Chapter 205

Chapter 205: Second Blood Bestowal and Investigating the Old Building

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood talked for a long time—about Squirrel, and about the unknown “descent” from eighty-six years ago.

In return, Little Red Riding Hood told Yu Sheng plenty about the old days at the orphanage and the daily life inside the “fairy tale” organization.

“See that dopey kid over there with the slightly curly hair?” She pointed into the distance. “The one chatting with Rapunzel. He’s the red dragon who just fell down.

“He’s kind of like the King. He’s one of those ‘classic story figures’ with no clear target, and the ‘subset’ behind him isn’t any single, specific story. His codename is Dragonslayer… and of course, he’s not a real dragon. He’s not that impressive.

“Why does Dragonslayer look like a dragon in the first place? Because ‘Dragonslayer becomes the evil dragon’ in the end, so sometimes when he enters a nightmare, it fast-forwards and he turns straight into the evil dragon. He can’t actually fly—he just becomes a defeated evil dragon. In dragon form, his only ability is falling out of the sky in all kinds of poses. Usually to smash people when he lands.

“Sometimes he gets to play Dragonslayer before he turns into the evil dragon. Then his ability is summoning a defeated evil dragon from the sky… still smashing people by dropping it on them.

“Sleeping Beauty doesn’t talk much. All she likes to do is sleep—day or night. I’ve always envied her sleep quality, but she says that even when she’s asleep, it feels like she’s still awake. Every day she’s sleepy and exhausted.

“Her biggest wish is to find the most comfortable pillow, then die asleep on it.

“Dorothy can talk to all kinds of machines. Even if those machines don’t have a machine spirit, they still react like they do when she speaks to them. Yeah—‘the Tin Man got a heart.’ That’s the symbol.

“She can make steel briefly grow a will of its own. She uses it to trick vending machines into dropping an extra drink, or to keep calling even when a phone runs out of credit. I envy that too.

“But the one I envy most is Mermaid. She didn’t come today.

“She sings so well. She doesn’t even need to go on missions. She just uses a virtual avatar to livestream, and in half a day she makes more than I do in a week. Me? I can’t carry a tune.

“Still, she has her troubles. When she showers, scales fall off for no reason. They clog the drain all the time, and even when she stays in human form, scales still show up in the bathroom.

“Oh, and she actually can’t swim. Surprised?

“And over there—the ‘little girl who sells Little Match Girl,’ the one with the longest codename. She’s an arson expert. A super expert. In winter, when the orphanage heating doesn’t work, we count on her. But I heard the city heating pipes in our area will be replaced next year, so she won’t have to burn the boiler in winter anymore… Don’t offend her. She gets nasty when she starts fires.”

Little Red Riding Hood kept chattering like that. She sat with Yu Sheng on a high dirt slope and watched their companions in the distance, a faint smile on her face—like the oldest sister in a big family, proudly and fondly telling a friend all the embarrassing stories about her siblings.

After a while, the teens lit a bonfire on the open plain.

They used the thorny bushes Sleeping Beauty had summoned as fuel—rose thickets in full bloom that burned fiercely in the flames. Firelight shot up and lit the chaotic gray wilderness. Just as Yu Sheng had expected, the wasteland—silent and dull as an afterlife—became lively for the first time.

The older kids gathered at the sanctuary, circling the bonfire, shouting, singing, and dancing. Most of it was off-key howling at the top of their lungs, with the King’s meow-meow-meow mixed right in.

Then Foxy and Irene ran over to join the fun. Little Doll drifted in lazy circles above the fire, like her picture frame might catch at any moment. Foxy snapped her fingers and fired fox fire into the sky like fireworks—and Yu Sheng got dragged over too, forced to stand there as a mascot in front of the bonfire.

He felt like he’d been tossed into some weird, lively sacrifice ritual. Around him were the believers cheering and shrieking. At the same time, he also felt like a guardian shoved into a school event, surrounded by kids dancing like demons, stuck holding an awkward but polite smile in the middle.

It didn’t feel too bad.

And that was how the older kids’ first gathering on the sanctuary wasteland ended.

Early the next morning, Yu Sheng came to the orphanage. As planned, today he would give the younger kids a “blood bestowal” inoculation.

He sat in the cafeteria’s back kitchen and watched Princess Snow White solemnly stir a huge bucket of strangely colored “nutritious vegetable soup.” He couldn’t help doubting it.

“…Does this really work?” he asked. “It doesn’t even look appetizing.”

“Trust my cooking,” Princess Snow White said without stopping, glancing up at him while she stirred. “It doesn’t look great, but the little ones love this stuff. Wait a bit. Let it cool down before we add the ingredients, or your blood will get cooked.”

Yu Sheng nodded. “Oh.”

Beside them, a gentle young woman—sixteen or seventeen, with long hair draped over her shoulders—muttered, “I still think it’d be better to put it in a strawberry smoothie. The low temperature would mask the bloody smell, and the color wouldn’t look so strange.”

“It’s winter, sis. It’s below minus ten,” Princess Snow White shot back, rolling her eyes. “You’d hand each of these little ones a smoothie first thing in the morning. They’d be happy, sure—but will there be enough toilets?”

She smirked. “I think you’re the one who wants it.”

The gentle young woman laughed awkwardly.

Yu Sheng studied her a few more times. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her. After a moment, he asked, “Which one are you again?”

“We met last night,” she said shyly, pointing at herself. “By the bonfire in the wasteland. I was standing behind Princess Rapunzel—and earlier, I was the one standing on the beanstalk.”

Yu Sheng racked his brain, and at last an image surfaced: someone standing on Jack’s beanstalk, laughing wildly in a sea of fire.

He slapped his palm. “Oh, oh, oh! The one who wanted everyone to see the great-grandmother in the flames—”

Before he could finish, her face turned red. She waved her hands frantically. “I-I’m not like that normally! I just can’t control myself when I light things…”

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched. “Your codename is the little girl who sells Little Match Girl, right? Your abilities are arson and illusion techniques.”

“That codename is too long.” She gave an embarrassed smile. “They usually just call me Little Match Girl.”

In this shy, gentle state, she looked like a completely different person from the figure laughing in the fire.

“Little Red Riding Hood must’ve added a bunch of extra details when she introduced me to you,” she mumbled.

“She added plenty when she introduced all of you,” Yu Sheng said, thinking back to last night and all the “quirks” Little Red Riding Hood had proudly listed. A smile tugged at his mouth. “But you can tell she really likes you.”

Little Match Girl laughed, her smile warm and bright.

Princess Snow White finally set down her ladle. She tested the soup’s temperature, then turned to Yu Sheng with a half-smile.

“Bro, time to bleed.”

Yu Sheng froze. “Bro?”

“Rapunzel and I wanted to call you Uncle at first,” Princess Snow White said sweetly, already reaching for the cleaver beside her. “But Little Red Riding Hood said you’re not that much older than us, so ‘bro’ fits better.”

She lifted the cleaver, and the blade flashed with a chilling light. “Are you going to cut yourself, or do you want me to do it?”

Yu Sheng glanced at her smile, then at the cleaver, and instantly broke into cold sweat. “I’ll do it myself. I’ll do it myself…”

—

At the same time, deep in the underground structure beneath the orphanage’s west building, Little Red Riding Hood frowned as she studied an old, neglected tunnel. She glanced down at the worn papers in her hand.

A heavily armored mercenary with dark skin and a solid build stood silently beside her. His face was hidden behind a heavy helmet, and a kitty-head emblem was carved into his breastplate. The King sat proudly on the mercenary’s shoulder, looking around with curiosity.

“Is it here?” the King asked suddenly.

“Hard to say.” Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. “The clues Squirrel gave us were never very clear. She said the impact point was in the center of the courtyard open ground, but the layout eighty-six years ago wasn’t the same as it is now. Back then, the courtyard overlapped part of what is now the west building, but how much overlap—where the center was, where the boundaries were—none of that is certain.”

As she spoke, she lifted the old papers and showed them to the King.

“This is the floor plan from when the west building was built. It’s the most reliable thing we could find in the archives. We’re roughly here right now. If my math is right, this should be the spot that matched the courtyard in Squirrel’s memory—right above our heads.

“Also, this point is where I saw the briar shadow before. A little north-northeast of us—above us, on an outer wall of the west building.”

The King craned his neck, squinting at the papers. Then he patted them with a paw. “Why are you showing me this? I’m just a cat. I can’t read it.”

“…Stop pretending. I saw you doing Snow White’s physics exam.”

The King turned his head away awkwardly. “…She bribed me with the cat stick treat.”

Little Red Riding Hood gave the tabby a look of pure contempt, then waved a hand.

“Can you sense anything? Use that ‘kitty intuition’ you always brag about.”

“Sense…” The King grumbled and stretched lazily on the mercenary’s shoulder. “I don’t feel anything special. But don’t you find it strange? There isn’t even a single mouse down here…”