Chapter 48: The Day of Eating

Chapter 48: The Day of Eating

The demon fox girl’s eyes widened as she looked at the huge pile of things Yu Sheng had set on the ground. She stood there blankly for several seconds, seemingly unable to process what was happening at all, until Yu Sheng opened a can of eight-treasure porridge and brought the food to her mouth.

“Eat. It’s all for you. If it isn’t enough, there’s more.”

The aroma of food, real food.

Not stones, not dirt, not bricks and wood. Not those phantoms from her dreams that could never fill her stomach no matter how vividly she imagined them.

Hu Li’s eyes slowly widened further, and then it was as if she suddenly came back to life from a frozen state. She grabbed the can from Yu Sheng’s hand and, without even using a spoon, poured it straight into her mouth, making muffled noises as she gulped it down.

She finished the entire can in barely a dozen seconds. Then she carefully licked around the rim, but soon grew agitated because she couldn’t clean out everything inside. Just as Yu Sheng was about to help, Hu Li pinched the can with her fingers and tore hard. Accompanied by a sharp metallic tearing sound, she forcibly ripped open the sturdy metal container. Then she carefully shredded it into long continuous strips of metal while licking off every last trace of food clinging to them.

“There’s more here,” Yu Sheng quickly said as he rummaged through his pocket, pulling out a piece of bread and a bottle of water. “Slow down.”

A blur flashed before his eyes.

The food was already in Hu Li’s hands.

The demon fox girl devoured everything. Eating became the only thing she did for quite some time afterward. Neither Yu Sheng nor Irene spoke. The only sounds left among the ruins were those of Hu Li eating, along with the occasional indistinct noise from her throat, as though she wanted to speak but could not bear to stop eating.

Then, suddenly, Hu Li began to cry.

It happened without warning. Tears flowed down the demon fox’s face. She kept stuffing bread into her mouth. She did not sob, nor did she make any crying sounds. The tears simply streamed calmly down her cheeks, dripping onto the bread before being stuffed into her mouth as well.

The sight startled Yu Sheng. He hurriedly reached out and wiped at her dirty face.

“Don’t cry. If you swallow too much wind, your stomach will hurt. Don’t cry anymore. There’s still more. And there’ll be more in the future too...”

Only then did Hu Li seem to truly regain her senses, finally having enough energy left to think about other things. She stared blankly at Yu Sheng for a long moment before suddenly holding out half a piece of bread.

“Benefactor, you eat too.”

Yu Sheng quickly waved his hands.

“I already ate before I came. I’m not hungry.”

But Hu Li did not move. She stubbornly maintained the gesture. Even though all the food here had just been brought by Yu Sheng, she still insisted on sharing the bread in her hand with him, as though doing so carried some extraordinary significance.

At last, Yu Sheng reached out and accepted the half piece of bread she offered.

The demon fox girl smiled. She picked up a packet of compressed biscuits from the ground. This time she no longer wolfed them down. After opening the package, she carefully nibbled them bit by bit, as if trying to make the act of eating last as long as possible.

She finally seemed a little less hungry.

At least for now.

“Tasty,” she said softly. “Benefactor, tasty...”

“Don’t put ‘benefactor’ in front of ‘tasty’,” Yu Sheng said with a shudder, suddenly reminded of certain unpleasant memories. “As long as you can fill your stomach.”

“Mhm.” Hu Li immediately nodded.

“Looks like you’ve finally recovered a little,” Irene said at last. Looking at the demon fox, whose mental state had clearly stabilized somewhat, she visibly relaxed. “It’s incredible that you’ve managed to hold out this long...”

Hu Li jumped slightly. It seemed she had only now noticed the doll sitting on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, or perhaps only now realized that this sixty-six-point-six-centimeter-tall little figure could actually move and talk.

“This one... is alive!?”

Irene’s eyes widened.

“...Well, obviously! Of course I’m alive! I even helped open a sausage for you earlier!”

“She’s Irene, a living doll from Alice’s Cottage,” Yu Sheng quickly explained. “She’s the helper I mentioned. Don’t let her size fool you, she’s very capable. I was only able to contact you in the dream because of her help.”

Holding her cleaver in one hand and planting the other on her hip, Irene struck a very proud pose atop Yu Sheng’s shoulder.

Hu Li thought about it. She did not know what a living doll was, nor did she understand why such a tiny human-shaped figure could move and speak. But she understood that this was her benefactor’s friend.

After several seconds of hesitation, she held out her compressed biscuit.

“Irene, you eat too.”

Irene’s proud expression immediately turned awkward.

“Uh... I can’t eat that. Dolls can’t eat food...”

Hu Li instantly pulled the biscuit back and resumed nibbling it.

Irene: “...Hey! You took it back just like that? Couldn’t you at least insist a little?! You weren’t like this when you shared bread with Yu Sheng!”

“Dolls can’t eat food,” Hu Li said softly. “Giving it to you would waste food.”

Irene puffed out her cheeks in anger.

No one paid her any attention.

By now, Yu Sheng’s focus had shifted to the dark and freezing night surrounding them.

He could sense that the atmosphere throughout the valley was gradually changing with his arrival. The entity lurking within the Other Domain had become active. His act of bringing food and temporarily freeing Hu Li from Hunger had already provoked the monster.

His first purpose in coming here today had been to save Hu Li.

His second was to find a way to eliminate the Hunger entity occupying this place.

Originally, this had not been something that absolutely needed to be done. But now he had established a “connection” with the monster, and he knew it was gradually learning how to think. That meant this threat could no longer be ignored.

Yet for some reason, the creature still had not appeared before him.

A trace of confusion gradually arose in Yu Sheng’s mind.

Then, at that moment, a faint sound drifted in on the night wind and entered everyone’s ears.

A distant wolf howl.

Yu Sheng and Irene looked at each other.

After a moment’s hesitation, Irene spoke.

“Yu Sheng, did you hear that just now?”

“That was a wolf,” Yu Sheng said, frowning. “I thought I was hearing things...”

Then he turned toward Hu Li, who was still diligently chewing her biscuit.

“Are there wolves around here?”

“No. It’s only me and that monster,” Hu Li replied, equally puzzled. “That’s the first time I’ve heard such a strange sound.”

At that moment, the howl rang out again, interrupting their conversation.

This time, it sounded closer.

The wolf pack was approaching.

Chasing something.

Or being chased.

Within the dark forest, the enormous flesh-and-blood beast wandered like a terrifying nightmare. It continuously shifted positions among the shadows of the trees, appearing at times within the mist and vanishing abruptly from sight the next moment.

No matter which direction one fled, the creature would appear nearby in an eerily inexplicable manner and launch attacks from impossible angles.

Wolves took shape from the shadows and leaped through the forest, pouncing upon the flesh giant racing through the darkness. More wolves surged in from every direction, attempting to seal off the monster’s movements.

Yet countless tentacles and barbed bone-like limbs suddenly erupted from the beast’s body.

The newly assembled wolf pack was instantly driven back, and a massive gap opened in their encirclement.

All of the beast’s eyes simultaneously locked onto a figure beyond the wolves.

Little Red Riding Hood sat atop the largest wolf. Her calm gaze met dozens of the monster’s cold eyes across the distance.

The next second, the middle of the beast’s body split open.

A black, scale-covered “tongue” shot out with a piercing whistle, streaking toward the girl’s throat like an arrow filled with malice.

Little Red Riding Hood merely shifted slightly.

At the instant the tongue was about to touch her, she abruptly raised her right arm.

The slender arm exploded and swelled.

Its flesh emitted a continuous hiss hiss as smoke billowed forth. Blood and mist intertwined in the blink of an eye, transforming into an enormous black wolf’s head.

Then the wolf’s head snapped down viciously, clamping onto the tongue before it could alter its course.

The beast reacted and abruptly retreated.

Yet Little Red Riding Hood continued to “bite” down relentlessly. She and the wolf beneath her seemed nailed to the ground as they struggled against the creature.

And in that brief instant, another figure suddenly burst from the forest shadows.

Li Lin charged toward the monster’s flank like a nimble leopard. In his hand, a short knife gleamed coldly in the night. It was a spare weapon Xu Jiali had lent him temporarily.

The monster immediately noticed the sudden ambusher.

Several eyes swung toward him.

A massive claw rose high and smashed directly toward Li Lin.

But the true ambush came from elsewhere.

Halfway through his charge, Li Lin suddenly dropped low and dodged beneath the claw with a movement no ordinary human could possibly perform.

At the same time, another towering figure emerged from the creature’s blind spot.

The nearly two-meter-tall man raised the beam dagger, a weapon so large that others could have used it as a short sword, and drove it downward toward a fleshy tumor on the monster’s back.

Hiss!

The scorching blade plunged into the growth without the slightest resistance.

It even sliced the entire tumor off.

Yet the monster merely released a chaotic, ear-piercing roar.

Then it spun violently, throwing off Little Red Riding Hood, who had only barely managed to hold it in place, and sending the muscular man flying before he could recover his balance.

Xu Jiali tumbled into a nearby thicket and let out a muffled groan.

Li Lin hurried over and dragged his colleague out of the bushes.

Then the two of them looked toward where the monster had been.

The creature had vanished.

The fog within the forest gradually thickened.

Within the rolling mist, countless twisted and bizarre silhouettes could be vaguely seen growing, emerging from the soil, swaying gently in the cold wind.

Layer upon layer.

Endless.

The entire forest seemed to have transformed into a gigantic mouth awaiting its next meal.

Xu Jiali instantly sucked in a sharp breath.

“We can’t stay here. Keep running for the edge of the forest!”