Chapter 198

Chapter 198: The Unwitting Prisoner

Yu Sheng couldn’t shake the feeling that the fake angel umbilical cord was the reason he’d witnessed those strange scenes this time—the vanished paths, the phantom of the first Little Red Riding Hood, the birth of the first fire and candlelight.

They felt like the Black Forest’s earliest memories, sealed deep inside the stage until the cord pried them loose.

Or maybe those memories were recorded inside the cord itself, and stepping into the Black Forest had released them.

Either way, the connection was obvious.

Which only made one thought heavier.

If this was a fake… what would the real angel umbilical cord do?

If he found the genuine one, what would it wake up?

Yu Sheng replayed every clue he knew about Fairy Tale, digging for anything that might tie to the real cord. In the end, he found nothing.

When he finally came back to himself, Squirrel was still on the windowsill, head bowed, mumbling the same words over and over.

If Yu Sheng leaned close, he could hear it clearly—an endless loop of guilt, insisting it should have gone to sleep that night, should never have handed over the book, as if it were trapped in a nightmare that refused to end.

Yu Sheng’s brows knit.

He understood the guilt. He understood why Squirrel believed it.

But the way Yu Sheng saw Fairy Tale now… it wasn’t that simple.

“You think it’s because you handed that fairy tale book to that voice that Fairy Tale was born,” Yu Sheng said, looking straight at it. “You think it’s all your fault.”

Squirrel rubbed its paws together miserably. “Then whose fault would it be? I’m not a child people like. Not smart. Not obedient. And I lost the fairy tale book… that’s the worst part.”

Yu Sheng’s voice stayed calm. “Have you ever considered that maybe the fairy tale book sealed a weakened Dark Angel—and kept it from fully entering the real world?”

Squirrel’s paws stopped.

It stared at him, stunned.

“There’s a bunch of lunatics calling themselves angel cultists,” Yu Sheng continued. “They’ve been active lately. They claim they’re servants of Anka Aila, and they’ve been doing everything they can to rescue their ‘lord.'”

He didn’t soften the words.

“Their lord is imprisoned in Fairy Tale.”

Squirrel didn’t move. After a long moment, its tail drooped. “Is that… true?”

“I don’t know if the book you handed over is the same one tied to all of this,” Yu Sheng said. “But if you believe that book created Fairy Tale, then Anka Aila being trapped inside it can be traced back to that book, too.”

He paused, choosing his words.

“This world has countless forks. But once something has happened, every path that led there becomes inevitable in hindsight. We can’t help looking back from the result and imagining a different choice.”

Yu Sheng’s gaze sharpened.

“By your description, what happened at that window couldn’t have been more than a minute. In that minute, you were the only child on the edge of the world who witnessed an angel brushing against reality—and had a chance to choose.”

He leaned forward slightly.

“You handed over the only fairy tale book you had. Do you know what might’ve happened if you hadn’t?”

Squirrel swallowed, shaking its head. “I… I don’t know. I don’t even know what a Dark Angel is. I’m just—I’m just a…”

“In the worst case, there might not have been any borderland at all,” Yu Sheng cut in. “Even if you were unbelievably lucky, the boundary city would still have been pierced. In that instant, the number of dead would be more names than you’d ever hear in your entire life.”

Squirrel went rigid, mouth open, unable to form a word. Its tail trembled, frightened by what he was describing.

After a long moment, it whispered, “But… but Little Red Riding Hood…”

“Yes,” Yu Sheng said quietly. “Little Red Riding Hood. Many Little Red Riding Hoods. Their friends. The children who don’t live past eighteen.”

He didn’t flinch from it.

“That’s the price of Fairy Tale. Suffering is suffering. You don’t get to call it ‘lucky’ just because it might have prevented a bigger massacre. They can tell themselves that if they want. You and I don’t have that right.”

He exhaled once, slow.

“But this isn’t something you can solve. It’s not even something you should be carrying alone.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes were steady.

“This is on me.”

Irene suddenly patted Yu Sheng’s head from his shoulder. “Hey. Don’t forget me and Foxy.”

Yu Sheng blinked, then nodded quickly. “Right. Add those two.”

“Little Red Riding Hood should count too,” Foxy said after a moment’s thought. “And the orphanage. They’re trying to solve it, too.”

“Right,” Yu Sheng agreed. “And the Fairy Tale organization.”

“And the Special Operations Bureau,” Irene added, counting on her fingers. “Li Lin, Xu Jiali, Song Cheng, Bai Li Qing… they’ve all helped a lot. And that squad from seventy years ago—who knows if they’re still holding on. And—”

“That’s enough,” Yu Sheng groaned. “That’s a lot of people.”

If he didn’t stop her, she’d end up listing a hundred more names just because the moment felt dramatic.

Squirrel finally moved again. It scratched at its face and whispered, “…Thank you.”

Then, softer still: “I never dared tell anyone those secrets.”

“I understand,” Yu Sheng said. “But after today, those secrets won’t stay secret. If we’re going to deal with the threat buried inside Fairy Tale, we need a way to fight Anka Aila. We’ll need help.”

Squirrel stayed silent for a few seconds, then nodded.

Yu Sheng looked out the window.

Dusk in the Black Forest was thinning, night slowly spilling in. He’d planned to wait here until Hunter appeared, but now he wasn’t sure it was worth it.

First he had to get this new information to the Bureau and push them to dig up earlier records on that orphanage. Maybe Bai Li Qing could even use her abilities to pull out traces left behind from that interrupted descent.

After that, he needed to share the same information with the Fairy Tale organization, so Little Red Riding Hood and the others could comb through the orphanage from top to bottom. Even if decades had passed—repairs, renovations, rebuilds—what if something had survived?

With that thought, Yu Sheng turned back to Squirrel. “What was your original name?”

The question was simple.

Squirrel froze like it had been struck.

“…Name?” it repeated slowly, baffled, like the word belonged to a language it no longer spoke.

Yu Sheng waited.

After a long time, Squirrel mumbled, uncertain, “I am… Squirrel.”

It started rubbing its face hard again, claws scraping through fur, again and again.

“I am Squirrel. I am Squirrel. I am…” It stopped, then looked up at Yu Sheng with panic flashing in its eyes. “Sorry. I forgot. I had a name, but I forgot. My memory is bad. I’m just Squirrel. Sorry…”

And then it broke.

The palm-sized animal burst into sobs.

It was only when it realized it had once had a name—and now couldn’t remember it at all—that it truly understood what it meant to be “just Squirrel.” It understood what had been taken from it, and how many years it had spent trapped inside the Black Forest.

Yu Sheng hesitated, then slowly reached out and lifted Squirrel into his palm.

It cried until its little body curled into a tight ball. Warmth came from all directions, seeping into its fur, sinking into a dream it could never wake from.

How nice.

Someone was hugging it again.

Ever since it lost the fairy tale book, Teacher had never hugged it again. Ever since it became Squirrel in the Black Forest, no one had hugged it again.

Even if it was only a palm.