Chapter 166

Chapter 166: Gunshots

[Small brains really do not handle change well.] The jumpy Squirrel saw Yu Sheng and the others and went wild; it tossed its acorn, sprang and bounced over the shrubs, and made a racket almost as loud as Irene, shouting things like: “This is getting weird,” “Where the heck did all of you come from,” “Is this still Little Red Riding Hood?”

At last Little Red Riding Hood could not stand it. She stepped forward, caught the Squirrel as it was about to leap from a twig, yanked it close, and said fiercely: “Quiet! Or I’ll throw you into the thorns!”

The Squirrel stared stiffly at Little Red Riding Hood, glanced at Yu Sheng and the three behind him, stretched its neck, tilted its head, and with a sharp “gah,” fainted.

Yu Sheng could only stare in silence: “…”

Even Irene was stunned as she watched: “What is this, so useless… it fainted from fear?”

But before she finished, the Squirrel slowly woke up. It struggled in Little Red Riding Hood’s grip, then, seeing where it was, calmed a little and still could not stop muttering: “Is a big disaster coming… is this still the Black Forest? How did such a big group pop out of nowhere… none of you look like a new Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Uh… hello,” Foxy gathered her courage and walked over, greeting the Squirrel politely: “I’m Foxy.”

“And this on my shoulder is Irene,” Yu Sheng carried Irene over too, flashed a bright sunny grin at the Squirrel, and said: “We meet again, little Squirrel.”

“Yes, we meet again. Squirrel remembers you, the ‘lord’ who somehow broke in… and now you brought even more strange folks. I’m confused, I’m confused,” the Squirrel wriggled out of Little Red Riding Hood’s hand, climbed up to her shoulder, and fretted under its breath: “The Black Forest won’t be happy. The Black Forest doesn’t like troublemakers… you don’t listen, I can tell you don’t listen. You’ll be in big trouble. Run, you should run right away…”

“What a coincidence,” Yu Sheng smiled even wider at the Squirrel’s muttering and said: “We came here to make the Black Forest unhappy.”

The Squirrel stared at Yu Sheng, not quite understanding what he meant.

Yu Sheng did not explain. He softened his smile, stepped toward the faint lights deeper in the trees, and asked calmly: “Do you know where we can find the Hunter?”

The Squirrel squeaked in a thin, puzzled voice: “The Hunter? Why are you looking for the Hunter?”

“I need to ask him a few things,” Yu Sheng said casually, then added at once: “Don’t ask about the rest. Just tell me where to find them.”

“It’s not safe. Going to the Hunter like this is not safe,” the Squirrel said in a panic: “The Hunter has a gun and shoots anything that looks like a wolf. Little Red Riding Hood already looks a lot like a wolf… if you’re careless, you’ll be treated like prey, especially tonight, tonight…”

Yu Sheng’s steps slowed, and his eyes shifted: “Tonight? What about tonight?”

Clutching the hood of Little Red Riding Hood’s coat, the Squirrel hesitated, then shrank its neck under Yu Sheng’s steady stare and confessed: “Since yesterday the Black Forest hasn’t been stable. Some wolves went mad, some areas vanished, and there was a big explosion… it may be worse tonight. When the Black Forest gets unstable, the Hunter gets unstable too. He roams around, angry and dangerous, sometimes more dangerous than the wolves…”

Yu Sheng said nothing.

Irene poked the back of his head and grumbled: “Why do I feel like this is kind of your fault?”

Yu Sheng kept his neck stiff and face straight: “It’s all part of the plan.”

“What are you talking about?” the Squirrel raised its upper body and blinked at Yu Sheng and Irene in confusion.

“Nothing,” Yu Sheng shook his head, then quickly shifted the Squirrel’s attention: “Forget the rest. Just lead me to the Hunter. Whether we can deal with him is my business. Worst case, you run like last time.”

“You never listen to warnings!” The Squirrel waved its paws in distress, then drooped its tail and burrowed half its body into Little Red Riding Hood’s hood: “Fine, fine, have it your way… go find the Hunter. Where there is Wolf Granny, there is the Hunter. No matter where he was roaming, if Wolf Granny shows up, he will come.”

“Good. That’s all the intel I needed. It fits what I expected.”

Yu Sheng nodded and kept moving toward the lights ahead.

Irene was confused. She was not familiar with the rules of the Black Forest, so she asked: “Do you two know where to find this ‘Wolf Granny’?”

“The Little House,” Little Red Riding Hood answered as she walked beside them: “In the Black Forest, lamplight can appear and mark small paths. At The End Web of a path, you can usually find a wooden cabin. Inside there are two usual cases. One is a safe empty room; the other has Wolf Granny hiding inside. By the way, under normal conditions I should avoid any Little House that holds Wolf Granny.”

Irene listened carefully, then noticed a word: “‘Usually’ there are two cases? What about the ‘unusual’ times?”

“There’s a third case,” Little Red Riding Hood paused. Her voice stayed even, but a thin fear rose in her eyes: “The Little House has no Wolf Granny at first, but once you go inside to hide, Wolf Granny comes to knock on The Door. This one is the most dangerous. You have only a heartbeat to escape. A few times… I got caught right when Wolf Granny knocked on The Door.” [This kind is the worst.]

She stopped there, then let out a small breath: “And there’s the ‘fourth case’ that Yu Sheng and I met recently: a Little House that’s not connected to any path, standing alone in the Deep Forest with no lights, and inside it is full of Red Cloaks.”

Irene reacted at once: “Oh, I know that one. It’s what you ran into last time.”

Yu Sheng noticed the Squirrel shrink into the hood when it heard “no lights” and “Red Cloaks.” When it peeked out again, its beady eyes were still full of fear.

He walked closer, looked straight into the Squirrel’s eyes, and asked: “Why are you so afraid of the dark Little House?”

The Squirrel trembled and let out a pleading squeak: “I don’t know! Squirrel knows nothing!”

Yu Sheng frowned hard.

“Don’t push it,” Little Red Riding Hood sighed and cut off Yu Sheng’s next question: “With a reaction like that, we won’t get anything from it. If the pressure goes up, it will faint again.”

“Yes, yes,” the Squirrel chirped at once: “Little Red Riding Hood and Squirrel are friends! Best friends!”

“Right, and not very reliable friends,” Yu Sheng muttered. He did not press further. He kept walking and also kept part of his attention on everything the Squirrel did.

The path came into view.

A winding forest trail lay ahead, lit by streetlamps with a fairy-tale glow. The path led toward the Deep Forest, and what lay at The End Web was covered in shadow. The edge of the light drew a sharp border on both sides, and the malice of the Black Forest fell back wherever the lamps reached. Peace filled the path.

The moment they stepped onto the path, the constant sense of malice and spying eased. Even the wolf howls that came now and then seemed to drift far away.

“Wow… this is interesting,” Irene sensed the change at once. She stared at the floating “light orbs” in the air and said in surprise: “But this is not like a normal ‘fixed safe zone’ in the Otherworld. The safety of this path seems to come from these lights.”

“What’s the difference?” Yu Sheng said, puzzled: “Aren’t they both safe zones?”

“Not the same,” Irene shook her head: “In normal Otherworlds, a ‘fixed safe zone’ means the area itself is stable. Even if it moves or disappears with time, if you stay inside at the right time and place, Entities can’t affect you. Here, it feels like a ‘strange item’ is making a temporary safety shield. If the lights stay on, the path is safe. If the lights go out, it probably won’t be safe. In other words, what’s safe isn’t the path but the lamp. This is not a safe zone. It’s a safety object.”

Yu Sheng listened closely and kept up with the Doll’s line of thought with little effort. [When exploring the Otherworld, I really should bring this Doll along. She is unreliable in many ways, but in the Domain her eye for things, plus her on-and-off instincts, can actually help.]

Just then, a sound cut off his thoughts.

Bang!

It was a gunshot. Heavy, sudden, the sound of a hunter’s shotgun firing.

They stopped at once, looking at one another as the shot echoed.

The Squirrel poked out of Little Red Riding Hood’s hood and rubbed its paws in a panic: “The Hunter fired… the Hunter fired…”

“Benefactor, it came from that way,” Foxy tugged Yu Sheng’s sleeve and pointed off the path. Her ears twitched and tilted as she adjusted how they caught the air: “About one to two hundred meters.”

Another gunshot came the moment she finished.

Bang!