Outside, the mountains just kept coming, layer upon layer, as if space itself rippled under an immense pressure.
After recovering from this tumultuous rush of acceleration and dizziness, Yu Sheng finally caught sight of the “repetitive mountains” that Hu Li had described.
The endless mountain ridges spread out like expanding ripples, stretching infinitely within his view.
Between the mountains, a hazy mist shrouded everything, obscuring any outlines apart from the mountains themselves.
Yu Sheng frowned, staring intently at the seemingly replicated mountains that stretched infinitely in the distance.
It suddenly reminded him of the café where he had first met Bai Li Qing—back then, the café also seemed to repeat and extend endlessly until it reached the end of his vision.
Yet, the situation was different: that café only extended endlessly in two directions, and at least its window was a clear “boundary.” But here, with these surrounding mountains… no matter which direction he looked, there was no visible “end.”
“Is there really no way to walk out of here?” Ailin asked, grasping Yu Sheng's head nervously as she looked toward the opposite ridge, “Should we keep going?”
Yu Sheng fell silent and began to focus, recalling the perspectives he had seen when he first connected with the valley, while also sensing his surroundings.
After a moment, he suddenly bent down, picked up a small stone from the ground, and threw it toward the distance.
The stone soared through the air but vanished from sight before it hit the ground.
“Hey?” Ailin exclaimed, surprised at this scene.
Yu Sheng cautiously walked forward to the spot where the stone had disappeared.
Ahead seemed empty, yet there felt as if there were an invisible “boundary.” He bent down once more, picked up another small stone, and gently tossed it forward.
This time, he could clearly see the little stone as it crossed a “boundary.” In that moment of disappearance, a brief and faint ripple spread through the air, much like that on a water surface.
Yu Sheng raised his head and looked along the ridgeline to the left and right.
He felt it.
The mountains rose and fell, converging at a distant point, while the invisible boundary enveloped the entire valley—above in the sky and below in the depths of the earth.
After hesitating for a few seconds, Yu Sheng finally took a deep breath and stepped forward.
“Hey, hey, hey! You’re really going forward!” The little puppet on his shoulder yelled, “I feel like this might be a bit strange! What if we can’t come back…”
Before she could finish her sentence, Yu Sheng had already crossed that invisible boundary.
As the slight, trembling ripple expanded outwards, they felt a momentary sensation of weightlessness, and everything in front of their eyes blurred before they found themselves standing somewhere in the center of the valley again.
“…we can’t go back…” Ailin continued to cry out in surprise until she paused, looking around in disbelief, “Ah, we’re back?”
At that moment, a much larger ripple appeared beside them, and a giant silver-white fox came leaping through the air, appearing next to Yu Sheng and Ailin.
“Benefactor!” Hu Li rushed over, looking a bit anxious.
She sighed in relief upon seeing them standing there safely and gently nudged Yu Sheng with the tip of her tail, “You guys suddenly vanished, it scared me!”
“The space closes at the boundary and points unidirectionally toward the center of the area,” Yu Sheng pondered for a long time, finally breaking the silence, “But I wonder if other foreign realms have this structure as well.”
Ailin stared blankly for a moment before reacting: “So, does that mean we can never reach the ‘outside’?”
“There is no ‘outside’ at all,” Yu Sheng shook his head, “This valley is the only ‘effective’ area in the entire space. The endless mountains we saw earlier are merely the shadows projected by the boundary's closure of space, repeatedly reflected in the bent time and space. If one observes closely, one would find that they are just infinite copies of the surrounding peaks of the valley.”
Ailin opened her eyes wide, and after a long while, finally showed a look of realization: “…wow.”
It was hard to tell if she truly understood or not.
After a moment, Ailin poked Yu Sheng’s head: “So what do we do next?”
Yu Sheng turned his gaze to the silver-white fox beside him.
“Since this place no longer generates entities and has become a stable location… perhaps we can properly bury your parents here, at least create a formal grave. What do you think?” The fox girl tilted her head and nodded gently after a moment of thought.
Finding the resting place for Hu Li’s parents didn’t take long, and for Yu Sheng now, creating a grave wasn’t difficult either.
The two skeletons, hastily buried back then, were cleaned and gathered again.
Yu Sheng made the ground sink and solidify, forming a neat grave hole, and he caused stones to lock into each other, forming a sturdy stone coffin.
Compared to healing a large area of land and quickly growing vegetation, this series of actions was rather simple for him.
The bones were placed into the stone coffin, the coffin was placed into the grave, and the soil shifted and layered over it, quickly forming a mound.
“It still needs a tombstone,” Yu Sheng looked at the newly made mound, noticing the confused expression in Hu Li’s eyes, he explained, “It should stand in front of the grave as a memorial…”
Hu Li immediately nodded: “I’ll go get one.”
With that, the silver-white fox turned and ran off into the distance, accompanied by a series of roaring sounds and a loud bang, she almost disappeared from Yu Sheng and Ailin’s sight in the blink of an eye.
Moments later, she came rushing back, holding a peculiar silver-white metal plate in her mouth, which was about half a person’s height.
“This was a gift from my mom and dad,” Hu Li placed the metal plate down and explained to Yu Sheng, “It’s… a kind of musical instrument. At that time, I kept pestering them to enroll me in a class, so they bought me this, but I never got to learn… Now, it’s broken.”
As she spoke, she skillfully coiled her tail around the metal plate and stuck it firmly into the soil in front of the grave before patting it down with her paws, making the earth as hard as stone.
“Actually, the tombstone isn’t this…” Yu Sheng subconsciously muttered, but cut himself off halfway through and hurriedly swallowed his words, “Forget it, if you think this is appropriate, then it’s decided.”
“In our place, we don’t have these customs,” the silver-white fox lay down beside the grave and gently nudged Yu Sheng’s arm with her nose, “When demons die, they leave behind a small part of their bones as a memorial, like teeth and finger bones. For immortals, they leave behind their hair.
Apart from that, the body returns to nature or is refined into objects for remembrance by posterity. In any case, there’s no need for additional ‘burial.’ Also, some will detach their consciousness while alive and return to the Dao; their consciousness becomes immortal, while their body can be cast aside in the world.”
As she spoke, she nudged her head on the ground, looking toward the fresh grave.
“But I once heard an immortal say that long, long ago, before humans came down from the heavens, there were rules for burying the dead. Back then, people still meticulously buried their ancestors' remains or kept them in bone cabinets, but that was a very old thing.
According to what they taught in school, it was called ‘before the interstellar age.’ That was the culture when civilization still thrived within the gravity sphere…
After breaking away from the gravity sphere, people’s thoughts and ways of living no longer had a strong correlation with the ‘surface,’ so the concepts of life and death ethics would be reshaped, and thus ‘funerals’ would also change.”
Ailin listened, wide-eyed and surprised: “I feel like you’re talking about really profound stuff…”
“It’s all what they taught in school, but I can’t remember a lot of it. I wasn’t very good in my studies back then,” Hu Li’s large tail swept back and forth on the ground, before her gaze fell back on the grave.
After a few seconds of silence, she softly spoke: “That’s okay. I can come here to speak with my mom and dad in the future… Benefactor's suggestions are always very reasonable.”
Yu Sheng remained silent as he walked over and sat down next to the silver-white fox, leaning against her bushy tail.
Curious about Hu Li’s homeland, he tried to imagine what a “celestial and demonic civilization” that had already transcended the surface and roamed among the stars would look like, contemplating how to find that place in the vast universe.
Soon, these thoughts faded, and he emptied his mind, staring blankly into the distance.
He gazed at this realm that would no longer generate entities, wouldn’t produce toxins or rot, and was now closely tied to himself.
This place… seemed to serve as a kind of “base”?
But what could such a large “base” be used for… living in it? His team, including himself, only amounted to three, and he did have the old house at No. 66 Wutong Road, which was still more suitable for living compared to desolate wilds… for farming? He wasn’t even sure if they could grow crops in this realm, though there was plenty of light, and grass was growing on the ground… If it was feasible, then if they could grow grass, they could grow food and vegetables… Perhaps they could also raise cattle and sheep if they were bold enough…
Yu Sheng felt he was about to doze off, leaning against Hu Li’s fluffy tail, the comfortable and relaxed feeling made his thoughts float like they were in a cloud, and he began to associate all sorts of random ideas, laughing at the particularly absurd thoughts.
The little puppet on his shoulder suddenly leaned in close, “What are you thinking about?”
Yu Sheng replied seriously, “I’m thinking about what this place can be used for in the future. The initial plan is to level the wasteland around that broken temple and plant some radishes, beans, and cabbages.”
Ailin stared at him in confusion: “…?”
(End of Chapter)