Yu Sheng stared blankly at the bird skeleton in front of him, and the bird skeleton stared back at him just as blankly, with two clusters of green flames burning in the eye sockets of the strange bird's skull. The flames flickered unevenly, exuding a hint of mystery, a touch of weirdness, and ninety-five percent silliness.Freyia was still rampaging through the nearby mist, flapping her hands frantically to fan her mouth as she flew around. Apparently, she wouldn't be stuffing things into her mouth randomly for the next few days at least.
At this moment, the skeleton bird tilted its head to the other side and continued to stare at Yu Sheng, making an abstract sound, "Buddy, you got a mic?"
Yu Sheng finally snapped back to reality, taking half a step back in shock, "What the hell is this?!"
"Network connection established! Network connection established!" the skeleton bird suddenly became excited. Hearing Yu Sheng's words, it jumped and hopped about joyfully, scattering sparks everywhere, and then it began to sing out loud, with a tune that not even its mother could recognize, "From the world's end~ a song~ Little boat gently~ drifting on the subspace~ let us sway the two-headed ogre... The rain keeps falling, atmosphere oh oh oh..."
Honestly, the sound of the song made Yu Sheng feel unwell on the spot. The tune was so off-key that it could do five round trips from the Taixu Spirit Hub to Pasture Star in three minutes, and for some reason, it reminded him of the nonsensical, tuneless songs Erin often hummed when she was bored. Then in the very next second, he suddenly noticed the words "from the world's end."
The green flames on the weird bird in front of him triggered his memory. Yu Sheng abruptly recalled the ship he once saw in certain illusions, sailing at the edge of the star sea, and the green fires that rippled like water waves around the giant ship. He widened his eyes and looked at the weird bird, breaking the silence hesitantly when it finally hit a break in the song, "Lost Home? Are you from the Lost Home?"
The weird bird was just about to sing the next line when it heard Yu Sheng's words and suddenly stopped, as if its nerves finally connected, "…Wow, good guess, bro, good guess."
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, and in that instant, he saw the skeleton bird suddenly spread its wings and pounce towards him—before he could react, he heard a roaring sound from all directions. The whole illusion space then collapsed, and amidst the swept-up green flames, he was disconnected from the Garden Network.
He vaguely heard the startled cries of Hu Li and Erin by his ears.
Yu Sheng suddenly opened his eyes, finding himself back in the real world. He was still standing beside the Alice Tree in the Puppet City, with Hu Li holding his arm, Erin standing on the tree's base looking up into the air, Freyia having fallen out of the canopy and finally quiet, except still fanning her mouth with her hands. Luna was standing on the other side, raising the Fingertip Blade, seemingly on high alert.
Yu Sheng was slightly stunned by Luna's stance, then sensed something, his peripheral vision caught a green flame swirling in front of the Antique Shop.
It was that skeleton bird that appeared in the Garden Network.
And just as Yu Sheng's gaze swept over, the flames on the bird started to gather inward, and then its body also began to shrink. As the flames dissipated, flesh began to grow between the skeleton, white feathers covered the body, and the weird bird transformed in the blink of an eye into a...
Fat pigeon.
Yu Sheng: "..."
Honestly, it was the first time in his life he had seen such a fat pigeon—he even doubted whether this thing could fly at all without some kind of mystical aid, given that its frontal cross-section was already visibly wider than tall, like an oval...
The fattest pigeon flapped its wings and landed heavily in front of Yu Sheng, speaking human language, "Accent unchanged, but hair greying, whose old buddy are you?"
Yu Sheng was full of question marks, completely unable to comprehend the logic of the thing's speech. Establishing communication with it was out of the question; just understanding it was challenging enough.
But at this moment, he saw Erin suddenly jump off the base of the tree, the Little Puppet took a couple of steps towards the fat pigeon, hesitating and reminiscing a bit, then suddenly remembered something, "…Big Pigeon?"
The pigeon's gaze landed on Erin (she was in her prototype form), and it tilted its head, its tone also hesitant, "Little troublemaker?"
"It's really you!" Erin clapped her hands, visibly delighted, "I didn't recognize you at first! Why did you get so fat again? How are the Captain and the others? Did they send you?"
The fat pigeon raised its claws to scratch the feathers on its head, "Glad to not have disgraced the mission, glad to not have disgraced the mission."
Then it looked Erin up and down, its pair of beady green eyes emitting a semblance of human-like gleam, and immediately spat out a series of questions, "RAR? ZIP? 7Z?"
As a result, Erin didn't quite catch on either and just laughed dumbly.
Yu Sheng saw that the two knew each other and quickly leaned down to ask the Little Puppet, "This is..."
"It's called Ai Yi!" Erin excitedly pointed at the fat pigeon, "It's a messenger from the Lost Home! The Captain often sends it to deliver messages..."
Yu Sheng was completely bewildered, "…Sending someone who can't even speak clearly as a messenger? Can it really deliver the message properly? I mean, can't your ship find someone who can communicate normally to deal with people?"
"It can't deliver the message properly," Erin put her hands on her hips, speaking with righteous assurance, "But Ai Yi's most important skill isn't passing messages. Its greatest ability is opening a portal to the Lost Home."
Yu Sheng was stunned by the words, then suddenly realized and turned to look at the pigeon, "Open a portal to the Lost Home?!"
The pigeon named Ai Yi perked up at hearing the keywords, then flapped its wings, causing the green fire to burst forth from its body once again—its body transformed in the fire, and in a blink of an eye, it became a bird-shaped skeleton engulfed in flames once more.
"The departure is imminent, the departure is imminent! Passengers at the door, please step back, those carrying children, sit tight, gentlemen, hold on tight—"
It shouted so boisterously, then suddenly took flight with a flap of its wings under Yu Sheng's wide-eyed gaze, circled twice in the sky, and then flew straight into the Antique Shop standing next to the Alice Tree!
Everyone was startled at this moment, even Erin jumped up with an exclamation, and the next moment, Ai Yi had already crashed headlong into the shop—the flames soared, the Antique Shop was instantly set ablaze, burning fiercely in the eerie green flame, deformed and melted like wax.
But just a few breaths later, the "melted" shop reshaped itself in the fire, part of its remaining structure twisting and distorting into a vortex-like door, merging bizarrely with the flames stirred up by Ai Yi.
A constantly rotating vortex of fire stood before everyone, its edges burning fiercely, while inside floated some distorted structures that vaguely suggested they once belonged to the shop. At the center of the flaming gate rippled circles of starlight, and something seemed hidden deep within that starry glow.
Ai Yi flew out from the fiery gate, and the eerie green flames on it seemed to have weakened somewhat, but its spirit was unusually high: "Broken through! Broken through!"
Yu Sheng stared dumbly at the gate, finding everything happening too suddenly, so much that it was still a bit hard to believe—
"Is this the Teleportation Gate to the Lost Home? Has it... opened?"
Luna approached cautiously, reaching out to poke the swirling vortex.
However, her finger was blocked by an invisible barrier.
The fox girl also moved closer, plucked out a tail to probe forward, but soon frowned, "Savior, it's blocked inside, it doesn't connect?"
"Pigeon, did you open the door incorrectly?" Erin also went over to try, turning to look at the big fat pigeon, her face a little crumpled, "It's not a wall on the other side, is it?"
"Need a key! A key!" Ai Yi flapped its wings vigorously, "Can't find the target! Can't find the target!"
Listening to the pigeon's chaotic chatter, Yu Sheng furrowed his brows all of a sudden, looking thoughtfully at the vortex.
He had an idea.
He raised his arm, "Lu..."
Before he finished speaking, the Holy Lady had already rushed over, hand raised, knife falling.
The Little Puppet beside was dumbfounded: "No way, are you going to try using that too?"
Yu Sheng glanced at the little thing: "You had no problem when I applied it to the Alice Tree earlier either."
"The Alice Tree is the Alice Tree, but this thing in front of us is authorized by the Captain," the Little Puppet glared, "don't mess it up—I've got a whole house in it!"
Yu Sheng carefully thought it over, his face slowly taking on a green tint in the reflection of the flaming gate: "I thought it could be worth a try."
Then, under the Little Puppet's watchful gaze, he extended his hand towards the vortex.
In just an instant, a strange suction force came from the vortex, almost causing Yu Sheng to lose his balance, and then he saw his blood rapidly flowing into the vortex—the whole process was extremely fast, Yu Sheng even suspected he heard the gurgling sound of blood leaving his veins, and just when he worried if this would be another fatal mistake in his pondering, that dreadful suction suddenly vanished.
Blood spread through the flames, the vortex gate quickly stained red, the rippling red light even seeped partly into the starry glow at the center of the vortex, and almost simultaneously, Yu Sheng also felt a connection between himself and the gate.
The pigeon next to him flapped excitedly once again: "It's open, brother, it's open!"
"Is it really open this time?" Erin widened her eyes, looking at everything, her gaze flipping back and forth between the gate and Yu Sheng several times, "Can I go home from here now?"
At this point, everyone gathered in front of the gate, Hu Li tugged at Yu Sheng's sleeve and asked softly, "Savior, should I send a tail over to check the situation? We don't know if the other side is safe."
Yu Sheng thought carefully: "... The other side is where the creator lives, and it's Erin's old home, firing a cruise missile to explore might not be appropriate?"
Hu Li still appeared a bit uneasy, "Then..."
"No worries, I'll send a mass-produced one over there first to see what's going on," Erin reached out to tug the fox girl's tail, the Little Puppet raised her face, eyes full of light, "If the passage is really open, then I'll call you over."
As she spoke, a black-haired, red-eyed mass-produced Puppet ran over, under everyone's focused yet slightly tense gaze, the little guy took big strides into the vortex.