Chapter 144: This Door Cannot Be Opened From This Side
Little Red Riding Hood looked unusually cheerful. Anyone truly familiar with her would have been stunned to see such a relaxed expression on her face—it had been a long time since she smiled like this.
Still, she earnestly rebutted Yu Sheng, “I’ll be eighteen next month. You can’t keep treating me like a child.”
“Anyone under eighteen is still a kid. After your birthday, then I’ll start seeing you as an adult,” Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow. “Just don’t forget to save me a piece of cake.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Foxy, who’d been observing the Chick with keen interest, suddenly looked up. “I want some too!”
Turns out that after all the talk between Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood, that was the only part Miss Foxy had caught.
Little Red Riding Hood burst out laughing, her grin wide and radiant. Then she bared her teeth at Yu Sheng and Foxy like a mischievous Wolf cub. “Fine, even if knives fall from the sky, you’d better show up for my birthday. Anyone who doesn’t is a little dog.”
Yu Sheng chuckled, took out his phone, and made a quick status report. Then, turning to the side, he casually opened a Door that led to the Orphanage.
The shimmering Phantom Door opened silently, revealing an empty hallway in the western wing of the Orphanage.
“Xiao Xiao! Long Haired Girl! Time to go home!” Little Red Riding Hood called out from the edge of the platform to the two children still frolicking in the grass. “It’ll be dark soon!”
The Long Haired Princess led Xiao Xiao back up to the platform. The younger girl, however, looked longingly at the place they were leaving.
“I’m not done playing yet,” the young lady pouted. “Can we come again next time?”
“Of course you can,” Yu Sheng nodded immediately. “I might even drop by often. Maybe someday I’ll leave a Door right in your Orphanage.”
“Uh, that’s not really necessary,” the Long Haired Princess replied awkwardly. “That sounds… complicated.”
“Not at all. It’s part of my current research,” Yu Sheng replied easily. “If your Orphanage ever organizes outings for the Cursed Children or wants them to do some plein air painting or sketching, let me know. My Valley has plenty of space—way more than any of those so-called parks in the city.”
Little Red Riding Hood mused for a while. The phrase “outdoor excursion” paired with “Otherworld” just sounded too unsettling.
But she was used to it by now.
The guests departed.
“I don’t like Human brats,” Irene grumbled, marching over with her dress adjusted, tugging at Yu Sheng’s pants as she began to climb him. “So loud and full of nonsense. I just don’t see what’s so fun about chasing each other on the grass…”
“But you seemed to be having a blast with that kid near the end,” Yu Sheng said with a smile, glancing at Irene, who was now perched on his shoulder. “And you have the nerve to call others loud?”
Irene considered that for a moment, then started gnawing on Yu Sheng’s head.
But Yu Sheng simply plucked her off with one hand.
“What next? Going home?” Irene, now dangling by the collar, asked out of habit. “Not even dinner time yet.”
Yu Sheng shook his head. “No rush. I still have some… ‘experiments’ to run. But first, I need to call Bai Li Qing.”
As he spoke, he pulled out his phone under Irene’s curious gaze, organized his thoughts, and dialed the number that had been pestering him lately.
The other end picked up quickly. “Yu Sheng?”
“Ahem, yes, it’s me,” Yu Sheng cleared his throat. “Sorry, today was chaotic. Just remembered to call.”
“No worries. What did you want to discuss?”
Bai Li Qing’s tone was calm, as if she’d completely forgotten about the “steel-faced expressionless big sister” comment from their last call.
“Two things. First, remember I mentioned I have some items I want the Special Affairs Bureau to help analyze tomorrow? One of them is something I found in the Black Forest of the Fairy Tale Organization,” Yu Sheng said, recalling Teacher Su’s suggestion. “I also want to request access to some files… regarding the ‘Fairy Tale’.”
There was a two-second pause on the line before Bai Li Qing responded, “You mean the early archives from when the Special Affairs Bureau conducted initial victim management and early exploration of the ‘Fairy Tale’ Otherworld?”
“Bingo,” Yu Sheng exhaled. “Those files. Around seventy years old.”
“I guessed that after learning what you were up to today,” Bai Li Qing replied evenly. “I’m just curious why you’re suddenly interested. Is it because of that Spirit Realm Detective named ‘Little Red Riding Hood’?”
“She was the catalyst. But more than that, it’s because I want to intervene,” Yu Sheng said. “I have a serious problem with this Otherworld. Ignoring it would nag at me. Is that reason enough?”
“Sufficient,” Bai Li Qing answered immediately. “I’ll arrange it. Someone will pick you up tomorrow. In the meantime, the analysis lab and archive access will be ready for you.”
Yu Sheng had anticipated that Bai Li Qing would most likely agree, but her promptness still took him aback. He blinked in surprise before quickly recovering. “Ah, thank you.”
On the other end of the line, Bai Li Qing’s voice remained steady and impassive. “It’s nothing. What’s the second matter?”
“Uh, the second thing is less troublesome but a bit of a headache,” Yu Sheng admitted, now sounding slightly awkward. “I’m planning to carry out some ‘experiments’ soon.”
“Experiments?”
“Door experiments,” Yu Sheng elaborated. “There might be quite a few. The methods may be a bit… unconventional, the scale is uncertain, and the duration is undetermined. I figured the one-click reporting function on the phone probably wouldn’t be sufficient, so I thought it best to call you directly.”
Silence followed from the other side.
Irene (whom Yu Sheng had by now placed on the ground) immediately began muttering, “She’s swearing, she’s totally swearing in her mind right now!”
“No problem,” Bai Li Qing replied at last. Her voice was still calm, but perhaps because of the little doll incessantly grumbling beside him, Yu Sheng imagined the Madam Director was speaking through clenched teeth. “I’ll notify the monitoring group to suppress all automatic alerts in the area and switch to manual logging. Call me once you’re done.”
The call ended. Yu Sheng looked down at the little doll who stood with her hands on her hips and chin tilted upward, absolutely confident.
“She definitely cursed! My Spiritual Intuition tells me so!”
Then she paused, tilting her head with curiosity. “What kind of experiments are you doing?”
Yu Sheng took a slow breath and raised his hand, suspended midair. “First, let’s see if I can open a Door to the Black Forest from the outside.”
A phantom Door swiftly took form in his palm—a plain, softly glowing great Door shimmering with faint light, trembling slightly in the air.
Squinting slightly, Yu Sheng recalled the ‘frequency’ he had once recorded within the Black Forest and imbued it into the Door. Then, cautiously, he attempted to open it.
The next moment, the Door shattered silently.
Irene and Foxy both gasped softly in unison.
Then, a wave of vertigo slammed into him. Yu Sheng staggered back, clutching his head.
“Benefactor!” Foxy rushed over and wrapped her tail around Yu Sheng protectively. “Was it backlash from a cultivation technique?!”
“No, just a wave of dizziness,” Yu Sheng steadied himself as the vertigo slowly faded, waving off their concern. “The Door failed to open… for the first time.”
“Doors can fail?” Irene was stunned and a bit worried. “Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” Yu Sheng gave a crooked smile, untangling himself from Foxy’s tail and exhaling. He stared at the spot where the Door had shattered, frowning in deep thought.
“It shouldn’t be like this,” he muttered to himself. “You can open a Door from the Black Forest to the outside, so why can’t you open one from outside into the Black Forest?”
Irene mused aloud, “Because ‘this Door cannot be opened from this side’?”
Yu Sheng shuddered. “Don’t say that phrase. I have trauma from it.”
“Could it be,” Foxy ventured hesitantly, “because this Valley is part of your ‘heavenly paradise’? It isn’t truly part of the real world. Maybe that interferes?”
Irene’s eyes lit up. “Wow, Silly Fox, your brain works sometimes!”
“She might be right,” Yu Sheng nodded. “Let’s try from the ‘outside.'”
With that, he casually opened a great Door leading to a deserted alleyway near Wutong Road No. 66.
Moments later, Yu Sheng sat dizzily on the curb outside his home Door, seeing double. Even the lanky ghostly shadow by the telephone pole had three heads.
It proved that the Door failure had nothing to do with whether he was in a ‘real space’ or not. No matter where he tried from, opening a Door directly into the Black Forest from the outside was impossible.
Dejected, the group returned to the Valley.
“Looks like it’s a no-go,” Irene sat on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, resting her cheeks on her palms. “You can only open a Door to exit the Black Forest, not enter it. To go in, you have to use ‘Dream Entry.’ I think it has to do with the Black Forest being essentially a ‘consciousness space.’ Like, you can wake up from a dream, but walking into a dream from the waking world? That makes no sense…”
Yu Sheng remained silent, listening to her reasoning while his mind churned with similar theories.
But something still felt off.
Was the Black Forest’s one-way nature really just because it was a pure ‘consciousness space’?
If so, how did he bring out the ‘Wolf Granny’ and that mysterious paper slip from within?