Chapter 259

Chapter 259: A Good Place

Yu Sheng explained what he wanted to do. Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes lit up immediately.

“Oh! So you’re finally opening a dedicated door for us?” she said, practically bouncing. “That’s great! Teacher Su was talking to me yesterday—he said having to find you every time he gets off work is kind of troublesome. Rapunzel’s been nagging me too… Where are you planning to put it?”

“On this side, it’s easy,” Yu Sheng said, pointing not far away. “We just need a spacious, stable spot near the settlement area and plant the door there. The open ground in the middle of town looks good.”

He paused. “The key is the outside door. It has to be in the real world. Ordinary people can’t see it, but it can’t be too remote either. We have to think about your future travel needs, and how employees like Teacher Su can commute conveniently.”

“Put it in Green Source Plaza,” Princess Rapunzel cut in instantly. “There are tons of milk tea shops there—”

Nobody acknowledged her.

Little Red Riding Hood lowered her head, thinking hard. When she looked up again, her expression had turned serious.

“What about the old orphanage site?” she said. “Think about it. First, we’re familiar with that place. Even though we live in our new home now, if the ‘front door’ is set near the orphanage’s old door, going out won’t feel that different from before. And Teacher Su and the others won’t have to change their routes.”

She lifted a finger, counting. “Second, that orphanage block has always been shielded by node devices. The dark angels incident just ended, so the nodes probably haven’t been removed yet. If we talk to the Special Operations Bureau, we can set the door there directly. We won’t have to worry about ordinary people seeing it, and we won’t have to build new shielding nodes either.”

She hesitated, voice softening. “The only problem is… the place was flattened. It’s probably still ruins. I don’t know if there’s even anywhere to install a door.”

Yu Sheng listened, eyes brightening. He let out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh. “High school brains really work. When you put it like that… yeah. Want to go take a look first?”

Little Red Riding Hood nodded, but her smile was thinner now. “Yeah. And… I want to see what it looks like now too.”

Princess Rapunzel jumped in immediately. “Where are we going? Our old home? Hey, I’m going too! I haven’t gone back since everything ended. I didn’t have time to bring a lot of things out. A bunch of novels, and several figures… Are you bringing me or not?”

By then, Yu Sheng had already opened a door to the orphanage’s old site.

Little Red Riding Hood stood at the doorway and looked back at her roommate, who was still talking in place. “If you keep dragging your feet, we really won’t bring you. If you want to come, just come. Why are you talking so much?”

Princess Rapunzel beamed and hurried over. “Yeah! Okay!”

Crossing the door took only an instant. The scenery shifted, and the paradise-like valley vanished behind them.

They stood in front of the orphanage.

Or what was left of it.

That tall, weathered wall had been nearly crushed into fragments in the dark angels’ final outburst. Now only broken bricks and tiles lay collapsed by the roadside. The two main buildings in the yard had once become an angel’s fetus umbilical cord; with the cord severed, they’d slumped into huge remnants among the rubble.

The old outdoor activity area—where children used to laugh and play—had been soaked through with nightmare matter. Now that the nightmare had faded, the swings, slides, and seesaws had turned into cracked, charcoal-textured wreckage.

Even the big sandbox was nothing but a blackened, hardened depression.

Little Red Riding Hood stared at it all, speechless.

Princess Rapunzel stepped out behind them, eyes wide. After a long moment, she forced a grin that looked like it hurt. She took a deep breath and patted Yu Sheng’s shoulder.

“Bro,” she said, voice too bright, “it really is like you said. It all collapsed. Yep. All collapsed.”

Yu Sheng didn’t answer. He only reached out and patted Little Red Riding Hood’s back.

Of course, the place wasn’t empty.

The Special Operations Bureau was here—cleanup crews, technicians checking the environment, agents fully armed and still on alert, construction teams clearing rubble. Heavy equipment roared as it worked.

Among the agents, Yu Sheng spotted a familiar figure.

Li Lin.

Li Lin saw him too and strode over at once. In protective gear with a rifle slung and ready, he looked far more reliable than usual.

After greeting Yu Sheng and the others, his gaze slid to Little Red Riding Hood. “Came to take a look today?”

She nodded.

Yu Sheng spoke up beside her. “Not just to look. I’m planning to open a permanent teleportation door here too.”

Li Lin’s expression tightened instantly. “A permanent teleportation door?”

“The whole fairy tale group moved into my backyard,” Yu Sheng said. “It’s for them. A convenient link to the real world. I mentioned it to your director before, but we hadn’t settled on a location. We talked just now and think this place fits best. The nodes around here haven’t been removed yet, right?”

“Of course they haven’t,” Li Lin said quickly. “Even if you weren’t coming, we’d keep them. This area was parasitized by an angel. The whole region has to stay shielded for at least ten years before we can even evaluate redevelopment…”

He looked around again, then back at Yu Sheng. “You really want to put the door here?”

“Yeah,” Yu Sheng said without much hesitation. He knew Anka Aila’s situation better than anyone. The bureau following procedure made sense, but he also knew the place was actually safe now. “I just don’t know how far cleanup has gotten. Is there a spot for me to work?”

Li Lin’s posture straightened like he’d just gotten a mission briefing. Nerves, excitement, anticipation—everything rose at once.

“Uh—what do you need to open a fixed gate?” he blurted. “How big a site? What materials? Do we need to clear people out? Should we call Engineer Sun back to build you a temporary shelter or something?”

Yu Sheng blinked at the barrage. Somehow, Li Lin sounded more excited than if the door were going to his own home instead of a ruin. Before he could stop himself, Yu Sheng asked, “Engineer Sun handles this too?”

Irene, perched on his shoulder, said gloomily, “That’s how it is with a civil engineering guy.”

Yu Sheng coughed and rubbed his nose. “Right… but it’s not that complicated. No need to clear the site. Just find me an open area that won’t get in the way later. As for materials, the main piece is a door—a normal door, as a carrier.”

He paused and drew a breath.

Li Lin’s sense of doom rose like a siren.

Yu Sheng rattled it all off in one breath. “Five bundles of ritual candles, three barrels of rose essential oil—2.5-liter bottles—twelve jin of crystal dust, two thermoses of spirit communion ink, then four roast chickens, twenty buns, twenty mantou, two boxes of ham sausages, and twenty skewers of grilled mushrooms.”

“I-I-I!” Princess Rapunzel raised her hand high. “I also want one ticket to X-star’s concert!”

Little Red Riding Hood elbowed her so hard she nearly choked. “Why do you want that? Just have Mermaid sing one for you later. She can even recreate the audience screaming. Close your eyes and it’ll feel like a live show.”

“That’s not the same!”

Li Lin stood there like he’d been struck by lightning. He stared at the notes app on his phone for a long moment before managing, “…Brother Yu. I… I have to report this to the boss.”

Yu Sheng remembered exactly who Li Lin’s boss was and grinned. “Go ahead.”

“I’m really going to report exactly what you said, okay?”

“Report it.”

Li Lin walked off to the side and made the call. “Hello? Boss, I’ve got a situation… Yu Sheng came to me. He says he wants to open a fixed gate, and he asked for ‘a little’ material…”

He paused, face going pale.

Then he blurted, “How did you know he also wanted grilled mushrooms?!”

A moment later, Li Lin returned with a strange expression. “Boss approved it.”

Yu Sheng only looked at him and kept grinning.

“We’ve got doors here,” Li Lin said quickly, as if regaining control of reality by force. “If you just need a normal door, there are plenty intact ones we pulled from the ruins. You can use one. The other supporting materials will take a bit, but taking the ‘shortcut,’ it should arrive in a little over half an hour.”

He pointed toward a corner of the orphanage ruins. “As for the open ground you want… that area should work. It’s one of the few places in the yard that didn’t get damaged. Funny enough, when the umbilical cord broke, so many chunks fell from the sky, and none of them hit that spot.”

Yu Sheng followed his finger.

Amid the rubble was a patch of open ground that still stood intact. It was near the edge of the old outdoor activity area. Beside it stood a tree—a tree that also hadn’t been struck.

Nearby was a brick wall. Half of it had fallen, but a short section still stubbornly stood beside a collapsed swing set.

Yu Sheng stared at that place for a long time.

Long ago, there had been a Cinderella who lived all the way to twenty-six. She’d stood by that brick wall and the swing set, smiling quietly at Old Zheng—back when he was still Little Zheng.

And there had been a much younger Little Red Riding Hood, leading little Wang Jia Jia, who had still been small then. Together they’d planted a tree on that patch of ground.

Now the tree had grown tall.

And in the future, there would be a door here too.

A door leading to that sunlit valley.

“Yeah,” Yu Sheng said slowly, a smile pulling at his mouth. “I think this is a great place.”