Chapter Summaries

Yu Sheng decided to seek out professionals who dealt with the Otherworld, but learned from Eileen that he could find their hidden contact information himself. Suspecting that eating the monster had changed him, he cooked its severed tail to see what would happen.

• Yu Sheng questioned how long it would take Otherworld professionals to respond, and Eileen admitted she could not remember clearly.
• Yu Sheng decided to find the professionals himself and asked Eileen about changes caused by contact with the Otherworld.
• Eileen explained that spiritually awakened people might see hidden contact information, while Yu Sheng described his unusual strength, recovery, and resurrection.
• Yu Sheng went to the kitchen to prepare the severed tail he had brought back from the monster, alarming Eileen when she realized what he meant.
• Yu Sheng cut up the tail and cooked it, reasoning that eating it might make him stronger again.

Yu Sheng cooked and ate meat from the Otherworld while Eileen warned him about its dangers and speculated that professionals might be watching his house. After discussing how he could spot them, Yu Sheng put off making Eileen a body, only to be asked to fix the television before he could rest.

• Yu Sheng prepared several dishes from the Otherworld meat and told Eileen he had already eaten it twice, though he did not explain his ability to resurrect.
• Eileen grew curious about the meal, and Yu Sheng served her a portion despite her not being able to eat it.
• Eileen suggested that professionals might be surveilling Yu Sheng and advised him to go out so they could recognize the Otherworld's aura on him.
• Yu Sheng and Eileen inspected people outside from the window, but Eileen told him that guessing who was a professional would not help.
• Eileen asked Yu Sheng again to make her a body, and he postponed the request until he had finished his work.
• Yu Sheng prepared to go upstairs and sleep, but Eileen asked him to fix the television after its signal disappeared.

Yu Sheng questioned Eileen’s unexplained knowledge of the modern world and learned that she remembered little about her past or how she had been trapped in the painting. After going upstairs to rest, he opened the room where he had found her and was astonished by what he saw in its mirror.

• Yu Sheng teased Eileen about expecting a new television, and she offered to work as his assistant if he freed her from the painting.
• Yu Sheng asked how Eileen knew about modern devices despite being trapped for decades, and she admitted she did not know.
• Eileen recalled only that she was one of Alice’s Dolls and had been cursed and trapped while trying to deal with the painting.
• Yu Sheng reassured Eileen that her long confinement might have damaged her memory, then went upstairs to sleep.
• Yu Sheng opened the once-sealed room and found ordinary furnishings, sunlight, and a mirror where Eileen’s painting had hung; his reflection left him astonished.

Yu Sheng found that the room where Eileen’s painting had hung had changed, and its mirror revealed a ruined place where a doll and a gigantic winged shadow had apparently died together. He questioned Eileen about the vision, but she did not recognize the ruins or the doll.

• Yu Sheng entered the once-empty room and found it furnished, with a mirror facing the door.
• When Yu Sheng touched the mirror, its reflection gave way to a vision of a shattered doll and a huge, winged shadow lying among dark ruins.
• Yu Sheng suspected the vision might be connected to Eileen, but the mirror returned to normal and could not be moved.
• Yu Sheng repeatedly checked the room, then went downstairs and asked Eileen about the room and the ruins he had seen.
• Eileen remembered the room as empty and said the scene of the ruins and dead doll did not seem familiar.

Yu Sheng told Eileen about the strange room and mirror, then went to sleep and dreamed of finding Huli unconscious in a wilderness. He suspected their connection came from her bite, but Eileen revealed that she had entered his dream to watch him.

• Yu Sheng described the altered room and mirror to Eileen, who knew nothing about them and worried that he might move away.
• Eileen explained that a damaged doll whose eyes remained open might still be somewhere, and Yu Sheng reassured her that they might find the doll one day.
• Yu Sheng checked the strange room again, then went to bed thinking about Huli and his recent experiences.
• Yu Sheng dreamed of a sleeping silver-furred Huli and found the bite wound on his finger, leading him to suspect that his blood had drawn her into the dream.
• Eileen spoke from the grass, admitting that she had come to watch Yu Sheng dream because television was boring.

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.