Chapter 606 The Fox's Gift

The snow continued intermittently throughout the night, and there seemed to have been a strong wind in between.

The low, muffled sound of the wind coming through the window actually helped Yu Sheng sleep much more soundly that night.

Of course, another reason he slept soundly might be that Eileen was relatively well-behaved that night—I don't know if she was tired from playing in the snow outside the door for half a day after coming back last night, but she didn't go through the usual spiral flying kick followed by a knee strike and then an elbow strike, and she only headbutted me twice...

Snowy days are always perfect for sleeping in. When Yu Sheng opened his eyes, it was already bright outside. Through the window, he could hear children making noise downstairs. The little doll that had been sleeping on his bed last night was nowhere to be seen. Even three of the four boxes in the corner were empty, leaving only Eileen curled up in one of the boxes playing with her phone watch. When she saw Yu Sheng get up, she just lazily raised her arm and pointed out the window: "Big Golden Retriever is having a snowball fight with a bunch of kids outside."

Yu Sheng sat on the edge of the bed to clear his head, then walked over, pulled back the curtains, and opened the window.

A blast of cold air hit his face and filled his lungs, instantly clearing away all of Yu Sheng's drowsiness and making him instantly awake.

The sounds of laughter and noise outside the house became exceptionally clear.

A group of kids who had run out of the valley were having a blast in the open space in front of No. 66 Wutong Road. The heavy snow that fell overnight had left a thick layer on the road. Luna had gone out early to clear a path from the door to the main street, leaving the rest of the snow untouched. Now, the snow had become a battlefield for the children. Some were having snowball fights, building snowmen, and others were simply rolling around in the snow. The most eye-catching one of them was a golden-haired little ball of fluff that was darting around like a tumbleweed in the wind.

Further away, Yu Sheng saw a shadow scurrying about in the thick snow. Its shape resembled two black iron discs joined together, and its circling motion made it look like a groundhog. He watched it in confusion from the second floor for a long time before realizing that it was Eileen dragging her frying pan...

Yu Sheng also saw Little Red Riding Hood—probably because she was worried that Rapunzel wouldn't be reliable in taking care of the children, so she came over specifically to keep an eye on things.

The girl, wearing a bright red coat, stood with her hands in her pockets in the open space between No. 66 Wutong Road and the express delivery collection point, with a shadowy figure resembling a ferocious beast vaguely visible behind her.

Mature, calm, and cool, like a proud wolf from the north.

Unfortunately, she wasn't a northern breed, and the wolves of the Black Forest didn't give her any resistance to the cold—Little Red Riding Hood's face was red from the cold, and she would stomp her feet every now and then, probably almost freezing her nose.

"Brother!" The perceptive long-haired princess noticed the gaze from above and immediately looked up, waving her arms excitedly to Yu Sheng. "Want to come down and play?"

Yu Sheng waved his hand: "You guys play, I'm lazy."

Rapunzel didn't mind, and used a strand of her golden hair to scoop up a snowball and tossed it towards the second floor. Seeing that Yu Sheng caught it, she happily exclaimed, "Brother! Why didn't you tell us it was snowing outside! I only saw the message when I checked my phone—by the way, brother, could you get some snow for the valley too? It's always sunny there, it's actually quite monotonous..."

“Go to the ‘Match’ sub-market, where the wind and snow keep blowing all night long,” Yu Sheng said casually. “The environment in the valley is stable, where am I supposed to get you ‘winter’?”

“You make a big enough opening in the sky, and the other end is on the Secret Service building. They’re used to it anyway…”

Yu Sheng stopped paying attention to the capricious golden retriever downstairs.

He turned and went to the living room on the first floor, where he saw that Hu Li had already heated up breakfast. There was a bowl of steaming fox stew on the table, with sesame flatbread bought from the morning market next to it. Hu Li was washing the pot that she had taken back from Zheng Zhi's place yesterday in the kitchen. When she smelled Yu Sheng approaching, she immediately wiped her hands and ran over happily, taking something out of her tail and handing it to Yu Sheng.

It was a white scarf.

Yu Sheng blinked, looked at the scarf the fox girl handed him, and then at the big tail behind her. He was a little confused for a moment, but then he vaguely guessed what was going on in his astonishment.

"A gift!" the fox spirit girl exclaimed happily, "I knitted it myself! With my own fur~"

Is that really true?!

Yu Sheng felt a surge of warmth in his heart. At the same time, he recalled that for a while, this girl seemed to be collecting his shed fur. Sometimes, when she didn't have enough fur, she would even grow extra tails to pluck it... So that's what she used it for!?

But the next second he was a little confused. After taking a closer look at the fox girl's fluffy tail, he was full of questions: "Wait, how did you spin this into yarn... Can fox fur be spun into yarn?"

“Sure,” Hu Li nodded vigorously, “Although it’s not easy to form a thread, we can use some magic to do it…”

Yu Sheng was astonished, marveling at how convenient and versatile the Nine-Tailed Fox's magic was. He reached out and took the white scarf offered to him—a warm and gentle touch came over him, a wonderful sensation he had never felt on any other fabric. He opened the scarf and saw that nine tassels, just like fox tails, were specially woven at both ends. The front and back of the scarf even had cute fox head patterns, and he had no idea how they were made.

The fox girl who usually just eats, sleeps, and sunbathes... how could she have such skills?

A strange feeling gradually arose in Yu Sheng's heart. He held the scarf that seemed to still have some warmth from her body, looked up at the girl in front of him, and saw that her golden-red eyes were bright and full of smiles.

“In my hometown, foxes learn this from a young age,” the raccoon said happily. “Gifts made from their own shed fur are the most precious.”

Yu Sheng was deeply moved and opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could speak, the great fox demon in front of him blurted out, "Benefactor, benefactor, what else is there!"

Then the fox turned around and reached into its tail, pulling out another silvery-white object: "I also knitted you a pair of woolen underwear..."

The little bit of emotion that had just begun to stir in Yu Sheng's heart shattered instantly, just like the blonde Eileen he had just picked up.

He stared at the other "gift" Hu Li was carrying, completely dumbfounded. He hesitated for half a minute before finally speaking, his lips trembling: "This... is also a custom from your hometown?"

The fox girl beamed, "It was Eileen's idea!"

Yu Sheng's heart skipped a beat. He didn't know if his heart had finally settled or if it had finally crashed to its death. He felt as if the world had finally gone completely mad. He turned his head to ask the little doll a question, but only saw a little dwarf dart out of the corner of his eye with a "whoosh" through the window crack and out the window—not forgetting to use the silk thread to pull the window shut again...

Hu Li, seemingly oblivious to Yu Sheng's subtle expression, continued enthusiastically, "My benefactor, let me tell you, I've been researching this for a long time, and just two days ago I finally solved the pricking problem using magic..."

Yu Sheng was deeply moved, but still told Hu Li to stop talking.

He accepted the most outrageous gift of his life with the most subtle expression of his life, silently deciding to bury it deep in the earth, while hoping that the silly girl wagging her tail in front of him would never remember it again.

Hu Li was quite happy—she had finally given away the gift she had prepared for so long, and her benefactor seemed quite pleased (?). So, humming a song, she went back to the kitchen to continue washing the pot.

Yu Sheng finished his breakfast with mixed feelings, and just as he was about to go to the door to bring Eileen back for a good talk, a sudden ringing of his cell phone interrupted him.

He took out his phone and saw that it was Baili Qing calling.

"Do you have time?" The voice on the other end of the phone was as calm as ever, but Yu Sheng felt there was a hint of weariness in it, even if it was just his imagination. "Come to the Special Operations Bureau—it's related to Zheng Zhi's previous experience."

Yu Sheng's expression turned serious after listening to just a couple of sentences. He hung up the phone and immediately summoned a door leading to Baili Qing's office. At the same time, he called out to the kitchen, "I'm going out for a bit, to the Special Operations Bureau!"

The moment he received the response, he was already standing in Baili Qing's office.

In front of the familiar huge floor-to-ceiling window, behind the familiar wide desk, Baili Qing sat down and got straight to the point: "The technical department worked overnight to complete the analysis of the data transmitted back from Zhengzhou Zhicheng. Now we can confirm two things:"

"First, the 'illusions' he saw earlier did indeed come from the secret lair of the Cult of Saints. Preliminary judgment is that this lair should be located in a gravitational shielding zone within the Dark Current Starfield or the Great Triangle Nebula. The specific coordinates are still being analyzed, but due to the limitations of the equipment and the recording conditions at the time, the data available for analysis is severely distorted, so there is not much hope for the time being."

"Second, Zheng Zhi's official mobile phone recorded environmental data from the 'other side,' and we found key parameters in it that were almost identical to those when the boundary bridge opened the spacetime rift."

Yu Sheng knew before he arrived that the Secret Service had discovered something serious, but the two pieces of information they dropped still caught him off guard. After a moment of stunned silence, he immediately realized: "You mean, the Cult of Saints... are really building another boundary bridge?!"

“More and more clues are pointing to this possibility, from the suspicious logistics information and communication records found in Luo’s place, to your encounter in the dark alley, and then to Zheng Zhi’s bizarre experience this time…” Baili Qing said in a solemn tone, “Now it seems that the Chong Sheng Hermitage has probably been eyeing the ‘Boundary Bridge’ from the very beginning, and may even have known about the ‘Dark Angel’ nature of the Boundary Bridge for a long time. Their actions began several years ago.”

(End of this chapter)