Chapter 136

Chapter 136: Traces of the Past

Wolf Granny lay on the bed in the Little House, hiding its claws, ears, and tail. It swallowed Little Red Riding Hood in one gulp, and then… the Hunter did not appear. A cook came instead.

Yu Sheng felt something struggle all at once. In the air, the invisible Wolf Granny let out a piercing howl. Wherever his small knife passed, blood sprang into the empty space. Cut fur, fat, and muscle curled back and tore open, rising along the line of the blade. A push of wind and a heavy threat rushed from the side. That was the wolf lifting its front paw and head.

Only, it was not the Evil Wolf from the deepest fear in Little Red Riding Hood’s heart, the one bigger than a house.

It was only the Big Bad Wolf a six year old might imagine. Its strength was great, but not greater than Yu Sheng’s. Its speed was quick, but not quicker than an adult’s. It was vicious, but Yu Sheng had handled uglier meat.

He lunged and clamped the unseen wolf’s head, pressed its neck down with his forearm, and pinned it on the small bed. With the knife in his other hand, he kept slicing into the beast. As blood spread and the howls grew shriller, the wolf’s form took shape: much larger than a normal wolf, big enough to swallow a child, long and lean, dressed in a silly apron and a soft brimmed cap, with a twisted, grim head and a swollen belly.

Now it was dying. The fierce light faded from its eyes. A harsh rattle came from its throat. Its limbs jerked as if in the last struggle before touching the The End Web.

“Quiet, quiet, it’s almost over,” Yu Sheng bent close, looking into the Evil Wolf’s eyes. His gaze held a thin joy, and his voice was gentle, even eager: “I have to cut slowly. I need to avoid hurting the child. But you should not fight too hard. If your muscles get too tight, it will ruin what I want to use you for next. There, it’s open.”

He slit the Big Bad Wolf’s belly wide. As the blade made a clean second cut through a strange, thin membrane, a small, skinny girl rolled out.

Her eyes were shut. Not a spot of blood marked her. She looked like a child taking a long nap on this bed, lost in a dream she could not wake from.

Little Red Riding Hood rushed forward, caught the girl before she hit the floor, and, without meaning to, stared wide eyed at the wolf lying open on the bed, its limbs still twitching a little. She looked at Yu Sheng putting away his small knife and asked: “How did you see it? Why couldn’t I see it before?”

“It’s hard to explain. I have some extra ‘perspectives’ now, ways to notice things only the Wolf Pack in the Forest would know,” said Yu Sheng as he wiped the knife clean on the wolf’s fur and turned to her: “As for why you couldn’t see it, maybe it’s because this wasn’t your Wolf Granny.”

Little Red Riding Hood froze, and a thoughtful look rose to her face.

Before she could speak again, howls rose outside the Little House, one after another, breaking her train of thought.

Seven or eight shadowy wolves flashed into being around her. They faced the wolves outside and let out the same hoarse, frightening howls, guarding their master.

“The Wolf Pack is alarmed. They don’t sound happy,” Yu Sheng said as he lifted his head and, from the corner of his eye, saw Little Red Riding Hood go tense from head to toe: “You should take her and leave now. We have cut her out of Wolf Granny’s belly. If we send her back to the real world, she will wake up.”

“But the time isn’t up yet,” said Little Red Riding Hood in a rush, anxious and speaking fast: “The Black Forest only lets you out if you stay long enough.”

Yu Sheng frowned and called to the Doll in his mind: “Irene, drag them out by the method you do best.”

“Okay,” Irene answered at once: “What about you? You’re not coming out?”

“I’ll watch a bit longer and see what changes here. Don’t worry about me.”

“Oh… if you end up dying out there, give me a heads up first.”

“Can you say something nicer?”

Little Red Riding Hood did not know what Yu Sheng was doing, but she felt a sudden disruption in her link with the Black Forest. An outside force was peeling her away from this place. The unknown shift made her blurt out: “What did you-”

“Irene will send you two out,” Yu Sheng told her with a nod: “It may be a little intense. When you throw up later, please don’t do it on me.”

“Ah?”

Then she and the girl, “Xiao Xiao,” vanished from the Little House.

The seven or eight shadow wolves vanished with them.

The howls outside did not fade because Little Red Riding Hood left. They grew dense, moved closer, and felt even more hostile.

[As expected, they came for me.] Yu Sheng frowned, not surprised. He knew he was a “breaker of stories” here, and by the rules the Fairy Tale had shown, story breakers were not welcome.

Even more so a breaker who was a lord. The Fairy Tale disliked lords most of all.

But after a few seconds on guard, Yu Sheng noticed the howls, though closer, stopped at some point outside. The unseen Wolf Pack prowled around there, but for some reason did not attack the Little House.

Still frowning, he looked again around the Little House, hung with Red Cloaks, where the hearth and candles seemed to have gone out long ago.

He remembered what the Squirrel had said and the last Little House he hid in. When the candles and hearth went out, the Little House was swallowed by the Forest, just like those paths the Forest could swallow at any time. It seemed the true nature of such shelters was only a kind of “Illusion Arts” lit up for a while by firelight. But what was with this Little House?

Was it really, as Little Red Riding Hood said, “the final place of the story”? If so, it would not be swallowed, but would sink forever in the deepest Forest, becoming the burial place of all Little Red Riding Hoods.

The howls outside were annoying, but Yu Sheng forced himself to ignore them. With the people saved, his heart had steadied. Now he chose to study this place.

He searched every corner of the Little House. He even lifted each Red Cloak to check under it.

He found a stick and poked through the cold hearth, sifting the ashes with care.

At last, he shoved the dead Big Bad Wolf off the bed and flipped the whole bed over.

Yu Sheng narrowed his eyes.

Lifting the bed had revealed something.

On the floorboards under the bed were many fine, curving marks, like tiny carved lines.

He lay down until his eyes nearly touched the floor and studied the cuts.

The room was dark, but his eyes gleamed like a wolf’s. He saw the marks were crooked writing, but so messy and twisted it was almost impossible to read.

He worked at it for a long time and made out only broken bits:

“…is alive… it is dreaming… hidden in all… shared…”

Yu Sheng’s brow locked tight. The words were too scattered to form sense. He would not guess wildly. He ran his fingertips slowly over the grooves and tried to figure out how the letters had been carved.

It felt like someone had scraped them out bit by bit with sharp nails.

A human hand, but the nails must have been hard and keen, like a wolf’s.

He felt farther along and noticed the later cuts grew smaller and lighter.

“Very tired, very cold, very hungry…

“Can’t remember… how long…

“Wolves outside.

“I am…”

The broken words ran together with nearly unreadable lines. The final marks were so faint they looked like hair thin scratches, as if the person had run out of strength after writing the last two words, “I am,” and never moved again.

Yu Sheng rose slowly, his brow still tight.

He thought this was left by some Little Red Riding Hood in the past. He had few other choices for who it could be.

But which one? Why did she leave it? Why here?

If this really was where all Little Red Riding Hoods finally ended, then how did the one who left these words stay clear minded at the last moment to write them? What did she discover? His gaze returned to the start of the message.

“…is alive…”

This meant “something” was alive. But what? What was alive? What was dreaming?

[What is alive? What is dreaming?] Yu Sheng lifted his head.

The corpse of the Big Bad Wolf had stopped twitching. Blood from its belly had almost all drained. Soon it would make fine meat.

Not far away, cool starlight had slipped in through the Little House window.

The howls around the house had faded at some point. Outside lay a dead, heavy silence.