Chapter 236
Chapter 236: After Everything Calms Down
The roar in the Valley lasted a long time before it finally grew quiet. Armored Titans stood on the small plaza at the edge of the camp, and the teens stood on their shoulders, arms, and even heads, staring at the strange changes in the distance as warm daylight washed over them like the end of a dream.
The smaller Cursed Children gathered around the Titans’ feet, their eyes wide as they gazed toward the horizon.
Clouds were rolling in from far away, glowing with colors of dawn. This kind of cloud had never belonged to this Valley.
Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel stood together on the Thunder Titan’s shoulder, and from that height they could see very far.
They could even see the other side of the Valley, where a thick forest seemed to sprout in a blink, replacing a huge stretch of mountains.
A drone’s hum came from high above. Little Red Riding Hood looked up and saw the drone Dorothy had secretly launched turning back. A moment later, another Titan lifted its arm, and Dorothy came jogging over from the neighbor Titan’s shoulder with bright excitement on her face, saying: “Hey, Red Hood! It really is your Black Forest! I saw the Little House, but it looks like there are new things inside the forest too. There are springs and flower fields. It is much prettier than before.”
Little Red Riding Hood frowned and spoke on reflex: “Yu Sheng said we must not go near places that are still changing. He said they might be dangerous.”
Dorothy laughed and waved it off: “I sent the drone. I did not go myself. I will send another one to check the tower up north later.”
Rapunzel shook her hand as if it was obvious: “No need, that has to be my tower. I know it too well. It looks much better now anyway. At least it is not leaking the stink of demons, and there is no Hellworm sticking its fire-breathing head through the window.”
Dorothy sighed, still a bit regretful: “The control range is too short, and my power is not strong enough. I wanted to see how big the forest is. Maybe I should send a scout drone.”
Little Red Riding Hood let out a breath and said softly: “Do not make extra trouble for Yu Sheng. The Valley has calmed down. He should be back soon.”
Just as she finished, a lively stir rose from the ground. A phantom Door floated into view at the center of the camp, and a group of kids rushed toward it, shouting.
Rapunzel turned, saw it, and grinned: “Oh oh, big bro is back.” She jumped straight off the Titan’s shoulder, and her hair lifted in the wind, gleaming gold as it braided itself in an instant into a long slide aimed right at Yu Sheng, who was pushing the door open.
He had barely set foot outside when a golden blur came roaring down the makeshift track. In a flash he slipped aside, fast enough to leave a faint afterimage. [Years of dodging Foxy’s Sonic Headbutt had carved this reflex into his bones. He lived with three Dolls who might pounce and bite at any time, plus a Cyber Fox Immortal whose headbutt could kill. Of course he moved without thinking.]
The gold blur shot past him with a startled yelp and speared into a dirt pile ten meters away.
But Rapunzel was the kind of super JK who could fight her way up a tower floor by floor with Close Combat. Before Yu Sheng could even worry, she popped out of the dirt with a “puh,” spitting clods and grumbling as she brushed herself off: “Why did you dodge, bro? I was just coming down to say hi.”
Yu Sheng opened his mouth to answer, but Little Red Riding Hood’s voice sounded behind him first as she walked over with a small smile: “Do not mind her. She gets a little wild sometimes, especially now when she is excited.”
He turned and saw the familiar short-haired girl smiling in front of him.
Out on the plaza, the Titans bent down one by one, lowering thick arms to the ground. The familiar faces jumped off and came toward them, joking and laughing.
The smaller Cursed Children had already formed a ring around them.
A chubby tabby cat strutted out from the crowd. Lifting his head with a serious face, King asked: “All done?”
Yu Sheng looked down at this “King,” paused, then slowly smiled: “Yes. All done.”
Silence fell around them, as if the world’s pause button had been pressed.
After several seconds, someone tried a small cheer. Another person clapped once. The Cursed Children reacted slowly and carefully, as if they had been waiting for this day all their lives, but now that it had come, they were unsure what to do with their faces or hands. This was the only part of “Fairy Tale” they had never studied, never rehearsed.
Yu Sheng raised his hand and broke the spell: “Smile. Start with smiling, then celebrate. Celebrate in any way you like.”
Claps came in scattered bursts. Someone laughed. Then a voice cheered from the youngest Cursed Children, and more voices joined, then the older kids, and finally the “parents.”
The camp filled with cheers, happy shouts, and the loud crying-laughing that only happens when fear finally lets go.
Yu Sheng laughed with them for a long time. When the noise calmed a little, he saw King padding closer again.
“I am satisfied, meow,” King declared with royal dignity, his furry face almost smiling. “I grant you the rank of Belly Scratching Minister. You may scratch my belly at any time.”
“This is the highest honor,” Little Red Riding Hood whispered at Yu Sheng’s ear with a teasing grin. “He does not let me scratch whenever I want.”
King shot her a very disliking look: “That is because you always smell like dog.”
Little Red Riding Hood widened her eyes at once: “Wolf. It is wolf.”
“Smells the same.”
“Your Cat Stick Treat is gone.”
“Meow?!”
The girl and the cat started bickering, clearly not for the first time, and no one tried to stop them. In fact, a few people egged them on.
Yu Sheng stood there smiling, enjoying the noise. [Every laugh, every argument, every breath from this day on would carry his work forward. Their steps into the future would be the extension of what he had fought for. This was his meaning. This was him taking root in this great city.]
He looked past the circle of Cursed Children and saw figures standing farther away: adults, staff from the council, and engineers and security from the Special Affairs Bureau, all watching from a distance.
“After this, we are going to hold a big celebration,” Yu Sheng said with a nod. “Everyone will join.”
“Will Teacher Su come too?” a small boy asked.
Yu Sheng smiled: “Of course.”
“Yay!”
Yu Sheng ruffled the boy’s hair, then his eyes settled on Little Red Riding Hood again.
“But before that, we should talk business,” he said, straightening his face just a little. “I need to tell you about the new changes in the Fairy Tale Otherworld. This will affect your plans and the future of the Fairy Tale Organization.”
“Okay,” Little Red Riding Hood answered at once. As the most senior “parent” in the Fairy Tale Organization, she shifted into a calm, serious mode and called names quickly: “Snow White, Rapunzel, King, everyone come here. Meeting time. The rest, break up and do your thing.”
“Where do we talk?” Yu Sheng asked, looking around the crowd.
“Where else? The Castle you built for us,” Rapunzel said, pointing her thumb back toward the far end of the camp at The End Web. “It is roomy. We decided to make it our activity center. Perfect for meetings.”
Yu Sheng looked up and saw the big walled building he had squeezed out of pure effort for the Orphanage kids. Someone had stuck several colorful flags along its sloped roof, and it really did look a little like a Castle.
They crossed the camp and went inside. Water and power now ran through the place. The interior was not really decorated yet, but at least a wide mat covered the floor of the entry hall so they did not have to stand on bare stone. Temporary lights lit the walls and ceiling. In the center stood a large round table with a dozen chairs around it, simple but proper enough.
“We first wanted a long table, but then King said a round table makes it a ‘Round Table Meeting,’” Little Red Riding Hood explained as she flicked on the lights and pointed at the table. “We do not know what difference it makes, but everyone liked the sound of ‘Round Table Meeting,’ so we set it up as a round table.”
Yu Sheng nodded, walked over, and pushed at the big spinning tray in the middle. After a few seconds of doubt, he said: “I think a real round table for a Round Table Meeting does not usually have a huge turning tray in the middle for dishes.”
Little Red Riding Hood coughed and looked a little embarrassed: “The Special Affairs Bureau delivered it. We could not be picky. We tried to take the tray off, but there is a shaft through the tabletop. If we pull it out, it leaves a big hole and looks worse. Also, King fell into it by accident once.”
“That is… a very practical reason.” Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched. He let the topic go, sat down, and glanced around the hall.
Little Red Riding Hood pointed things out while he looked: “The door on the left is our temporary storeroom. Most of the supplies from the Special Affairs Bureau are piled there. The door to that side hallway leads to the backyard. We want to tidy it and make a small garden. The rooms on the right do not have a purpose yet, so they are Teacher Su’s dorms for now.”
Yu Sheng nodded along: “What about the second floor?”
Awkward silence landed around the table. The teens traded looks. At last Rapunzel spoke up: “Bro, you did not leave a staircase to the second floor.”
Yu Sheng froze: “…”
“We have not settled with the Engineering Team and Engineer Sun where to cut the stair opening,” Little Red Riding Hood added. “If you have time…”
[His toes were curling so hard they might poke through his shoe.] He lifted his chin and stared up at a forty-five-degree angle at the ceiling lights. From the back of the hall came soft clicks and the creak of new frames settling. After a moment he blinked and, keeping a straight face, nodded to Little Red Riding Hood: “There is now a stairwell behind the hall.”
Rapunzel clapped at once: “Bro, you are amazing.”
“Next time there is anything inconvenient or off, just tell me,” Yu Sheng said quietly. “A lot of this was built in a rush. I did not have time to make it perfect.”
No one pressed the point. He guided the talk back on track.
“In short,” he said, “I fused Fairy Tale with this Valley. You have already seen the two main fusion points. One is the Black Forest. The other is the tower. They sit at the two ends of the Valley.
“The other ‘stages’ are also fused, but I did not have time to set up a Valley connection point for each one. Most of the subset connection points are inside the Black Forest and the tower. I will put together a detailed Node Map for you to use.
“You can think of the Fairy Tale Otherworld as now a part of this Valley, which is to say, a part of No. 66 Wutong Road. It still exists, but like Night Valley before it, its nature has been rebuilt. In Director Bai Li Qing’s words, its harmful entities have been cleared out. What remains is an ‘empty shell’ anchored behind my house.
“The changes from fusion are huge. The biggest one is that every stage is now harmless. Anka Aila’s nightmare has ended, so no dangerous entities will show up anymore. Fairy Tale is safe from now on, completely.”
He paused. Little Red Riding Hood drew in a deep breath. Rapunzel rocked with happy energy in her chair. Even King purred low, eyes half-closed.
Yu Sheng smiled and went on: “Another change is that Fairy Tale has shifted from an abnormal Otherworld to a Wilderness Type Otherworld. Its subsets now hang as extra spaces ‘around’ the Valley. That means you can enter them with your real bodies. You do not have to fall into a nightmare anymore. You can simply walk into the Black Forest, or climb the tower, the same way you explore other places in the Valley.”
He noticed the mixed looks around the table.
“I know what you are thinking,” he said. “Those stages did not leave you with many good memories. That is why I suggest you go look when you have time. See the places that used to scare you. It will help clear the shadows in your hearts. Trust me, this matters, because…”
He stopped, then looked at every face in turn and spoke with more weight than ever: “Because each of you now has a long life ahead.”
Many of them froze.
Jokes faded. Even the ones who had been laughing a moment ago went quiet.
Yu Sheng was not surprised. When a long nightmare ends, the warm feeling of what is real rises slowly. Even if you think you know what is coming and believe you are ready, new details you never imagined will bump into you and make you stop, and little by little you understand what has changed.
Rapunzel rubbed her eyes and muttered: “Bro, this is no good. I am about to cry.”
As the big sister of everyone, Little Red Riding Hood was still the calmest. She blinked once, then caught up quickly: “So there will be no more kids from the Borderland swallowed by nightmares brought by Fairy Tale. That means there will be no new Little Red Riding Hood or new Snow White, right?”
Yu Sheng thought for a moment and asked her: “Is your wolf still here?”
“Of course,” Little Red Riding Hood said. A Shadow Wolf rose from the shadows beside her, and she rubbed its head while speaking like it was nothing. “Snow White’s Thunder Titan is still here. King’s followers are here too. Everyone’s powers are still with them.”
“And to be honest, we would feel weird if our powers vanished,” Dorothy murmured from across the table. “I have not charged my phone for two months.”
“Machine Spirit really has it rough with you,” Snow White grumbled.
Yu Sheng ignored the side chatter and spoke carefully: “In theory, since Fairy Tale has shifted from a nightmare set to a harmless set of spaces, it will no longer pull people from the Borderland to create new ‘roles.’ But your powers still exist, which means part of Fairy Tale is still running. So, still speaking in theory, you should be able to train a next generation of Little Red Riding Hoods and Snow Whites.”
Little Red Riding Hood stared, surprised. None of them had ever thought in that direction. Every member of Fairy Tale had only wanted the cycle of nightmares to end. The idea of training anyone on purpose would never have come to mind.
Yu Sheng did not seem surprised by their reaction.
“This is what I meant about the future of the Fairy Tale Organization,” he said, scanning each face with a serious look. “It is time to think about what comes next. Until now, Fairy Tale has been an Organization formed by orphans holding together for warmth. But what about after the nightmare? What are your own plans? What about the Organization’s plans? Should Fairy Tale keep operating as a Spirit Realm Detective group? For how long? Do you bring in new members? Every question deserves real thought.”
“We…” Rapunzel started, then hesitated. “Okay, we have not really thought about it. I have not even planned past next year. I…”
“I am not good at anything else,” Snow White said, hugging her arms and rocking her chair. “My grades are bad, and even though we were supposed to go to school and take tests like normal, I never thought I would graduate, and I never thought about what comes after. I guess I will keep being a Spirit Realm Detective. The pay is decent.”
“The Orphanage has to keep running,” Little Red Riding Hood said, less smooth than usual. “We need to raise our brothers and sisters. At least until they are grown. But after that…” She looked up, thought hard, and smiled with a hint of awkwardness. “I do not think I can do anything else. I might be a Spirit Realm Detective for life.”
“I can sing,” a lively girl piped up, hand in the air. “I am already a big V. I gained tens of thousands of followers this week.”
Rapunzel glared at her: “Be quiet. You are the worst at fighting.”
Yu Sheng coughed twice and drew them back: “So it is clear the Organization will keep running, likely for a long time. Remember, the nightmare has ended. From now on, Fairy Tale can be a healthy, stable, and safe Organization. That means you should think about new blood and succession. I am just giving a reminder. This is for later.
“For now, study your powers. Study the small changes in the Fairy Tale Otherworld and how they affect you. I only fused two Otherworlds. The ones who know Fairy Tale best are you.”
He spoke on for a while. At some point the room had gone quiet. Bright eyes watched him, and their attention made him feel a bit of pressure.
He stopped and rubbed his neck: “Am I nagging?”
“Not like Red Hood,” Rapunzel said without missing a beat. “She talks forever when she runs meetings.”
Little Red Riding Hood tapped Rapunzel on the back and then looked at Yu Sheng with a smile.
“Not at all,” she said, warm and serious. “You are also a parent of Fairy Tale now. The biggest one.”
Seeing the moment was right, Rapunzel jumped up and started the chant: “Come on, everyone, call him bro. I will go first: big bro.”
Yu Sheng had no time to react before the teens rose around the table, grinning as they yelled on purpose out of sync:
“Big bro!”
“Bro!”
“Uncle Yu!”
“Grandpa Yu!”
Yu Sheng sputtered: “Who said that last one, Grandpa Yu?!”