Dimensional Hotel

Outside, the mountains stretched endlessly, like waves upon waves, overlapping as though they were ripples left behind after space itself had wrinkled and shrunk. Yu Sheng blinked, trying to shake off the dizziness from all the sudden stops and starts, and only then did he see the scene Foxy had described—the “never-ending mountains.”

The mountains rippled like a stone dropped into a pond, extending far out to where his vision failed him. Mist rolled between the peaks, shrouding them so thoroughly that all he could see were more mountains, repeating infinitely.

Yu Sheng frowned, staring at the repeated mountains in the distance for a long moment. Then, something clicked in his memory—he remembered the cafe where he had met Bai Li Qing. That place had also seemed to stretch out endlessly, repeating and extending to the very edge of his vision.

But something was different here. The cafe had stretched only in two directions—front and back. At least it had windows, something to mark the boundary of that odd repetition. But these mountains… no matter which way he looked, there seemed to be no end.

“Uh… Are we, like, stuck in here forever?” Irene asked nervously, perched on Yu Sheng’s head as she tried to peer over the ridges. “Are we really going forward?”

Yu Sheng remained silent, focusing his thoughts. He tried to recall the sensations when he first connected to this valley, and at the same time, he let himself feel the environment around them.

After a while, he bent down, picked up a small rock, and hurled it far into the distance. The stone flew through the air—and disappeared before it even hit the ground.

“Huh?” Irene gasped, her eyes wide with surprise.

Yu Sheng moved forward carefully, stepping to the spot where the stone had vanished. The air seemed empty, but there was something there—a feeling, a boundary he couldn’t see. He bent down again, picked up another small rock, and tossed it lightly forward.

This time, Yu Sheng saw it more clearly—the stone passed through an invisible boundary, and the moment it disappeared, a ripple spread through the air, faint and fleeting, like a pebble hitting water.

Yu Sheng straightened, his eyes following the ridgeline to the left and then to the right. He could feel it now.

The mountains rose and fell, meeting at some faraway point. And that unseen boundary enclosed the whole valley, stretching up into the sky and down beneath the earth. After a few seconds of hesitation, Yu Sheng took a deep breath and stepped forward.

“Hey, hey, hey! Are we really doing this?!” Irene squealed from his shoulder. “This feels super creepy! What if we just—”

Before she could finish, Yu Sheng had already crossed that invisible line. The ripple moved through the air again, and for a second, Yu Sheng felt weightless. Then, their surroundings blurred, and in the blink of an eye, they were back in the middle of the valley.

“…never come back—” Irene’s voice trailed off, and she blinked, suddenly looking around with confusion. “Huh? We’re back?”

Right then, an even larger ripple appeared, and a massive silver fox leaped through, landing beside them.

“Benefactor!” Foxy called, her voice tinged with worry as she looked around frantically. When she saw Yu Sheng and Irene standing there unharmed, she relaxed, her giant fluffy tail brushing lightly against Yu Sheng. “You disappeared so suddenly, you gave me a scare!”

“The space is closed off at the boundaries, all leading back to the center,” Yu Sheng said after thinking for a long moment, finally breaking the silence. “I wonder if all Otherworlds are like this.”

Irene tilted her head, processing his words before realization hit her. “So, basically… there’s no way to reach the ‘outside’?”

“There is no ‘outside,'” Yu Sheng replied, shaking his head. “This valley is the only real area in this entire space. The endless mountains we saw were just reflections—repeated images of the real mountains, because of the boundary folding in on itself. If you look closely, you’ll see that all those mountains are actually just duplicates of the ones surrounding the valley.”

Irene’s eyes went wide, and after a while, she finally nodded, as if understanding. “…Whoa.” It was unclear whether she truly understood or was just pretending to.

After a moment, she poked Yu Sheng’s head. “So, what do we do now?” Yu Sheng turned his gaze to the silver fox beside them.

“Since nothing else will be forming here, and it’s become a calm place… maybe we could properly bury your parents this time. Make a proper grave. What do you think?”

Foxy tilted her head, thinking for a moment, then nodded slowly.

Finding where Foxy’s parents were buried didn’t take long. And for Yu Sheng, building a proper grave was no difficult task.

The two hurriedly buried skeletons were carefully cleaned and gathered, and Yu Sheng made the earth dip down, firming it into a neat grave. Stones melded together, forming a sturdy stone coffin. Compared to healing large swathes of land and making plants grow rapidly, this was much simpler for him.

The bones were placed in the stone coffin, the coffin lowered into the grave, and layers of soil covered it until a proper mound formed.

“We’ll need a gravestone,” Yu Sheng said, looking at the grave. When he noticed Foxy looking a little lost, he added, “Something to mark the spot.”

Foxy nodded immediately. “I’ll get one.”

Before Yu Sheng could respond, she turned and ran off, her huge silver body streaking across the valley. With a series of loud bangs and a sonic boom, she disappeared from view in the blink of an eye. Not long after, she returned just as quickly, carrying a strange silvery metal plate in her mouth. R̃

It was about half as tall as Yu Sheng.

“This was a gift from my parents,” Foxy explained, setting the metal plate down. “It’s… a kind of musical instrument. I wanted to take music lessons, so they bought this for me. But I never got the chance to learn… and now, it’s broken.”

Using her tail, she carefully picked up the metal plate and placed it at the head of the grave, patting the soil with her paw until it was packed as firmly as stone.

“Uh, actually, a gravestone usually isn’t…” Yu Sheng started to say, but he stopped himself halfway through. “Never mind. If you think it’s fitting, then it is.”

“We don’t have many customs like this,” Foxy said, lying down beside the grave. Her nose nudged Yu Sheng’s arm gently—this time truly gentle. “When demons die, we keep part of their bones—like a tooth or a finger—for remembrance. Immortals leave behind their hair. Beyond that, the body returns to nature, or it becomes a relic for others to use. There’s no need for a formal burial. Some even choose to separate their spirit while they’re alive, letting it become one with the universe. The spirit lives on, and the body is left behind.”

She spoke quietly, her head resting on the ground as she looked at the freshly made grave.

“But I heard some immortals say that, long ago, before people from the sky came, they also used to bury their dead. Back then, they carefully buried the bones of their ancestors, or stored them in bone chambers. That was a very old practice, from what they called ‘before the interstellar age’ when civilizations still lived within gravity. Once they left gravity behind, their way of living—and their thoughts on life and death—changed. So, funerals changed too.”

Irene, listening, looked utterly bewildered. “Why does it feel like you’re saying something really deep…”

“It’s just what they taught in school,” Foxy said, her fluffy tail swishing back and forth. “Though I barely remember any of it. I wasn’t very good in school.”

She looked at the grave again, her eyes softening. After a couple of seconds, she spoke softly, “This… this is good. Now I can come here and talk to my parents. You always have good ideas, Benefactor.”

Yu Sheng said nothing. He just went and sat beside the silver fox, leaning back against her giant, fluffy tail.

He was curious about Foxy’s homeland. He tried to imagine an immortal civilization, no longer bound to the earth but traveling among the stars. He wondered how he might find such a place in the vastness of space. But slowly, those thoughts faded, and he let his mind drift, staring off into the distance.

He looked at this Otherworld that would no longer generate entities, that was no longer filled with poison or decay—a place now closely tied to him. It felt like a proper base.

But what could he do with such a large base? Live here? His team only had three people, including himself, and besides, he already had that house on Wutong Road No. 66. No matter how old it was, it was still more comfortable than camping out here. Farm the land? Maybe it was possible to grow some vegetables here. There was plenty of sunlight, and grass grew, so crops might as well. Maybe he could even raise cattle or sheep…

Yu Sheng felt himself drifting off. Lying against Foxy’s fluffy tail, a deep sense of comfort and relaxation spread through him. His thoughts floated around like clouds, scattered and disconnected, and occasionally he chuckled at some of the more ridiculous ones.

Suddenly, Irene’s small face appeared right in front of his. “What are you thinking about?”

Yu Sheng put on a serious expression. “I’m thinking about what we can do with this place. My current plan is to flatten the land around that ruined temple and plant some carrots, green beans, and cabbage.”

Irene: “…”