Chapter 245

Chapter 245: New Life Starts with Civil Engineering

Yu Sheng figured Rapunzel was treating him like a magic wish machine. “Make the sky go dark” was a wild request, and she said it like it was easy.

But seeing the bright look in her eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse outright. Instead he asked: “You think I can do something that crazy?”

“I heard it from Irene. Everything in this Valley listens to you,” Rapunzel said, pointing at the little doll running circles along the Plaza edge for reasons unknown: “You even moved mountains to make room for Little Red Riding Hood’s Black Forest. You should be able to turn off the daylight too… right?”

She stared wide-eyed at Yu Sheng, and Yu Sheng stared back at this over-the-top schoolgirl.

At last she realized and asked: “You can’t?”

“I told you he couldn’t,” Little Red Riding Hood said as she walked over, looking helpless.

Seeing both their disappointed faces, then the woodpile already set up, the older kids helping everywhere, and the tiny ones running lap after lap around the Plaza’s edge, Yu Sheng felt awkward. He raised a hand to stop Little Red Riding Hood and said: “Hold on. Maybe it isn’t totally impossible. Let me think.”

He tipped his head back and looked at the sky, thinking in silence. Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel didn’t dare interrupt. They watched him, curious.

After a while, Yu Sheng narrowed his eyes and focused on the sky over the Black Forest at the Valley’s End Web.

Clouds began to spread.

At first, it was only the thin, glowing clouds above the Black Forest. Then clouds started forming over every side of the Valley. Heavier and heavier masses drew across the sky like a curtain, pulled up from the gaps between the mountains and closing toward the center, like a night that kept tightening.

One by one, everyone noticed the change above them. Children and lords stopped what they were doing and lifted their heads to watch the closing “curtain.”

Yu Sheng felt someone tug his arm. It was Foxy.

The clouds paused. When Yu Sheng turned his head, he saw a slow-blooming smile on Foxy’s face.

Delighted, she turned back to the sky. Her golden-red eyes sparkled in the dimming light as she said: “Benefactor is amazing!”

Yu Sheng smiled too and patted her head as he said: “I just remembered that while I can’t control the Valley’s original ambient light, I can control the clouds that merged in from Fairy Tale. Sometimes pulling the curtains by hand isn’t that hard.”

The curtain kept closing. A man-made night slowly descended.

Someone cried out.

Rapunzel shouted to the people in the Plaza: “Don’t panic! It’s a lighting test. It’s not going to rain. We’re just turning off the sky to check the effect.”

The tense crowd relaxed. Then Yu Sheng heard someone by the woodpile call: “Leave a gap. Otherwise it’s too dark. We’re still working.”

Yu Sheng quickly looked up at the almost closed cloud cover and left a cross-shaped opening in the middle, just big enough to pour a beam of “sunlight” onto the Plaza.

Foxy craned her neck, stared at the sky for several seconds, then mumbled: “It looks like a mushroom.”

Yu Sheng said nothing.

She pointed at the woodpile and said: “Benefactor, I want to help thread the skewers.”

Yu Sheng only stared silently at the nine-tailed fox whose drool was about to drip onto her shirt.

Foxy’s ears drooped at once: “I won’t sneak bites. It’s raw meat. Raw meat is, slurp, not good.”

“I don’t buy it. I sent you to buy a bottle of vinegar and you came back with half a bottle. You think you can resist meat?” Yu Sheng ruffled behind one of her ears and said: “If you want to help, go play with the little ones with Irene. The Cursed Children really like you two.”

Foxy thought about it, decided that sounded fun, and nodded happily as she said: “Okay.”

Yu Sheng suddenly remembered something and added: “Wait. No hanging Cursed Children from your tail and launching them. No low-altitude cruising either. Even if they cry, still no.”

Foxy’s ears and tail sagged together: “Okay.”

When Foxy had trotted off, Little Red Riding Hood sidled over and said: “I suddenly feel like you have it pretty hard.”

“Foxy doesn’t have much common sense for living in this world. She’s gotten better lately. She can even go to the corner store on her own now,” Yu Sheng sighed and said: “Before this I didn’t dare let her out alone. Last week I had a nightmare where she got lost, then came back and pulled an elephant out of her tail and told me she’d picked up a spirit beast while traveling. I was leading the elephant to the south city zoo to apologize. Don’t laugh. She could actually do it.”

“I’m laughing because she really could,” Little Red Riding Hood said with a grin: “It reminds me of when the King first arrived. We were most worried it would send troops to rob the pet shop on the street next to the orphanage for cat treats. Luckily we found out it’s reasonable. That’s not a common trait in cats.”

They kept chatting in the Plaza: about how a nine-tailed fox from another world slowly learned to survive in the Borderland, the wild and funny things that used to happen at the orphanage, the strange legends of LC City and which parts might be true, and how after tonight’s fun they still had homework and tests the next day. This time none of the kids could use “we don’t really have to graduate” as an excuse.

While they were talking, another group appeared near the little “town,” a convoy escorted by a dozen soldiers and knights. The lead carriage flew a Kingdom flag with a kitty head on it. The flatbeds behind were piled with all kinds of things: elegant, old-fashioned tables and benches, doors and windows taken from who-knows-where, sets of beds and quilts, wardrobes, sofas, chairs, frames for beds.

Cart after cart rolled through the Valley and into the “town,” heading for the streets in the dim light.

Yu Sheng stared, confused, then turned to Little Red Riding Hood and asked: “What’s going on?”

“We’re going to make this our new home,” Little Red Riding Hood said with a smile: “The orphanage is gone. We couldn’t bring a lot of things out in time, and we don’t want to keep asking the Special Affairs Bureau for everything. So the King suggested we stock up from the different subsets. What you saw is a convoy that just came back from ‘reorganizing’ Snow White’s Castle.”

Yu Sheng listened, stunned, especially at the line about not wanting to ask the Bureau for everything. He traded a guilty glance with Rapunzel. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Little Red Riding Hood that Rapunzel had suggested milking the Special Affairs Bureau for “resettlement funds” to rebuild an orphanage. [And he definitely couldn’t say that he doubled the number and squeezed out enough for two orphanages, then split the spoils between the hotel and the orphanage.]

It would probably come out soon anyway.

“By the way, I thought some of you might choose to live in one of the Fairy Tale subsets,” Yu Sheng said, steering the topic away with a stiff smile: “Those subsets are harmless now. The castles and palaces look fancy. Once you get past the mental block, it sounds kind of fun.”

The look Little Red Riding Hood gave him turned strange.

“Am I wrong?” he asked.

“You must not have looked closely at the details when you fused parts of Fairy Tale over,” she said with a sigh: “Those Story Stages exist to serve ‘stories.’ No matter how lavish the ‘sets’ are, they’re not fit for real living. The weird parts are everywhere. Imagine this: in Snow White’s Castle more than half the rooms are solid blocks. In Rapunzel’s tower, about seventy percent of the staircases don’t line up. The Kingdom of Oz has a grand total of three toilets, and Dorothy built those herself. They’re fine for adventure tourism or for training newcomers, but they’d still need a lot of remodeling.”

Yu Sheng fell silent.

He truly hadn’t thought about those details.

“The good news is that while the Stages are odd and not livable, lots of things inside can be put to use,” Little Red Riding Hood went on: “The King and I checked. Items we bring out of Fairy Tale’s Stages can serve as real building materials and supplies. We’ve shipped in a batch of urgent furniture and bedding and started stockpiling lumber and stone. In a few days, once things settle, Dorothy wants to set up a sawmill in the Black Forest. Snow White plans to send Giants back to keep dismantling her Castle and turn it into a sightseeing ruin within two months. I think she has some personal feelings about it, but she won’t admit it.”

She kept talking and, without noticing, said a lot.

After a while she realized and stopped, a bit embarrassed under Yu Sheng’s amused look, and asked: “Why are you staring at me?”

“Nothing. It just sounds great,” Yu Sheng laughed and said: “Call me when you start building. I can help. The Engineering Team is leaving tomorrow. Their work is done.”

“Deal. Then help us reinforce the foundations. We’re not just putting up houses. We’re also building classrooms and a playground,” said Little Red Riding Hood.

“I can build houses too,” Yu Sheng said.

“You’ll reinforce the foundations,” she replied.

“I mean, I can also…”

“You’ll reinforce the foundations,” she repeated.

Yu Sheng sighed and said: “Fine.”