Chapter 224

Chapter 224: Startled Awake

After the next few images, Yu Sheng couldn’t help frowning.

Some pages had normal paragraphs and illustrations, but others showed obvious misalignment—wrong characters from bad layout, smeared printing, even blank gaps where content was clearly missing between paragraphs. The beginning wasn’t too bad. The farther he went, the worse it got.

He backed out and opened the editor to type a message asking what was going on, but Bai Li Qing’s reply came first.

“Did you see it?”

“I saw it,” Yu Sheng typed back. “But what’s going on with the later pages? There are layout errors, and parts that weren’t printed.”

Her response came fast, like she’d expected the question. “Low-quality print run. Most of the books from that batch were recalled and destroyed back then. But the Councilor Council couldn’t monitor every corner of Boundary City. Some copies stayed at the very end of the market. One eventually ended up donated to that orphanage—maybe to pad out a charity report, maybe by accident.”

A moment later, a second message arrived—long enough that Yu Sheng had to scroll.

“We found the asset list from the orphanage’s management transfer in an old Councilor Council archive. It recorded a ‘socially donated book.’ It wasn’t easy to find—we only got the name and the publishing period. The images were matched later through other channels and databases. Because most circulating copies disappeared, the book became a rare niche ‘treasure’ in certain collector circles. The Special Operations Bureau is still trying to locate an existing copy from the same edition. Transaction tracking shows the last copy to appear in official channels—Squirrelknight—was sold by a private collector a month ago. The buyer was a branch charity under Sunshine Foundation. We’ve already sent people to contact them. Hope we can find the book, though we still can’t be sure what it will be useful for.”

Yu Sheng read it twice, jaw tight.

The idea that such a crudely made storybook had once been Squirrel’s most treasured possession left a sour discomfort in his chest.

But then Little Red Riding Hood, still leaning in to read, suddenly went, “Huh?” and snapped him out of it.

Yu Sheng turned. “What?”

She frowned, searching her memory. “Sunshine Foundation… I’ve heard that recently. Just in the last day or two. It was also…”

Her eyes sharpened.

The high-school brain clicked into place.

“Snow White!” Little Red Riding Hood shouted toward the camp. “Snow White, where are you?!”

The next second, Princess Snow White’s head popped out from a nearby little house. “What is it?”

“Didn’t a batch of donated books get delivered to the orphanage recently—from Sunshine Foundation?!”

Princess Snow White froze for a beat, then nodded as she stepped out. “Yeah. A whole pile of books from Sunshine Foundation. Moving them to the reading room nearly killed me. Why?”

Then she spotted Yu Sheng and lifted a hand, cheerful. “Bro, did you eat yet?”

Her smile faded when she registered the expressions on Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood.

Princess Snow White went tense immediately. “…Those books. Something’s wrong?”

Little Red Riding Hood stared at her. “You checked them carefully? Nothing weird?”

“I checked. Every single one.” Princess Snow White sounded offended by the implication. “I even showed you the donation list.”

Little Red Riding Hood’s brows knit as she thought back. She had seen the list afterward—and the book name wasn’t on it.

Still.

A coincidence this perfect made anyone suspicious.

Yu Sheng’s voice dropped. “Where are those books now? I need to check.”

“In the cabinet in the northwest corner of the reading room,” Princess Snow White said quickly. “Second floor, end reading room. I haven’t had time to shelve them, so they’re still piled there.” Then she blurted, “So what exactly is it…?”

Little Red Riding Hood’s face was grim. “Eighty-six years ago, Zhao Le Le gave a fairy tale book to Anka Aila right after its descent into this world. According to recent collector records, a copy from the same batch and edition was bought a month ago by an organization under Sunshine Foundation. Then a few days ago, Sunshine Foundation donated a batch of books to the orphanage—and all the strange stuff started after that day.”

She looked like she wanted to bite the words.

“Coincidences exist,” she said. “But do you believe a coincidence this perfect?”

Yu Sheng had already reached toward the air. “No matter what it is, I’ll take a look fir—”

A sharp, piercing noise stabbed into his mind and cut off the motion.

Baby crying. A shrill alarm. Layered, buzzing hums—like the whole world flooded with sound for one terrible moment, all of it howling inside his skull.

Yu Sheng sucked in a breath and snapped his gaze up toward the camp.

Children ran between the little houses. The bigger kids and the “guardians” seemed to notice nothing unusual at all.

Foxy did, though. She jolted at Yu Sheng’s expression. “Benefactor, what’s wrong?”

Yu Sheng spoke fast, the sound still crashing in waves through his head. “Anka Aila’s noise is clear. Close. I can feel it drilling into the real world—no. It’s about to break through. Get the kids back into their rooms. Now!”

He didn’t wait for questions. “Everyone inject sanity-blocking agent. Let the bureau and the Councilor Council staff take over the camp, now!”

Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t hear the noise, but she understood the urgency from Yu Sheng’s face alone. She turned and ran. Princess Snow White was a half-beat behind.

And then the entire camp reacted, as if an invisible alarm had been sounded.

The children who’d been playing a second ago regrouped at high speed. Under the command of the bigger kids and the “guardians,” they sprinted into their own rooms. The caretakers sent by the Councilor Council fetched sanity-blocking agent in the shortest time possible and distributed it to every house. The near-adult “guardians” injected themselves first, then helped the smaller children based on how heavily each one had been eroded.

Everything moved with astonishing efficiency—like it had been drilled a thousand times.

Yu Sheng, Foxy, and Irene rushed into the settlement area.

Pitch-black silk threads slid through the air.

Irene sat on Yu Sheng’s shoulder and lifted a hand, plucking at the air in quick, delicate motions. Fine lines like spider silk drifted outward, spreading like living hair and weaving into a web above the camp. As it expanded, it dropped thin strands down toward the houses.

Little Doll’s voice went sharp. “No contamination for now, but some children are slipping into sleep uncontrollably. Some have already started dreaming. Yu Sheng—can you sense Anka Aila? Is it invading the valley? Is it here?”

Yu Sheng forced himself to focus, following the relentless noise in his head like a thread pulled taut. “Don’t panic. I’m tracking it in reverse.”

The power of blood connected his senses to the whole valley—and to every child within it. He scanned the settlement, the houses, the paths, searching for the presence he knew too well.

He couldn’t find it.

He wasn’t unfamiliar with that presence. He’d faced that massive shadow directly in the black forest.

But it wasn’t here.

The noise sharpened. Anka Aila was waking.

Yu Sheng’s gaze swept over the houses where the children hid.

One by one, the settlement went quiet.

The kids were falling asleep, one after another. Night was coming in the real world. The power of Fairy Tale rose quickly with the darkness. The baby’s crying grew clearer. Anka Aila’s waking accelerated, as if it had drilled through some barrier—like it had already entered…

The container.

The word flashed through Yu Sheng’s mind again, cold and sudden.

The children were protected by the blood pact. The Sanctuary Wasteland could at least protect their consciousness.

There was still no sign of an angel invasion in the valley. Anka Aila didn’t seem to have found this place at all.

Little Red Riding Hood and Princess Snow White—the two Fairy Tale members most heavily eroded—had remained stable up to now. And Irene was monitoring everyone’s minds, threads spread like a net across the camp. Even this unbelievable doll couldn’t find any trace of contamination.

So the one chosen as the container wasn’t one of the children here?

Could it be Squirrel—trapped in the black forest, long since without a real body?

Could it be Old Zheng’s nephew, the one Yu Sheng had only met a few times?

A frantic ringtone snapped through the air.

Yu Sheng grabbed his phone on instinct. Li Lin’s name flashed on the screen.

He answered, and the young agent’s voice came through—urgent, shaken.

“…What do you mean ‘the orphanage stood up’?”