Chapter 206

Chapter 206: Shadows

The basement under the orphanage’s west building had two levels. B1 was a half-underground maze of storage rooms, utility rooms, and multi-purpose classrooms. B2 held the underground passage to the east building and many old structures that had long since been abandoned.

The orphanage was so old that even the two buildings considered “new” were already decades old. And in the deepest, oldest parts of those buildings, even the orphanage guardians rarely set foot.

Little Red Riding Hood only remembered being brought down to “explore” the west building basement twice when she was small, led by a few half-grown kids. Even then it had looked dirty, old, and forgotten. More than ten years later, it seemed unchanged. The grimy concrete floor and flaking walls gave the eerie impression they’d always been like this—like this when the building was new, and like this when it finally collapsed.

But Little Red Riding Hood knew every part of the building received at least basic maintenance, even these corners that looked forgotten. Volunteers sent by the councilor committee regularly inspected the facilities and repaired the power, water, and drainage systems. The lords cared for the kids here as much as they could.

So if anything truly strange had happened to these old tunnels under the west building, it would have drawn attention.

After all, any “volunteer” assigned here had received special training.

Since there had been no report, the change had to be recent. At least during the last routine inspection, everything here should have been normal.

“Mice… cockroaches… hell, not even an ant,” the King muttered from the armored mercenary’s shoulder.

He looked lazy, but a cat’s slit pupils scanned the place again and again.

“Use that good nose of yours, Little Red Riding Hood. The air smells moldy, but aside from that… everything else is too clean.”

A vague wolf shape surfaced in the shadows beside Little Red Riding Hood. She frowned, her eyes sweeping the mottled, moldy corners. “Were there mice here before?”

“What a stupid question—of course there were.” The King looked up at her like she’d insulted his intelligence. “Mice and cockroaches are the best survivors in the world. People could die out and they still wouldn’t go extinct. I’ve been here a lot. It used to be lively.”

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t answer. She stared into the darkness, face grim.

Around her, the phantom of a wolf pack wandered in and out of sight, letting out uneasy whines.

“We keep going,” she said suddenly. “Let’s check the connecting passage between the east building and the west building.”

“Fine.”

—

A fully armed action squad moved silently through the shadows between buildings, closing in on a plain-looking target ahead.

They were on the edge of the old factory district in the southern old city. Nearby were old apartment blocks built thirty or forty years ago. At this hour, there were usually plenty of people outside in the neighborhood, but today the area was strangely quiet.

It was as if some invisible force had driven people off the streets. Even if someone at a distant intersection glanced this way and saw unfamiliar vehicles parked at the gate, and strange devices set up on open ground, they would quickly—and naturally—look away, as if the entire area had “disappeared” from human attention.

A special operations bureau commander in a black uniform stood beside a mobile “node” device at the neighborhood entrance. He looked up at the target building in the distance: a six-story old block with white walls and a blue roof. Several ordinary-looking “small birds” circled its outer wall, sometimes drifting close to a certain third-floor window.

By now, the forward squad had already entered the building and was reporting over the radio.

“This is the Hunter. We’ve reached the designated floor. The surrounding environment is stable. Awaiting further instructions.”

The commander told them to stand by, then turned to the person beside him.

A young bureau agent kept his head lowered, sensing through the view transmitted by those “birds.”

“Can you confirm what’s inside?” the commander asked.

One bird landed lightly on the third-floor windowsill and craned its head to peek in.

“I can’t see the interior,” the young agent said quickly, “but I can sense residual spiritual fluctuations. There is extraordinary power in the target room. Deeper perception is being blocked—I can’t locate the people precisely. There’s interference set up.”

“Classic cultist tricks,” the commander sneered. “As long as we know they’re in there… Hunter, get ready to breach.”

“Yes, sir!”

—

A sharp phone ring cut through Song Cheng’s work. He picked up the receiver, glanced at the caller ID, and his expression turned serious at once.

“Hello, it’s me. What’s the situation?”

A rapid report poured through the line. The next second, Song Cheng shot to his feet.

“What do you mean ‘all dead’?” he demanded. “Explain clearly. Are the casualties the angel cultists kidnapped all dead? Were there innocent people sacrificed on site? Or the residents who lived in that building—”

The commander on the other end rattled off a few urgent sentences. Song Cheng’s expression gradually stiffened.

“…Those damn cultists are all dead?”

—

Yu Sheng sat on the second-floor balcony of the east building, watching the yard through the window. A bunch of little kids, led by half-grown kids, ran wild, yelling and shrieking. A faint smile slowly appeared on his face.

The feeling was subtle, but he could truly sense a thin connection forming between himself and the kids. He could even faintly feel carefree, excited emotions drifting over from the playground—

Like the clear sky outside.

“So nice,” Irene said, climbing onto the windowsill beside him and looking out. Little Doll sounded genuinely moved. “Little kids are happy so easily. If only they’d stop chasing me all over the yard.”

“They really like you,” Yu Sheng said with a grin, glancing at the resentful doll. “I saw it in the classroom just now. Two little girls even wanted to help you brush your hair, right?”

That was the wrong thing to say.

Irene nearly fell off the sill. “Holy shit—don’t bring up that terrifying stuff! I saw them pull a doll’s head off to brush its hair! Scared the hell out of me, okay?!”

Foxy stood nearby, thoughtful. After a moment, she broke the silence. “So with this, every kid in the orphanage is under the protection of benefactor witch-blood art now, right?”

“Yeah,” Irene said, swinging her legs. “All seventy-something kids are basically in Yu Sheng’s hands now…”

Yu Sheng shot her a glare. “Can you use a better phrase? What do you mean ‘in my hands’?!”

Foxy ignored the interruption. “But this is only a temporary measure. Benefactor is only protecting the kids currently affected by ‘fairy tale,’ but new kids will always be influenced by it. We still have to solve it at the root.”

“Right… we still need a real solution.” Yu Sheng sighed. “I wonder what Little Red Riding Hood found over there—and I don’t know why, but I’ve felt uneasy since just now.”

Irene’s expression sharpened immediately. “You can’t ignore that. Is spiritual intuition warning you?”

“It’s not that bad.” Yu Sheng hesitated, assessed it with ridiculous seriousness, then slowly shook his head. “It’s more like my spiritual intuition is wobbling. It hasn’t reached the stage where it’s bouncing off the walls.”

Irene stared at him for a second, stunned. Then she groaned. “When are you going to stop describing things like a lunatic? Who can even tell what you mean?”

Yu Sheng scratched his head. He was about to answer when hurried footsteps came down the corridor.

The three of them looked over and saw Little Red Riding Hood striding toward them, with that chubby tabby cat trotting behind her.

One look at her expression told Yu Sheng something was wrong.

“Did you find anything?” he asked at once.

Little Red Riding Hood waved a hand, speaking fast. “The mice and cockroaches in the west building basement are gone.”

Yu Sheng blinked, exchanging a look with Irene. Two or three seconds passed before he managed, “Uh… congratulations?”

“Is that something to congratulate?” Little Red Riding Hood snapped. “That’s obviously abnormal! And I’m not done yet. The King and I checked along the west building tunnels. Near a vent shaft by the connection between the west building and the east building, we found something…”

She pulled out her phone, opened a photo, and thrust it at Yu Sheng.

He took it, curious, and saw a picture clearly taken in a hurry underground. The lighting was bad, and the lens seemed smeared with something, but he could still make out overlapping outlines of shadows on the corridor wall.

Yu Sheng frowned, trying to make sense of them. After a moment, he drew a quiet breath.

“It’s trees,” Little Red Riding Hood said slowly beside him. “When weak light passes through a forest and casts shadows onto a wall, you get shapes like this. In the west building tunnel, the wall reflected the shape of the black forest.”