Yu Sheng took a long ti to explain to Little Red Riding Hood how a spaceship ended up here—and while he was at it, he briefly recounted to Erin and the others the events that had unfolded after following this "Tower" on a course leading to deep space.
The reaction of the small puppet was to be stunned for quite so ti, then, with her astonishing intelligence, she distilled Yu Sheng’s lengthy explanation into six words (excluding punctuation): "Our family has a spaceship!?"
Yu Sheng: "...That’s the conclusion."
Erin’s eyes widened: "Whoa, you said you wanted to buy an electric bike but didn’t! Do you even have a driver’s license? Can you drive this thing with a regular license?"
Yu Sheng was a bit bewildered by the leaps in her thought process: "That’s not the sa thing."
"I’m, I’m a bit confused; let think for a mont," Erin waved her hands repeatedly, then climbed onto Yu Sheng’s shoulder and started giggling, "Haha, a spaceship, feels like the household just acquired sothing huge... It really is huge! What are we going to use this spaceship for? Traveling long distances? Exploring outside the Boundary Land?"
"I haven’t thought about it much," Yu Sheng said earnestly, as he reached up to pat Erin’s head, then turned to the others, "Would you like to go inside and have a look?"
"Yeah, yeah!" Little Red Riding Hood nodded eagerly, "I’ve never seen anything like this before..."
"Indeed, that would be best," Xuan Che also nodded with interest, "The Monastery poses a problem to our Qianfeng Ling Mountain; yet those Evil Demons are quite cunning, and we’ve failed to grasp their misdeeds in multiple encounters. That you’ve now managed to capture an entire spaceship from them grants us an excellent opportunity to understand more about them."
Hearing Xuan Che speak, Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer and turned to Yu Sheng: "Oh, I’ve been aning to ask just now, who is this..."
"Ah, I’ve been too busy zoning out to introduce him," Yu Sheng slapped his forehead and hurriedly raised his hand to introduce, "This is Xuan Che from Taixu Spirit Hub Qianfeng Ling Mountain—you know this place? His master and I are acquainted; he’s here visiting."
Xuan Che politely greeted Little Red Riding Hood: "I am Xuan Che, nice to et you, miss."
"This is Wang Jiajia, though we usually prefer using her codena ’Little Red Riding Hood’," Yu Sheng pointed at the girl in red beside him, "She is the leader of ’Fairy Tales’, has a deep collaboration with the ’travel agency’, and she’s also my friend."
"Uh, hello," Little Red Riding Hood seed a bit dazed, greeting Xuan Che sowhat slowly before suddenly reacting, "Ah! Qianfeng Ling Mountain! That’s the Qianfeng Ling Mountain that sells Immortal Spirit Pills?"
Xuan Che smiled and nodded: "That’s right."
"They’re so expensive," Little Red Riding Hood pursed her lips and muttered softly, "I only bought them once, but they got eaten up by the long hair."
Xuan Che & Yu Sheng: "..."
How to put it, stable performance by the long-haired princess...
Then, Yu Sheng gave a brief introduction of the squirrels and hunters present. Once everyone was familiar with each other, he steadied himself and casually pulled open an illusionary door—the other side revealed the inside of the "Order Pillar".
Ever since he gained the door-opening ability, he always takes the shortcut when possible.
Stepping through the door, the group finally entered the mysterious interior of the "Order Pillar".
The cathedral-like solemn and ornate corridors inside the ship were impressive and clearly differed from Little Red Riding Hood and Erin’s imagined "spaceship" scenes.
"These cultists can’t be trusted, but their sense of aesthetics is on point," Erin, perched on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, craned her neck to look around as she muttered, "They’ve almost turned the spaceship into a palace—the absurdity of putting carvings on the partition doors! And two marble statues standing around?!"
"Taixu Spirit Hub’s Immortal Boat does contain many decorations, yet mostly in an elegant style, never as... chaotic," Xuan Che comnted from nearby, "This ship’s construction period must be lengthy, and much effort has gone into unnecessary details. Even when compared to the Monastery’s other creations, it appears overly splendidly luxurious. Its purpose must be quite special, and there’s likely a significance beyond utilitarian in design. Considering Venerate Saints Monastery’s obsessive doctrine, constructing this ship is likely intended for the execution of so large-scale ritual."
Hu Li’s evaluation was much simpler: "Gaudy, don’t like it."
"I’ll clean out these statues later; these so-called ’Monastery sages’ make uncomfortable," Yu Sheng said casually, "Once cleared, these corridors and rooms will be more spacious. The wall carvings and murals too, things like scenery can stay, but the rest should be replaced with sothing else."
"Sounds like a big project," Erin swayed her head, "What do you plan to replace them with?"
"I haven’t thought that far ahead," Yu Sheng pondered for a mont, "But given the overall style of this place, with the major structures unchangeable, leaving empty patches on the walls isn’t appealing, and it needs sothing. I’m thinking of showcasing my artistic skills at that ti..."
Erin didn’t wait for him to finish before speaking: "How about just leaving them empty."
Yu Sheng: "...I ant I would showcase..."
"Empty is nice!"
Yu Sheng: "..."
He decided not to argue with this puppet anymore. He would secretly unleash his extraordinary artistic creativity, ticulously refining the spaceship’s interior design to amaze everyone—frightening them was also an option if it ca to that.
Afterwards, the group passed through many more cabins and corridors, and accessed the core area of this "Tower" via an elevator.
Yu Sheng occasionally explained the functions of certain cabins—knowledge he had gleaned based on "understanding of his own vessel." While he couldn’t answer many overly technical questions, his judgnt of the spaceship structure was still fairly accurate.
This walk-stop and introduction continued until they entered a special room, where his expression beca slightly serious.
This was a large cabin with warm yellow lighting. A particularly bright beam of light spilled from the ceiling, illuminating the large apparatus at the center of the room. Nurous pipes and cables converged above it and were connected to the apparatus’s base, at the center of which lay a black, tilted "Iron Coffin" at a 45-degree angle.
The Iron Coffin continued to hum softly.
The corpse of the cultist that had once fallen in this room had been "cleaned up" by Yu Sheng, but a faint scent of blood still lingered. Little Red Riding Hood and Hu Li sniffed the air as soon as they entered, clearly sensing sothing.
Erin, on the other hand, noticed the change in Yu Sheng’s expression.
"What’s this place... for?" the little puppet asked curiously.
Yu Sheng stepped forward to the platform where the "Holy Coffin" rested and slowly began to speak: "This is the ’Holy Coffin’ of the Artificial Saintess—she’s inside right now."
Erin paused, exclaiming: "Huh? That C-type buckle?! Why did you keep her? Weren’t you supposed to send her to the Special Service Bureau?"
Yu Sheng wasn’t surprised by the little puppet’s reaction.
He lifted Erin from his shoulder, cradling her in one hand while gently reaching forward with the other to caress the cold Iron Coffin.
"Do you want to hear the truth about the ’Artificial Saintess’?" he asked, turning to the others beside him.
This was precisely why he brought them to this cabin.
Hu Li blinked: "The truth about the Artificial Saintess... Savior, what have you discovered?"
Erin gradually grasped the situation after observing Yu Sheng’s attitude: "Hey, wait a minute! You’re not telling this C-type buckle was originally a good puppet, controlled by the Monastery all along, are you? I’m telling you..."
"She wasn’t a ’good puppet,’" Yu Sheng shook his head, interrupting Erin, "She was originally a human."
Erin was stunned, frozen as if her joints had locked.
"As for the ’Brass Knights,’ they were once human too," Yu Sheng continued calmly, "and they’ve always believed themselves to be human—even till the mont they ’died in battle.’
Erin: "...What the hell?"
Yu Sheng turned around and sat directly on the platform of the Holy Coffin base, looking at the place where he had his final battle with the Artificial Saintess, thodically organizing his thoughts.
"These ’weapons’ made by the Monastery are converted from living people. So retain minimal biological components, while others have their souls extracted and injected into machine bodies...
"During the last battle with the ’Artificial Saintess,’ I discovered this—her body flowed with a mixture of blood and machine oil, and her shell still retained human mories and soul.
"She ca from a place with vast wheat fields..."
Yu Sheng sorted through his mories, slowly recounting those long-lost recollections he had seen.
The humming of various equipnt in the room accompanied his words, and the deep vibrations of the Holy Coffin never ceased.
The squirrel had sohow jumped off the Hunter, standing dazedly on the Holy Coffin platform, staring blankly at the cold Iron Coffin. The Hunter stood silently beside it. Beneath the hood was only a hollow darkness, yet it seed to be brewing a fiery rage.
Little Red Riding Hood and Hu Li’s faces also turned very grim.
"What the hell... what is all this?" Erin finally broke the silence, her scarlet eyes flashing ominously. Her cursing was bitter, "Those bastard monks of the Monastery are all%...￥%*&... If they’ve got the guts, why don’t they transform themselves? They resort to such tricks just because they can’t deceive enough cannon fodder. I swear I’ll...@#￥ them all into one household registry..."
"That’s the situation," Yu Sheng exhaled slowly, "That so-called ’Sage’ escaped at the last mont, though. I’ve delivered the surviving cultists on this ship, except for him, to the Special Service Bureau. Now it’s up to them to pry open those people’s mouths and find out where their main base might be... even just finding one of the planets would be enough.
"As for the escaped Sage, although I can’t track him down right now, I managed to leave so ’marks’ on him during our long battle. It’s just a matter of ’fate’ tying us together again, and I’ll find him... he’s got to be dealt with."
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