Chapter 139

Chapter 139: The Confusing Scrap of Paper

The image Xiao Xiao described made Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood frown at the same time.

After a few seconds, Yu Sheng spoke first. “Could you see their faces clearly? Besides telling you to run, did they say anything else?”

Xiao Xiao shook her head. If anything, she looked more tense.

“It’s okay,” Yu Sheng said quickly, waving a hand in reassurance. “If you can’t remember, don’t force it. If something comes back to you later, you can tell us then.”

Xiao Xiao blinked and nodded, hesitant—like she wasn’t sure what she was agreeing to, but wanted to do it anyway.

Little Red Riding Hood turned to Princess Rapunzel. “Take her to the East Building classroom so people see she’s back. Tell Teacher Su what happened. But no class this afternoon—let her rest in her room.”

“Okay.” Princess Rapunzel took Xiao Xiao’s hand, and the two of them left together—one tall, one small.

The room fell quiet.

Little Red Riding Hood stared at the doorway long after they were gone, lips pressed tight, lost in thought. When she finally spoke, her voice was low.

“That child is the first one to be brought into this room and walk out alive.”

She lifted her head and met Yu Sheng’s eyes.

“Thank you. Fairy Tale owes a lord a debt. From now on, I’ll be your most steadfast friend.”

“This is only the beginning,” Yu Sheng said, his tone turning serious. “My goal is to solve the entire Fairy Tale otherworld. At minimum, the first step is dealing with the Black Forest.”

“Can something like that really be done?” Little Red Riding Hood asked.

This time, her doubt wasn’t the old, automatic skepticism. What she’d seen today—Yu Sheng pulling a child back from a death that should have been final—had cracked something foundational in her. The rules she’d lived by didn’t feel absolute anymore.

Yu Sheng didn’t answer right away. He watched her in silence, then said, “No explanation beats letting you see it. Once we’re sure Xiao Xiao is completely stable, I’ll take you somewhere.”

She nodded, still puzzled—curious despite herself.

Yu Sheng reached into his pocket and took out the grimy scrap of paper. “This fell off that Hunter. Do you know what it is?”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression tightened. She took it carefully, studied it for a long time, then frowned harder. “I’m not an expert at appraisal. And I’ve never seen anything like this in the Black Forest…”

Yu Sheng wasn’t too disappointed. He took it back and tucked it away with care. Then, out of curiosity, he asked, “How much contact have you had with that Hunter?”

“Not much,” Little Red Riding Hood said, thinking as she spoke. “In the Black Forest, wolves appear most often. After that, it’s the little house and the paths. Hunter only appears when Wolf Granny appears, and each time it shows up for a very short while.”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “And ‘contact’ isn’t really the right word. When I act in the Black Forest, it’s not like today at all.”

“Not like this?” Yu Sheng asked. “Then what is it like?”

“Muddled,” she said, voice dropping. “Like a string of disconnected dreams. Most of the time I can’t control myself, and I’m not always ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’”

Her fingers curled slightly at her sides. “When things get worse, I run through the forest from a wolf’s perspective. And when Hunter appears, sometimes I observe the pack from its perspective. It’s like I have too many identities at once—human, wolf, grandmother, Hunter. My sense of self jumps between them.”

She swallowed. “And lately, the times I’m a wolf have been getting more frequent. Hunter has been appearing more often too.”

It was the first time she’d described her situation in that much detail.

Yu Sheng listened, his frown deepening. One word surfaced in his mind.

Collapse.

In those broken dreams, with her awareness being swapped out again and again, Little Red Riding Hood was losing her real self. What was devouring her wasn’t only wolves—it was the Black Forest itself. Becoming a wolf was only one way the process showed itself.

“Sounds like a mess,” Irene commented bluntly.

“Yes,” Little Red Riding Hood said, spreading her hands with a self-mocking smile. “A mess. And that mess is what it’s usually like when you’re sinking into the Black Forest.”

She looked back at Yu Sheng. “An experience like today—staying this clear while crossing the forest, then leaving just as clear, waking up and immediately knowing myself again—honestly feels impossible. In my memory, I only had anything like this when I was little, before the Black Forest sunk into me so deeply.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry I can’t help. I know very little about Hunter. Most of the time, my contact with it is only the length of a gunshot.”

Then her eyes sharpened. “But I do have a suggestion.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Have the Special Operations Bureau forensics section examine that paper,” she said. “They might not understand Hunter either, but their equipment can pull details out of it. And didn’t you pick up a metal component at home last time? Something you didn’t know where it came from? Have them identify that too.”

“Good suggestion.” Yu Sheng nodded. “I’ll call Bai Li Qing later and ask her to set it up.”

The moment he said the director’s name so casually, Little Red Riding Hood’s expression turned subtly strange. She hesitated, then tried to steer him. “Um… do you really need to contact the director for something like this? Can’t you just ask Xu Jiali and the others?”

Yu Sheng remembered the last time he’d called Bai Li Qing in the middle of the night—and the way “border comms” got a hot update the very next day, complete with a new door-opening report button.

Her reminder felt… fair.

But before he could decide, his pocket buzzed.

His phone rang.

Yu Sheng pulled it out. The screen read: Bai Li Qing.

Little Red Riding Hood leaned in, saw it, and froze.

Yu Sheng gave her an awkward smile and lifted the phone to his ear. “Ahem. Good afternoon, Director Bai Li.”

“Just call me Bai Li Qing,” the familiar cool voice said. “The Monitoring Division detected an unusual spatial-temporal displacement. We couldn’t find the cause, so I’m calling to ask—was it you?”

Yu Sheng’s smile got even more awkward. “Uh, yeah. I opened a door. I was in an otherworld at the time, so my phone had no signal. I didn’t have time to report it.”

Two seconds of silence. Then, “This monitoring signal wasn’t quite the same as usual. Were you testing some kind of new function?”

A different signal. Yu Sheng’s thoughts moved fast, landing immediately on how abnormal Fairy Tale was. “Not exactly. I went somewhere unusual. I just came back from a subset of Fairy Tale—the Black Forest.”

The line went quiet again.

Maybe it was his imagination, but every pause from Bai Li Qing felt packed with a hundred words she chose not to say.

Finally, she exhaled softly. “Forgive my curiosity. Why did you enter Fairy Tale?”

Yu Sheng’s brain shorted out. The first thing out of his mouth was, “If I say I was just visiting, would you believe me?”

Bai Li Qing answered faster than he did. “Ah, so you know someone over—”

“No.” Yu Sheng cut her off immediately. “A child got lost. I went in to help find the child.”

Silence.

Then, calmly, “Did you find the child?”

“Yeah.” Yu Sheng felt cold sweat prick his back. “Found her. A wolf took her, but she’s fine.”

He swallowed and pushed forward before his nerves could catch up. “By the way, since you already called, there’s something I want the bureau to help with.”

“Okay,” Bai Li Qing said at once. “Go ahead.”

“I brought something out of the Black Forest. I suspect it was carried by the entity Hunter that gets generated in there. I want you to help identify it.” Yu Sheng paused, then added, “Also, I have another thing. It refreshed in the room at Wu Tong Road 66. I’d like you to look at that too, if it’s convenient.”

The line went silent again—briefly.

Then Bai Li Qing said, “No problem. I’ll arrange it. If there are no signs the sample is self-collapsing, can you wait one more day? The lab needs time to prepare a more complete analysis.”

“That’s fine,” Yu Sheng said quickly. “I’ll wait for your message tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

The call ended.

Yu Sheng looked up at Little Red Riding Hood and forced another awkward smile. “So… in the end, I still had the director set it up.”

Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth, held it for a long moment, then finally managed, “Fine. I guess us ordinary people don’t have experience that applies to you…”