Hunger

Huli sat on the steps of the ruined temple with her head lowered, looking somewhat injured.

Yu Sheng also sat on the steps of the ruined temple with his head lowered—he was genuinely injured. The fox fairy had torn off a large chunk of flesh along with the skin when she bit him!

He knew that canines guarded their food, but he had never expected a fox fairy to make such a commotion over food!

"Benefactor..." Huli finally spoke from the side. The white-furred fox sounded as if she were about to cry. "I'm sorry, I... I couldn't hold back. I hurt you... again..."

"Yes, you hurt me again, but it's much lighter than the first time we met." Yu Sheng sighed in despair. Looking at the bloodstains at the corners of Huli's mouth, he thought, Fortunately, she only bit me. When I first met this girl, that headbutt at subsonic speed left a much bigger wound. I was practically amputated from the neck down...

When Huli heard this, she only tilted her head in confusion. She clearly still couldn't remember what Yu Sheng meant by "the first time we met." Yu Sheng had already tried asking around the subject several times, but she had reacted the same way each time.

"Benefactor, what you said... Did we really meet once before, outside the ruined temple?"

"You don't remember anything?" Yu Sheng couldn't help frowning. "I was fighting some hideous-looking thing at the time. You rushed over and said you wanted to help, then—bang!—everything went black. When I woke up, I was here, and you were wandering around outside."

Huli narrowed her eyes as if struggling to recall something. After a moment, the pair of furry ears atop her head drooped along with them, as though the process of remembering was exceedingly difficult.

Yu Sheng lowered his head and glanced at the wound on his hand.

The place where Huli had bitten him was healing at a visible speed. Countless tiny shoots emerged between the torn flesh, while the blood seemed to possess a life of its own, writhing and roaming through the gaps in the wound. He... even felt as if he could hear faint sounds coming from inside it. His bodily tissues were regenerating, his severed skin was rejoining, and everything... was returning to its intact state.

Within a few minutes, he could no longer feel any pain. Only a slight numb itch remained around the wound.

This wasn't normal. He knew that, of course. A human wound couldn't heal at such a speed. But compared to a wound that healed rapidly, coming back from the dead was even more abnormal.

The changes in his body made Yu Sheng uneasy. Although these changes currently seemed like "good things," he was always worried that some unknown danger—or perhaps some kind of "price"—lay behind them.

People instinctively resisted the unknown and the uncontrollable. For Yu Sheng now, his own body was gradually becoming the greatest unknown in his mind.

Just then, however, a strange sensation abruptly interrupted Yu Sheng's thoughts. He couldn't explain what it was. He only felt as if he had heard some kind of voice, or perhaps some thoughts that had suddenly "invaded" his mind—some... thoughts and memories that did not belong to him. He felt a small part of his mind begin to stir uncontrollably. Then, within that agitated fragment of thought, he sensed another mind—

Mom was gone, Dad was gone, and all the uncles and aunts were gone. It was so dark. There was poison. It was cold. I was scared. I was hungry. So cold. So hungry. Extremely hungry. The fruit was poisonous. Tree bark couldn't be eaten. Leaves couldn't be eaten. Dirt couldn't be eaten. Stones couldn't be eaten... Couldn't eat them. Couldn't eat anything. Hungry. Extremely hungry. Extremely hungry. Extremely hungry...

An overwhelming hunger swept through Yu Sheng's mind, almost as if it intended to crush his will. Though it was merely a strand of foreign information that had entered his mind, he still felt as if his reason were about to be completely devoured by that hunger. The frantic thoughts roared in his mind, and only when they finally began to weaken did Yu Sheng slowly recover his ability to think. He gradually raised his head and looked at Huli sitting beside him.

The fox girl was slowly licking the corners of her mouth. Yu Sheng saw his blood writhing as if alive on the tip of Huli's tongue, seeping into her skin, seeping into her teeth, seeping into... her soul.

Huli noticed the gaze beside her. She licked the last trace of blood from her lips, raised her head to look at Yu Sheng, and gave him an innocent, harmless, foolish smile.

Yet as Yu Sheng looked at her, it was as though he were looking directly into her soul. He saw... the part of her that was already on the verge of madness. He saw the frenzied hunger beginning to surge and grow deep beneath that smile.

She was hungry. She was still hungry. She was even hungrier than she appeared—perhaps... hungrier than she herself realized.

"Benefactor..." She cautiously looked at Yu Sheng's pocket, a goofy smile on her face. "Do you still... have anything to eat? I feel... my stomach doesn't hurt anymore, but I'm still... a little hungry."

Yu Sheng felt a faint chill crawl up his back. He seemed to have vaguely realized something. At the same time, he was even more curious about how he had "read" the information in Huli's mind just now.

Why... had he been able to see Huli's thoughts and memories?

He recalled the scene he had just witnessed: his blood rapidly seeping into her skin.

Was it because of that?

Just then, he noticed the expression on Huli's face change several times in quick succession.

It was as if she had suddenly remembered something. Her eyes first became dazed, then turned to shock. Huli slowly rose from the steps and stared blankly at Yu Sheng, as if "relearning" the identity of the person before her. Then she suddenly shook her head, raised a hand, and pointed at Yu Sheng in disbelief. "Benefactor... you... you're not dead?!"

Yu Sheng froze.

Huli raised a hand and pressed it hard against her forehead. Her body swayed unsteadily. Conflicting, chaotic memories made her already unstable mind teeter on the brink. Then she finally began recalling those "truths" that had once vanished from her memory—

She remembered her first "encounter" with Yu Sheng. She remembered that terrifying "mistake" she had made at the time. She remembered the sight of her "benefactor" torn to pieces. She remembered the warm blood of a living person. Then... that blood gradually turned into nothingness, the remains disappeared, and the process of Yu Sheng's "death" faded from her memory...

She slowly steadied herself. Her golden-red eyes were murky and confused as she muttered, "Ah, I remember now. Benefactor, we just met, outside in the open ground. I accidentally... But..."

She hesitated and stopped. The rest of her words became an indistinct mumble. Her muddled mind seemed to be gaining the upper hand, sending her thoughts rapidly into chaos.

Yu Sheng blinked. Clearly, Huli had remembered her first meeting with him, as well as the subsonic headbutt. He didn't know how she had suddenly recalled everything. Perhaps it was related to his sudden glimpse into her thoughts and memories just now—but this was obviously not the time to investigate the reason.

Huli's condition was clearly abnormal. Her body began swaying again, as if she would lose her balance at any moment.

Yu Sheng instinctively took half a step forward—but the reaction that followed made him stop dead.

Huli raised her head. Her golden-red eyes seemed filled with bloodlight as she fixed her gaze on Yu Sheng. A low, beastlike whimpering growl rumbled from her throat.

She gradually bent over. The disordered tails behind her slowly unfurled, spreading wildly beneath the night sky. Ghostly blue flames danced and burned at the tip of every tail.

In a beastlike posture, she wantonly released the aura of a predator.

Hunger was rapidly growing in those blood-filled eyes. Through some vague connection, Yu Sheng could almost hear the voice that kept echoing in the depths of the girl's heart—

Benefactor, you smell so good...

Yu Sheng swallowed with difficulty and slowly retreated half a step. Just then, the corner of his eye finally caught sight of something behind Huli... a shadow.

It was a massive shadow spreading from the darkness, inching closer behind Huli. The fox demon's ghostly blue spiritual flames swayed in the night. In their light, the shadow gradually took shape—it seemed to be a chaotic amalgamation of countless savage, twisted beast limbs. Mouths, eyes, and sharp claws grew across the several-meter-tall mass of flesh, as if it were the embodiment of hunger and predation. Behind Huli, the monster let out a low, indistinct roar urging her onward.

Amid those indistinct roars and urging sounds, Huli crouched lower. Silver-white fur spread across her skin. Her cheeks warped, fangs grew, and her human features rapidly receded. Almost in the blink of an eye, the girl who was always smiling foolishly vanished. The enormous silver-white demon fox stood beneath the night sky, its ghostly blue fox-tail flames illuminating the ruined temple and Yu Sheng's face.

Yu Sheng heard a voice carrying intense temptation and a mind-piercing force. It drifted faintly toward him—

"Eat... eat it, and you won't be hungry...

"Feed...

"Feed. Together...

"You're hungry. Eat..."

At first, Yu Sheng thought he was hearing Huli's thoughts, but he soon realized that these were actually words Huli was hearing. The true source of the voice was the hideous-looking monster.

It was urging Huli to feed, urging the fox girl to surrender to her hunger. Its tone sounded as if it were waiting for something it had cultivated for a long time to bloom and bear fruit.

Yu Sheng wanted to shout a warning, to tell Huli not to be bewitched by the voice. He had already vaguely guessed part of the truth. But before he could speak, he felt the terrifying... hunger rising from the depths of Huli's mind.

That hunger was powerful enough to devour all reason and block out every outside voice.

He could only spread his hands before the fox demon with a bitter smile.

"I'm telling you, your mouth and stomach won't balance the books later. When we meet next time, you'll be embarrassed..."

After saying this, he seemed to have finished delivering his last words. He steeled his heart, darkened his expression, bent his knees, lowered his waist, and assumed the opening stance of military boxing.

Military boxing obviously couldn't defeat the Nine-tailed Demon Fox—though she might have seven or eight tails—but it could at least let him die with some dignity.

And what if it worked? His constitution had inexplicably grown much stronger. Yu Sheng felt that perhaps he could land one punch on Huli's nose before dying and make her feel sore for quite a while...

As this pointless thought flashed through his mind, a fierce wind slammed into his face the next second. The enormous silver-white demon fox suddenly soared into the air, and the violent pressure of the wind made Yu Sheng instinctively close his eyes.

The expected death did not come.

Yu Sheng opened his eyes in confusion.

He saw the silver-white demon fox twist around in midair and pounce at the nauseating monster instead. She let out a furious roar that was almost a wail of grief, then opened her jaws and bit down on the monster.

Yet in the next instant, countless black keratin spikes and fragments of black bone burst from within Huli's body, piercing her in numerous places and pinning her firmly in midair.

Yu Sheng stared at the scene in shock. He saw the silver-white demon fox struggle to turn her head in midair as golden-red blood streamed from wounds all over her body, steaming beneath the night sky.

"Benefactor... run..."

{You smell so good...}

"I'm not a monster yet..."

{So hungry...}

"Run!"

{Run!}