Yu Sheng and Erin together told the Captain, in full detail, how they had first contacted the "Beauty God" by chance and what warning she had sent, and by the way they also roughly described some of the unusual features of No. 66 Wutong Road. When they finished, the Captain's expression was extremely grave, and he didn't speak for quite a while.It was more than ten seconds later that he finally broke the silence: "...Sounds like things are in bad shape. The last time I managed to contact that Angel cluster was already over a thousand years ago. I thought they had vanished into the Void."
"What we can be sure of right now is that at least the 'Tree Angel' and the 'Beauty God' have both appeared multiple times in the observable Universe, especially the latter—she's even fought a battle with the Algredians," Yu Sheng said. "I suspect that time the Beauty God also came to deliver a message, but obviously ordinary people simply can't communicate with her."
"If my judgment is correct, they haven't fully entered the real Universe, but are operating in a Critical state," the Captain said while thinking it through. "They should have found a Hiding Place near the Barrier of the world, and then used one brief Descent after another to transmit messages or gather intelligence, while also doing their best to delay the process of their own evaporation in the Void environment."
Erin looked curious: "Huh? How can you be sure they haven't fully entered the real Universe? They've shown up so many times already..."
"Once Dark Angels fully enter the real Universe, they're greatly affected due to information compatibility issues—the so‑called 'pollution' is actually mutual. They pollute the world, and the world is polluting them. Ordinary people who see Angels go insane, but in fact Dark Angels can't stay lucid in the real Universe for long either," the Captain patiently explained. "The Beauty God has manifested in the present world multiple times yet can still deliver intel to you now—that alone says enough."
"...So it can even work like that," Yu Sheng found it quite unbelievable. "The ones I ran into before totally didn't have that kind of brain."
"There are differences among Dark Angels. Even among those that have already begun to fall into loss of control, the degree varies. And Angels who can actively form clusters usually have at least some life‑preserving tricks, or at least techniques that can slightly extend their own lifespan in a Void environment," the Captain said unhurriedly. "After all, strictly speaking, the Endless Sea back then was essentially just a massive survival Barrier built by an Angel cluster."
"When you put it that way..." Yu Sheng folded his arms, thinking as he spoke. "Anyway, based on the clues we have now, all those anomalies over in the Boundary Land should be because that part of the Old World is leaking—and the cause of the leak is most likely Dark Angels in loss of control trying to drill into the Old World?"
"No, the key is: how the hell did they drill in?" Erin's face was blank. "That stuff's all sealed up; under normal circumstances we ourselves can't even get in... Captain, is there something wrong with your tech?"
The Captain immediately coughed twice, a hint of embarrassment in his eyes: "Ahem, out in the Void anything is possible..."
The Little Puppet still wore an utterly unconvinced expression, her eyes practically flashing subtitles that said, "Old man, your craftsmanship sucks"...
Yu Sheng suspected that for a very long time to come, this line would be etched into Erin's limited memory as deeply as "Marin's nanobot swarms don't stick," and she'd nag him with it over and over.
"Ahem, we can study the cause later," Yu Sheng coughed twice to pull the conversation back. "Right now the key is that things under the Boundary Land are still leaking, and we have to fix it at the source."
"How you gonna fix it? Just drill straight into the Old World and plug the hole from that side?" Erin ruffled Yu Sheng's hair. "Where are you drilling from?"
As she said this, she suddenly froze, then remembered something: "Ah, wait, there really might be a place you can drill from... that triangular gate you and Ironclad Expression found at the bottom of the Fault last time?!"
"That gate wouldn't open last time," Yu Sheng stroked his chin with a serious face. "But maybe this time we can try again..."
Erin turned to the Captain: "Hey, if we actually drill into the Old World, is anything going to happen? Like Yu Sheng opens the door and the whole Rift just collapses or something..."
"No," the Captain shook his head. "I'm still very confident in how stable the world's underlying data structure is. I set up a very tight encapsulation structure back then."
Yu Sheng couldn't help muttering as soon as he heard that: "Yeah, and you were really confident too when you put my grave in the Great Void back then..."
The muscles on the Captain's face visibly twitched, his expression screaming, "My lifetime of reputation, ruined by this one damned incident," yet when he tried to argue back, no words came out.
But regardless, Yu Sheng's final conclusion was still that they had to go down under the Fault again. Whether that gate could be opened or not, he had to find a way to get past the bottom of the Fault and see just what exactly was going on with the "Old World" now.
"But that reminds me," Erin suddenly got curious about something else again and immediately turned to the Captain. "Captain, didn't you leave a normal maintenance hatch for the Old World yourself? The kind you can safely go in and out of..."
The Captain let out a sigh: "I did leave one..."
Erin and Yu Sheng's eyes lit up at the same time: "Then..."
The Captain sighed again, his face even more bitter: "It was right in that Great Void where Bartok is sleeping, and later, didn't the Boundary Land smash the whole thing?"
Yu Sheng finally couldn't hold it in: "Come on, why'd you put everything in there?"
The Captain spread his hands: "I also didn't expect they'd start smashing everything into it afterward!"
The Little Puppet poked Yu Sheng's forehead with her finger, muttering under her breath: "I pictured it, and I can't help thinking your grave's like a sewer plug, just stuck there blocking a..."
This time it was Yu Sheng's turn to sigh long and hard: "Nice image, but could you not imagine it?"
"Oh..."
...
Night was growing deeper.
The deck of the Lost Home stayed lively for a long time. New faces that Yu Sheng didn't recognize kept coming over, others left one after another, and only after who-knows-how-long did things around them gradually quiet down.
Night hung low inside the Quiet Sea Barrier. The distant Sun Tower had long since gone dark; only the halo-like star sea surrounding the main drive sequence was still letting off rippling phosphorescence, the scene dreamlike and unreal.
Freyia had already come down from the tall mast. She finally wasn't that blinding anymore, but had turned into a softly glowing, blurry phantom, like a huge luminous ball of cotton candy sitting at the bow, happily taking in the star-sea scenery beyond the gunwale.
"At this brightness it'll probably take her two or three days to get back to normal," Yu Sheng stood on the deck not far away, watching Freyia wobbling as she sat on the guard at the bow, muttering to the big fox beside him, "I honestly didn't think she'd go gnaw on that little sun."
The huge white Nine-Tailed Fox was sprawled lazily on the nearby deck, wrapped in the drowsiness of a good meal and drink. Hearing this, she scooted her head over and lightly bumped Yu Sheng's body with her muzzle: "Kinda wondering if it tastes good… would it be hot and crispy?"
"That's really not something you can sample!" Yu Sheng immediately patted the big fox's nose. "She can gnaw it because she's an energy lifeform, and even with just that one bite she puffed herself up into a ball. If you take a bite, your mouth'll get scorched clean off."
Hu Li gave a sleepy "mm," then went quiet for two seconds. Something seemed to occur to her, and she suddenly called out softly, "Savior."
"Hm?"
"…Do I really still have a chance to go home?"
"Why ask that all of a sudden?"
"The Captain said they'd try to analyze the route from the Immortal Shuttle I rode when I came here. If one day the World Ark actually sets sail, we'll follow that heading," Hu Li muttered as she spoke, her head gently bumping Yu Sheng over and over. "We don't know how big the Sea of Annihilation is, and we don't know what it's like in other directions, but at least… things back in my hometown are obviously better than here…"
Yu Sheng listened without speaking for a moment, merely reaching out to gently stroke the fur on Hu Li's cheek.
"You'll go home," he said suddenly. "Once you're back… is there anything you have to do?"
"Go home. First, I'll settle Mom and Dad, send them to the little stone cave in the back mountain, then go to school… no, I don't need to go to school anymore, I'll report in at the Immortal Mansion. And then… and then I'll go find my uncles and aunties, and my uncle on my mother's side. I'll bring you with me."
"Bring me?"
"Mm. You're my Savior, I have to bring you to meet everyone. My uncle used to say that if I could bring a scholar home after I grew up, that would be perfect. Now I've grown up, but I think scholars aren't great—my Savior is."
Yu Sheng's hand stroking her fur paused for a moment. He turned his head, only to see the beautiful Nine-Tailed Fox had already closed her eyes, breathing out a gentle, even purr.
She shuffled a bit, and several big tails slowly curled up from behind, layer upon layer draping over Yu Sheng.
Not too cold, not too hot, just right, with a faint circulating breeze. Up close you could even hear the white-noise hum that was perfect for sleep.
Yu Sheng: "…?"
This girl's shape-shifting technique is a bit… creatively interpreted, seriously.
At the same time, inside the Captain's cabin near the stern of the Lost Home.
The Captain sat behind the chart table and let out a long breath, that perpetually tense body finally relaxing just a little.
Alice walked over, kneading the Captain's shoulders as she asked curiously, "Did Mr. Bartok agree to help?"
"He did, though the way it played out was a bit different from what I expected," the Captain nodded. "His temperament and way of doing things now are already completely different from when he was the Death God… all that wording I prepared ahead of time was useless."
"Told you, being sincere is enough. Miss Fan Na agreed with me—yet you insisted on dragging Mr. Morris and Miss Agatha in to make all those contingency plans."
"I just like to play it safe. Back then we promised we'd let him rest properly, and now we're hauling him out for overtime," the Captain said offhand, then remembered something. "Oh right, later gather the materials from when we first built Erin… go find Lucy, she's got the records. Tomorrow, we'll check Erin's condition again—this kid's so careless, I don't want her missing it if her body's feeling off anywhere."
"Mm-hmm."
"All the guest rooms are arranged, yeah?"
"They are, but it seems the guests won't need them—Miss Freya overcharged herself and can't sleep now. Miss Luna says she can just run a simple self-check and doesn't need any rest. That Miss Hu Li fell asleep on the deck, Mr. Bartok is sleeping in her tails… and Erin seems to have burrowed in there too."
The corner of the Captain's mouth twitched involuntarily. "…What a liberated way of living."
"Sure is."