Chapter Summaries

Yu Sheng settled Huli into an empty room in his house while Eileen enthusiastically offered to help move things. At a clinic, Doctor Lin treated Little Red Riding Hood’s injuries, assessed her recurring wolf-related dreams, and warned her to protect herself as she continued to recover.

• Yu Sheng chose the furnished second-floor room for Huli and asked her to help move its stored belongings into the basement.
• Eileen volunteered to help, and Yu Sheng warned her against carrying heavy things before she kicked him in the knee.
• Doctor Lin treated Little Red Riding Hood’s injured arm by cutting her own arm, which caused the wound and its black patterns to disappear from the girl.
• Little Red Riding Hood described her recent dream, and Doctor Lin judged her temporarily stable but still at risk after she had been caught by the wolf.
• Doctor Lin urged Little Red Riding Hood to survive and rely on the wolves protecting her, then gave her a No. 2 Intervention Agent and reminded her of her unpaid bills.

Captain Song and the Special Operations Bureau investigated Yu Sheng after he left the Otherworld, finding that the humanlike man had existed in Crossroads records for decades despite his identity being marked canceled. The Bureau decided to study him cautiously and escalate the case while Yu Sheng remained unaware of their suspicions.

• Song Cheng questioned Li Lin and Xu Jiali about Yu Sheng, the Dark Angel, and the Gate Opener, and learned Yu Sheng seemed entirely human and had fought the Hunger Entity.
• A clerk revealed that Yu Sheng’s canceled identity still had decades of active records, including ordinary transactions and the nonexistent address No. 66 Wutong Road.
• Song Cheng learned Yu Sheng worked as a freelance writer and ordered the Bureau to collect his writing, assess his personality, and monitor his future work without alerting him.
• Xu Jiali explained that Yu Sheng’s supposed spatial rift had apparently resulted from trying to open a door to rescue the demon fox, though the attempt had shaken the Bureau.
• Song Cheng told Li Lin and Xu Jiali to undergo examinations and take three days off while he brought Yu Sheng’s case to the higher-ups.

Song Cheng and Baili Qing discussed how to approach Yu Sheng and investigate the newly emerged Dark Angel, while Song Cheng planned to seek information aboard the train. At home, Yu Sheng prepared a room for Huli, but Eileen reminded him that No. 66 Wutong Road did not exist and deliveries would be impossible.

• Baili Qing told Song Cheng to treat Yu Sheng according to the standards for a person and preserve his human self-awareness.
• Baili Qing confirmed that the enormous Dark Angel from Nightfall Valley was new, and Song Cheng suggested Huli might know about it.
• Song Cheng received approval to ride the train and ask about Yu Sheng, with a warning to stay cautious.
• Yu Sheng and Eileen finished setting up Huli's room, and Huli happily settled into her new home.
• Yu Sheng planned to buy Huli more necessities, but Eileen pointed out that deliveries could not reach No. 66 Wutong Road because it did not exist.

Yu Sheng told Eileen he intended to seek out the Otherworld and find a place from his memories, though he promised to return. He began considering how to get involved, while Huli slept safely in her new home and Eileen refused to leave his room.

• Huli fell asleep almost immediately, and her tails knocked Eileen into a wall when she tried to tuck her in.
• Yu Sheng carried the cursing Eileen from Huli’s room and discussed his plans to actively deal with the Otherworld.
• Yu Sheng admitted that curiosity about the worlds beyond the doors drew him toward the Otherworld and that he wanted to find a place he remembered.
• Eileen worried Yu Sheng might not come back, and he promised he would return after finding the place.
• Yu Sheng and Eileen considered whether he should become a Spirit Realm Detective or investigator, and Yu Sheng wondered how to get Huli an ID.
• Eileen announced she would sleep in Yu Sheng’s room, and Yu Sheng argued with her to go back to her own.

Song Cheng entered the Otherworld train to ask Passenger 22 about Yu Sheng, No. 66 Wutong Road, and Nightfall Valley. Passenger 22 knew neither the address nor Yu Sheng, revealed that Nightfall Valley’s stop had been canceled, and Song Cheng returned to the crowded subway with a newspaper image of a gigantic eye lingering in his thoughts.

• Song Cheng used the salve-soaked parchment to pass from the crowded subway car into the strange cars of the Otherworld train.
• Song Cheng navigated the train’s numbered cars until he found Passenger 22 in Car Twenty-Two.
• Passenger 22 said the train had no stop at No. 66 Wutong Road and directed Song Cheng to the Storyteller for information about Yu Sheng.
• Passenger 22 said a traveler had left Nightfall Valley, but its stop had been canceled; Song Cheng saw a newspaper headline, “After the Feast,” showing a gigantic eye above a valley.
• Passenger 22 asked about the weather, and Song Cheng warned him that rain had started after noticing water on his briefcase.
• Song Cheng returned to the ordinary crowded subway as it slowed into a station.

Yu Sheng woke to Eileen’s demands and Huli’s nervous waiting, then prepared to take the fox girl shopping. After Huli revealed that her ears were detachable and transformed to look like a local of Boundary City, Yu Sheng remained unsure what to make of her unusual abilities.

• Yu Sheng combed Eileen’s hair after she complained that she could not manage the oversized comb.
• Yu Sheng noticed that he felt healthier and more hopeful than he had in months.
• Yu Sheng found Huli waiting nervously outside his bedroom and told her he would take her shopping.
• Huli removed her ears and hid them with her tails, startling Yu Sheng and Eileen.
• Huli explained her transformation training and changed her hair and eyes to resemble Yu Sheng’s.

Yu Sheng welcomed Huli into his home and prepared to take her and Eileen outside, discovering more about Huli’s tails along the way. At the Special Operations Bureau, Song Cheng reported that Passenger 22 said Nightfall Valley’s station had been canceled, prompting Baili Qing to order an immediate deep dive.

• Huli eagerly ate her first hot meal at Yu Sheng’s table, and Eileen offered her untouched portion.
• Yu Sheng improvised outdoor clothes for Huli, while Eileen persuaded him to let her come along disguised as an ordinary doll.
• Huli explained that her refined tails had different uses and stored Eileen’s painting frame in one of them.
• Song Cheng told Baili Qing that Passenger 22 had said the Nightfall Valley station was canceled.
• Baili Qing ordered a deep-diver to carry out a deep dive immediately.

Yu Sheng took Huli and Eileen out to buy clothes, while Huli described her strange, star-traveling homeland and its spirit-powered vehicles. When Yu Sheng struggled to figure out how to choose clothes for Huli, he ran into Little Red Riding Hood, who agreed to help in exchange for a favor later.

• Yu Sheng guided Huli through Boundary City and explained that its cars were not living spirits like the vehicles in her homeland.
• Huli recalled that a powerful Heavenly Being had enlightened her people, and that her father worked on star routes and piloted a starship.
• Eileen urged Yu Sheng to focus on finding Huli proper clothes before his challenge.
• Yu Sheng spotted Little Red Riding Hood outside a shopping mall and asked her to help choose clothes for Huli.
• Little Red Riding Hood agreed to help, but asked Yu Sheng to do something for her later.

Yu Sheng helped Little Red Riding Hood replace homework destroyed by a physical entity while she took Huli shopping. Meanwhile, Song Cheng and Baili Qing sent deep divers into a deep-dive zone to investigate Nightfall Valley, but the divers returned after encountering a passage filled with comprehensive exam questions.

• Little Red Riding Hood asked Yu Sheng to copy a math exam after a physical entity tore up her completed homework, and he agreed while lending her money to shop with Huli.
• Yu Sheng told Huli to stay with Little Red Riding Hood and use Eileen to contact him if anything happened.
• Song Cheng met Baili Qing at the D2 Submergence Port, where six armed deep divers prepared to enter the Spirit Realm using the submergence equipment.
• The deep divers disappeared into the pale-blue tanks, but technicians detected contamination and triggered an emergency stop that brought them back.
• One deep diver reported that the passage ended in a beam of light and contained no Nightfall Valley, only comprehensive exam questions.

After a disastrous Deep Divers mission left the Special Operations Bureau unable to explain what had contaminated its operatives, Baili Qing decided not to contact Yu Sheng in person. Yu Sheng was nevertheless confronted by Baili Qing when the café around him transformed into an endless, colorless space.

• Song Cheng and Baili Qing watched support staff treat six Deep Divers, and Baili Qing concluded that the math problem they mentioned was probably only an impression of the real source of contamination.
• Baili Qing told Song Cheng not to contact Yu Sheng.
• Yu Sheng copied high school test papers in a café while Eileen reported that she and Little Red Riding Hood were shopping with Huli.
• The café became silent and stretched endlessly into white fog as indistinct shadows moved outside its windows.
• Baili Qing appeared across from Yu Sheng, introduced herself as Director of the Special Operations Bureau, and noticed that he was copying math problems.

Yu Sheng met Special Operations Bureau director Baili Qing, who explained that his door-opening had caused disturbances across the Crossroads and asked him to register and limit its use. She also described the Bureau’s role and vast jurisdiction, and Yu Sheng’s next question was whether there was only one Boundary City.

• Yu Sheng asked Baili Qing why the Bureau’s director had personally come to meet him, and she said his life between the Otherworld and the Crossroads made his circumstances unusual.
• Yu Sheng opened a door to demonstrate his ability, but Baili Qing stopped him and explained that each opening triggered a temporal fluctuation detected across the Crossroads.
• Baili Qing asked Yu Sheng to reduce or report frequent door openings and offered to register him under a legal identity while adjusting the Bureau’s monitoring; Yu Sheng agreed and asked about the Bureau.
• Baili Qing explained that the Special Operations Bureau served the Council as the Crossroads’ highest authority over supernatural affairs and protected the city from threats arriving through the network of routes connecting countless places.
• Baili Qing told Yu Sheng that at least ten of his more than one hundred rifts had led to locations billions of light-years away, and Yu Sheng asked whether there was only one Boundary City.

Yu Sheng told Baili Qing about the ordinary seaside city he remembered, which resembled Boundary City, and she used her ability to see his memories. He also learned that Alice’s Cabin was an ancient, powerful faction, leaving him to reconsider Eileen’s claims about her origins.

• Yu Sheng asked whether another Boundary City could exist, and Baili Qing explained that the Crossroads and Terra were believed to have no mirrors.
• Yu Sheng described the ordinary seaside city he had seen and told Baili Qing he wanted to find it.
• Baili Qing touched Yu Sheng’s temple and used her ability to view his memories; the café briefly collapsed as an aftereffect.
• Baili Qing confirmed she had seen the city and said it might exist, promising Yu Sheng he would be the first to know if she found it.
• Yu Sheng asked about Alice’s Cabin, and Baili Qing explained that it was an independent faction whose ancient members served the Ancient Holy Spirit Alice.
• Yu Sheng told Baili Qing that Eileen claimed to belong to Alice’s Dolls, then awkwardly acknowledged that Eileen’s small size was due to another accident.

Yu Sheng asked Baili Qing to help find Eileen and Huli’s origins and arrange identification for the people he had rescued. He learned what official registration could offer and considered becoming an investigator, while Baili Qing explained the requirements for investigators and registered organizations.

• Baili Qing explained how Alice's Dolls communicated with The Crossroads and agreed to ask them about Eileen.
• Yu Sheng asked Baili Qing to help arrange ID cards for Huli and Eileen, and to search for Huli’s homeland based on her memories.
• Baili Qing said the Special Operations Bureau might not have records matching Huli’s account, but agreed to look into it.
• Baili Qing described the benefits of registering as an investigator, including information services, support facilities, legal recognition, and travel permits.
• Yu Sheng asked about investigator qualifications, and Baili Qing explained the requirements for Independent Investigators, Spirit Realm Detectives, and registered organizations.

Yu Sheng met Baili Qing, chief of the Special Operations Bureau, who agreed to arrange registrations for him, Eileen, and Huli and urged him to check on Nightfall Valley. After his friends returned from shopping, Baili Qing returned to bureau headquarters and summoned Song Cheng and Luo Zheng.

• Yu Sheng asked Baili Qing to register a group with Eileen and Huli, and she said she would arrange their identity cards and paperwork.
• Baili Qing told Yu Sheng that Nightfall Valley’s condition was unknown and suggested he investigate if his door could still reach it.
• After Baili Qing vanished from the café, Yu Sheng resumed Little Red Riding Hood’s homework and worried about Nightfall Valley.
• Little Red Riding Hood and Huli returned with new clothes and shopping bags, with Eileen resentfully trapped inside one of them.
• Yu Sheng told Little Red Riding Hood that Baili Qing had visited him, and she was shocked that the bureau chief had come in person.
• At Special Operations Bureau headquarters, Baili Qing summoned Song Cheng and Luo Zheng to her office.

Baili Qing showed Song Cheng and Luo Zheng a vision of another Boundary City that Yu Sheng had described, raising questions about his unusual perception and identity. She ordered the Second Brigade to support matters involving Yu Sheng and No. 66 Wutong Road, including arranging legal identities for his companions and helping him register as a Spirit Realm Detective.

• Baili Qing sealed her office and showed Song Cheng and Luo Zheng the crimson-lit city Yu Sheng believed was another Boundary City.
• Luo Zheng suggested the vision was an Otherworld, while Baili Qing said it might instead be an Anomaly formed from memory or story.
• Song Cheng concluded that Yu Sheng perceived a different world, and Baili Qing said he seemed human and had adapted well to their world.
• Baili Qing told Song Cheng to assign the Second Brigade to matters involving Yu Sheng and No. 66 Wutong Road.
• Baili Qing said Yu Sheng wanted legal identities for his two companions and to register as a Spirit Realm Detective, so Song Cheng was to find someone suitable to handle it.

Yu Sheng tested who could perceive and enter No. 66 Wutong Road, then invited Little Red Riding Hood inside for dinner. The chapter ended with Little Red Riding Hood settling into the mansion’s strange domestic atmosphere and learning that Huli’s odd hospitality included offering her a gnawed chicken leg.

• Yu Sheng discovered that Huli and Eileen could see No. 66 Wutong Road, but Little Red Riding Hood could not, and suspected his blood had connected him to the others.
• Yu Sheng offered Little Red Riding Hood his blood as an experiment, but she refused.
• Yu Sheng asked Huli to open the mansion’s door, and she did, confirming that she and Eileen could enter and leave freely.
• Yu Sheng invited Little Red Riding Hood to stay for dinner, and she entered the mansion and began doing homework while Eileen watched television.
• Huli was kicked out of the kitchen for eating spices, then offered Little Red Riding Hood a chicken leg.
• Little Red Riding Hood called home to say she would eat dinner at a friend’s place, mentioned that her parents had died, and watched Huli offer her the chicken leg again.

Yu Sheng invited Little Red Riding Hood to dinner, where his unusual household and cooking unnerved her, then asked about Spirit Realm Detective work and said he might become her colleague. After she left, Yu Sheng opened a door to revisit the valley and investigate something Baili Qing had told him, only then wondering whether he should have notified the Special Operations Bureau.

• Yu Sheng served Little Red Riding Hood a meal that included meat from the Entity—Hunger, alarming her, while Huli and Eileen treated the food and household routines as normal.
• Little Red Riding Hood explained that Spirit Realm Detectives often took commissions through the Special Operations Bureau's Border Communication platform and shared two basic rules for the job.
• Yu Sheng told Little Red Riding Hood that he might soon become her colleague, and she left dinner looking dazed.
• Yu Sheng told Eileen that Baili Qing's words had prompted him to revisit the valley, despite Eileen's concern that it might be a trap.
• Yu Sheng opened a door to the valley and wondered whether he should have informed the Special Operations Bureau first.

Yu Sheng returned to Nightfall Valley and found it peaceful, with its entities and decay gone. When his connection to the valley caused new life to grow, he summoned Eileen and Huli to investigate further, while Baili Qing confirmed his trip had triggered a disturbance.

• Yu Sheng crossed into Nightfall Valley and found the ruined landscape empty of entities, blood, and the stench of decay.
• Yu Sheng sensed a new blade of grass, and the soil responded to his touch as ravines closed and shoots emerged.
• Yu Sheng returned home and called Eileen and Huli to come examine the valley with him.
• Baili Qing called Yu Sheng, confirmed that his door had caused a disturbance, and offered support from the Special Operations Bureau.
• Yu Sheng found Huli secretly eating sesame paste while washing dishes and told her to clean up before joining him.

Yu Sheng brought Huli and Eileen back to the valley, where they discovered that Entity-Hunger had vanished and the Otherworld was changing. Yu Sheng’s connection to the land began restoring it, and he suggested exploring beyond the valley.

• Yu Sheng reassured Huli and led her and Eileen through the door to the valley’s Otherworld.
• Eileen sensed that the valley’s atmosphere had changed and now resembled No. 66 Wutong Road, while Huli sensed that Entity-Hunger was gone.
• Yu Sheng touched the damaged ground, and the soil healed and small patches of green appeared around him.
• Eileen explained that Entities normally persisted as long as their Otherworlds existed, but suspected Entity-Hunger might be gone because the valley had changed.
• Huli hugged Yu Sheng in relief after he told her Entity-Hunger seemed unlikely to return, then let go when she nearly crushed him.
• Yu Sheng asked Huli and Eileen if they wanted to explore beyond the valley.

Yu Sheng, Eileen, and Huli set out to cross the mountain range that had once been impassable. Huli carried them past the barrier and reached the summit, where they found more mountains stretching endlessly beyond the valley.

• Yu Sheng asked Huli about crossing the mountains, and she described how the terrifying sky sounds and strange effects had stopped past attempts.
• Yu Sheng decided they should walk to the mountains, but Huli transformed into a giant silver-white demon fox and offered to carry him and Eileen.
• Huli raced across the valley with Yu Sheng and Eileen riding on her back, using foxfire to propel herself up the slope.
• Huli crossed the mountainside line without encountering the force that had stopped earlier travelers and continued toward the summit.
• Huli stopped near the summit and showed Yu Sheng that mountains continued without end beyond the valley.