Outside, the sky was still dark, and inside the room, Yu Sheng was sleeping soundly, lost in a dream.He dreamt of traveling with the young Baili Qing, watching a big yellow dog sit on an old man's lap playing the erhu; then he dreamt of a Hero in a fierce battle with the Black Demon King, who had formidable mana and sharp tactics, but was knocked down by a powerful blow from the Hero and dragged back to be a corporate drone; in a flash, he was then dreaming of a high and dark castle with a lone, eternal blood-red moon suspended above it, only for Freyia to poke a hole in the moon with a Light Cannon, causing it to tumble down and hit him on the forehead with a clang that made his head buzz...
Yu Sheng awoke with a start in the middle of his sleep, feeling as though something small and hard had indeed struck his forehead, his head buzzing as he opened his eyes to see a pair of scarlet eyes peering at him in the dim light.
He was dazed for a couple of seconds before realizing that he'd just been headbutted by this little thing.
Yu Sheng: "In the middle of the night, what are you..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Erin raised her hand and started shouting, "That tree is acting up! It's glowing intermittently! Inside the tree, there's a constant hum!"
"What hum, my head is the one buzzing..." Yu Sheng, hitting a bit of a daze from the little thing's strike, didn't understand right away, but halfway through his words, he suddenly realized, "Wait, tree? What tree? The one you planted in the city?!"
"What else could it be, it's definitely that one!" Erin said, as she crawled out of a few boxes in the corner of the wall with four little puppets, busily tossing Yu Sheng's clothes onto the bed, "Quick, come with me to check if there's a signal now — or maybe the thing's broken, we'll have to call Marin for repairs..."
By this time, Yu Sheng was fully awake and hurriedly getting dressed as he inquired further: "Besides the Alice Tree reacting, is there anything else? What about the Antique Shop? Is there any movement there?"
"No, I even have a mass-produced puppet watching at the door, inside the shop it's still the same," Erin said quickly from the bedside table, "By the way, the tree's been flashing for half the day, at first I thought it was just a normal system self-check, but seeing it flashing on and off made me feel uneasy..."
Yu Sheng had quickly finished changing, and before he could open the door, footsteps sounded in the hallway outside, followed by the door being pushed open, and Hu Li stood at the entrance, rubbing her eyes: "Savior, I want to come too~"
Erin stared: "Silly fox, your ears are so sharp!"
The demon fox girl instantly puffed out her chest proudly: "We foxes, six senses are sharp!"
"Alright, alright, come along," Yu Sheng said quickly, pulling open a door leading to the edge of the Black Forest, "Wait, Hu Li, put on your shoes first."
"Oh oh!"
A moment later, Yu Sheng had led Hu Li, carrying Erin, to the edge of the Black Forest at the Puppet City.
The valley was still dark before the breaking of dawn — Yu Sheng had set a timed flow for the clouds in the valley, and it was dawn now, with the clouds at the horizon just clearing a fringe, forming a vast, hazy ring gradually covering the valley, and under this ring's faint illumination, the Alice Tree standing next to the Antique Shop was once again enveloped in a stream of light.
Yu Sheng heard the operation sound coming from the base of the tree, and even though he didn't quite understand these somewhat esoteric, high-tech gadgets at Alice's Cottage, he could immediately tell that this tree was in some kind of high-power operation state.
Yu Sheng turned to look at the little puppet on his shoulder: "Have you asked Marin what this is about? Or sent a message in your Garden Network asking?"
"I just asked, Marin said it might be the Alice Tree searching for a signal — but logically, if it's a message from the Lost Home, it shouldn't need to search, it should connect directly through the internal communication port... so it could really be a system malfunctions. Anyway, she's remotely helping me troubleshoot right now, and said if there are no results after a while, she'd come in person to check."
Listening to the little puppet, Yu Sheng frowned slightly.
"The Lost Home is currently cruising at the cosmic border... for a message to come from there, this Alice Tree of yours might indeed not easily recognize it..."
As they spoke, the light flowing across the surface of the tree gradually dimmed once more.
"It pulses like this, sometimes bright, sometimes dark, with about a ten-minute interval," Erin said, "Can you make sense of it?"
Yu Sheng didn't reply; instead, he slowly approached the Alice Tree, his mind thoughtful as he looked at this strangely designed communication device. He hesitated, raised his hand, and turned to the little puppet.
"Hey, you mind if I smear a bit ..."
"Why even ask, go ahead and smear if you want," Erin surprisingly reacted generously, "After all, my 9 regiments are all your flesh and blood..."
Yu Sheng was struck speechless by the puppet's grandiose language comparable to book-burning events, and after holding it in, he finally managed to speak up with wide eyes: "Flesh and blood are not used that way... wait, 9 regiments?!"
The little puppet nodded triumphantly, while Hu Li whispered softly to her, "You're using the term wrong; although the blood may be the Savior's, it's me who made the skeletons for your mass-produced puppets..."
"Fine then, it's both your flesh and blood..."
Yu Sheng, after some thought, decided that listening any more to the little one's thunderous statements would affect his literary career prospects.
Then he raised a hand and waved it in the air: "Loo..."
A shadow flashed out from the nearby forest, slashing a bleeding cut on his palm.
Yu Sheng was momentarily stunned; he had just called out casually to test, and to his surprise, Luna actually emerged—after all, according to the normal schedule, she should be inside the Holy Coffin aboard the Otherworld Inn for maintenance at this time.
"Maintenance is finished," Luna explained proactively after noticing the expression on Yu Sheng's face, "I wanted to come over, cut some berry branches, and try planting them back at home."
Only then did Yu Sheng nod and turn to place his hand on the trunk of the Alice Tree.
Hu Li, eyes gleaming, leaned over to Luna's side: "What kind of berries? What kind of berries? Let me taste!"
Luna took half a step back as if facing a great enemy: "I haven't found the berry bush yet. Even if I find it, you can't eat them!"
Hu Li bared her teeth: "Tch, I'll go find them myself later~"
Yu Sheng paid no attention to the conversation behind him. He had already successfully established a blood connection with the Alice Tree before him—yet the scene he witnessed after the connection was not what he expected.
He closed his eyes slightly and calmed his mind.
In the illusion, he saw himself floating in an infinite cloud, with countless dazzling streams of light interweaving from all directions. Each stream of light seemed to be composed of countless starry points, mixed with innumerable sounds that upon closer listening seemed to be just distant wind.
Are these the flowing information in the Garden Network? Are these the sounds emitted by the Alice Puppets' minds?
With curiosity in his heart, Yu Sheng couldn't touch any stream of starlight passing by him—his "Mind Body" felt like it passed right through them, unable to interact.
This is unlike any situation when he established blood connections with a new item; he couldn't control the Alice Tree at all, nor could he comprehend its operation—the whole Garden Network behind it was unimaginably vast and complex, possibly as ancient as the universe.
The Alice Tree's crown began to illuminate again, and a growing hum came from its base.
It was trying to call upon some distant signal once more.
In Yu Sheng's vision, he suddenly saw the surrounding light streams change direction, and from the depths of the clouds, a ghostly green light emerged suddenly, darting around like a phantom.
That ghostly green light instantly captured Yu Sheng's attention. He instinctively felt that it must be the target the Alice Tree was calling.
But the light seemed to have undergone some "shift," its illusion layer overlapping, never correctly merging into any stream of light within the cloud.
Yu Sheng subconsciously raised his hand towards the ghostly green light, but another shadow was faster.
A warm and sacred white light suddenly appeared at the edge of his vision, where a towering "Angel" flew towards the ghostly green phantom with wings of light.
It was Freyia.
Yu Sheng was stunned—how did she get in here?!
But before he could grasp the situation, he saw Freyia had already reached the green light. Miss Angel simply and rudely swung her wing, engulfing it in her Holy Light Barrier, then reached out to grab the phantom-like glow.
Simple, crude, without technique, without thought.
Freyia flew back happily.
Yu Sheng was still a bit dazed, instinctively speaking up: "Uh, well done..."
Freyia stuffed the green light directly into her mouth.
Yu Sheng hadn't finished his compliment before cold sweat broke out: "...Wait, stop! This can't be eaten!!"
Shouting, he rushed over, reaching to remove it from Freyia's mouth. But before he could touch Miss Angel, the green light began to explode and burn—sparks, smoke, flames, and crackles burst from Freyia's mouth.
Miss Angel gasped in shock, spitting it out quickly like she had bitten a box of party poppers, then turned to flee.
Yu Sheng had no time to care about Freyia running around wildly nearby because he saw a shadow reforming rapidly in the explosive green fireworks. It seemed as if the unexpected incident had serendipitously "adjusted" its "frequency." In the chaotic green flames, a huge skeleton resembling some bizarre bird appeared in the blink of an eye!
Yu Sheng was stupefied in that moment as the flame-wrapped bird skeleton charged directly at him. He instinctively stepped back, only to see the big-boned bird tilt its head and utter a slightly off-tune sound: "Top up Q Coins?"