Chapter 223

Chapter 223: Missing Pieces

Yu Sheng jolted awake from an endless fall through blackness and broken visions. He opened his eyes in a dim bedroom, then tried to sit up, and failed.

Two Irenes sat on his arms, left and right. A rebar one sat on his chest. By the bed, Foxy lay with her big eyes wide open, staring. In the gloom, those gold-red eyes glowed, and she looked otherworldly.

He almost lost his breath. He waved a hand to push the rebar Irene off as he complained: “We agreed you would not jump onto the bed. Why are you up here again? Do you not know how heavy this body is…”

The little doll glared with crimson eyes and said without moving: “I did not jump up. I climbed up slowly.”

After a long struggle he finally sat up. His head still swam. Half by reflex he muttered: “What are you doing here, all of you, crowding around like you are paying last respects…”

Irene nodded and said very seriously: “Yes. We are paying last respects.”

“…?”

Foxy leaned closer with a solemn face and said: “Benefactor, your breath was gone for half an hour, so you must have died. I was discussing how you died with Irene. Irene said Humans are fragile and staying up too late makes them die suddenly, so you died suddenly. But I think you were crushed because she sat on your chest. We waited here for you to come back to life so we could ask you.”

He rubbed his face and said helplessly: “Can you learn something reliable from Irene?!”

A fresh wave of dizziness washed through his head. He did not know if this was an aftereffect of Resurrection, or if a rebar-and-stone doll sitting on his chest had almost made him die twice. As the fog lifted, the memories of what had just happened returned.

The Squirrel. The Little House. Hunter. The flickering Black Forest. Anka Aila’s sweep across the sky. The Wolf Pack. And death.

Gold-red eyes drifted close at the edge of his vision. Foxy put her face ten centimeters from his and asked in a worried voice: “Benefactor, what is it?”

He took a breath and said plainly: “I became a Hunter and saw the Rift behind the Black Forest, then the Wolf Pack intercepted me and killed me.” He suddenly jerked toward the window and asked sharply: “Wait. What time is it now?”

Foxy flinched and answered fast: “It is already dark. You slept a long time. Irene and I went to the Valley this afternoon. Everything there is fine…”

“No. No, something is about to happen, and night is coming again,” he said as a strong, rising unease hollowed his chest. He slid off the bed, grabbed a jacket, and spoke quick and tight: “Anka Aila’s activity is still rising. It is getting ready for a bigger strike. I missed something. There has to be something I missed.”

The three Irenes looked at one another. One hopped onto the nightstand, looked up at him, and asked: “Wait, what do you mean something is about to happen? Wasn’t the most dangerous night already over? Foxy and I just checked the Valley. The cursed children were all sta…”

He cut her off and said in a rush: “But Anka Aila’s activity has not dropped. It is climbing. The Blood Bestowal Ceremony’s shelter and the Valley’s shield did weaken Anka Aila’s control, but its awakening is speeding up.”

All three Irenes froze and blurted together: “What?!”

He pulled on his coat, thumbed his phone to shoot a notice to the Special Affairs Bureau, reached out to open a Door Opening, and said while moving: “I saw it in the Black Forest. The Dark Angels are scanning all subsets. I think it is searching for Fairy Tale members that were interfered with. The shelter I gave those cursed children looks like ‘abduction’ to Anka Aila. It has sensed the stage is losing control. I just do not know how much this is tied to its faster awakening.”

Irene hopped down from the nightstand and asked: “Hey, where are you going?”

He answered without stopping: “To the Valley, and you and Foxy are coming with me.”

A Phantom Door opened out of thin air. Yu Sheng stepped into the temporary camp in the Valley. Bright daylight shocked his eyes after the dim room. Right away he saw Little Red Riding Hood not far away, looking at him in surprise.

She came over with a smile and asked with a friendly tilt of her head: “Why are you here? I heard from Irene that you were exhausted and went home to sleep. We were about to make dinner. Do you want to join us?”

He did not take the invitation. He asked in a clipped voice: “Is everything in the camp normal? Did any child fall into a sudden sleep, or hear or see anything wrong?”

Little Red Riding Hood saw the gravity on his face and tensed too, then she said: “No. Everything is normal. What happened?”

He quickly told her what he had run into, then he said: “I have to get back to the Black Forest fast and find a way to reach that Rift. But Anka Aila’s activity is a big problem. My ‘taking you away’ seems to have stirred it up. A lot.”

She listened, tense and serious. She tried to speak several times but could not find the gap, then she asked with clear worry: “So the ‘shelter’ was too hasty? We should not have provoked the Dark Angels like that?”

He shook his head without thinking and said firmly: “Do not look at it that way. We are not the only ones moving. Those Angel Cultists have been trying every trick to speed up Anka Aila’s awakening. Back when we did Blood Bestowal for the other children, we already had no time to hesitate. In the end, the shelter does poke Anka Aila, but if we do nothing it will still wake early, since those cultists are mad enough to carry out mass Self Sacrifice to excite their lord. We have to fight for time. That is the only way to hold the initiative.”

She nodded fast and said with a frown: “Right, I panicked. What do we do now? Anka Aila is waking further, and it has started scanning all the subsets. The next nightmares may be even more dangerous.”

He said, grave and steady: “That is why I came to confirm. It is already dark in the real world, which means the Fairy Tale stage is entering its active cycle. Tonight matters a lot. As long as the Sanctuary Wasteland holds, getting through the nightmares is not the issue. No matter how active it gets, Anka Aila is trapped in the Fairy Tale Otherworld. In theory, its link to the real world was cut when you took refuge.”

“I understand,” she said at once. “Tonight I will increase patrols. The King is ready too. Its court wizards will watch the whole camp without a break.”

Yu Sheng nodded.

But the faint unease inside him did not fade. Even after confirming that the cursed children were safe and setting patrols and monitoring, he still felt something was wrong, as if something else was about to break.

Just as he felt he was grasping a key thought, his phone chimed hard and fast.

He frowned and glanced down. It was Bai Li Qing calling.

He answered, and before he could speak, the director’s cool, short voice said: “We found that book.”

She paused for less than half a second and added: “The book Zhao Le Le handed to Anka Aila. We found another copy from the same batch and edition. There are a few scanned images. I sent them to you on Border Comms. Check them.”

He hung up. Even with his thoughts restless and hot, he opened Border Comms at once to check her message.

Irene and Little Red Riding Hood leaned in right away. Even the Fox, who barely knew how to read, squeezed up to look.

He found the files Bai Li Qing had mentioned and opened the first image. A low-fidelity scan filled the screen: a bright but coarse Fairy Tale cover with worn edges. It was obviously a record of an old book.

The cover showed a doodle-style forest, a winding little path, and a red-brown Squirrel sitting on a stump by the road.

The Squirrel looked exaggerated and comical, holding a pine needle and pointing at the title with it.

Squirrel Knight Reads Stories with You.

His gaze paused on that Squirrel. He stared for a long time, drew a slow breath, and opened the next page.

It was a scan of the table of contents.

First story, “Little Red Riding Hood.”

Second story, “Snow White.”

Third story, “Sleeping Beauty”…

Little Red Riding Hood stood by his side, eyes fixed on the phone. After a moment she murmured with a tiny smile: “Oh, so I am the first story…”

Yu Sheng let his eyes rest on the contents for a few seconds, then opened the next page.

On yellowed, torn paper, poor-quality print told the first story. Simple pictures sat beside short lines of text, with some pinyin notes.

The whole story, pictures included, filled only two pages. It was as short as possible, clearly made for kids who had just learned to read on their own.

He kept swiping, looking over the later scans.

He saw jumbled lines of print, and here and there, blank spaces.