Chapter 118: In the Forest
This time, Yu Sheng fell asleep extremely quickly. He had probably expended far too much energy. Once the excited feeling of forcing himself onward finally faded, he fell onto the bed and almost instantly entered dreamland.
It was a series of bizarre, fragmented dreams whose details were difficult to recall.
In a daze, he felt as though his consciousness were floating above a hazy layer of water. Looking down through the surface, he saw himself lying on the bed, saw No. 66 Wutong Road, saw Eileen fiddling with the TV remote, and saw Huli scrubbing her tails beside the pool before hanging them one by one on the balcony clothesline. They were arranged in a neat row...
Yu Sheng gradually found it impossible to distinguish reality from illusion. He could not even tell whether he was dreaming or truly "seeing" these scenes. His consciousness drifted for a long time, gradually sinking into an increasingly murky chaos. Then, all of a sudden—he felt a solid surface beneath him, coming from behind his back.
Yu Sheng abruptly opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was the towering trees surrounding him.
The boundless forest was filled with endless trees. Dense crowns overlapped and intertwined, concealing the murky sky. Beneath them lay shadows like dusk. Dark vines tangled through the dense woods, shrubs grew wildly across the open ground, and unknown flowers and grasses—lush but covered in a gray, hazy texture—crawled over every empty space between the giant trees.
Confused, Yu Sheng got to his feet, feeling thick fallen leaves and rotting soil beneath him.
As he moved, this boundless, dim forest seemed to "come alive" even more. He began hearing the calls of various unknown birds and beasts from within the woods. Something darted rapidly across the