Chapter 177

Chapter 177: Traveling With the Wolf Pack

Pissed someone off?

Yu Sheng’s question made Little Red Riding Hood go blank. A few seconds later, understanding caught up, and her brows drew together.

“You mean… the museum thing was a trap aimed at me?”

“Don’t blame me for thinking conspiracy,” Yu Sheng said seriously. “There are a lot of suspicious parts, but the most suspicious is why it landed on you. Do you remember the sacrifice inside?”

His tone hardened. “If Foxy, Irene, and I hadn’t stalled that Big Bad Wolf that crawled out of the shadowspawn, you would’ve lost control. And the reason you went to the museum—the reason you walked into that white exhibition hall at that exact time—was because you took a commission to retrieve an item, and it had a time limit.”

Now he looked straight at her. “And now we find out the commission was fake. That kind of coincidence is hard not to doubt.”

“The sacrifice was carried out by two angel cultists,” Little Red Riding Hood snapped, her face twisting. She’d always hated being linked to those lunatics. “You’re saying those crazy people who follow dark angels set this up specifically to deal with me? Why? That doesn’t make sense.”

“So I’m asking if you ever pissed someone off.”

“…What would I have to do to get targeted by that group?” Little Red Riding Hood’s voice went low, tense. “You know me. I never touch anything related to dark angels. Normally I only take small to medium commissions through legit channels, and more than half come from the Special Operations Bureau. The Fairy Tale organization is careful about outside contact too.”

She shook her head. “We have competitors in spirit realm detective work, sure. But it shouldn’t escalate into enemies.”

“Then here’s another possibility.” Yu Sheng thought for a moment. “You didn’t offend the angel cultists. You just have value that makes them target you. Like you said, they’re lunatics. A lunatic’s logic isn’t a normal person’s. Maybe they think you can help their cause, so they made a move.”

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t answer. Her gaze drifted, wary and sharp, like her mind was circling a dark corner she didn’t want to look into.

Yu Sheng knew he was spiraling too far. You couldn’t divine the angel cultists’ motives just by sitting on a sofa and guessing. He coughed twice and dragged the conversation back onto firmer ground.

“All right. Let’s talk about the commission itself. What do you know so far?”

“I was in direct contact with the client,” Little Red Riding Hood said, exhaling softly. She looked tired, but her voice stayed steady. “Thinking back now… because I knew him well, I didn’t verify the details of how it was issued.”

She frowned. “The electronic commission document I received did have the Curiosities Association’s marks and a one-time serial number. But it wasn’t released directly from the association’s liaison department. It was forwarded to me through the client’s personal account. We’ve done that before, so I didn’t think much of it.”

Yu Sheng’s brow creased. “A big organization allows a loophole like that?”

“In principle, no. In practice, it’s hard to avoid.” Little Red Riding Hood made a small, helpless gesture. “It’s the end of the year. A large organization like the Curiosities Association has strict deadlines for outsourcing orders. So every year around this time, the people in charge try to get orders sent out before the deadline first. That way, when it’s time to settle accounts, they can use the timestamp to cut in line. Everyone has KPI pressure…”

Yu Sheng stared at her. “…That’s such a painfully realistic reason.”

Little Red Riding Hood fell silent for two seconds, then pointed at Foxy, who was wandering around with one tail dragging on the floor.

“Isn’t your fox dragging a tail on the ground for an extremely realistic reason too?”

“…Fair,” Yu Sheng said, instantly surrendering. He leaned back on the sofa and sighed. “The world is one giant slapdash crew. That line really hits.”

He rubbed his brow for a moment. “So there’s still no way to confirm whether the original commission was forged by the liaison personally, or if there was a higher-level insider who issued it and later deleted the record?”

“No way to confirm.” Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. “But the Special Operations Bureau will investigate that angle. When these under-the-table shortcuts don’t cause trouble, they stay under the table. Now something happened. It’s on the table. They’ll comb through it from top to bottom.”

“Then later we should ask around with the bureau,” Yu Sheng muttered. Then he looked up. “What about that liaison? How did he die?”

“I don’t know the details,” Little Red Riding Hood said. “From what I heard, he fell from a height, hit his head, and died on the spot. I arranged it—tonight I’m going to his place. He lived alone. Right now his nephew is there handling the aftermath.”

“I’m coming with you,” Yu Sheng said immediately.

Little Red Riding Hood hesitated. “You want to—”

“What if we can still ask something?” Yu Sheng’s face was serious. “Like what happened in the museum. I don’t know the limits of that conversation-with-the-dead thing, but we can at least try.”

Little Red Riding Hood thought for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Then… do we leave now?”

“We leave now.” Yu Sheng stood, then looked down at Irene. “You and Foxy stay home. This time I’ll go by myself.”

Irene popped to her feet. “Huh? Why?”

Yu Sheng rolled his eyes. “…We’re going to a dead man’s home to ask questions. Do you think it’s appropriate to carry a doll along?”

Irene bared her teeth, clearly unhappy, but she couldn’t argue. She flopped back down. “Fine. I’ll stay home. Then I’m using your computer to play games!”

“Go ahead—use your own account, and don’t touch my private files.”

“Got it.”

Yu Sheng turned and found Foxy standing behind him with a worried face. “Benefactor, do you really not need to bring me? I can help fight.”

Yu Sheng’s eyelid twitched. He had to repeat—again—that they were going to investigate, not brawl. Starting a fight at someone else’s mourning hall, whether with the dead man’s family or with the dead man himself, would be wildly inappropriate.

Little Red Riding Hood listened to the exchange, stunned, and gained an even deeper understanding of the mental state of this whole Hotel crew.

After Yu Sheng reminded Foxy there were leftovers in the fridge—she could heat them up if she got hungry, but she absolutely was not allowed to burn the house down or tear it apart—he finally changed into going-out clothes and stepped outside with Little Red Riding Hood.

In the short distance from his front door to the far side of the street, Yu Sheng looked back three or four times.

Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t help asking, “You’re that worried?”

“This is the first time I’ve gone out alone and left Foxy and Irene at home,” Yu Sheng admitted, genuinely uneasy. “I’m worried I’ll come back to a pile of rubble.”

“That’s a nine-tailed demon fox, not a husky with nine tails,” Little Red Riding Hood sighed. “And Irene seems pretty steady. At most, she talks a little sharply.”

“…I can’t believe you rate her that highly.” Yu Sheng shook his head. “If nobody watches her, she can stew herself. I swear it. Last time she almost set the house on fire. The first thing that caught fire was her.”

Little Red Riding Hood blinked. “…?”

“One day you’ll see it for yourself,” Yu Sheng said. He waved it off. “Anyway—how are we getting there?”

The liaison Little Red Riding Hood knew lived in another district, closer to the city center. Even by taxi, it would take more than forty minutes.

And Yu Sheng had never been there before. Without recorded coordinates, he couldn’t open a door straight to it.

To save time and avoid trouble, Little Red Riding Hood offered him a special invitation.

Travel with her wolf pack.

In a quiet street corner where no one would notice, Yu Sheng stared uneasily at the giant wolf in front of him. Its body looked carved out of shadow, its outline wavering like smoke.

“Seriously…” Yu Sheng asked, voice tight, “this thing doesn’t bite people? And it can really carry someone?”

“Of course it can carry someone.” Little Red Riding Hood sounded helpless, but there was a strange edge to it, as if she could hear the wolf’s thoughts. “And you’re worried it’ll bite you? It’s worried you’ll bite it.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?” Yu Sheng glared. “Do I look like someone who’s that not picky about what he eats?”

Little Red Riding Hood went silent.

Remembering how he’d once convinced her to eat Wolf Granny’s meat, Yu Sheng suddenly felt a wave of awkwardness. He stopped arguing and obediently climbed onto the wolf’s back.

“Is this really okay?” he muttered. “Your wolf is shaking. Can it not carry heavy stuff?”

Little Red Riding Hood glanced at him, then smacked the wolf’s head beneath him. “Coward.”

Then she shook her head and gave the pack a crisp command. “Move out.”

Yu Sheng was about to ask how he was supposed to control the wolf he was riding—how he was supposed to jump and shift through shadowspawn the way she did.

Before he could speak, his vision lurched.

The next second, the world changed.

Color drained into layered black and white. The city’s buildings became silhouettes, nothing but outlines. Roads vanished, replaced by broken “bridges” connecting blocks of shadow. The orderly scene from a moment ago shattered into something like a reflection in cracked glass.

Then the city curled.

Fragmented, floating buildings rearranged into a three-dimensional maze, as if someone had remapped distance and size with a careless hand.

The wolf pack sprang forward, light as smoke, and flew into that dazzling, impossible shadowspawn.