Chapter 176

Chapter 176: 66 Wutong Road’s Earth Spirit

Yu Sheng suddenly felt a little sorry for making so many Irenes.

It hit him hardest when three Irenes jumped him at once, shrieking and scratching. When there were fewer than two dolls, he could raise a hand and hold them down. But three were too much, especially since one was made of rebar and stone. The impact felt like a bag of cement slamming into his head. Good thing he had been eating well lately and his body was solid. If he still had a normal person’s build, one pounce from Irene would have knocked him out cold.

A moment later, his forehead had several bite marks, and three chattering dolls hung off him. He looked hopeless. [My soul just left my body.]

“Get off me,” he said, looking at the one clinging to his leg, the one perched on his shoulder, and the one hanging from his collar, and sighed, “especially you with the towel. Your towel is about to fall.”

Irene yelped, and all three Irenes hopped off him. The little doll still wrapped in a towel stood on the bed and tipped her head back: “Right, where are my clothes?!”

Yu Sheng reached into the nightstand and tossed her a mended dress: “Here. I fixed it when I had time. I cut away the burnt parts, then took decorative ruffles from the hem to patch the obvious spots. The sewing is so-so. Wear it for now. I’ll buy you a new one in a couple days.”

“Oh, okay,” said the towel-wearing doll, happily catching the dress. She jumped off the bed and ran to the bathroom: “I’m going to change! Don’t peek!”

“Why would I peek at you? I molded all three of your bodies!” Yu Sheng’s eye twitched as he shouted toward the bathroom, then he looked back at the two Irenes on the floor. They stared at him; he stared back.

Just then, something struck him. He slapped his forehead: “Ah, I forgot to tell Little Red Riding Hood about Xiao Xiao. No wonder I felt like I was missing something.”

“Xiao Xiao? The kid from the orphanage?” Irene froze, then remembered the name. “What about her?”

“She entered my weird dream too, the one with the wasteland,” Yu Sheng explained, “and it seems she got dragged toward the Black Forest by a nightmare. She fell into my place by accident while trying to escape a wolf.”

He told the dolls what he had just experienced in the dream. He also mentioned seeing the Hunter and Illusion Arts, but he did not bring up how he nearly “put on” the Hunter’s Garb. The Irenes listened with wide eyes. At last one could not hold back: “How are even your dreams this ridiculous?”

“I don’t know,” Yu Sheng said, hands open. “It’s not like I can control them.”

The two Irenes looked up at him with doubt. After a moment, one little doll lowered her eyes, then propped her chin with her hand as if thinking hard: “To be fair, your guess about that ‘weird dream’ does make some sense. From what has happened, it might be an independent special space of consciousness. It isn’t created by your dream. You just connect to it when you sleep. As for Little Red Riding Hood, Xiao Xiao, and that silly fox, they were affected by your blood and borrowed some kind of permission from you, so they can connect there too.”

“So what exactly is that wasteland?” Yu Sheng frowned. “Is it another Otherworld?”

The two Irenes answered together: “How would we know? Even you don’t know!”

The Irene with a picture frame on her back waved at him: “Forget it. Thinking in circles won’t help. Next time you sleep, I’ll guide you. We’ll go back in and observe that place properly. Maybe we’ll find clues.”

“Works for me,” Yu Sheng said, looking out the window. The sky was already dim. “Little Red Riding Hood will be here soon. For now, let’s focus on that suspicious museum commission.”

Irene’s expression turned serious in an instant.

“I meant to say this earlier. This whole thing smells like a conspiracy.”

Yu Sheng only raised an eyebrow.

“You feel it too,” Irene said, noticing his look. She nodded slowly. “If no one had died and it was only a fake commission, you could blame it on some association member who wanted to keep museum items and cheated the process. But now the person who issued the commission is dead. That isn’t even the biggest red flag. The part that feels most wrong is the ‘sacrifice’ in the museum.”

Yu Sheng frowned. He could still clearly recall that scene.

A victim bound into the pose of The Weeper with iron thorns. A white exhibition hall stained red with blood. A bizarre, terrifying security entity. And Little Red Riding Hood’s loss of control.

It had to happen when she was about to “come of age,” about to face the Black Forest’s devouring, the time when she was least stable.

…

Shadows of the Wolf Pack flowed between buildings, leaving the busy main road for the old streets of Clear Tranquility, then reached the deepest part of 66 Wutong Road, an open ground few people visited. Little Red Riding Hood stepped out from among the wolves and looked ahead.

When she saw the big manor standing quietly in her sight, her face went a little blank.

She had mentally prepared herself and knew she was already affected by Yu Sheng’s blood. But seeing a fortress-type Otherworld that even the Special Affairs Bureau could not detect standing right before her still felt unbelievable.

In her memory, this place used to be empty open ground, with only a short graffiti-covered wall at the far end.

The Wolf Pack faded into the shadows. Little Red Riding Hood took a light breath and walked toward the old house.

Before she could knock, the plain-looking door opened from inside.

Yu Sheng stood in the doorway with a smile: “I saw you from the second-floor window. Come in.”

Little Red Riding Hood answered with a delayed “oh” and followed him inside.

It was her third time stepping into this place. The first time she was lost. The second time she was a bit nervous. Now she even felt a little familiar with this ordinary-looking big manor.

Then she saw three Irenes coming down the stairs in a line, greeting her one after another as they walked.

She froze, rubbed her eyes hard, and looked again. Still three dolls. Two had already run off to watch TV. One came over and looked up at her.

“You’re spacing out!” the little doll said.

“How is there another one?!” Little Red Riding Hood turned to Yu Sheng, shocked.

“Yeah, there’s another one. The one who went to the Black Forest with you is new, though it seems you didn’t notice,” Yu Sheng said as if it were normal. “She’s built for combat, made to take on nasty entities like Hunger and the Evil Wolf. I call her Irene MK-II…”

Little Red Riding Hood stared. The Irene next to her spoke up at once: “Don’t make up model numbers for me! If you must, pick a cooler code name, like Valkyrie type or something.”

Yu Sheng kept a straight face. [You really dare call a 66.6 centimeter doll ‘Valkyrie.’ A living shield from a Valkyrie would be taller than you.] He did not say it out loud. Not because the little doll cursed too well, but because there were three Irenes at home now. If they formed an attack line and rushed him, he might actually lose.

Still a bit dazed, Little Red Riding Hood let Yu Sheng lead her to the living room.

Foxy brought a plate of washed fruit and set it on the coffee table.

Yu Sheng’s first move was to check for tooth marks. You cannot serve a guest fruit that Foxy had nibbled. Then he thought it through. If Foxy had sneaked a taste, she would never bring half-eaten fruit out. More likely she washed a whole basin and then brought only one plate.

Little Red Riding Hood did not know what he was thinking. She thanked Foxy, and the corner of her eye suddenly noticed something odd in that big bunch of tails. All the tails looked lively except one. That one drooped to the floor like it was broken.

Yu Sheng also noticed a tail dragging on the ground and frowned: “What happened to your tail? Did you get hurt?”

Foxy’s face lit up. She walked over in a few quick steps and laid the pile of tails across Yu Sheng’s lap: “Benefactor, look! No more static, right?”

Yu Sheng blinked, then reached out and ran his hand over the tails. He turned to the still-confused Little Red Riding Hood and nodded: “It’s a ground wire.”

Little Red Riding Hood was baffled: “?”

She realized her sense of familiarity with 66 Wutong Road had come too early. Everything here carried a kind of strange, crooked logic. Then she thought it over and felt it actually fit her impression. This place was full of gifted people and an odd kind of spirit. The whole big manor showed a very peculiar energy. For example, every so often there was somehow one more Irene. And the nine tailed fox dragged one tail on the floor in winter as a ground wire to fix static.

Yu Sheng’s voice cut off her thoughts.

“Little Red Riding Hood, have you ever offended anyone?”