Chapter 098

Chapter 98: Sacrifice and Pollution

Little Red Riding Hood said with a flat face: “My wolf is me.”

Yu Sheng thought he caught a mix of emotions on her face, but he could not read it. He only felt the air around her turn heavy and tight. [If her wolf is herself, that cannot be a good thing.] If the time and mood were better, he would have pressed her for answers. Even so, he filed away his growing curiosity about Little Red Riding Hood and her Wolf Pack for later, when they knew each other more or when another chance came.

Right now, he looked again toward the white Exhibition Hall at the end of the corridor, the place people called The End Web. Even he could now smell a faint trace of fresh blood in the air.

“The security ‘guards’ only react to the intruder themself. They have sight, but no hearing or smell. They are stiff and only follow rules, with huge loopholes,” he thought as his face grew thoughtful.

Little Red Riding Hood lowered her voice and asked: “Well? Do we pull back first? We can come again tomorrow…”

“No,” Irene cut in at once, “look at Yu Sheng’s face.”

Little Red Riding Hood glanced over and asked: “What about his face?”

“He has another idea,” Irene sighed.

Before Little Red Riding Hood could ask, Yu Sheng finished thinking. He looked at the fox woman standing nearby and asked Ms.Fox: “Tell me, do you think Foxy’s tails count as her ‘self’?”

Everyone froze. Little Red Riding Hood spoke before her brain caught up: “How would they not? They grow on her…”

“But her tails can be fired off,” Yu Sheng said in a very serious tone, “strictly speaking, they are treasures she Refined. And they can be reloaded.”

Little Red Riding Hood stood there with her mouth open. Then her mind finally caught up.

A second later, she stared at Yu Sheng in shock and asked: “Wait! What are you trying to do?”

“Test it. If we really trigger those plastic men, we leave through Door Opening,” Yu Sheng said with a lively explorer’s spirit. “You said those ‘guards’ only have vision. If we can block all their lines of sight without being seen, then we are fine…”

Ignoring Little Red Riding Hood’s stunned look, he turned to the still-bewildered Ms.Fox and explained: “I have a plan, and I need your tails.”

“Hold it, wait,” Little Red Riding Hood cut in, “you said there are at least seven or eight ‘guards’ in that Exhibition Hall. Foxy already fired two tails earlier. Do we have enough left?”

Saying it out loud felt strange. Her normal worldview had to be broken down and forced to fit the abnormal, and it was uncomfortable. But the moment she finished, she realized she was feeling that way too early.

Foxy had already understood Yu Sheng’s meaning. She reached behind herself and casually pulled off two tails, laying them flat on the floor. Then she pulled off two more and lined them up. When the tails behind her were almost all pulled off, the Demon Fox glanced back, grew quiet for two or three seconds, and then there came a metallic hum like a treasured blade leaving its sheath. Nine fresh tails blossomed from her back.

Little Red Riding Hood: “…?”

“She stockpiles them,” Irene said like an experienced old hand as she scooted over and patted Little Red Riding Hood’s arm. “She eats a lot. It is all for tail reserves.”

Little Red Riding Hood kept staring, still full of question marks: “…?”

She knew every word, but together they formed a sentence so niche she wondered if she had just heard human language at all.

Foxy was already pointing at the tails on the floor and explaining: “This one took twenty drumsticks. This one took ten…”

Little Red Riding Hood’s face went blank as her brain tried and failed to keep up: “Because the second one is half price?”

“Because this one only accelerates to subsonic. It is a subsonic cruising tail,” Foxy gave her a puzzled look. “Matter and energy are proportional. Do you have any common sense?”

[Should I give myself another shot of the Sanity Blocking Agent?] Little Red Riding Hood wondered.

Meanwhile, the very “well informed” Ms.Fox had set all the spare tails into neat rows. The fluffy fox tails seemed to float, actually hovering a few centimeters above the ground. From the base of each tail drifted tiny sparks of eerie Fox Fire. They gave off a faint tremor, like rockets humming on their launch rails after fueling.

The instant that image popped into her head, Little Red Riding Hood felt doomed. [Great, I am probably already influenced by the Hotel trio. My brain is going strange.] Dealing with Entities was dangerous, even with someone who looked harmless like Yu Sheng.

Foxy lifted her hand.

The silver-white tails, wrapped in weird blue Fox Fire, slowly rose into the air. These Refined treasures could fly at subsonic or even supersonic speed, but now, under the careful control of the Demon Fox, they moved with mindful caution, gliding down the Museum corridor.

“If the ‘guards’ do not react, cover all their sightlines and we go check inside. If they suddenly move, wrap the object in the center of the Exhibition Hall and pull it back fast, then we leave through Door Opening,” Yu Sheng said while watching Ms.Fox’s pinpoint control. He reached into the air, and a faintly glowing, ghostly Door formed in his hand. “I will ready The Door and wait for your signal.”

“Okay,” Foxy nodded, a little tense, and guided her tails to poke into the white Exhibition Hall.

Only Little Red Riding Hood was still wooden. She felt she ought to be nervous, since the mood had built to this point, but she could not be. The mood had also grown too uncanny. [My brain cannot keep up with my values, and my values cannot keep up with my senses. It feels like my mind has bugged out.] [Even the weirdness has a capital D now, like The Door.] Even her wolf had been dazed since a moment ago.

“They are not moving…” Foxy finally broke the silence with a hint of joy. “I will try to block all their sight… It should work.”

Yu Sheng let out a small breath.

The Phantom Door in his hand faded without a sound.

After Foxy confirmed again, he waved to the others and said: “Come on. Let’s go see.”

With mixed feelings, they stepped into the now quiet white Exhibition Hall.

Their nerves tightened to the limit when they saw the deep blue guard uniforms, then slowly eased as the plastic dummies stayed perfectly still.

Everyone’s eyes went to the “guards” first. Little Red Riding Hood saw the one standing by The Door, as if guarding the passage entrance. The mannequin in navy stood frozen, its head wrapped layer by layer by a silver-white fox tail.

It was a beautiful tail. On the Demon Fox, it looked like a light, floating artwork. Wrapped around a plastic head, though, it looked like a bizarre, sinister cocoon.

Then she heard Yu Sheng whisper: “…What the heck.”

Little Red Riding Hood snapped her head toward the Exhibition Hall’s center.

That was where the statue of The Weeper should have been.

But the platform held no statue now, only a terrifying corpse. A man lay bound tight by iron thorns bristling with spikes, fixed to the platform in a kneeling pose with both hands covering his face, as if crying in grief.

The pose matched the statue of The Weeper exactly.

His blood had been drained. He looked like he had been dead a long time. No killer stood nearby. Only the sharp stink of blood filled the Exhibition Hall.

Yu Sheng’s heart seized. He was no stranger to death. He had died violently more than once. But this was his first time staring at such a brutal scene from the side, and the image itself was not even the worst part. What struck him hardest was the thick, ritual feeling of a sacrifice.

A victim bled out by iron thorns. A pose set on purpose to copy The Weeper. Fresh blood pooling down the high platform. A white Exhibition Hall now stained and polluted. Plastic mannequins standing quiet around the offering.

It was a kind of horror totally different from Hunger.

“Little Red Riding Hood, do you know what…” He turned, ready to ask the only experienced person on the spot, and then saw that something was wrong with her.

She stared hard at the altar. Her eyes had turned the same blood red as her Shadow Wolves. A low, rumbling growl vibrated in her throat. Fine hairs were pushing out along her cheeks and the backs of her hands.

The next second, he saw her shadow stretch and swell. A huge beast clawed its way out. It stood upright, like a person wearing a wolf pelt, or like a wolf that had swallowed a Human and stolen their bones and shape. This Human and wolf Fusion burst from the shadow without a roar, without warning, without useless show, and lunged straight ahead.

It did not lunge at Yu Sheng. It lunged at Little Red Riding Hood.

People have a hard time dodging their own shadow.