Chapter 175

Chapter 175: Old Matters Raise Doubts

Yu Sheng shook his head quickly and set the wild guesses aside.

Whether this was a special mind-space or truly his “dream,” what he needed to think about now was why Xiao Xiao had appeared here.

He naturally thought of two others who had come here before: Little Red Riding Hood and Foxy.

If he had to count further, Irene too, though the little Doll had entered by using her own dream-walking ability.

[Is it because of blood ties?]

Xiao Xiao still stood by him, blinking in mild confusion.

He reached out and ruffled the little one’s hair. He had no idea how to explain this place to a six-year-old, so he didn’t: “You’re dreaming.”

“Then are you someone I dreamed up?” she asked, curious.

He froze, then forced himself to answer: “Yes. You dreamed me.”

“Then can you turn into X Knight?” she asked.

He realized this was not going the direction he expected: “No.”

She thought for a moment and said, “Ultraman also works.”

He gave up and crouched to meet her eyes, speaking carefully: “Even in dreams there are things we can’t do…”

“Oh.”

She oh-ed, seeming to finally give up that idea.

A few seconds later she tried again: “What about Rainbow Pony…”

“Also no.”

“Okay, I won’t change then.”

Xiao Xiao plopped down, pulled a few blades of grass, and started tying them into knots with great focus.

Yu Sheng remembered Little Red Riding Hood’s complaints the last time here and crouched beside Xiao Xiao: “Does it feel a little boring here?”

She nodded, then quickly shook her head hard.

“There are no wolves here,” she whispered. “It feels better than other dreams.”

He paused, thoughtful.

Just as he was about to speak, he faintly heard something.

He realized it was a sound from the real world.

“Uncle has to go,” he said after a quick thought, turning to Xiao Xiao. “You’ll probably stay here for a bit. Your teacher will wake you when nap time ends. Don’t be afraid. It’s safe here.”

Xiao Xiao blinked and waved politely: “Goodbye, uncle.”

Yu Sheng let go of his control over the place and let his mind drop away, the sound in his head tugging him back to reality.

The next second, weight pressed down all over him. His chest felt so heavy he almost could not breathe. He opened his eyes, and of course there they were: three Dolls. Two Irenes pinned his arms and one leg, and another Irene sprawled splayed-out on his chest.

Even though the three Dolls looked exactly alike, he could tell in a second that the one on his chest was Rebar Irene.

“Off, off, you’re going to crush me,” Yu Sheng said, scrambling with both hands and feet to pry them off. It felt like battling a pile of koalas. When he finally wriggled free, half his body felt numb. He even suspected he might have actually been crushed to death once and had only just revived. He lunged for the nightstand, grabbed the ringing phone, and saw Little Red Riding Hood’s name.

Ignoring the sleepy grumbling of the three Dolls, he answered: “Hello?”

Little Red Riding Hood got straight to the point, and what she said surprised him: “Do you remember that operation we did at the museum?”

He froze. He had been thinking about Xiao Xiao slipping into his “dream” and assumed Little Red Riding Hood was calling because the orphanage had shown some new sign. Instead she brought up the museum case from days ago. He nodded: “Yeah, I remember.”

“Do you also remember that the payment for that job still hasn’t arrived?”

“Ah, I almost forgot!” Yu Sheng sat up, alert now. “Right, it never came… did something happen? Did you go to collect? Are they refusing to pay?”

As he spoke he felt the topic shift was odd. Lately their calls were always about Fairy Tale and the Otherworld. It was always the Black Forest and the Big Bad Wolf. Jumping back to the museum felt abrupt.

Her next line blew away that feeling at once: “My client is dead.”

“What?!”

“Since the Curiosities Association never sent the payment, I felt something was off. I tried to contact the client, but every number they left was unreachable,” she explained. “So today I reached out to other acquaintances in the Curiosities Association. They told me my client had an accident a few days ago and died.”

Yu Sheng said nothing at first, but the wrongness in this was already clear to him.

After a moment he asked the key point: “Then what about the commission for the Weeping One Statue?”

“You thought of it too,” she said, her tone heavy. “The Curiosities Association is a major, legitimate Organization. For public commissions they post, even if the executor has an accident, the Organization should have a follow-up process. You don’t get a case where the issuing lead dies and the payment just vanishes. So I checked that commission through their process. Guess what I found?”

“No need to guess,” Yu Sheng said. “From the way you said it… the commission doesn’t exist, right?”

“Right. It doesn’t exist. In the Association’s public postings, there is no recovery commission for the Weeping One Statue,” she sighed. “I don’t know if the commission was fake from the start, or if someone recently deleted its record.”

He frowned.

The museum operation had been over for many days. After that came a cult sacrifice and Angel Cultists, one surprise after another. Still, to Yu Sheng, the case had ended for him and Little Red Riding Hood. Now a new, wrong ripple had risen from something already closed. He caught a whiff of something like a conspiracy.

[If the commission was fake from the start, then things are simpler. Maybe a Curiosities Association member broke rules, tried to hide a “museum piece” for profit, got the item and then died. Then it stays a matter of one person. But if the commission was real and someone scrubbed it later, then things just got complicated.]

“I think it’s off, and the payment we agreed to split has gone nowhere. I felt I should tell you,” Little Red Riding Hood said, a note of apology in her voice. “Sorry. You did a lot of work, then it dragged on so long, and now this…”

“Forget that for now,” Yu Sheng cut in. “What are you going to do? You’ll keep digging, right?”

“Mm. At least I need to learn what happened to my client,” she said after a pause. “We worked together for years. He was the first to connect me with the Curiosities Association. Even the last ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ received his help. I don’t believe he would do this for selfish reasons. And his death is very strange. It looks too much like…”

“Too much like someone silenced him, right?” Yu Sheng said evenly.

“Mm.”

“Let’s talk in person,” Yu Sheng said with a slow breath. “Do I come to you, or will you come to me?”

She sounded taken aback. After a beat she hurried to say: “Huh? I wasn’t going to trouble you. I just wanted to tell you about the payment. I planned to investigate the rest myself…”

“Nonsense. You’ve said this much. My curiosity is up,” he cut in again. “And this is too nasty. Cheating even a child laborer out of his pay.”

Silence. He could tell she wanted to argue for a second, but had no comeback.

After he grumbled a bit more, he suddenly remembered to ask: “By the way, does the Special Affairs Bureau handle this?”

“Of course. The action was registered on the ‘Border Communications’ platform. If there’s a breach of contract or any hiding or transfer of ‘curios,’ the authorities will investigate, especially since someone died. But their direction and methods are not the same as a Spirit Realm Detective’s.”

“Then let them run their investigation, and we’ll run ours,” Yu Sheng said with a wave. “You still didn’t say. Should I go to you, or will you come here?”

She went quiet for two seconds and finally said: “I’ll come to you. I’m nearby. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

“Okay. I’ll wait at home.”

“Mm. And… thanks.”

The call ended. Yu Sheng watched the screen go dark and exhaled lightly.

Then he looked up and saw three Dolls sitting neatly on the bed, staring at him with unblinking eyes.

In chorus they sang out with stretched tones: “Some~thing hap~pened a~gain~.”

He glared and pointed at the one in the middle: “You. No more sleeping on my bed.”

“Why not!”

“Why? Because you almost crushed me,” he said, eyes wide. “Rebar plus solid stone, dropping from one meter sixty-seven to a bit over sixty centimeters. I’m afraid if you bounce once, you’ll punch a hole through my bed. Get down.”

He should not have said it. The instant he did, Irene’s eyes went red with outrage, and with a sharp howl she launched herself at him…