Chapter 68: Hu Li’s Memories of Home

Chapter 68: Hu Li’s Memories of Home

A beautiful black-haired girl with clear eyes, dressed in ill-fitting men’s clothing, curiously looking around as she walked down the street, carrying a Gothic doll that radiated an eerie atmosphere and looked like a corpse whose eyes refused to close. Such a combination was truly eye-catching in a crowded area.

To be honest, Yu Sheng felt he might have underestimated the difficulty of taking both Hu Li and Irene out at the same time.

He had already lost count of how many curious glances they had attracted along the way. Some of those gazes were naturally directed at the constantly looking-around Hu Li, but the other half were aimed at him.

Yet Yu Sheng could only grit his teeth and accompany the fox girl beside him, because she genuinely knew nothing.

She did not even know what money looked like in this world. In fact, the fact that she knew purchases required money was already impressive enough, and that was only because she had once lived in some sort of civilized society many, many years ago.

On the other hand, the differences between the social order in Hu Li’s memories and that of Boundary City constantly created unexpected problems.

For example, when they passed a car park, she became especially curious about why so many “immortal carriages” were parked there so quietly, and why those vehicles were all so patient.

Honestly, when she first voiced that question, Yu Sheng could not even figure out what she meant.

“Back in my homeland, all carriages, boats, and vehicles had artifact intelligences,” Hu Li explained quietly to Yu Sheng. “The artifact intelligences of transportation vehicles usually loved running and jumping. Most refused to stay obediently outside a mountain gate.”

“So where I come from, when immortals or demons stop somewhere for a while, they hand their vehicles over to attendants. The attendants are responsible for taking the vehicles around nearby so they can keep ‘moving around.’ There are also large grounds with their own pocket worlds where vehicles can be left to run around and play by themselves. Those are called self-service car parks...”

As she spoke, she pointed at a car beside the road that appeared to be driven by a novice driver and had spent ages failing to park properly.

“This one is extremely stiff. Back where I’m from, even children’s hobby horses would laugh at it.”

Yu Sheng quickly lowered the fox girl’s hand.

“This place is different from your homeland. Don’t point at random.”

Hu Li nodded in confusion.

“Oh.”

Yu Sheng silently wiped away a cold sweat.

He suddenly became extremely curious about what Hu Li’s homeland was actually like.

When he first met Hu Li, he had assumed her homeland belonged to a classic immortal-and-demon cultivation civilization. Then the immortal tour guide appeared. After that came stories about hundreds of security immortals hunting down great demon foxes that violated forest protection laws and sentencing them to five hundred years. Now even children’s toys, hobby horses, apparently came with artificial intelligence-like artifact intelligences.

The more he thought about it, the more bewildered he became.

The style of the fox girl’s homeland was difficult to imagine.

Could something like that really emerge from a normal universe?

Unfortunately, Hu Li herself could not clearly explain what her homeland was like.

Partly because she had been very young when she left, and partly because the long torment she suffered in the Other Domain had caused her to forget many things.

“I can’t remember a lot anymore. I only remember the elders saying that the homeland wasn’t originally like that,” Hu Li said, recalling the faded and blurred memories of her homeland and trying her best to describe them to Yu Sheng. “Beings from the heavens with great power suddenly arrived and enlightened all the constantly warring living creatures below. Then, after a very long time, we reached the point where we could travel together with the heavenly people, crossing billions of kilometres among the stars in an instant.”

“I still remember the elders saying that the positions of the stars in the sky changed every few years. That was because the heavenly people were adjusting some kind of navigable route. My father also worked on the navigable routes. His job was to push things out whenever they entered a route by mistake, and then issue them fines.”

At this point, the fox girl became excited.

“My father piloted extremely, extremely large Immortal Shuttles!” “Bigger than a building! He said those were called starships. The artifact intelligences of starships were even more amazing. A single person only needed to lie in a pool inside the starship and issue commands to the artifact intelligence. Then the thing would fly. It could catch things faster than light using some kind of treasure called... Moon-Front Orbit-Breaking Breath...”

Yu Sheng listened in complete bewilderment.

He turned his head and glanced at Irene, who was lying motionless in Hu Li’s arms and pretending to be an ordinary doll.

Can you understand any of this? he muttered inwardly.

“I can’t,” Irene’s voice replied from within his mind. “You’re not actually believing all this, are you? She might just be making things up. I suggest waiting a couple of months and asking her again after her mental state stabilizes. By then, the story version might have changed again.”

Yu Sheng frowned.

He also had doubts about the truth of the fantastical stories Hu Li described. Yet at the same time, he felt that if the girl truly was still mentally confused, she probably could not fabricate a tale with such imagination and such carefully constructed details.

Regardless, everything Hu Li described left a deep impression on him.

“Enough, stop thinking about it,” Irene’s voice interrupted his wandering thoughts. “You should hurry up and get Hu Li some normal clothes instead. Your challenge is about to begin.”

The moment Yu Sheng heard that, his face immediately fell.

Many things always seemed simple during the planning stage.

But once execution reached the point where details had to be considered, the troublesome parts began.

How was he supposed to choose girls’ clothing?

He had never even entered a women’s clothing shop before.

Yet he could only force himself onward.

After all, he had been the one who insisted on taking Hu Li in. Regretting it now was useless.

However, just as Yu Sheng led Hu Li into the shopping centre with the grim determination of someone marching to an execution ground, a familiar figure suddenly passed through the corner of their vision.

It was a somewhat petite short-haired girl who looked seventeen or eighteen years old. Her lips were pursed together, and her appearance carried a silence and maturity that seemed slightly out of place for her age.

Yu Sheng did not recognize her at first.

She merely seemed familiar.

Two or three seconds later, he finally realized why.

It was the girl who called herself Little Red Riding Hood.

Today she was not wearing that dark red outfit. Instead, she had changed into a brightly coloured jacket, making her difficult to recognize at first glance.

Yu Sheng instantly realized he had encountered a saviour.

At almost the same moment, Little Red Riding Hood, walking on the opposite side of the road, noticed the gaze resting upon her.

She immediately looked up.

For one brief instant, her eyes were like those of a vigilant wolf.

But that wolf-like gaze vanished so quickly that nobody could have noticed it.

After seeing Yu Sheng clearly, she showed a slightly surprised expression.

Little Red Riding Hood quickly crossed through the traffic and approached. Looking at Yu Sheng with some surprise, she examined him up and down for several seconds before finally saying:

“...You’re shopping too?”

“...Is it strange for me to buy things?”

“Ah, sorry. I just thought it was a coincidence.”

Realizing her wording was somewhat inappropriate, Little Red Riding Hood immediately lowered her head and apologized. However, the confusion in her eyes did not diminish in the slightest.

Because she already knew that Yu Sheng lived in an Other Domain called Wutong Road 66.

The moment she left that Other Domain, she had guessed that the “human” calling himself Yu Sheng was probably not very human at all.

His extremely realistic human behaviour and mannerisms were likely some sort of mimicry.

She genuinely had not expected to encounter this “person” who lived permanently inside an Other Domain out on the street buying things.

...Could this guy actually eat human food?

Such an absurd thought, at least in her opinion, popped into Little Red Riding Hood’s mind.

Then she noticed Hu Li standing beside him, as well as the doll in Hu Li’s arms.

Little Red Riding Hood frowned slightly. After a moment she recognized Hu Li’s face.

Then she raised a finger and pointed at Irene, who remained completely motionless, with even the highlights missing from her eyes.

“This one, dead?”

Yu Sheng immediately saw Irene’s eyes almost regain their highlights.

The little doll twitched slightly in Hu Li’s arms, and then an intense stream of profanity echoed through his mind.

“She’s the one who’s dead! May she explode into the sky eight hundred times on the spot! She #%@#@! Yu Sheng! Insult her! Insult her for me!”

“She’s cursing at you,” Yu Sheng said calmly, pointing at the still-motionless Irene. “Very viciously too. I’m a cultured person, so I can’t repeat it.”

Irene’s swearing instantly became even worse.

Little Red Riding Hood could not hear any of it.

But she could imagine it.

“You lot are... pretty creative,” she said, unable to resist examining Irene several more times. “Using a method like this to openly bring her outside... By the way, judging from this setup, you’re buying clothes for her?” She pointed at Hu Li.

“You guessed correctly.” Yu Sheng spread his hands and directly ignored the ongoing stream of chatter from Irene’s side. “I was worrying about it when I happened to see you. Could you help?”

“I can probably guess what kind of help you need.”

Little Red Riding Hood understood in less than two seconds. Her gaze swept over Hu Li’s obviously ill-fitting outfit, and a faint smile appeared on her face.

“This really is... something I’ve never experienced before.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes lit up.

“You agree?”

Little Red Riding Hood looked unconcerned.

“Of course. It’s no trouble at all. But afterward, you’ll have to help me with something too.”