Chapter 189

Chapter 189: Briar Shadow

Before leaving the Special Operations Bureau, Yu Sheng also told Bai Li Qing what he’d learned from Lao Zheng.

When Song Cheng heard the details, his face darkened with fury. Even with the Director present, he couldn’t stop himself from cursing. “Damn it. Those angel cultists have never done anything human in their lives.”

Bai Li Qing listened in silence. After a moment, she frowned slightly. “That spirit-calling ritual they taught Lao Zheng—the blood-drawn pattern. Did you record it?”

Yu Sheng blanked and looked awkward. “Uh… I really don’t remember. The pattern had been cleaned once already. It was very faint, and I couldn’t really—”

“I remember it!” Irene blurted out, blinking hard and raising her hand like a student in class.

Then she glanced at Yu Sheng and explained quickly, defensive as always. “When you were zoning out, the pattern on the floor lit up for a second. It was really brief, but I memorized it.”

Bai Li Qing immediately took paper and a pen from her desk and handed them over. “Can you draw it?”

Irene struggled to grip the pen, which was nearly as long as her entire arm. “Probably. I’ll try…”

She bent over and began sketching a complex circular pattern, made of strange symbols and lines. At first her strokes were clumsy, as if she wasn’t used to writing tools at all. Then her movements smoothed out, confident. Under her hand, a ring-shaped array slowly took form—something that made you feel faintly dizzy just looking at it.

Yu Sheng stared, dumbfounded. After a long moment, he blurted, “Wait, seriously… your memory is that good?! I’ve never seen you remember anything important!”

Without looking up, Irene snapped, “I forgot a lot because I was sealed, not because my brain broke! Normally my memory is really good, okay… Ugh, my hands are too small. Drawing this is so hard. Yu Sheng, when are you going to get me a normal-sized body…”

As Little Doll grumbled nonstop, Yu Sheng’s gaze drifted to her head, and a thought surfaced uninvited.

Three Irenes—one made from clay and lotus root, one built from rebar and stones… does she even have an organ called a brain in there?

Little Doll was nearly finished when Bai Li Qing spoke again. “Don’t complete the last segment. Draw it on a separate sheet.”

“Oh.” Irene immediately scooted to another paper and continued, serious for once.

A while later, she finished and sat back, shaking out her cramped hands. “Finally done. Damn, I’m exhausted.”

She handed both sheets to Bai Li Qing. “It should be correct.”

Bai Li Qing accepted them with care and studied the patterns, expression grave.

“It contains the basic structure of a spirit-summoning technique,” she said at last, “but the key node has been altered. It likely points toward that sleeping dark angel. This may help us understand its nature. Extremely important intelligence. Thank you.”

Irene puffed her chest out, smugness radiating off her like heat.

*

Little Red Riding Hood strolled across the open ground between the east building and the west building. When she passed the outdoor activity area, she slowed and stared toward a familiar spot.

Near the sandbox where the children played, a brightly colored swing set stood in the fading light.

Looking at it, she recalled the sketch in Lao Zheng’s notebook—and the young lady smiling in front of the swings.

This should have been the place from Lao Zheng’s memory, but the swing set wasn’t the same one from twenty years ago. The old one had been replaced a few years earlier when it became unsafe.

Little Red Riding Hood hesitated, then walked over, sat down, and rocked gently back and forth.

It was winter. Cold. Windy. Near dusk, the air bit at her cheeks. After a minute, she stopped swinging.

That was when something flickered at the edge of her vision.

In the dim sunset, a patch of shadow clung to the corner of the east building’s outer wall. Its outline looked like a sheet of thorns pressed flat against the surface, spreading from the base up to about a meter high.

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression tightened. She pulled out her phone, snapped a photo, then jumped off the swing and ran.

Her movement was too fast to look human. In a blink, she reached the corner—

And the thorn-like shadow was gone.

She checked the photo immediately. The picture looked normal. No thorn-shaped shadowspawn. Nothing.

An illusion?

A trick of the eye, because the light was bad?

She dismissed the thought almost instantly.

After so many years as a Spirit Realm Detective, she’d learned one lesson better than any other: never treat a fleeting sense of wrongness as mere imagination. In occult matters, even if you truly did see things, the moment you noticed it, the event carried significance. Reality had been touched, if only slightly.

Footsteps approached from the side. Little Red Riding Hood turned and saw a slim, short-haired girl—two or three years younger than her—walking past with a stack of books in her arms. When the girl noticed her, she stopped, curious.

“Sister Red Hood, what are you doing?”

In the orphanage, those who became “guardians” were used to calling each other by code names. Only children who hadn’t passed the awakening period were called by their real names. It was an old rule passed down from long ago. Supposedly it helped stabilize role identity after awakening. Whether it actually worked, nobody knew.

In “fairy tale,” there were many rules like that. No one could prove they mattered, but everyone believed they helped.

“I saw some weird shadowspawn just now, but it vanished when I turned my head,” Little Red Riding Hood said casually. “Tonight, have someone patrol around this building a few extra times.”

Then she noticed the books. “Snow White? Where did those come from?”

The girl lifted the stack slightly. “Donations. Through the Sunshine Foundation channel. They’re going to the reading room.”

Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes sharpened. “Did you check the contents?”

“Checked,” Snow White said earnestly. “No gay guys, no lesbians. Anything with a reading age above fourteen is normal heterosexual content. Anything under fourteen doesn’t date—”

“That’s not what I told you to check!” Little Red Riding Hood snapped, shooting her a look. “What do you even focus on day to day?”

Snow White laughed. “Just kidding. You’ve been on edge lately. I really checked. The content is fine—nothing was altered or swapped, and there’s nothing that might induce mental instability in the kids.”

Little Red Riding Hood sighed and waved a hand, half exasperated.

Then her phone rang.

The ringtone was, as always, the sound of a monkey doing flips.

Snow White immediately grimaced. “Sister Red Hood, seriously—have you ever considered changing that ringtone? Where did you even find that song? It’s been years and you still haven’t changed it…”

“Back when I was on a mission, I ran into an Alglade person,” Little Red Riding Hood said, unfazed. “They shared it with me and said it came from the Far Realm star sector. I like it. It feels weird if I change it.”

She answered the call.

“Hello,” Yu Sheng said. “Is this Classmate Wang Jia Jia?”

Little Red Riding Hood’s eye twitched.

Beside her, Snow White pulled her mouth into a grin. “Ah. Your real name got exposed.”

“Go away,” Little Red Riding Hood muttered, waving her off. Then she cleared her throat. “Ahem. I wasn’t talking to you. What is it?”

“I’m back from the Special Operations Bureau,” Yu Sheng said. “I told them about Lao Zheng. Also, they caught the angel cultists who carried out the sacrifice in the white exhibition hall. I dug some things out of one of their heads.”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression changed instantly. “What did you find?”

“Are you at the orphanage right now?” Yu Sheng asked. “I’ll come tell you what’s going on, and also discuss something.”

“I am—” she began.

A door not far away opened.

Yu Sheng stepped out with Foxy, phone still at his ear, waving cheerfully. “Perfect timing. Same room as last time?”

Irene popped her head out from behind him. “Hi, hi! We’re back!”

Little Red Riding Hood stared at them, speechless for a long moment, then finally forced out, “Can’t you give me a heads-up before you door-open in?”

“I filed it with the Special Operations Bureau while I was on the phone with you,” Yu Sheng said.

“I meant you tell me first!” Little Red Riding Hood snapped. “What if I’m taking a shower?!”

Yu Sheng went awkward in an instant. “That won’t happen. Unless it’s random teleportation, I can only door-open to places I’ve been before. And you’ve never taken me into your bathroom—and I’m not a pervert.”

Irene headbutted his knee. “Stop explaining. The more you explain, the more you sound like a pervert.”

Yu Sheng: “…”