Chapter 182

Chapter 182: Old Zheng

After sending Irene back, Yu Sheng returned to the living room. Little Red Riding Hood was sitting on the sofa, speaking quietly with a young man in his twenties.

He looked exhausted—funeral arrangements and sleepless days written into his face.

When Yu Sheng came out of the bedroom, the young man rose slightly and nodded in greeting, then pointed to the coffee table. “Thanks for your hard work. I bought milk tea.”

“Uh… thanks,” Yu Sheng said, not bothering with more. He sat beside Little Red Riding Hood, and they each took a cup.

The young man watched them for a moment, then asked, “Did you find anything?”

Yu Sheng exchanged a look with Little Red Riding Hood. She thought for a beat, then nodded. “We found traces… and I want to confirm something first. Do you know what kind of work your uncle did? How much do you know?”

She chose her words carefully. “I mean… about the special nature of what he collected. The things he dealt with.”

“I know some,” the young man said. “He told me about the Curiosities Association. He even showed me a few… relatively safe things. I knew his work was unusual, and sometimes dangerous.”

He hesitated, then added, “I was interested too. At one point I almost tried for peripheral recruitment with the Special Operations Bureau, but my uncle wouldn’t allow it. He said my curiosity was too strong, and I had some kind of… spiritual talent. High sensitivity, low stability. He said it would be extremely dangerous for me.”

“Your uncle was right,” Little Red Riding Hood said with a weary sigh. “High sensitivity, low stability, and too much curiosity—you wouldn’t even survive the internship.”

She met his eyes. “Since you already know that much, I’ll be blunt. Old Zheng may have been exposed to extremely dangerous contamination, and he came into contact with an illegal cult. For now, it looks like he was a victim, not a willing accomplice. That’s all I can say. Later, the bureau may be able to tell you more as his family.”

The young man fell silent. Maybe he had questions. Maybe he didn’t even know how to ask them.

Yu Sheng broke the pause. “Near the end… did your uncle meet anyone suspicious? Or start doing anything unusual? A sudden new ‘friend,’ new taboos, habits he never had before—anything like that.”

“I don’t know,” the young man said slowly, shaking his head. “He barely contacted the family for more than twenty years. I was too young to remember much. All I know is what the elders said. He volunteered at an orphanage, then something happened. Some people said it was romance, others said he got scared by something. Then he moved here and lived alone.”

He paused, thinking hard. “But he did message me sometimes. If I have to say something… he seemed happier recently. Maybe starting two months ago. He said the burden in his heart finally had a chance to be set down.”

His throat worked. “He said he planned to go home in a couple of days. There’s a notebook in the old house, and he wanted me to check if it was still there. But after that… he had his accident.”

“A notebook?” Yu Sheng’s pulse jumped. “Did you find it? Did you bring it?”

“I did.” The young man stood, went to the TV cabinet, and rummaged through a black suitcase. After a moment he pulled out a thick notebook with a deep blue cover and set it on the table. “This one. I didn’t read it. I brought it over untouched.”

Yu Sheng took it at once and flipped through the old pages.

Most of it was ordinary: reminders, small daily notes, work logs from when he volunteered at the orphanage. There were entries that could help reconstruct what the orphanage was like over twenty years ago, but nothing that seemed connected to the case—or to Old Zheng’s death.

For a second, Yu Sheng wondered if this notebook was just nostalgia. Proof of a life someone didn’t want to forget.

Then his peripheral vision caught something on a page he’d already turned past. He flipped back.

A pencil sketch.

The lines weren’t professional, but they were careful. On the yellowed page, a young woman—twenty-six or twenty-seven—stood near the orphanage swing set. Plain long dress. Gentle smile. Warm eyes.

Yu Sheng frowned, instinctively trying to place her. Why was an adult woman drawn here? Why did she matter enough to keep in this notebook?

Then Little Red Riding Hood made a small sound. “Huh.”

Before Yu Sheng could ask, she pulled out her phone and dialed. “Rapunzel, take a photo for me. The one in the middle of the wall in the east building’s display room—yes, the one of ‘Cinderella.’ Hurry and send it.”

She hung up. A moment later, her phone buzzed. Yu Sheng leaned over and saw the photo on the screen.

A young woman in her twenties.

She looked almost exactly like the sketch.

“This is…?” Yu Sheng asked.

“A Cinderella from years ago,” Little Red Riding Hood said softly, eyes fixed on the notebook. “She lived to twenty-six. The longest-lived Cinderella the orphanage ever had.”

Her voice tightened. “After she died, the ‘Cinderella’ role stayed vacant for ten years. Then a little over ten years ago, a new Cinderella appeared. We all said the first one used her life to suppress the Eternal Ball subset for a while, though there’s no real proof.”

She pressed her lips together. “They said she was even thinking about trying to live as an ordinary person.”

Yu Sheng didn’t speak. His gaze drifted to the memorial photo on the nearby table.

Old Zheng. Nearly fifty. Loosened skin, fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, exhaustion etched into his stare—like a record of a battle that lasted more than twenty years.

Twenty years hunting curios. Twenty years fighting a looping curse.

And in the end, he lost to a scam.

He wasn’t the first person to fight Fairy Tale.

He wouldn’t be the last.

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood stood. She returned the notebook to the young man with both hands.

“Thank you,” Yu Sheng said quietly. “We’ll get justice for Old Zheng.”

The young man accepted it, face tight. He looked like he wanted to ask more, but whatever warning his uncle had given him must have echoed in his head. In the end, he only waved. “I won’t see you out. There’s still a lot to clean up.”

“Okay,” Little Red Riding Hood said, then added, “There’s something under the rug in the bedroom. It should have lost its power, but don’t touch it. Wait for professionals.”

“I understand,” he said hoarsely.

When they stepped out of the building, the sky had fully darkened.

Neon lit the massive city in endless layers. The wolf pack carried Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood to the tallest rooftop nearby. Yu Sheng stood at the edge and looked down at Boundary City—lights flowing between forest-like towers, the whole place roaring beneath the night.

How many people lived here?

Millions? Tens of millions?

How many were ordinary? How many were detectives and investigators who had brushed against the other side? How many were protectors—keepers of order? And how many hid in the cracks between the lights like the feelers of something mad and formless, waiting for careless passersby?

For the first time, Yu Sheng felt it: this strange, eerie city was alive. Flesh and blood.

Little Red Riding Hood broke the silence. “When I go back, I’ll keep investigating. I need to visit the Curiosities Association headquarters. And I plan to meet the other spirit-realm detectives and investigators Old Zheng contacted while he was alive.”

“Do you want me with you?” Yu Sheng asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “I want you to go to the Special Operations Bureau.”

Yu Sheng frowned. “Go to the bureau?”

“Tell them about Old Zheng,” she said. “Anything tied to angel cultists will get their attention, but if you go in person, they’ll take it even more seriously.”

Yu Sheng hesitated. “…Will they?”

She gave him a helpless look. “…Do you seriously have zero self-awareness?”

Yu Sheng grimaced, then nodded like it was a solemn duty. “Fine. I’ll go tomorrow.”

They fell quiet again. After a few seconds, Yu Sheng asked, “Do you think the dark angels and the Fairy Tale otherworld are connected somehow?”

Little Red Riding Hood thought for a long time, then shook her head. “I don’t have a lead. A lot of things happened close together, but we’re missing the key link.”

She stared out over the city. “Those cultists found Old Zheng—someone who wanted to fight the Fairy Tale curse—and used him to lure me into the White Exhibition Hall. That sacrifice was a carefully arranged ritual. The targeting was obvious.”

Her voice went colder. “But the question is what they were after. Were they after my identity as a Fairy Tale member, or were they just looking for a sacrifice with enough ‘strength’?”

She exhaled. “And there’s more than one dark angel in the world. We don’t even know which one they follow. Without that, we can’t confirm their goal.”