Chapter 136
Chapter 136
On the narrow street, the rain suddenly grew heavier.
Fuzhu sat beside the Box like it had lost its soul, one of its antlers pressed against a carved flower on the Box’s surface.
It had only enjoyed a few days of opening its mouth and being fed, with Han Lie waiting on it hand and foot and cleaning up after it. Now it had to go back to its original world and be a wild deer again.
The more Fuzhu thought about it, the more miserable it became. Tears pattered down in big drops.
Seeing how pitifully it was crying, Qin Ying said, “It’s been raining for as many days as you’ve been here.”
“The city is about to flood because of you.”
Especially since Fuzhu got worked up whenever it watched TV. With its emotions rising and falling, the rain would come down hard one moment and ease up the next.
She had heard that the people at the Meteorological Bureau were so worried their hair was turning white, and they were planning to invite a team of experts to investigate the bizarre weather phenomenon.
Fuzhu refused to listen and buried its head between its two hooves.
Beside it was a pack of carefree Hou roughhousing with each other.
This time, Qin Ying planned to send all of them back into the Box first, then bring them out again after the descent succeeded.
That way, if anything went wrong, these Hou wouldn’t starve to death at home.
By the same logic, Huodou Wangcai and the Thunderbird would also be going along.
…
“Ready?” Qin Ying was holding a small grocery basket.
Inside the basket, Wangcai took up most of the space.
Han Lie, in Monstrous Beast form, steadied a matchbox with both hands and nodded to Qin Ying. “Ready.”
Inside the matchbox was the Soul-Container Puppet.
First, Han Lie would take it down into the World in the Box. Then Qin Ying would try descending with her consciousness and returning.
Qin Ying wasn’t afraid of the descent itself. At worst, it would fail.
What she was worried about was being unable to return from the World in the Box.
If she couldn’t come back, she would have to live in the World in the Box in the body of this Soul-Container Puppet.
The thought of that risk made her space out for a moment. The Thunderbird crouched in the grocery basket couldn’t help chirping at her.
Qin Ying snapped back to herself and silently gave herself a pep talk. There was no turning back now. She might as well try first and see.
She pressed a hand to the lid of the Box, took a deep breath, and opened it.
As far as the eye could see, the World in the Box was black. Those were the marks left after Huang Jun had burned.
Qin Ying had no time to be disgusted or think about anything else. She lowered the grocery basket, which was tied to a rope, into the Box.
The basket swayed slightly. Han Lie clutched Wangcai’s short fur with one hand and protected the matchbox containing the Wooden Puppet with the other.
After a bout of dizziness, the ceiling of Qin Ying’s home above his head was replaced by the blue sky and white clouds of the World in the Box.
This was the first time Han Lie had traveled between the two worlds while fully conscious. His heart pounded, and excitement was inevitable.
As the sky grew farther and farther away, he caught the damp scent of mist.
Before long, the grocery basket jolted and landed safely in the Golden Saddle Mountain range of the World in the Box.
Han Lie looked up at the giant human-shaped shadow on the horizon and made a gesture.
Then he bent down, strapped the matchbox to his back, and climbed up the woven rattan of the grocery basket until he made it out.
Fuzhu’s bleating cries sounded beside him. The Thunderbird had grabbed Fuzhu by the antlers and was rather roughly dragging it out of the basket.
Fuzhu’s head ached fiercely, but it didn’t dare struggle. It only grumbled and cursed under its breath.
The Thunderbird was lively and cheerful, so it didn’t hold that against it.
After setting Fuzhu, who had just enjoyed a round of air transport, on the ground, the Thunderbird spread its wings and flew into the sky.
The lightning it had been holding back all this time was released, and thunderclouds instantly gathered on all sides.
It shuttled through the thunderclouds, letting out one clear cry after another.
After circling twice above the ruined temple on Golden Saddle Mountain, it folded its wings and landed on Wangcai’s head.
Wangcai’s mouth was stuffed full of Hou, their fur tickling the roof of its mouth until it could hardly stand it. It quickly jumped out of the basket, lay flat on the ground, and opened its jaws wide.
One by one, the saliva-soaked Hou filed out of its mouth. Only then did Wangcai smack its lips and sneeze.
Back in their homeland, the Hou raced among the rocks under the lead of Little Sha.
They were surprisingly carefree, not showing much grief over their destroyed home.
They ran across solidified lava and the charred imprints of corpses, tussling and playing as they went.
As soon as Han Lie climbed out of the basket, he set down the matchbox on his back.
He opened it like pulling out a drawer. Seeing that the Soul-Container Wooden Puppet inside had shifted into a corner during his movements, he could not help frowning.
He jumped into the matchbox, carried the Soul-Container Puppet back to the center, then waved up at the sky.
Outside the Box, Qin Ying had already seen everything.
She took a deep breath, shifted into a stable position where she would not fall over, and tried to enter the Consecration Puppet as she had before.
When they had been in the same room, in the same world, slipping her consciousness into the Soul-Container Puppet had taken only a single thought.
It had been as easy as putting on a pair of shoes that fit perfectly.
But once the puppet had been sent into the World in the Box, she could clearly feel many more obstacles between them.
It was like trying to feel for a single bead in a pocket through many layers of cloth.
She could vaguely sense where the bead was, but for the moment, she could not quite reach it.
All she could do was try to lock onto it again and again.
In the World in the Box, all the little animals gathered around the matchbox.
The Soul-Container Puppet wore a red nonwoven dress made by Han Lie. It had no face and no skin.
For a moment, the black mountains fell silent.
Even the naughtiest Thunderbird quieted down.
Just as they thought Qin Ying’s descent had failed, the puppet suddenly moved.
Its wooden face melted like soft wax. Then Qin Ying’s features gradually rose and took shape.
Flesh-like skin covered the Wooden Puppet’s surface inch by inch, hiding its ball joints.
The red mole at the corner of her eye was like the solemn final dot of a painter’s brush.
Inside the matchbox, the puppet’s chest rose and fell. Then it began coughing violently, curling in on itself in obvious distress.
“Supreme Deity.”
Han Lie gathered her into the crook of his arm. Lowering his eyes, he saw Qin Ying’s deathly pale face.
Qin Ying lay against Han Lie’s arm, her nails digging into the hard scales there.
She heard Han Lie’s voice. She heard the wind. She even smelled the ash drifting through the mountains.
Her descent had succeeded.
Qin Ying was delighted, but the organs that theoretically did not exist inside her belly felt as though someone had grabbed and kneaded them, churning her insides with nausea.
She pushed Han Lie away, turned her head, and vomited a mouthful of clear water like a living person.
Seeing how awful she felt, Han Lie anxiously swished his tail and paced around her.
Qin Ying waited for a long while before the discomfort finally faded.
With Han Lie supporting her, she struggled to her feet.
First, she lifted her head to look at the sky.
Because Fuzhu had arrived, rain began to fall over Golden Saddle Mountain. The fine drizzle landed on her face, cool and refreshing enough to clear her mind.
Qin Ying spread her arms, welcoming her first rain in another world.
Then the smile froze on her face.
Oh boy. She was done for. Her connection to her body seemed to have snapped!