Chapter 132: The Truth of Death
Little Red Riding Hood and the Long Haired Princess both thought Yu Sheng had lost his mind.
“She died an hour ago!” the Long Haired Princess exclaimed, eyes wide. “Every organ in her body—including her heart and brain—showed no signs of life! We ran the tests. She’s obviously dead…”
“No, she ‘isn’t’ dead. At least, not yet,” Yu Sheng shook his head, the confusion slowly draining from his face, replaced by a growing conviction. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I can feel it… She’s still on the living side. She hasn’t crossed over.”
As he spoke, he once again touched the bloodstained wound on the girl’s neck.
In a fleeting flash of monochrome illusion, he felt as if he’d “understood” something. But the sensation vanished too quickly to grasp.
Little Red Riding Hood seemed to catch a thought. “You… can’t do that ‘Conversation With The Dead’ thing, like in the Museum? So you think she’s still alive?”
Yu Sheng hesitated, then nodded.
Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes widened. She instinctively questioned Yu Sheng’s judgment, yet a sliver of wild hope stirred in her chest. “But…”
Yu Sheng waved his hand firmly, silencing both her and the Long Haired Princess, who was just about to speak.
“You don’t understand. It’s not just because I can’t converse with the dead. I can feel her here,” he said, examining the girl’s wounds. Suddenly, he pulled a small knife from his pocket. Under their shocked gazes, he slashed open his own palm and smeared his blood over the fine cracks on the girl’s arm. “Do you get it? To me, she’s still alive. She’s just asleep—sleeping in a dream where death is coming.”
Irene seemed to catch on. She leapt down from Foxy’s arms and ran to Yu Sheng’s side. “Did you ‘see’ something again?!”
“See… yeah, you could say that. I suddenly understood something,” Yu Sheng muttered, smearing his blood like a ritual. Then, lifting his head to look at Little Red Riding Hood and the Long Haired Princess—who had both instinctively wanted to stop him—he met their eyes with such a gaze that they halted. “Stay back. Right there. The balance is delicate. She’s about to fall to the other side…”
They both stepped back, their questioning eyes fixed on Yu Sheng.
“Do you know how bees determine if a companion is dead?” Yu Sheng suddenly asked.
The two girls looked at each other, bewildered by the abrupt question.
“Pheromones,” Yu Sheng continued without waiting for a reply. “Bees rely on pheromones to detect death. A dying bee releases volatile chemicals, which trigger the others to come and ‘bury’ it, clearing the body from the hive to prevent disease. But there’s a problem with this method: to us, pheromones and death aren’t the same thing.
“If you artificially apply these chemicals to a living bee, even if it’s buzzing and struggling, its companions will still treat it as a corpse—dragging it out like trash. In the limited neural framework of a bee, the ‘scent of death’ equals death, no matter what the body is doing.
“But in the wild, this method is enough. Human meddling introduces complexity the bees were never meant to handle.”
Little Red Riding Hood and the Long Haired Princess listened in a daze, watching as blood seeped silently into the bed beneath Xiao Xiao’s tiny form. A shiver of inexplicable dread crept into their hearts.
“You…” Little Red Riding Hood finally broke the silence, swallowing hard as she looked at Yu Sheng with unfamiliar eyes. “You’re saying we are…”
“The bees,” Yu Sheng replied calmly, looking directly into the red-cloaked girl’s eyes.
He bowed his head again, his bloodied hand gently brushing across Xiao Xiao’s forehead, leaving a fleeting smear of red.
“You were confused by an ‘interference’ beyond comprehension. A fake ‘death’ mimicking signs you understand—heart stopped, brain inactive, nervous system collapsed, blood ceased flowing and began to cool, then cell decay, enzyme failure, the body starting to digest itself… You call these the signs of death. If someone meets them, you say they’re dead…”
Yu Sheng reflected. He had matched those signs once too. And at that moment, he was declared dead.
Dead, in the eyes of ordinary people.
Yet he continued to live—just in a way no ordinary person could observe or comprehend. He waited for that brief “symptom” called Death to recede from his being.
“…Perhaps I was never Resurrected to begin with.”
He muttered softly.
That tiny body lay still on the bed, soaked in blood. Through its stillness, Yu Sheng came to understand her “death”—and his own.
Feeling the strange hush around him, he lifted his head. He saw Little Red Riding Hood and the Long Haired Princess standing aside with a near-cowering posture, their eyes filled with unease. Irene stood next to him, head tilted up. Her gaze wasn’t anxious—just puzzled.
Only Miss Foxy bore no confusion or worry. She didn’t quite understand either, but still nodded knowingly, face full of insight. Her voice brimmed with awe: “Benefactor seems to be comprehending the Great Dao.”
Irene gawked: “…You can just accept anything, can’t you?!”
“We have three hours. Maybe less,” said Yu Sheng suddenly.
Little Red Riding Hood blinked: “Three hours? For what?”
“To pull her back.” Yu Sheng raised a hand toward the frail figure on the bed. “The connection I formed with my blood isn’t strong enough. She doesn’t know where to go. We’ll need some… manual intervention. Irene, I need your help.”
The little doll didn’t react at first. “Huh…? How?”
“She’s still dreaming—dreaming a dream that doesn’t rely on brain activity,” Yu Sheng said casually. “Remember how you found me in the Black Forest? Same process. Find her—and send me in too.”
Only now did Irene understand. “Ohhh! Easy. Just lie down—or sit, that’s fine. I’ve guided this once before. You don’t need to do anything. Just stay calm.”
Little Red Riding Hood also caught on—still filled with questions, but at least now she understood what Yu Sheng intended. “Wait, you’re going into the Black Forest on purpose? To find her?”
“Yep.”
“I’m coming with you!” said Little Red Riding Hood immediately. Then, quickly added, “I know that place better than you do!”
Yu Sheng frowned and looked at Irene. “Can you take more than one?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Irene said after a moment’s thought, nodding with confidence. “She’s already deeply linked to the Black Forest, so I won’t need to maintain much. I just have to guide you both in.”
“Let’s try it,” said Yu Sheng, without hesitation. He sat cross-legged beside the little bed and patted the floor next to him, looking up at Little Red Riding Hood. “Sit here.”
Little Red Riding Hood gave a quiet “Mm,” walked over, and sat down beside him.
The Long Haired Princess looked uneasy. “Will this really work? We’ve never done this before…”
Little Red Riding Hood stayed silent for a few seconds, then glanced at Yu Sheng beside her. “Let’s try.”
Black threads sprang into existence from Irene’s hands, rapidly expanding throughout the space, weaving into a vast and intricate net. The little doll carefully manipulated the “web,” lowering it gently over the little bed.
The thread ends dangled from the air like the tendrils of a bizarre jellyfish, silently slipping into the body of the Dream Entry subject.
The Long Haired Princess instinctively stepped back and glanced at the calm-faced Miss Foxy, finally unable to hold her tongue: “You people from the Hotel… are you all this… Door-like?”
Foxy had no idea what that meant. She simply watched Irene’s strange technique with admiration, nodding in appreciation. “Irene might just become a Thread Weaving Immortal.”
That was the last sentence Yu Sheng heard before descending into the Dream Entry realm.
His final thought before his mind was swept away—Irene seemed stronger now.
In the next moment, a dizzying vertigo and a sense of falling overtook him. He felt another consciousness tumbling with his into darkness. And then—firm ground beneath him.
When he opened his eyes, the endless Black Forest stretched before him.