Recaps

Yu Sheng and Eileen discussed the limits of Eileen’s dream abilities before realizing that the sleeping Huli seemed strangely out of place in Yu Sheng’s dream. Eileen proposed diving into Huli’s mind with Yu Sheng’s help, and the chapter ended as they prepared to enter the dream together.

• Eileen showed Yu Sheng that she could change her oil painting into an eighties-style poster, but the transformation lasted less than three minutes.
• Eileen noticed Huli’s unusual appearance in Yu Sheng’s gray dream and learned that she was the fox Yu Sheng had encountered in the Otherworld.
• Eileen questioned whether Yu Sheng was an ordinary human after hearing about his strange experiences and Huli’s presence in his dream.
• Eileen proposed entering Huli’s dream to investigate her locked-down state and possibly wake her.
• Eileen told Yu Sheng to lie on Huli’s tail, hold her frame, and close his eyes so they could dive into Huli’s mind.

Yu Sheng and Eileen entered Huli’s dream, where Yu Sheng witnessed memories of the crash and the deaths in the valley. He found Huli digging for her parents and realized a foreign voice was weakening her defenses, then called out to her and helped her awaken before they collapsed.

• Yu Sheng settled beside the sleeping Huli and let Eileen’s song guide him into her dream.
• Yu Sheng experienced fragments of the immortal shuttle’s crash and the survivors’ deaths in the valley.
• Yu Sheng found Huli digging through the soil for her buried parents while she spoke of her hunger.
• Eileen warned Yu Sheng that another presence was interfering with Huli’s thoughts and urging her to keep digging.
• Yu Sheng heard the foreign voice tempting Huli and called her name, restoring her clarity.
• Huli recognized Yu Sheng’s voice, noticed the many pits around her, and awakened in terror.

After waking from the dream, Yu Sheng learned that Huli was being consumed by Entity—Hunger and might not hold out much longer. He realized the creature he had fought was only a manifestation of the entity, whose true body permeated the entire valley.

• Yu Sheng and Eileen recovered from the violent awakening after Yu Sheng's shout had jolted Huli awake.
• Eileen warned Yu Sheng that Huli was being turned into a source of hunger-born madness and would not be able to resist for long.
• Eileen identified the threat as Entity—Hunger, which drove its victims into madness and absorbed those who succumbed.
• Yu Sheng worried that his appetite for the monster meant he had been affected, but Eileen said the entity's influence would make him attack people instead.
• Eileen explained that the monster was only a manifestation of Entity—Hunger, whose true body was the hunger spread throughout the valley.
• Yu Sheng realized he was facing a rule-based entity.

Yu Sheng discussed his connection to the Otherworld and his plan to seek help before facing Hunger, while Eileen worried about him and grew anxious whenever he left. When Yu Sheng went to buy snacks, opening the supermarket door revealed a new Otherworld where armored figures were fighting.

• Eileen explained that Yu Sheng's spiritual intuition did not guarantee he would return to Hunger's valley, and warned him that facing Hunger alone was dangerous.
• Yu Sheng carried Eileen into the kitchen to keep him company while he prepared dinner, and she urged him to contact people who specialized in fighting Otherworlds.
• Yu Sheng promised to look for professionals and reassured Eileen before leaving to buy food at the nearby supermarket.
• Yu Sheng cautiously checked outside his home before going out, relieved that the door did not immediately lead to an Otherworld.
• Yu Sheng opened the supermarket door and saw a scorched landscape, a crashed aircraft, and two armored figures fighting, then slammed the door shut.

Yu Sheng discovered that opening doors could reveal places beyond the Otherworld, including realms with a mechanical elf and a Daoist child, and realized he could summon a door on a bare wall. He decided to stay in his house and returned to the supermarket, cautiously opening its door into an ordinary shop.

• Yu Sheng reopened the supermarket door and saw a mechanical elf, then a Daoist child who mistook him for a human head refined in an alchemy furnace.
• Yu Sheng concluded that the places beyond the doors were not necessarily the Otherworld and tested his ability to summon a door on a wall.
• Yu Sheng told Eileen that he would no longer consider moving because he suspected the problem lay with him rather than the house.
• Yu Sheng returned to the supermarket, carefully sensed the door as he opened it, and found the young shop owner greeting him.

Yu Sheng stocked up on food after struggling with his new fear of opening doors, then showed Eileen that he could create a doorway to a distant place. The chapter ended with Eileen demanding an explanation after Yu Sheng briefly connected to the elf mechanic’s workshop.

• Yu Sheng entered the supermarket cautiously, bought instant noodles, compressed biscuits, and ham, and brushed past Li Lin, a Special Operations Bureau agent who was buying noodles too.
• Li Lin learned from his captain that Xu Jiali would arrive the next day after returning early from a mission on Ameine-IX.
• Yu Sheng returned home and considered going back out for liquid food, but Eileen reminded him that the entity called Hunger—not merely a lack of food—was the main problem in the valley.
• Yu Sheng created an illusory door in front of Eileen and opened it to reveal an elf mechanic working at a large machine.
• The elf mechanic shouted at Yu Sheng, who shut the door; Eileen then demanded to know what she had witnessed.

Yu Sheng explained that he could open doors to other places and believed he could eventually recreate the passage to the Otherworld where he had met Huli. He tested whether his blood would affect Eileen as it had Huli, but the test showed no clear effect.

• Yu Sheng told Eileen that he could open existing doors or create doors in the air, though he could not choose where they led.
• Yu Sheng said he had met the elf twice and thought practice might let him reliably reopen passages he had already used.
• Eileen encouraged Yu Sheng that returning to save Huli had become feasible, and Yu Sheng decided to begin practicing.
• Yu Sheng cut his hand and smeared his blood on Eileen's painting to test whether it would cause a blood connection like the one with Huli.
• Eileen only felt warmth that had already faded, so Yu Sheng concluded the test had not worked.

Yu Sheng confirmed that his blood could make Eileen remember witnessing his death, though he still did not know why he kept returning from the dead. He resumed practicing his door-opening ability to reach Huli, but the kitchen door briefly opened onto outer space.

• Yu Sheng discovered that blood on Eileen's painting could not be wiped away, and Eileen realized she had remembered his death.
• Yu Sheng calmed Eileen by spinning her painting, then confirmed his blood had affected her as it had Huli.
• Eileen warned Yu Sheng that returning from the dead could bring unknown consequences, and Yu Sheng promised to be careful.
• Yu Sheng explained his possible plans for helping Huli and dealing with Hunger while practicing his door-opening ability.
• Yu Sheng opened the kitchen door, saw outer space beyond it, and quickly shut it.

Yu Sheng experimented with opening doors and discovered he could use his spiritual guidance to reproduce a passage he had opened before. He left the people on the other side with a hurried explanation and planned to use his new control to find the passage to Huli.

• Yu Sheng recovered from opening a door onto apparent outer space and continued testing the ability, wondering whether he might someday find his old home.
• Yu Sheng and Eileen watched countless strange worlds appear as he repeatedly opened and closed the door.
• Yu Sheng sensed a familiar passage, reopened it, and saw an immortal whipping a young man beside a burning Alchemy Furnace.
• Yu Sheng realized he could control and reproduce passages he had visited before, including the one that might lead to Huli.
• Yu Sheng reopened the passage and called out that the incident was a misunderstanding, then shut the door before the immortal could approach.
• Yu Sheng asked Eileen whether he had explained himself clearly, and she reassured him that he probably would not encounter them again.

Li Lin and the Special Operations Bureau investigated frequent, unexplained rifts opening and closing across the Crossroads while an unusually quiet location remained under surveillance. The rifts stopped, and Xu Jiali arrived at Li Lin’s outpost to reinforce the monitoring team.

• Li Lin received Song Cheng’s warning that the Crossroads was undergoing large spatial-temporal dislocations and was ordered to stay at his outpost until Xu Jiali arrived.
• Song Cheng and the Director reviewed repeated rift appearances across Boundary City, which caused no damage or casualties and could not be traced.
• Song Cheng told the Director that the specially monitored location remained unnaturally quiet and that he had dispatched deep divers and additional monitoring teams.
• The Director told Song Cheng to adapt to unknown forces, then sensed that the rift activity had calmed down.
• Xu Jiali arrived at Li Lin’s cramped rental apartment with a large case and settled onto the sofa.

Li Lin and Xu Jiali monitored the Crossroads as its mysterious rift phenomenon abruptly stopped, while Yu Sheng practiced opening doors and planned to find a route to the valley. Eileen asked Yu Sheng to set aside half a day to make her a body.

• Xu Jiali told Li Lin about encountering a person standing unprotected in Ameine-IX's toxic hot wind during a mission.
• Li Lin and Xu Jiali discussed the Crossroads' anomalies and the Bureau's response to the spatial displacement phenomenon.
• The Bureau informed Li Lin that the rift phenomenon had stopped, and he assigned Xu Jiali to sleep before taking over the watch.
• Yu Sheng practiced opening doors until exhaustion, slept soundly, and woke disappointed that he had not dreamed of Huli.
• Yu Sheng told Eileen about his dreams and planned to recreate the passage to the valley after shopping.
• Eileen asked Yu Sheng to set aside half a day to make her a body.

Yu Sheng agreed to make Eileen a body so she could help him fight Hunger, then went downtown to buy supplies. On his way home, he opened a door into Boundary City, triggering an alarm at Special Operations Bureau headquarters.

• Eileen asked Yu Sheng to make her a body so she could leave the painting and accompany him against Hunger, and he agreed.
• Eileen said the body only needed to look human and suggested dough as a last resort, but Yu Sheng decided to buy proper clay and other supplies.
• Yu Sheng walked through Wutong Road, passing Li Lin, who was secretly keeping watch in disguise.
• Xu Jiali joined Li Lin and questioned whether his disguise and their stakeout were useful.
• Yu Sheng bought several bags of supplies downtown and opened a door beside them, setting off an alarm at Special Operations Bureau headquarters before he went home.

Yu Sheng prepared materials and performed Eileen’s ritual to shape a temporary doll body in the attic. The crude body was nearly ready, and Eileen faced the prospect of leaving her painting despite being horrified by its appearance.

• Yu Sheng used the kitchen door to return from shopping and explained that objects and living things could pass through it.
• Yu Sheng showed Eileen the clay, tools, hair, and paint he had bought, while Eileen rejected his backup plan of using lotus roots as body parts.
• Yu Sheng carried the materials and Eileen’s painting frame to the attic and set up a workspace.
• Eileen instructed Yu Sheng through a ritual using candles, circles, his blood, and prepared clay as he shaped her doll body.
• Yu Sheng finished the rough body, and Eileen asked him to place her painting beside its head before admitting she needed a moment to brace herself because it was so ugly.

Yu Sheng successfully transferred Eileen from the oil painting into a living doll body, but his undersized sculpt left her only 66.6 centimeters tall. The chapter ended with Eileen demanding a height measurement and bursting into tears over her tiny new body.

• Eileen said goodbye to the plush bear, then dissolved from the painting into black mist that entered the clay body.
• The clay figure transformed into a living doll, and Eileen awoke with a brief, mysterious connection to Yu Sheng.
• Eileen celebrated her return to life, then realized she was only as tall as a floor lamp.
• Eileen recalled that the clay was only a vessel for her soul and wondered why her body had not adjusted to human size.
• Yu Sheng measured Eileen at 66.6 centimeters, and she burst into tears.

After Eileen awakened in a clay vessel, she found that her new body was far smaller than her original form, but she and Yu Sheng discussed finding her sisters at Alice's Cabin and agreed she would help him. Just as they headed downstairs, Eileen's body went limp and she revealed that she had returned to her original vessel.

• Eileen grieved over her new body's 66.6-centimeter height and learned she could not change vessels again for several months.
• Eileen explained that she was a living doll created by the Ancestor of Dolls and that her sisters sometimes operated in the Crossroads, including Boundary City.
• Eileen thanked Yu Sheng for preparing her body and promised to help him, agreeing to start with a hundred years.
• Eileen suddenly collapsed and went limp, then called to Yu Sheng from the table, saying she was back inside her original vessel.

Yu Sheng and Eileen discovered that Eileen could inhabit her puppet body only within a limited distance of the painting that remained her foundation. Eileen adapted by strapping the painting to her back, and the pair prepared to study the passage back to the valley.

• Eileen repeatedly switched between her painting and puppet body as Yu Sheng tested the distance that kept her connected.
• Yu Sheng and Eileen concluded that the painting remained her foundation and that her puppet body lost its connection when she moved too far away.
• Eileen asked whether carrying her prison meant she had escaped, then tried to carry the oversized painting herself.
• Yu Sheng tied ropes to the frame so Eileen could wear it on her back, letting her move around without exceeding the distance limit.
• Eileen cheered up and joined Yu Sheng to make dinner and begin studying the passage back to the valley.

Li Lin and Xu Jiali met Little Red Riding Hood, who joined their investigation of anomalies on Wutong Road. At home, Eileen celebrated her newfound mobility, then agreed to help Yu Sheng confront the fox and demonstrated her doll abilities.

• Li Lin and Xu Jiali discussed Xu Jiali’s beam dagger and the equipment restricted by customs in The Crossroads.
• Little Red Riding Hood introduced herself to Li Lin and Xu Jiali as their temporary specialist for the neighborhood, then left in the shape of a shadowy wolf.
• Eileen eagerly ran around Yu Sheng’s home carrying her painting, climbed onto furniture, and turned on the television herself.
• Eileen explained that carrying the painting made her feel secure, and she confirmed she still planned to go with Yu Sheng to deal with the fox.
• Eileen admitted her small body limited her in a head-on fight, then showed Yu Sheng how black threads spread from her fingertips and formed a net.

Yu Sheng and Eileen planned to use a dream connection through Huli to locate the Otherworld valley, despite the risk of exposing Yu Sheng to Entity-Hunger. Eileen guided Yu Sheng into Huli’s dream, but discovered she had entered it trapped inside her painting again.

• Eileen proposed linking to Huli’s senses through a dream so Yu Sheng could establish a navigation point to the valley, warning that the connection could expose him to Entity-Hunger.
• Yu Sheng agreed to try the plan, and Eileen promised to help him enter the right dream while warning him not to test the danger by dying.
• Eileen stumbled off the sofa and got caught in her painting frame, then kept distracting Yu Sheng as he prepared to sleep.
• Eileen guided Yu Sheng into Huli’s dream, where he saw the silver-white demon fox sleeping in the wilderness.
• Yu Sheng noticed Eileen was guiding him from inside her painting, and Eileen realized she had been pulled into it again.

Yu Sheng entered Huli’s dream to establish a direct connection and prepare to rescue her from the valley. As Hunger overwhelmed him, he remained conscious in The Depths and finally glimpsed enormous limbs or shadows within the darkness.

• Eileen warned Yu Sheng that Hunger would notice him in Huli’s dream and promised to pull him out if his mind became unstable.
• Yu Sheng and Eileen descended into Huli’s dream, where he found her beside the wreckage of a massive crashed vessel.
• Yu Sheng told Huli he would save her and asked her to let him sense her surroundings through their connection; Huli agreed and felt less hungry.
• Eileen helped Yu Sheng form a stronger connection with Huli, allowing him to sense the valley’s cold, decayed atmosphere.
• Hunger’s madness overwhelmed Yu Sheng, who watched his soul be devoured and revived while he wandered through The Depths.
• Yu Sheng remained beneath Hunger’s gaze and eventually spotted enormous limbs or shadows floating in The Depths.

Yu Sheng established a deep link with the entity of hunger and discovered that it was developing genuine thought, but the contact left hunger rooted in his mind. He woke in pain, and Eileen warned that the influence could grow as they prepared to hunt the entity instance.

• Yu Sheng's mind connected with hunger, which tried to consume him as he sensed himself feeding on the entity.
• Eileen's cry interrupted the connection, and Yu Sheng was forcibly awakened in agony.
• Yu Sheng told Eileen that hunger was learning to think and explained what he had seen through their link.
• Eileen panicked that hunger had taken root in Yu Sheng's mind, and Yu Sheng suggested they kill the entity instance before it could grow.
• Yu Sheng tried to get up, discovered bite marks on his arm, and Eileen admitted she had bitten him to wake him before fleeing the room.

Yu Sheng opened an unusually large passage to the Otherworld while trying to take Eileen and supplies to Huli, pulling a nearby Special Operations Bureau surveillance team and Little Red Riding Hood into a night-shrouded valley. The agents realized they had fallen into a Wilderness-type Otherworld, while Li Lin offered them instant noodles.

• Yu Sheng caught Eileen as she tried to run, forgave her for biting him, and said they would head to the valley.
• Xu Jiali and Li Lin watched the quiet neighborhood while Little Red Riding Hood monitored the street from a rooftop and did her homework.
• Eileen armed herself with a kitchen cleaver, and Yu Sheng prepared food for Huli before opening the door.
• Yu Sheng opened a passage far larger than expected, causing the neighborhood to begin transforming into an Otherworld.
• Xu Jiali and Li Lin were dragged into a night-shrouded valley with Little Red Riding Hood, and Xu Jiali identified it as a Wilderness-type Otherworld.
• Li Lin looked at the two agents and Little Red Riding Hood and offered them instant noodles.

Yu Sheng and Eileen entered Nightfall Valley to find Huli, while Li Lin, Xu Jiali, and Little Red Riding Hood struggled to prepare for the dangerous Hunger entity. Yu Sheng reunited with Huli and promised she would have plenty of food.

• Yu Sheng and Eileen crossed into the desolate valley, carrying supplies and heading toward the ruined temple to search for Huli.
• Li Lin and Xu Jiali identified the area as a dangerous wilderness-type Otherworld and injected sanity blockers to guard against Hunger's mental attacks.
• Xu Jiali told Little Red Riding Hood to preserve her strength for battle, warning Li Lin that her wolves would eat her if hunger overcame her.
• Yu Sheng and Eileen searched the temple ruins until Huli emerged and joyfully recognized Yu Sheng.
• Yu Sheng set down the food he had brought and promised Huli she would no longer go hungry.

Yu Sheng fed the starving Huli and helped stabilize her, while the Hunger Entity stirred in the valley. Elsewhere in the forest, Little Red Riding Hood, Li Lin, and Xu Jiali fought the monster before it vanished into thickening fog, forcing them to flee.

• Yu Sheng gave Huli food, and she ate ravenously before sharing bread with him and calming down enough to meet Eileen.
• Eileen explained that she had helped Yu Sheng contact Huli, while Huli tried to share her biscuits with the living doll.
• Yu Sheng sensed that feeding Huli had stirred the Hunger Entity, and the group heard wolves howling nearby.
• Little Red Riding Hood and a pack of wolves confronted the fleshly beast as Li Lin and Xu Jiali ambushed it.
• The monster vanished into thickening fog as strange phantoms appeared throughout the forest, and Xu Jiali urged everyone to run out.

Yu Sheng and Eileen confronted Entity—Hunger as the Otherworld stirred around them, and Yu Sheng used a doorway to a lake of magma as his weapon. The monster was trapped in Eileen’s threads, but its fate remained unresolved as Yu Sheng prepared to throw it through the portal.

• Huli trembled and repeated that the valley’s ominous awakening had happened when the immortal died.
• Entity—Hunger appeared near the ruined temple, and Yu Sheng warned Eileen about its shifting limbs and told Huli to stay back.
• Yu Sheng and Eileen agreed to attack together, with Eileen restraining the monster while Yu Sheng opened a door into a lake of magma.
• Yu Sheng sensed the monster’s attack in advance and rushed through its strike while Eileen’s black threads bound its body.
• Yu Sheng opened a large portal to the magma lake and shouted for Eileen to throw Entity—Hunger inside.

Yu Sheng, Eileen, and their unexpected allies forced the flesh monster through Yu Sheng’s gate into Hellfire, with Huli’s explosive tail attack delivering the final blow. After the gate vanished, Huli warned Yu Sheng that the danger was not over.

• Eileen’s spiderweb dragged the flesh monster toward Yu Sheng’s gate, but the creature tore apart its own body and adapted to escape the threads.
• A pack of phantom wolves and a burly man arrived to help drive the monster toward the gate, but Eileen’s web broke and the monster began regenerating.
• Huli charged the monster despite being pinned by bone spikes, then launched one of her tails as a blue-flamed projectile and knocked the creature fully through the gate.
• Yu Sheng closed the gate after the monster disappeared, and Eileen collapsed while the newly arrived allies gathered among the ruins.
• Yu Sheng discovered Huli had lost a tail, and she warned him that they could not rest because the danger was not over.