Chapter 130

Chapter 130: The Story of “fairy tale”

Irene wriggled out of Foxy’s arms and climbed up onto the sofa. Along with Little Red Riding Hood, she stared out the window at Open Ground, still looking a little dazed.

“When ‘fairy tale’ first broke out, it was right here. And after that, the victims started treating this place like home… It just feels weird.”

Everyone went quiet for a beat.

“Everyone needs a home,” Little Red Riding Hood said, turning back with a faint smile. “I don’t know what decision the seniors made years ago, but the children living here now all treat this orphanage as home. For me, it’s also a place where I can finally feel at ease… even if so much has happened here.”

“Only orphans are affected by ‘fairy tale’?” Yu Sheng frowned. “Or do ordinary kids get sent here after they’re affected?”

“Only orphans.” Little Red Riding Hood sighed.

“Why?” Irene asked.

“Do we know the reason?” Yu Sheng pressed.

“Because their hearts don’t have enough protection,” Little Red Riding Hood said evenly. “We still have a lot of blanks in what we know about ‘fairy tale’, but based on what we’ve learned so far, we can already confirm that its influence is tied to a victim’s ‘personality pattern’ and ‘social ties’. Orphans who lack parents or other family to protect them, who stay mentally unstable for a long time, and who have weak connections in the real world are its best prey, because…”

She stopped, then shook her head lightly.

“Because if reality is too cold, then the warmth in fantasy looks especially tempting. And when ‘fairy tale’ first begins to affect someone, its power is actually very weak. All it needs is a thin rope to keep an affected child tied to the real side. But for many orphans, even that tiny rope doesn’t exist.”

Yu Sheng’s brow stayed tightly knit. After a moment, he asked, “What triggers it?”

“I heard Squirrel say…” Irene began. “It happens after reading the matching fairy tale story?”

Little Red Riding Hood nodded. “That’s the most important part.”

“Then why not label those stories as taboos?” Foxy asked, curious. “Back in my hometown, there was a devil cultivator who fused himself into a legend right before he died. Later, he almost turned from fiction into reality through people passing it along. This feels a lot like that… just as scary.”

Irene’s eyes went wide. She stared at Foxy like she’d grown a second head. “Holy crap. Your hometown is really full of insane stuff. What happened?”

“Yeah,” Yu Sheng said. “How did you deal with that devil cultivator?”

“Did you seal the corrupted legend?” Irene asked.

“Oh, not that.” Foxy waved a hand. “We tried sealing it at first, but the devil cultivator’s backup plan spread too widely. We could never seal it completely. Then the social media era arrived.”

Yu Sheng’s expression went blank. “Uh… what?”

“I mean, everyone started remixing it. Meme edits, parody skits, chopped-up short videos.” Foxy gestured as she spoke, utterly sincere. “That devil cultivator died a miserable death. Even his last cry for help got turned into sticker memes. By the time the Immortal Alliance noticed, he was already wiped out in the world’s laughter.”

The room fell silent.

Little Red Riding Hood, Yu Sheng, and Irene just stood there, stunned, while Foxy kept going with a slow, clueless look. “After that, even the great fox demon in our clan didn’t dare refine itself into a legend anymore. If they have to refine something, they refine math problems and physics formulas. At least those don’t get changed so easily…”

Little Red Riding Hood blinked, still dazed, then turned to Yu Sheng. “Um… I kind of lost the thread.”

“It’s fine. I usually can’t keep up with her hometown either,” Yu Sheng said, waving it off. “But her question is also mine. Since the matching story is a key trigger for ‘fairy tale’, why not control how those stories spread? Or, like her hometown did, break those stories.”

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t answer directly. Instead, she tossed a question back. “Do you remember when we discussed why we didn’t just tear down the Old Theater to permanently shut down the otherworld museum?”

Yu Sheng’s chest tightened, his expression sharpening.

He understood.

“An abnormal otherworld… works the same way?”

“Yes. An abnormal otherworld is still otherworld. The underlying rules are the same.” Little Red Riding Hood nodded. “‘fairy tale’ itself is a deeper piece of information, and those stories are only entry points that connect it to reality. Just like the museum’s true body is a twisted space, and the Old Theater’s stage is only its entrance. Destroying an entrance would only make an otherworld lose control in a stranger, harder-to-guard way. It might even become more dangerous. And…”

She lifted her head and looked at Yu Sheng, her expression serious.

“And ‘fairy tale’ has an even stranger trait. Its stories don’t even need people to tell them. There’s a record of a child who had never come into contact with the matching story, yet after one night’s sleep fell into a subset created by ‘fairy tale’. Later, the investigation found the child had heard a voice reading a story out of nothing.”

She exhaled softly. “That’s also why the ‘fairy tale’ otherworld, though it doesn’t kill directly, is still rated above level three. It carries active malice.”

Her explanation ended. Yu Sheng sat down, gloom settling over his face.

A nameless irritation rose inside him. He stood and paced, but nothing came out right away.

“This shouldn’t be like this,” he said at last. “Does the Special Operations Bureau really have no way at all?”

He stopped and turned, staring at the girl in red.

Little Red Riding Hood met his gaze calmly. “Have humans ever wiped out the common cold?”

Yu Sheng had no answer.

“If you treat it like a chronic illness that targets only a small number of orphans,” she continued, “doesn’t it become easier to understand—and easier to accept?”

Her voice stayed steady, firm. “You can’t demand that a natural phenomenon vanish from the world just because you think we orphans are pitiful. You can’t demand the Special Operations Bureau do something beyond human ability. Otherworld isn’t a broken factory where you shut the doors and everything is fine. Otherworld is a phenomenon running in this world, and keeping its entrance in a fixed place is already its greatest mercy to people.”

She sounded calm and certain, yet something in Yu Sheng’s gut still felt wrong.

No. There was one otherworld—one otherworld that really had been eradicated.

That valley.

Yu Sheng’s thoughts raced, snapping from one to the next like lightning.

[Could what happened in Nightfall Valley be recreated in that Black Forest?]

[Even if it could… how would it affect the core of “fairy tale”?]

[In the end, the Black Forest was only a subset of “fairy tale”—a temporary room generated inside that “Invisible Building”. And from what Little Red Riding Hood explained, there was no way to touch the core at all…]

[How was he supposed to smear his own blood on a collection of stories?]

Little Red Riding Hood watched him drift to the window, watching the shifting expressions on his face with quiet curiosity. She didn’t know what this strange lord from No. 66, Wu Tong Road was thinking, but she could tell that this odd entity—one that made even the Special Operations Bureau tense—truly wanted to help her.

“You want to do something very hard,” she said softly. “I know you want to help us. And honestly, there have been people like that before. Deep Divers, scholars, investigators… even an astrologer from Alglade. Lords who wanted to help children resist nightmares. But none of them succeeded.”

She swallowed, then added in a lower voice, “I’m not saying this for any other reason. I just want you to know in advance—it’s dangerous, and to this day, there still isn’t any clue at all.”

Yu Sheng barely seemed to hear her. He stayed lost in thought, and only after a long moment did he suddenly look up.

“I might not have any ideas about the core of ‘fairy tale’,” he said, “but we can start with Black Forest.”

Little Red Riding Hood froze. “Did you not hear a single word I said?”

“I heard you. I think it’s fine.” Yu Sheng waved a hand. “There are tons of things in this world I have no clue about. I still have no clue how my water and electric bills work, or where my sewer even leads. As for danger… what otherworld isn’t dangerous?”

Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth, but for once she couldn’t find anything to say.

And then hurried footsteps pounded down the hallway, cutting the moment clean in half.

The reception room door flew open. A girl who looked one or two years younger than Little Red Riding Hood rushed in, her long black Rapunzel hair swinging with the movement.

Little Red Riding Hood sprang to her feet. “Rapunzel?”

“What happened?” Irene asked.

Rapunzel glanced at the outsiders first. Only after Little Red Riding Hood signaled her with a look did she take a breath and speak, low and fast.

“A child left. It happened so quickly, we didn’t have time…”

Yu Sheng saw Little Red Riding Hood sway, just slightly, as if the floor had shifted under her. For a second, it looked like she forgot how to breathe.

“…Which one?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

“The new one.”