Chapter 13: The Encounter

Ah, the familiar darkness, the familiar sense of heavy pressure, and that familiar feeling of consciousness sinking deeper and deeper.

Yu Sheng's thoughts drifted in the depths of a chaotic darkness. Rising along with that all-encompassing pressure was an overwhelming sense of helplessness and exhaustion.

He had considered that there might be many more twists and turns before he could leave that "Otherworld," and he had even imagined that he might have to "die" more than once. He had guessed the beginning and the end, but he hadn't guessed this process—the time spent drifting and sinking in the darkness. He couldn't help but recall the last scene he saw before losing consciousness; he remembered that flash of a moment where golden-red pupils met his gaze, and those magnificent fox tails blooming like flowers in the night...

And that subsonic headbutt.

So, who exactly was that girl who had essentially rammed herself to death against him? Where did she come from? And why did she appear in this Otherworld?

Furthermore... what was going on with the changes occurring in his body while fighting that monster? That sudden surge of strength, the agility, and...

That primal urge of hunger.

What exactly was happening to him?

Yu Sheng felt his tangled, chaotic thoughts swirling like a vortex in his mind. Freed from the constraints of a physical body, these uncontrolled "thoughts" even began to manifest as grotesque phantasms before his "eyes." Within these visions, countless memories surfaced from the depths—he saw the monster composed of countless limbs, and he saw the sudden appearance of that "headbutt" girl with fox ears and tails. But in the next second, he saw an oil painting: in the painting, Irene lay shattered around a chair, her doll-like limbs connected by spiderweb-like threads, while a grotesque shadow loomed faintly in the depths of the frame...

Suddenly, Irene vanished, and new images surfaced from the depths of Yu Sheng's memory—crimson clouds and skies, sunlight flowing like water, soaking the familiar old streets and alleys.

Oh, that was where Yu Sheng was born and raised, his familiar "Boundary City," an inconspicuous coastal town. He had been away from there for two months... but for some reason, as the images from his deep memory surfaced, they felt as though they belonged to a lifetime ago, as distant as if they were the memories of another person, presented coldly before his eyes.

All the images vanished, leaving only a gentle darkness enveloping his surroundings.

Yu Sheng felt his consciousness clearing slightly. After a moment of hesitation, he attempted to call out in his heart: "Irene."

There was no response in the darkness.

It seemed that in his state of "death," the connection with Irene was severed.

Next, Yu Sheng attempted to move his "gaze," searching the darkness for other objects and trying to confirm if his limbs still existed.

He saw nothing; there was nothing here. He seemed to be nothing more than a drifting, rootless "consciousness," without a physical body.

Yu Sheng silently continued to experiment.

During his previous two "deaths," he had no experience and had returned to the "human world" in a state of total confusion. But this time, he began to consciously perceive the process, testing various hypotheses.

He knew he had been in a daze during this time. The strange world, the bizarre phenomena, the mystery of his own existence, the cycle of death and rebirth... too many incomprehensible things were piled together, leaving him without a clue.

But ever since Irene told him about the concept of the "Otherworld," he knew he had a goal—he had to go back, to return to the "normal" side.

When the apertures of the Otherworld occasionally open to humans, the moment an ordinary person sees the scenery leaking from the hole, they cross the edge of rationality and arrive on the other side of normalcy. This process might happen because they took the wrong stop on a bus, took an extra step down a staircase, turned a page too many in a book, misread a word, or... opened the wrong door.

But regardless of the cause, the most crucial thing was that this process was not irreversible.

According to the information Irene had revealed, there were people in this world researching the Otherworld, people who had summarized its laws, and even specialists dedicated to solving Otherworld problems. Even an ordinary person had a chance to return after falling into the Otherworld.

This valley shrouded in night was an Otherworld; the Wutong Road No. 66 where he currently resided was an Otherworld; but Yu Sheng believed his first contact with the Otherworld happened even before that—

When he pushed open his front door two months ago, he might have already fallen into an Otherworld centered around himself, named "Boundary City."

Now, he had to explore as much as possible, figure out these strange things, understand the knowledge related to the Otherworld, and then... leave this wrong world.

And so, he opened his eyes.

A cold night wind blew through the large hole in the wall; outside the half-collapsed roof was a murky sky.

He sat in a corner of the ruined temple, but he did not stand up immediately. Instead, he remained motionless in the position he had just woken up in, cautiously sensing everything around him while struggling to grasp the memories and "impressions" that were rapidly slipping away from his mind.

He was trying to recall the sensation of the moment he woke up, to determine the boundary through which he returned from the darkness to the "real world."

He felt that this might be the key to understanding his process of "resurrection."

At the very least, it could bring him one step closer to the truth behind these mysteries.

Vaguely, he began to recall certain scenes he had "seen" the instant before he woke up. He remembered rising from the darkness, crossing a hazy boundary, and then sinking toward reality... but what happened after that? Between "sinking toward reality" and "opening his eyes," what happened in that brief instant?

He seemed to see several fleeting images, quickly and blurred, but a few were relatively clear... including the small path near his home, the entrance to Wutong Road No. 66, and... this corner deep within the ruined temple.

Yu Sheng's eyelids drooped slightly as his thoughts gradually calmed. He formed some hypotheses, set them aside for the moment, and then let out a soft breath, beginning to move his limbs slightly.

This body was pure and robust; he could even feel the surging strength flowing through his veins. He could hear clearly, see far, and his limbs were full of power—despite having been nearly decapitated by a subsonic headbutt not long ago, he was now completely revitalized.

He rose from the corner, preparing to call for Irene.

But in the next second, he abruptly froze his movement.

Because a rustling sound was coming from outside the wall.

Hearing this sound, Yu Sheng's first reaction was—had that delicious-smelling monster actually followed him into the ruined temple?!

But he quickly realized something was wrong, because that monster's movements were usually earth-shattering, not cautious like this.

Taking a light breath, Yu Sheng moved cautiously toward the hole in the wall and peered through it.

The night was deep, but his vision was very clear.

He saw a girl walking cautiously through the ruins of the temple.

The girl wore a tattered robe that seemed to have once been a magnificent dress, but now it was nothing more than dirty, ragged scraps. Her unkempt white hair fell in a mess, obscuring most of her face, and atop her head... were a pair of fox ears.

But more than those furry ears, Yu Sheng's gaze fell upon the girl's back—those tails.

There was more than one fox tail, but from his perspective, it was difficult to count exactly how many there were—and because the girl looked so disheveled, he even wondered if it was just one massive tail that had become matted from lack of grooming...

By now, of course, Yu Sheng had recognized her.

It was the subsonic headbutt.

But the girl didn't seem to realize Yu Sheng was nearby. She was merely searching cautiously through the ruins of the temple, her nose twitching occasionally as if she were sniffing and searching. After a while, she seemed to find something; her eyes lit up, and she ran quickly toward a certain spot.

The sound of rustling plastic bags drifted through the night.

Yu Sheng's eyes widened.

That was the bag of kitchen waste he had brought with him when he was "thrown" into this valley, which he had casually tossed into the ruins.

It contained vegetable scraps and eggshells from dinner, as well as leftovers he had cleared out of his fridge.

He leaned against the wall and saw the fox-tailed girl tearing into the plastic bag with a mixture of surprise and clumsiness, accidentally spilling the contents everywhere. He then saw her unhesitatingly grab a clump of leftovers and shove it into her mouth without regard for anything else—

As if she had been starving for many, many years.

Yu Sheng suddenly felt a sense of suffocation.

He didn't know why, but he felt terrible; he felt that... a person shouldn't be starved like this.

Even if she didn't look much like a "human."

Even if she had once given him a headbutt—but at that time, she had been trying to save him.

And right at that moment, the girl finally seemed to sense the presence of a "living person" in the temple.

She crouched on the ground, a piece of rotten vegetable leaf in her mouth, turning her head in shock and tension.

Yu Sheng stood in the corner of the collapsed temple, their eyes meeting across the ruins.