Erin's task was fairly simple.
Just find an unobtrusive place to lie down without getting in the way.
Yu Sheng came to the still slumbering Silver White Demon Fox, circled her massive figure and the pile of tails, and found a spot that looked quite comfortable—a depression where two large tails overlapped.
He bent down, tugged on the fluff of Hu Li's tail to adjust the position of the tail, and then patted another tail to fluff it up a bit more. Erin watched, dumbfounded, "Are you making a bed there?"
"This is for a comfortable lie-down," Yu Sheng naturally remarked while leaning on that fluffy, silver-white tail, "Heaven knows how long you'll need, and I am someone who demands high quality sleep..."
Erin immediately let out a "tch" sound, and once Yu Sheng was properly lying down, she floated over and stiffly landed on his chest, "Catch."
Yu Sheng hastily caught the painting frame that fell from mid-air, even fearing for a moment that she was seeking vengeance for the glee in his heart earlier and wanted to smash him to death, "Whoa! Could you give me a warning before falling?"
He managed to catch Erin—not being crushed by the frame—and then adjusted himself, half-reclining against Hu Li's large tail, cradling Erin's painting frame in his hands, and took a gentle breath, waiting for the moment to sink into the dream realm.
Descending into another dream within his own, this was indeed an unprecedented experience.
A low hum of song came from the oil painting, an ancient ballad as if accompanied by a distant and nostalgic atmosphere. Unable to understand the lyrics, he could feel a calming power gently seeping into his heart. Yu Sheng felt his eyelids growing heavy, and in a semi-conscious daze, he looked down at the oil painting he held in front of him.
It was like holding someone's obituary.jpg.
Yu Sheng: "..."
Why does this puppet always conjure up such vivid presence?
In the next second, his thoughts abruptly cut off amidst this somewhat boisterous notion, then he plunged into the deepest part of the dream realm within a whirl of nothingness.
He found himself suddenly losing control over his body, or rather... he couldn't feel his body's existence at all, as if he became an ethereal viewpoint, swiftly traversing through a series of memories, thoughts, and perceptions that didn't belong to him, surrounded by layers upon layers of shadowed images interwoven into a continuous curtain that formed an endless tunnel.
Sounds boomed and roared, information pouring into his brain, unable to discern whether it was actual sounds he was hearing, or memories emerging directly in his mind—
There were exclamations, explosions, howling from the Immortal Shuttle's power structure—they were falling, the Immortal Shuttle had veered off course, crashing into a world that seemed to have suddenly appeared and not in their path.
The tremendous impact, the Immortal Shuttle ramming into a dark mountain, the Artifact Spirit ran out from the Celestial Adjuster, fighting with the Immortal that piloted the shuttle over things like "hoarding Spirit Stones," "reckless driving," "reporting to the Immortal Sect," and then with an explosion, the Artifact Spirit died, along with many others.
Those who survived, also gradually perished.
All deaths and departures turned into a string of fragments rapidly fading from Yu Sheng's view, he saw those yellowed and blurry figures dying from hunger, from the toxic creatures in the woods, from the despair-driven strife, from... the pervasive malice filling every corner of the valley.
The valley itself wanted to kill them, through driving the power of hunger.
The seemingly endless "tunnel" suddenly vanished, and Yu Sheng found himself pausing in a faded scene—after passing through many chaotic shards of memory, he finally truly arrived at Hu Li's current dream realm.
Just as Erin had said, the tones of the dream realm were consistent; everything here had an aged, inert grayness, the gloomy sky, the murky woods, the muddied soil and stones—just one look was oppressively suffocating.
"Erin?" Yu Sheng tried to call out in his mind, for he didn't see her figure.
"I'm here."
"Where are you?" Yu Sheng looked around, "Why can't I see you?"
"I'm with you," Erin's voice seemed to come directly from his mind, an odd sensation, "You can't see me, nor can you see your own body. We are now two 'Foreign Consciousnesses' that have infiltrated here; having a perspective is already good enough."
"Oh, so that's how it is." Understanding dawned on Yu Sheng, and he then started to search for Hu Li's figure in the small woods.
He didn't look for long, in fact, almost the moment he resolved to search for her, he heard digging sounds not far away.
Immediately following the sound, his viewpoint drifted through the dim woods, and soon, he spotted the white figure.
The girl with silver hair, dressed in ragged clothes, kneeled at the edge of a clearing in the woods. Her originally fluffy and pretty fox tail looked filthy and wretched, covered in mud. She bowed her head, digging earnestly into the soil while mumbling to herself, and around the girl were pits of all sizes she had excavated with her hands.
Yu Sheng "floated" over, coming to Hu Li's side.
Hu Li couldn't see him but continued to dig furiously, her hands repeatedly clawing into the dirt.
Suddenly, Erin's voice entered Yu Sheng's mind: "Talk to her, strike up a conversation."
"She can't see either of us."
"It doesn't matter, just talk to her. This is a dream; she'll respond—it's never irrational in a dream for the dreamer."
Yu Sheng thought for a moment and looked at the demon fox girl: "What are you digging for?"
"Mom...Dad..." Hu Li indeed had no doubts about the sudden voice she heard and naturally replied, "I remember burying them here... They should definitely be here..."
Yu Sheng, for some reason, felt a sinking feeling in his heart and subconsciously asked another question: "Why... do you want to dig them up?"
"I... I miss them," Hu Li gradually stopped digging, her eyes showing a hint of vacant hollowness yet she still responded instinctively, "I'm so hungry, I want to tell them I'm so hungry... But I've held on, they told me not to listen to that monster, and I've been holding on, but... I'm so hungry..."
Hu Li lowered her head to look at her mud-stained hands, then continued digging, muttering to herself as if talking to no one: "They should be right here, they're definitely here, safe and sound below... I've listened to them, always to their words, I didn't listen to that monster..."
"Her mental state is off," Erin's voice came into Yu Sheng's mind, "Way off..."
"I know, I could tell her mental state wasn't right when we first met." Yu Sheng responded in his mind as well.
"I'm not talking about that, I mean... something else seems to have sneaked into her psyche, something is trying to interfere, disrupt her thoughts," Erin explained, attempting to clarify to Yu Sheng, an outsider, some complex situation, "There's someone else's voice in her voice—her own will is holding steady, but the foreign thoughts are close to breaking her down."
Erin suddenly stopped speaking.
Hu Li ceased her digging, stood up with a vacant expression, took a few steps to the side, then stood motionless in the middle of the clearing.
Yu Sheng immediately followed, and the next second, he seemed to hear a faint, blurry voice.
The voice seemed to be coming directly from his very heart, as if he himself had whispered it—
"Keep digging, unearth them...
"You just want to see them again, just want to check, to confirm you really did follow their words. It's been a long time since you've seen them, hasn't it...
"'I' really miss them..."
Hu Li turned her head with a vacant look, gazing at the deep pits she had dug.
"I miss them so much..." she murmured softly.
Yu Sheng suddenly realized that the voice from "his own heart" he had just heard was the "foreign intervention" Erin had mentioned!
His dream and psyche were connected with Hu Li's, so the voice he had just heard was actually not "from his heart," but from the depths of Hu Li's heart!
Slowly, Hu Li turned toward another part of the clearing, seemingly wanting to continue digging.
Every handful of dirt was slowly digging through her own mental defenses.
Yu Sheng finally understood what that voice was tempting, a chill suddenly rising from the depths of his soul, prompting him to instinctively shout out loud: "Hu Li!"
The demon fox girl stopped blankly and looked towards the empty edge of the forest.
After a long while, a bit of lucidity returned to her eyes, and she recalled where she had heard that familiar voice.
"...Savior?"
However, the forest was empty, Yasmin's voice did not come again, and the previous call seemed like an illusion.
Hu Li stood blankly in the clearing, and after a while, she finally noticed the large pits around her that she had dug out.
The demon fox girl's face slowly revealed a look of horror.
She woke up, startling awake just before the final collapse of her defensive line.