.
When the girl introduced herself, Yu Sheng’s first thought was how blunt she seed—she had simply nad herself “Fox.” But after asking a few more tis, he realized she was actually saying “Foxy.”
Her na was Foxy. It sounded unusual but sohow appropriate, especially with the mass of tails she had.
“I’m Yu Sheng,” he said, settling down beside her amidst the ruins of the old temple. “I co from… well, it’s complicated. I co from the ‘outside,’ but not just outside this valley.”
“You really co from the ‘outside’!” Foxy’s eyes grew wide. She imdiately seed to understand him as if the ‘outside’ idea was already familiar.
Foxy hesitantly nibbled at the chocolate he had given her, her gaze fixed on him. “How did you get in? Do you… know how to get out? Is it… through the sky?”
Her speech was becoming smoother, almost as if her ability to speak properly was returning.
Yu Sheng was confused by her question. “The sky? What do you an?”
“The immortal told us, just before he died, that we ca from the sky,” she said slowly, picking her words carefully. Her speech was clearer now, but she still struggled with longer sentences. “But then the sky went dark, and we couldn’t go back. The land beca dangerous—poisonous. Many who ca with us died, and… we couldn’t return.”
Yu Sheng listened in a daze, trying to piece together her broken story. The valley, which Irene had classified as an Otherworld, was clearly hiding a more complex history. And Foxy, with her many tails, seed to have an even more extraordinary background.
She was trapped here too!
When he tried asking her more questions—where exactly the ‘sky’ was, who the ‘many people’ were, and how they had arrived here—her answers beca disjointed again.
“The sky… it’s just the sky,” Foxy gestured vaguely upwards. “I’ve tried for years to go back, but I can’t. I try to jump, but I hit sothing. It hurts. Everyone’s forgotten now. My dad, mom, the immortal, and the others… we ca down in a ship, a big one…”
At that, Foxy seed to rember sothing. She raised a trembling hand and pointed deeper into the valley, where darkness seed to swallow everything. “Over there. The ship fell and beca part of the mountain. Dad always wanted to go back to the ship to get sothing, but… everyone died before they could figure out how.”
Her words sent a shiver down Yu Sheng’s spine. There was sothing deeply unsettling about her story.
He tried to make sense of it, pushing aside thoughts of the ‘immortal’ and the ‘sky.’ From what Foxy had told him, he pieced together a rough idea of what had happened. Foxy, her family, and soone she called the ‘immortal’ had arrived in this valley years ago on a large ship—a flying one, most likely. The valley hadn’t been a dead place back then. But sothing catastrophic had happened; the sky had darkened, and they had beco trapped. A terrible enemy had attacked them, almost wiping them out.
Only Foxy had survived.
But these were just Yu Sheng’s guesses. Foxy’s mories were scattered, and she didn’t seem entirely sure of what had happened herself. The truth, whatever it was, was buried in her fragnted recollections.
This girl’s mind was fragile.
“How long have you been trapped here?” Yu Sheng asked gently.
“I don’t know… a long ti,” Foxy whispered, shaking her head as she held the remaining piece of chocolate. “Nothing changes here. I don’t know how to count the days. I faint when I’m hungry, and when I wake up, it feels like a lot of ti has passed.”
Yu Sheng frowned. Her clothes were ragged, and the disjointed events she had described suggested that she had been stuck here for far longer than he had first thought—perhaps even years.
“How have you survived all this ti?” he asked, unable to hide his concern. “What do you eat? Do you just scavenge through the temple? But… there’s nothing edible here.”
“No, nothing to eat here,” Foxy shook her head, her eyes dull. “Sotis there are fruits in the woods, but they’re poisonous. They make faint. Except for water, everything is dangerous here. Most of the ti… I stay hungry.”
Then, as if recalling sothing, Foxy offered a weak smile. She pointed at herself, seeming almost proud. “A demon is strong. I won’t die from hunger. But… it still hurts.”
Her smile faded as quickly as it had co. She stood up suddenly, running a short distance to rummage through so broken bricks and debris. After a mont, she returned, clutching a bag of kitchen scraps—leftovers, rotting vegetables, and what looked like bread crumbs.
She held the bag close like it was precious. “This is still edible,” she said seriously, looking at Yu Sheng.
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, but no words ca out. He wished he could summon a mountain of food, or even open a door back to the real world, but he couldn’t even protect himself right now, let alone offer Foxy anything more.
“Benefactor…” Foxy’s soft voice broke the silence.
Yu Sheng blinked, not quite understanding. “What did you call ?”
“Benefactor,” she repeated, her tone sincere. “Mom said soone who helps you a lot is a benefactor. You gave food.”
Yu Sheng waved it off awkwardly. “That sounds a bit… formal. Just call Yu Sheng. It’s what I’m used to.”
“Oh, okay, bene—” Foxy mumbled, catching herself mid-word. She lowered her gaze, eyes falling on Yu Sheng’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Huh?” Yu Sheng looked down and noticed the wound on his finger—the bite mark from when Foxy had nipped him earlier while snatching the bread. Surprisingly, it had already healed, leaving just a sar of dried blood. He casually wiped it away. “Oh, this? Don’t worry, it’s just a scratch.”
But Foxy didn’t look convinced. Her brow furrowed. “Benefactor, are you sure? Being bitten by a demon… it damages the essence. It shouldn’t heal.”
Yu Sheng glanced at her, puzzled. “But it has healed.” He flexed his hand, showing her the now-unblemished skin. “Look.”
Foxy stared at his hand in disbelief. “It really did heal… Benefactor, are you also an immortal?”
Yu Sheng chuckled lightly, though her question only added to his confusion. “I’m not. I don’t even know what you an by an ‘immortal’—where I co from, it’s just sothing people beco after cultivating, right? But now I’m wondering… why would an immortal be with demons? From what you’re saying, it sounds like this immortal was traveling with a group of demons? That’s not how it usually goes in the stories I’ve heard.”
Finally, Yu Sheng voiced the thought that had been nagging him since Foxy had started talking about her past. The tales she told were filled with terms he’d only heard in ancient legends. And with her multiple tails, she seed like sothing straight out of those sa stories—a mystical fox spirit, maybe even a thousand years old. Yet, the idea of an immortal leading demons around was strange to him. Weren’t immortals and demons usually enemies?
But Foxy only tilted her head, clearly not following his train of thought. After a mont of hard thinking, she replied hesitantly, “Because… he was a tour guide immortal.”
Yu Sheng blinked. “…What?”
He stared at her, utterly baffled. Did he hear that right? A tour guide immortal?
He asked again, just to be sure, but Foxy nodded earnestly. There was no mistake. The immortal who had led Foxy and her companions wasn’t just any immortal—he was a tour guide.
Many years ago, Foxy and the other demons had been part of a tour group. And sohow, their ‘immortal ship’ had crashed into this desolate land, trapping them here.
Yu Sheng sat back in the chilly night air, letting the wind blow through the ruins of the old temple. The world he’d stepped into was becoming stranger by the minute.
And now… he was trapped with a demon who had once been on a guided tour?
Before he could wrap his head around that bizarre idea, Foxy’s voice interrupted his thoughts once more.
“Benefactor…”
“Just call Yu Sheng,” he said with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. “What’s wrong?”
Foxy was clutching her stomach, her face twisted in discomfort. “My stomach… it hurts a little.”
Yu Sheng stared at her for a second, blinking in confusion. “Huh?” Then, realization hit him like a brick. His eyes darted to the half-eaten chocolate in her hand.
Wait… even fox spirits can’t handle chocolate?!
“Oh no, stop eating that!” Yu Sheng yelped, rushing over to snatch the chocolate from her hand. “This stuff is—”
Before he could finish, Foxy let out a low growl, more animal than human, and snapped at his hand like a wild beast. “Grrr!”
The next second, Yu Sheng let’s out a yell louder than hers.
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