Chapter 160

Chapter 160: The Past

A wolf’s howl?

Yu Sheng’s first reaction was pure confusion. But the moment he heard that sound, he connected it to everything he’d been through lately. He didn’t even have time to wonder if he was imagining it—because less than a few seconds later, another uneasy howl drifted in from far away, clearer than the first.

Besides, he didn’t think you got “auditory hallucinations” in a dream.

Frowning, Yu Sheng headed toward the source. In this lucid dream, he took only a few steps before a single thought carried him across the distance. In the blink of an eye, he arrived at the place that felt wrong.

He saw the wolf.

It was a stiff, unreal shadowspawn floating above the grass. Like a projector with a bad connection, it flickered once every few seconds. Each time it blinked, the rigid shape snapped into a different pose, as if some lagging security feed was only refreshing the image every so often.

Yu Sheng stared, shocked and curious. It flickered again. On the next “refresh,” the wolf turned its head, as if it had finally noticed the intruder approaching, and fixed its gaze on him.

But it was still just a shadowspawn. Other than looking at him, it didn’t seem capable of doing anything else.

The tension in Yu Sheng’s chest slowly eased. Curiosity took over. For some reason, its eyes looked… familiar.

And then an absurd thought surfaced—this was not a wolf you could eat.

Because there was humanity in its eyes.

Humanity?

Yu Sheng jolted. Suddenly, he knew where that familiarity came from. Hesitating, he reached out, wanting to touch the projection hovering over the grass.

A faint chill spread from his fingertips. It felt like pressing through a layer of cold mist. The wolf continued to stare at him in silence, and then, on the next flicker, it vanished.

And in Yu Sheng’s mind, countless messy, shattered memory fragments—memories that weren’t his—burst forth all at once.

He saw yellowed, faded scenes, like film left too long in the sun. A chain of flashbacks. A blurry shadowspawn standing among a group of equally indistinct figures. They gathered around a small bed, as if silently seeing someone off.

The next moment, he saw the same shadowspawn arguing with someone. The other figure was taller; the face was still unclear, but through the memory Yu Sheng felt a strange warmth and longing. Someone important—someone the owner of these memories cared about deeply—yet now they were fighting, the words breaking in and out:

“…Why do you have to go to school!

You’ll never grow up anyway!”

“…You have to live like a normal child… go to school, make friends, study, play, worry, be happy… Even if it’s short, you still have to experience it…”

In the grip of that brief fragment, Yu Sheng took a few unconscious steps forward. Then new images surged up, swallowing the last ones whole.

He saw that tall figure standing with many other shadowspawn. Everyone formed a circle, clapping as if under someone’s lead. A voice came from the side, cheerful and distant: “…Welcome Teacher Su. From now on she’ll teach Brother and Sister… Teacher Zhang is sick, so she won’t be coming anymore…”

The scene flickered out again.

Now the tall figure stood alone in a patch of bushes. She looked smaller than before. Suddenly, an even blurrier wolf appeared in front of her. It lowered its head and let out a muffled whine.

The small figure bent down and reached out. She looked scared and tense, but she still forced herself to pat the wolf’s head.

“From now on… be good…”

The wolf vanished.

Yu Sheng saw the figure walking alone down a narrow path.

Now she was even smaller—small enough to look like a child of five or six. She walked while crying. Dim streetlights flickered on both sides. Beyond their thin pools of light lay the Black Forest, choked with darkness. Howls rose and fell. Malice seeped through the trees, as if countless hungry predators were waiting just out of sight.

The tiny figure stopped and looked up into the darkness ahead, as if something had appeared there and caught her attention.

Don’t go—

The warning leapt up in Yu Sheng’s mind, but the next instant she left the path without hesitation, heading straight into the depths of the Black Forest, soaked in malice.

Yu Sheng knew it was only an illusion of the past—and not even his own—but he still tried to stop her on instinct. He appeared beside her almost instantly, lifting a hand to block her way.

She passed right through him and kept going.

Yu Sheng turned back in disbelief and saw her running faster and faster, throwing herself at two faceless illusions.

“Dad! Mom!”

Yu Sheng froze.

At last, he understood what Little Red Riding Hood had seen on that path so many years ago.

Maybe no matter how many times it happened, six-year-old her would still rush into that darkness without hesitation.

Every child would.

Chewing sounds came from the dark.

A wash of bright red spread through the shadows, like a glaring red cloak.

Then everything vanished—the tiny figure, the endless Black Forest, all of it—scattered into a hollow wind.

Yu Sheng stumbled back two steps and found himself once more on that gray, boundless wilderness. But this time the flickering phantom wolf was gone. In its place stood a girl in a red coat, not far away, looking a little lost.

Yu Sheng paused, then walked toward her. She seemed to “wake” too, turning her head with hesitation.

After a while, the girl in red spoke softly. “You saw it all?”

Yu Sheng blinked. He’d assumed what he witnessed was just another dream illusion. He hadn’t expected her to truly be here. He recovered quickly and nodded. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Ah. Ah…” Little Red Riding Hood raked her fingers through her hair, half helpless, half annoyed. “This is exactly what you lords do—snooping around in other people’s privacy. Why were you even curious in the first place?”

“I said I didn’t mean to…” Yu Sheng scratched his cheek, grasping for a way out of the awkwardness. “And I’m not the one who dragged you in here.”

She stopped clawing at her hair. Lifting her head, she shot him a look through her bangs—about as threatening as a tired student could manage. “That’s what I want to ask. Where is this?”

Yu Sheng hesitated. “Uh. It’s my dream.”

The moment he said it, he realized how flimsy his defense sounded.

Sure enough, Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes widened. “And you still say you didn’t mean it!”

“It’s instinct,” Yu Sheng said weakly. “Foxy came here before, too. It seems like anyone who’s formed a blood connection with me might fall in, but I don’t understand the principle.”

Little Red Riding Hood eyed him like a suspicious cat, scanning him up and down as if searching for cracks. Only then did she ask again, “Really?”

Yu Sheng nodded with absolute sincerity, his expression steady.

At last, she looked away, as if deciding not to dig any deeper for now.

Only a few seconds passed before she turned back again. “I don’t get it. What kind of normal person dreams like this? A fixed space that can drag people in—and once they’re dragged in, they can talk to you.”

“I don’t know,” Yu Sheng said, looking even more helpless than she did. “You know my situation. I can’t even sort out my own problems…”

She stared at him for a long time, then finally waved a hand, let out a long breath, turned around, and sat down on the grass.

Yu Sheng walked over, hesitated, then sat beside her.

“In broad daylight, why are you dreaming?” he asked.

“Chemistry class,” she muttered. “I fell asleep.”

Two seconds later, she added, “I don’t usually sleep in class, and I haven’t been sleeping much lately. I don’t know why, but today I was just tired. I spaced out for a second and that was it.”

“Falling asleep in class is a normal part of a student’s life,” Yu Sheng said, not even sure what he was trying to sound like. “You’re still growing. Sleep more.”

“I’m almost eighteen, not eight,” Little Red Riding Hood said, glancing at him. Under her bangs, her eyes seemed to curve with faint amusement. “…Hey. Seriously. When I was little, was I pretty stupid? I’ve never even seen what my parents looked like, but back then I really thought I’d seen my dad and mom…”

Yu Sheng didn’t answer right away. After a while, he said calmly, “I’m going to kill the Black Forest—and whatever’s behind it.”

“…You suddenly got an idea?”

“I went to the Special Operations Bureau today and found some clues,” Yu Sheng said slowly. “The first step is to find the ‘Hunter’ in the Black Forest. They might know where the path is that leads behind the forest.”

“Why do you think that?”

“‘Hunter’ might be one member of the deep dive squad that went into the depths of the fairy tale seventy years ago and never came back. Or they might be all of them.”

Little Red Riding Hood went still. She held that blank stare for a long time before she finally blinked.

But just as she was about to speak, Yu Sheng cut in first. “It’s enough that you know. Don’t casually make contact with ‘Hunter.’”

“Why?”

“…They’ve been in the Black Forest for too long.”