu Sheng made the earth sink, condense, and form a neat grave pit. Then he made stones bite and merge into a solid stone coffin—compared to healing large tracts of land and rapidly growing vegetation, this series of operations was much easier for him.

The bones were placed in the stone coffin, the coffin was placed in the grave pit, and the soil squirmed to cover it layer by layer. A grave mound soon took shape.

"We still need a tombstone," Yu Sheng said, looking at the grave. Noticing the slight confusion in Hu Li's eyes, he added, "It's set up in front of the grave as a memorial..."

Hu Li immediately nodded: "I'll get it."

With that, the silver-white fox turned and ran into the distance. Accompanied by a series of air-tearing roars and a sonic boom, she vanished from Yu Sheng and Ai Lin's sight almost instantly.

Then, shortly after, she came storming back with a rumbling boom, carrying a strange silver-white metal plate in her mouth.

It was about half the height of a person.

"This was a gift from Mom and Dad," Hu Li put the metal plate down and explained to Yu Sheng. "It's... a musical instrument. I was clamoring to sign up for an interest class, so they bought it for me. But I never got to learn... Now, it's broken too."

With that, she deftly curled her tail around the metal plate, thrust it into the soil in front of the grave, and patted the dirt with her paw until it was as hard as stone.

"Actually, a tombstone isn't exactly..." Yu Sheng muttered subconsciously, but stopped mid-sentence. "Never mind. If you think this fits, then it's fine."

"Where I come from, we don't have these customs," the silver-white fox lay down beside the grave and gently (this time, truly gently) rubbed her nose against Yu Sheng's arm. "When demons die, they leave a small part of their bones as a keepsake—like teeth or finger bones. When immortals die, they leave their hair. The rest of the body returns to nature, or is refined by descendants into artifacts as a memento. Either way, there's no need for extra 'burial.' Also, some people extract their spiritual intelligence while still alive, merging with the Great Dao. Their intelligence becomes immortal, and the body can be abandoned to heaven and earth."

She spoke, then shifted her head on the ground, turning her gaze to the new grave.

"But I heard from immortals that a very, very long time ago—before the Celestial People came—there were customs for burying the dead. Back then, people would solemnly inter their ancestors' remains, or store them in bone repositories. But that was something ancient. According to what they taught in school, it was called 'before the interstellar era,' a cultural trait when civilizations were still thriving within gravitational wells... After leaving gravitational wells, people's thinking and ways of living no longer strongly correlate with 'the surface,' and the concept of life-and-death ethics gets reshaped, so 'funerals' change accordingly."

Ai Lin listened, dazed: "I feel like you're saying something pretty deep..."

"It's all from school lessons, and I don't remember much of it. I... wasn't a very good student back then." Hu Li's big tail swept back and forth on the ground, then settled on the grave before her.

After a few seconds of silence, she spoke softly: "This is actually good. From now on, I can come here and talk to Mom and Dad... Benefactor's suggestions are always reasonable."

Yu Sheng didn't speak. He just walked over, sat down beside the silver-white fox, and leaned against one of her big tails.

He was curious about Hu Li's homeland, trying to imagine what a "celestial-demon civilization" that had left the surface and could travel among the stars looked like. He pondered how to find that place in this vast universe. Then gradually, those thoughts faded from his mind. He emptied his mind and gazed into the distance, lost in thought.

He looked at this "alien realm" that would no longer generate entities, no longer produce deadly poison and corruption, and was now tightly bound to him.

This place... could be considered a "base camp"?

But what could such a huge "base camp" be used for... Housing people? Counting himself, his team had only three members. Besides, he still had 66 Wutong Road. That old house, no matter how shabby, was more livable than the wilderness... Farming? He wondered if he could grow vegetables here. There was plenty of sunlight, and the ground could grow grass... Maybe feasible. If grass could grow, so could grain and vegetables... And bolder: raising cattle and sheep could also work...

Yu Sheng felt he was almost falling asleep. Leaning against Hu Li's fluffy big tail, comfort and relaxation made his thoughts float as if in cotton balls. He associated with many random things, then couldn't help laughing at some overly absurd ideas.

The little puppet on his shoulder suddenly leaned her face in: "What are you thinking?"

Yu Sheng replied seriously: "I'm thinking about what this place can be used for in the future. For now, the preliminary plan is to level the wild land around that broken temple and plant some radishes, beans, and cabbages."

Ai Lin: "...?"

(The End)