Chapter 142

Chapter 142: When Tomorrow Suddenly Feels Worth Looking Forward To

Yu Sheng did not waste words; after Little Red Riding Hood confirmed it, he opened The Door right there in the hallway in front of Rapunzel and Xiao Xiao, and he also filed the notice with one tap.

A faint, glowing Door appeared out of thin air, and on the other side was a strange landscape.

Rapunzel’s eyes went wide as she stared in shock: “Wow, what is this?”

Yu Sheng kept The Door steady as he answered casually: “My ability. Didn’t Little Red Riding Hood tell you?”

Rapunzel still looked stunned as she peered through: “She mentioned it a little, but I didn’t think it would be like this. What’s on the other side of The Door?”

Yu Sheng smiled and invited them as if it were nothing: “Interested? You can come too,” then he looked at Xiao Xiao and asked gently, “Want to go play? In Boundary City it’s hard to find a space this open.”

Xiao Xiao immediately lifted her head and looked to her “guardian” with careful, questioning eyes.

Little Red Riding Hood felt full of doubts. [Why does that view feel familiar?] The angle kept her from being sure, but Yu Sheng’s half smile told her the place was safe, so after a brief hesitation she nodded to Rapunzel: “Come with us. Since Yu Sheng said you can go, it shouldn’t be dangerous.”

Rapunzel waved a hand and took off running: “Okay! I’ll go tell the others and be right back!”

In just a few minutes she dashed back, breathing hard and carrying a small backpack: “I’m back, I’m back. We can go!”

Yu Sheng eyed the bag with some confusion: “Uh, what’s that?”

Rapunzel answered while buckling the little pack onto Xiao Xiao: “Water bottle, tissues, snacks, and bandages. Kids should bring these when they go out the door. Oh right, a hat too. I forgot the little yellow hat. Wait for me…”

Yu Sheng chuckled and stopped her: “We’re not going on a picnic, and there aren’t any cars or crossroads there. If we really need to, I can use Door Opening to bring us back anytime.”

Rapunzel blinked and calmed down: “Oh. Okay. Then what’s over there?”

Irene said offhand: “Nothing much, just a vegetable patch.”

Rapunzel looked puzzled, but before she could ask more, Little Red Riding Hood stepped through The Door. Foxy and Irene followed. Yu Sheng kept one hand on The Door, then beckoned to Rapunzel and Xiao Xiao with the other: “Go on ahead. You’re in for a surprise.”

A split second of weightlessness and dizziness followed, a brief scramble of the senses as the world flipped. In less than a second, everyone who crossed The Door had already left the orphanage and stood in a broad open world.

Rapunzel stared at the blue sky, high mountains, and a vast valley. She then noticed Xiao Xiao beside her, eyes shining. The girl had been tense and quiet since arriving in a strange place, but now her face glowed with wonder. The impossible view hit her hard.

Xiao Xiao finally burst out in delight: “Wow!” She pointed toward the far ridge of mountains and the wasteland touched with a pale green, then giggled and giggled.

No one knew what she found funny. It was only clear that she was very happy.

But Little Red Riding Hood, who had gone through first, stood frozen. She hardly heard the laughter behind her. She stared at the mountains flanking the valley, and her expression shifted from blank to shocked, then a little tense.

She had recognized this place. Even though everything here had changed beyond belief, she still knew the outline of the valley.

Then she noticed the things that shocked her even more.

She saw the open platform in the center of the valley, the one she was standing beside. She saw the large, smoothed plots outside the platform that were clearly leveled by hand for vegetable patches. She saw an unfinished irrigation channel on one side of the platform, and she saw a squat, ugly, makeshift toilet standing near the platform’s edge.

Her thoughts jammed up at once. The pictures didn’t fit together, and no matter how she tried, no answer came.

She looked up at Yu Sheng and found him watching her with that same half smile.

He said calmly as he came to stand before her: “Remember what I told you? I’m going to settle the Black Forest, and even the Fairy Tale problem. You said Fairy Tale can’t be rooted out, because an Otherworld is that kind of thing. I don’t agree. Look around. This is my proof.”

Little Red Riding Hood finally broke the silence: “Is this… Night Valley?” She did not know how to go on. She already felt that something impossible had happened here, but logic kept her from guessing what it meant.

Yu Sheng lifted his chin and looked into the distance: “That was its old name. I’m thinking about a new one. Since that big eye left, night never comes here. Now I’m stuck trying to figure out how to get a normal day and night. If it’s always daytime, lots of crops do badly, and I don’t know how to build greenhouses.”

Little Red Riding Hood blinked. Her ears followed the words, but her thoughts did not. [Talking with Yu Sheng and his group always leaves my mind a step behind.]

Two or three seconds later she caught up: “Wait. What about the Hunger Entity that lived here?”

Yu Sheng spread his hands: “Gone. The dish you saw last time, when I kept you for dinner, was the last plate.”

Irene added, head tilted: “And he felt a little sorry about that.”

Little Red Riding Hood stared: “?”

Her thoughts fell behind again.

After another beat she finally reacted, and reason kicked off a storm of conclusions: “The Hunger Entity… is gone? Wait. You mean this place will never regenerate a Hunger Entity again?”

Yu Sheng nodded: “That’s right. Not only will it never generate Hunger again, I plan to turn this into the hotel’s supply base for meat, greens, and grain. We’re just getting started.”

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t even register the last part. She took two quick steps toward him, eyes suddenly sharp as a wolf’s: “So the rules of this Otherworld have been changed for good? No… an Otherworld’s rules are its essence. If the rules change, that means… the original Otherworld died? No, that still isn’t right, because the valley is still here…”

Yu Sheng saw her getting tangled and waved lightly for calm: “Bai Li Qing has a good way to say it. This valley is like an empty shell after it’s been eaten clean. The rules that once filled the shell, and the Entities born from those rules, were all eroded in that feast. What remains is a harmless shell.”

He paused, then added: “Also, this shell seems to be connected to Wutong Road 66 now. I haven’t sorted out the spacetime between them, but you can think of this as the courtyard of Wutong Road 66.”

Little Red Riding Hood said nothing.

It was as if she hadn’t heard the last part. She stood there a long time, eyes fixed on the far distance, on the bright sky and the healed earth, on the pale green climbing the slopes, on an Otherworld no longer filled with Hunger and despair. [So this is what hope looks like.]

Light footsteps came from the side. Xiao Xiao, who always kept her head down at the orphanage, now wore a sunny smile. She jogged to Little Red Riding Hood, raised her hand high, and offered a bunch of wild grass: “Sister Red Hood, flowers!”

The next second the girl froze with her hand still up, then looked up uneasily: “Why are you crying? Does it hurt? Is your body going to split open too?”

By the end she sounded scared.

Little Red Riding Hood dropped her head, wiped her face fast, then raised it with a smile in her eyes. She took the bunch from Xiao Xiao and rubbed the girl’s hair: “No. Cold wind got in my eyes. This is just a handful of grass. There aren’t any flowers.”

Xiao Xiao grinned again: “They fell on the road. The wind blew them away. You have to pretend they’re still in your hand.”

Little Red Riding Hood played along as she ruffled the girl’s hair: “Okay. They’re still here. Thank you for the flowers.”

Then she straightened and searched for Rapunzel.

Rapunzel had somehow climbed onto the odd platform and was poking around the weird, ugly “house.” After a moment she looked up and waved with excitement: “Hey, Little Red Riding Hood! There are chickens next to this toilet. A whole flock!”

Little Red Riding Hood narrowed her eyes against the bright sky. [How nice. It feels like life suddenly has things worth looking forward to again.]

Only Yu Sheng looked unhappy as he shouted toward the platform: “That’s not a toilet! That’s phase one of our club headquarters!”