Chapter 136

Chapter 136: Traces of the Past

In the story, Wolf Granny lay on the bed in the little house, hiding claws, ears, and tail. It swallowed Little Red Riding Hood whole, and then—

Hunter should have appeared.

A cook came instead.

The moment Yu Sheng’s blade opened it up, something invisible writhed in the air with a shriek. Blood spilled from nowhere. Fur and fat and muscle tore along the knife’s path, surfacing in midair as if reality itself was being peeled back. Pressure flared beside him—the shape of a raised forepaw, a snapping head.

Too bad it wasn’t the true Big Bad Wolf, the one so huge it could swallow a house in the deepest fear of Little Red Riding Hood.

This was only the big bad wolf a six-year-old girl imagined. It was strong—but not stronger than Yu Sheng. Fast—but not faster than an adult. Vicious—

And Yu Sheng had handled uglier meat.

He lunged, clamping a hand around the invisible wolf’s head. His forearm pinned its neck down and forced it onto the narrow bed. The knife in his other hand kept working, cutting with quick, controlled movements.

As blood spread and the howls turned desperate, the creature fully emerged: far larger than an ordinary wolf, big enough to swallow a child. Its body was long and thin, dressed in a ridiculous apron and a soft-brimmed cap. Its head was savage and twisted. Its belly was grotesquely swollen.

Now it was dying. The light drained from its vicious eyes little by little. A hoarse rattle scraped in its throat. Its limbs twitched as its last struggle dwindled.

“Quiet. Quiet,” Yu Sheng murmured, leaning closer, eyes bright with a strange eagerness. “It’s almost over. I have to cut slowly—I can’t hurt the child.”

His voice stayed gentle, almost coaxing. “But don’t struggle too hard. If you tense up, it makes things messy for what you’ll be good for later…”

The wolf shuddered.

Yu Sheng’s blade slipped under a membrane-like layer—then cut again, clean and precise.

A small girl spilled out of the creature’s stomach.

Her eyes were closed. Not a drop of blood stained her, as if she were only asleep on the bed, trapped in a dream she couldn’t wake from.

Little Red Riding Hood surged forward and caught the girl in both arms before she could roll. Her gaze flicked between the opened belly, the dying wolf, and Yu Sheng as he put the knife away.

“How… how did you see it?” she demanded, breathless. “Why couldn’t I see it before?”

“Hard to explain.” Yu Sheng wiped his blade on the wolf’s fur. “Right now I’ve got some extra angles. I can see things only the wolf pack in the forest would know.”

He glanced at her. “As for why you couldn’t… maybe because this isn’t your Wolf Granny.”

Little Red Riding Hood went still, thought rising in her eyes—

And then a chorus of howls exploded outside, cutting her off.

Seven or eight wolves made of shadowspawn flickered into existence around Yu Sheng in an instant, facing the door. They answered the howls outside with the same rasping, terrifying cries, guarding their master.

“The wolf pack’s stirred up,” Yu Sheng said, head lifting. He saw Little Red Riding Hood tense, every muscle tight. “Take her and go. Fast. We cut her out—now she just needs to return to the real world. She’ll wake up there.”

“But it’s not time yet!” Little Red Riding Hood blurted. “In the Black Forest, you have to stay long enough before you can leave—”

Yu Sheng frowned and snapped to the doll in his mind. “Irene, yank them out by force. Use what you’re best at.”

“Okay,” Irene said immediately. “But what about you? You’re not coming out?”

“I’ll watch a little longer. I want to see what else changes here. Don’t worry about me.”

“Oh… if you’re going to die your way out, tell me ahead of time.”

“Can’t you say something nice for once?”

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t know what he was doing, but she clearly felt something shift—a sudden interference in her link to the Black Forest. An outside force grabbed her and started peeling her away.

Startled, she opened her mouth. “What are you—”

“Irene will send you out,” Yu Sheng said, giving her a quick nod. “It might be intense. When you throw up later, don’t throw up on me.”

“Huh?”

And then she and Xiao Xiao vanished at the same time.

Along with them, the shadowspawn wolves disappeared too.

But the howls outside didn’t fade. They grew denser, closer—more hostile.

“So it really is coming for me,” Yu Sheng muttered, not surprised. He was the story breaker here. And by the rules Fairy Tale had already shown him, anyone who broke the story was never welcome.

Especially a story-breaking lord.

Fairy Tale hated the lord most of all.

Yet after a few seconds on guard, Yu Sheng noticed something else. The howls drew near—but stopped at a certain distance. The unseen wolf pack circled there, but for some reason it wouldn’t cross the line and attack the little house.

Yu Sheng looked around the room again: the tattered red cloaks, the cold hearth, the candles that seemed to have gone out years ago.

He remembered what Squirrel had said. The last time he’d hidden in a shelter house, once the candles and fire died, the house would be swallowed by the forest—just like the paths that could vanish without warning. A “shelter” like that seemed to exist only as long as firelight cast it into being.

So what was this house?

Was Little Red Riding Hood right? Was this the final place of the story?

Was that why it wouldn’t be swallowed—why it remained forever sunk in the deepest forest, a grave for every Little Red Riding Hood?

The howls outside scraped at his nerves, but after saving the girl, Yu Sheng felt steady. He forced himself to ignore the disturbance and study the place properly.

He searched every corner. He lifted every scrap of red cloth to check what might be hidden beneath. He found a stick and poked through the cold fireplace, sifting the ash with care.

In the end, he shoved the dead wolf off the bed and flipped the whole thing over.

Yu Sheng narrowed his eyes.

Beneath the bed, etched into the floor, were countless fine grooves—crooked, cramped marks like someone had carved with shaking hands.

He lay down until his eyes were nearly pressed to the boards and studied the lines in the dim light. With that wolf-sharp focus still humming in his vision, he recognized what they were.

Writing.

Twisted and chaotic, barely legible.

He stared a long time before he could make out broken fragments:

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

Yu Sheng’s brow knotted. It was too shattered to force into meaning, so he didn’t. Instead, he ran his fingers lightly along the grooves, trying to understand how they’d been made.

Bit by bit, gouged with something very sharp.

Human fingers—except the nails must have been hard as bone. Sharp as a wolf’s.

He traced farther. The marks grew smaller and shallower as they continued, as if whoever carved them had been fading with every word.

“Very tired, very cold, very hungry…

“Can’t remember… how long…

“Wolves outside.

“I am…”

The final grooves were so faint they were nearly nothing. It was as if the writer had run out of strength after “I am,” and never moved again.

Yu Sheng rose slowly, eyes still fixed on the floor.

This had to be a past Little Red Riding Hood. There weren’t many other answers.

But which one?

Why leave this here?

If this really was where every Little Red Riding Hood ended, how had the one who carved these words stayed sane enough to do it?

What had she discovered?

Yu Sheng’s gaze returned to the beginning.

“…is alive…”

Something was alive. Something was dreaming.

But what?

He lifted his head.

The corpse on the floor no longer twitched. Most of the blood had drained. Soon it would make very good meat.

And through the window, pale starlight had begun to spill into the little house.

At some point, the howls around the house had disappeared.

Outside, the Black Forest was silent as death.