Door

All the sounds blended together. Frenzied thoughts clashed and tore at the demon fox's last shred of reason. Yu Sheng heard Huli's anguished whimpers beside him, but his mind roared with even more deranged, chaotic voices—the demon fox's appetite teetering on the brink of control, a hunger that seemed to gouge at his heart and pierce his bones, the bewitchment of chaos and darkness, and... shouts urging him to run.

Yu Sheng sucked in a sharp breath, lowered his body, and charged toward a gap between the demon fox and the monster. But he did not flee as Huli urged him to. Instead, he casually snatched up a broken bluestone slab from the ground, hugged it to himself, and rushed toward the monster's side.

He knew perfectly well that he probably still couldn't beat this monster. But he also knew that human legs alone could never get him out of here. On top of that, the place was littered with collapsed walls and ruins blocking the way. The only open exit leading outside the ruined temple had been completely sealed off by the monster's enormous body. Trying to flee recklessly under these circumstances would probably only get him killed faster.

He might as well grit his teeth and make a charge. He couldn't win, but since he wasn't afraid of dying, he had a chance to trade his life for some results before he died. And if he was lucky enough to distract the monster, perhaps Huli would get a chance to break free of that terrifying restraint. She was still struggling to maintain her reason. If she really got free, there might even be a chance to turn the tables...

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant. Yu Sheng knew his plan was far from thorough, but he had no time to worry about that. With no other choice, he hardened his resolve. His body once again erupted with tremendous strength that even he found baffling, hurling the heavy bluestone slab at the fleshly behemoth like a cannonball.

The next second, he had no time to check the "results" of his attack. A huge sense of danger surged from the depths of his heart. Yu Sheng "saw" the monster's counterattack a second in advance and abruptly leaped aside.

A black shadow like a steel whip slammed into the spot where he had been standing. It was a snake tail that had suddenly split from the monster's surface. In an instant, earth and stone flew everywhere. Sturdy bluestone and broken bricks and tiles were reduced to dust. Yu Sheng felt a powerful shockwave in midair, while fragments struck his body like bullets, clanging against him like metal striking stone.

Yu Sheng had no time to care about the pain. After landing, he rolled rapidly to evade the snake tail's pursuit, while the corner of his eye swept toward Huli.

The silver-white demon fox struggled violently amid countless black spikes and fragments of bone. The ghostly blue flames burning near her tails flickered wildly, as if they might explode out of control at any moment.

Yet she remained firmly trapped. Those things restraining her seemed to have been tailored specifically for her, and Yu Sheng's interference from the side had accomplished nothing.

In fact, Yu Sheng could tell at a glance that this Fox Girl was countless times stronger than him. Yet before that monster, she had no power to fight back at all. There was clearly some very obvious... "suppression" between the monster and her.

But at the beginning, out in the open space beyond the ruined temple, she had still charged over without hesitation to "save" him. Although she had ultimately failed to save him, she had genuinely come to help at the time.

The memory flashed past. Yu Sheng gritted his teeth and wanted to charge again, to see whether he could use his old method of trading his life for a chance to gnaw another piece off the monster.

He didn't know where the extra strength and regenerative ability in his body had come from, but he remembered that before these changes first appeared, he had bitten a piece of flesh off the monster.

He wasn't sure whether the two things were connected, but there was no other path before him. Since he wasn't afraid to die, he might as well test every bold theory in his mind.

"Don't... worry about me!" Huli's voice came again just then. "It can't kill... me. You, run!"

"It's fine. It can't kill me either." Yu Sheng spat out a mouthful of blood foam—the injury he had suffered when the airborne rubble struck his chin earlier. He turned to glance at the silver-white demon fox, a delighted smile on his face. "I might die later, but don't worry. I'll come back for you."

Huli's struggle paused for a moment, as if she had fallen into confusion.

Yu Sheng offered no explanation. He simply walked toward the monster, his steps light and the smile on his face growing more pronounced.

There was a joy in that smile like someone heading to a feast.

"Don't you like urging people to eat?" He looked at the fleshly behemoth ahead and muttered to himself, "Fine. I'll come eat you!"

He leaped into the air and pounced at the banquet table like a starving wolf.

The dozens of eyes covering the fleshly monster's body trembled violently. For the first time, a trace of hesitation and... shrinking fear seemed to surface in those chaotic, frenzied eyes.

Muffled roars came from its many enormous mouths. Then several tentacle-like "snake tails" covered in black scales split from its mass of flesh and stabbed toward Yu Sheng in midair.

Yu Sheng felt his body being pierced. Fatal wounds—he didn't know how many. He felt his life beginning to ebb away, his warm blood carrying his vitality with it.

But that indescribable... "appetite" had already surged from the depths of his heart. He ignored the pain in his body and all his resistance and unease toward death. Hugging the snake tail that had pierced his abdomen, he grinned and lowered his head to bite down—

The monster let out a strange, shrill howl and violently whipped the snake tail, as if trying to fling off a deadly poisonous insect clinging to its body.

Yet Yu Sheng clung desperately to the tail and refused to let go no matter how fiercely it whipped him. The snake tail slammed him into the ground, then smashed through a nearby crumbling wall. His resilient body remained unharmed by the lethal impact, and the pain instead made him even more clearheaded.

Just then, the snake tail rose high again and whipped toward a large, collapsing hole in the ruined temple wall.

A strange golden glint suddenly flashed at the edge of his vision.

Yu Sheng struggled to raise his head amid the wind howling beside his ears. He saw the golden glint rapidly approaching. Before he could make out what it was, he instinctively raised a hand to block it.

His hand caught something—it was a doorknob.

Yu Sheng: "...?"

A faint creak mingled with the howling wind. In Yu Sheng's mind, the image of a door suddenly appeared—a plain, ordinary door, leading somewhere, leading to...

The instant a place he subconsciously thought of surfaced in his mind, he pulled the door open.

The next moment, Yu Sheng and the black-scaled snake tail fell through the doorway. Then, accompanied by a sharp creak, the door slammed shut.

The fleshly monster's snake tail was severed by the door that had appeared and vanished without warning. A chaotic howl capable of driving listeners mad echoed through the valley. The wound seemed to send it into a frenzy. It roared through the ruins of the temple, charging wildly and biting everything within its field of vision, even its own body. Only after who knew how long did it gradually calm down. Its body once again became a shadow of dark nothingness and slowly dissolved into the night.

The black spikes and fragments of bone vanished without a sound. The battered silver-white demon fox fell to the ground, motionless, as if dead.

Several minutes later, Huli finally opened her eyes. She stared blankly at her surroundings, the golden-red pupils seemingly stripped of all human intelligence.

A long while later, her gaze finally focused on somewhere in the ruins.

It was the steps where she and her "benefactor" had sat together earlier.

She dragged her enormous demon-fox body over and slowly moved there. When she saw the plastic bags and leftover scraps scattered beneath the steps, she lowered her head and swallowed them all, whimpering as she did so.

But she was still hungry.

The bewitching voice was like a demon that would never disperse, coaxing her from the very depths of her hunger—

"Eat. You know where there's more food to fill your belly...

"You buried them in the woods...

"Bones, flesh, and blood...

"Go. Eat. Once you eat, you won't be hungry..."

The demon fox lowered her head and whimpered as if crying. Then she curled up beneath the steps, slowly stretching out her neck to gnaw at the broken bricks and rubble beside her. She dug up the dirt and rotten wood beneath the ruins and slowly stuffed them into her mouth, chewing and chewing.

"I'm not hungry... I'm not hungry... Someone gave me food... He'll come back soon and bring me more... I'm not hungry..."

She gnawed like this until, just as she had throughout the many years of the past, she gradually passed out.

The sensation of constantly falling jolted Yu Sheng awake from his dazed stupor. The "feeling" of gripping the doorknob still lingered in his hand, but the next moment, he realized that he had crossed some kind of boundary.

He opened his eyes in astonishment and saw that he was lying by the roadside. Familiar streetlights and utility poles filled his view, along with the low, old houses on Wutong Road.

The weathered outer wall and gate of No. 66 Wutong Road stood not far ahead, silhouetted in the faint morning light.

He laboriously turned his head and saw the phantom of a gate slowly fading away. Deep within it, he could still vaguely make out the valley shrouded in night, the ruins of the ruined temple, and...

The white fox struggling to move through the ruins.

Yu Sheng tried to reach a hand toward the white fox.

But the last remaining shadow faded before his fingertips could touch it.

A note about future updates: From now on, there will be two updates every Monday through Friday, and one update each on Saturday and Sunday. That's already this old man's () limit...