Chapter 261

Chapter 261: The Distress Call

News that the door had opened spread through the valley at once. The children swarmed over, thrilled by the novelty, and began running in and out of the new teleportation gate. But the smallest ones were soon caught by the ears by the “guardian” and chased back to Little Town. The orphanage side was still rubble, with construction machines everywhere. For kids who couldn’t control their abilities yet—or who hadn’t even awakened at all—playing here was genuinely dangerous.

Princess Snow White and the others brought a few of the older kids to explore the ruins, as long as they stayed clear of the clearing crew’s work zone.

Even though the entire orphanage had been flattened, and both main buildings had twisted horribly while turning into an “umbilical cord,” you could still find the occasional intact object among the wreckage. It might not be useful anymore, but for the members of Fairy Tale, it was loaded with memories.

Dorothy spotted something in the distance. “Rapunzel! I found a few novels—see if they’re yours! There are also two smashed figurines over here…”

Princess Rapunzel let out a strangled scream and sprinted toward her.

Princess Snow White also directed the Thunder Titans to pry apart clumps of concrete that looked half-melted and fused together. Under the rubble, they uncovered part of the activity classroom—a graffiti board, and a wooden box that used to store indoor toys.

Yu Sheng stood not far away with Little Red Riding Hood, quietly watching. After a while, he asked in a low voice, “You’re not going to look around? Maybe your stuff is still here.”

“Everything important was already taken out.” Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. After a brief silence, she glanced toward Li Lin on the other side. “Could you help keep an eye out? When you clear the rubble, if you find anything fairly intact, please gather it for us…”

“Of course,” Li Lin said at once. Then he added, “But only as best we can. We’re using heavy machines, and most of the crew can’t be as careful as you.”

“As best you can is fine.”

“Then no problem.”

Yu Sheng listened without interrupting. Just then, the phone in his pocket rang, cutting off the conversation.

He took it out. An unfamiliar number.

After a brief hesitation, he answered. “Hello?”

A somewhat familiar voice came through the receiver, tense and frightened—a young man. “Hello? Hello! Can you hear me? Brother Yu? I—”

Static tore through the line, jagged and loud.

Yu Sheng froze. Then he remembered where he’d heard that voice before. “…Big Nephew?!”

Beside him, Little Red Riding Hood’s face filled with question marks. “Who’s calling?”

“Old Zheng’s nephew,” Yu Sheng said quickly. The noise already felt wrong, so he pressed closer to the phone. “It’s Yu Sheng. What’s going on over there? Are you in danger?”

More static burst through. After two or three seconds, the voice came back, strained but clearer. “I’m in a mall. Something feels wrong. A bunch of things moved positions all at once, and people changed too. And there are so many mirrors… This is my first time running into this, and I don’t know any other expert. Can you come—”

He didn’t even finish before Yu Sheng put the call on speaker. The moment the noise surged again, Little Red Riding Hood leaned in and shouted straight at the phone, “Stop rambling! Which mall?!”

The speaker crackled, the young man’s voice breaking in and out. “Heyang District… Wan Xiang Collection… but I went in through a weird door. Inside didn’t look like—”

The static swallowed the rest. His words dissolved into a muddy mumble, and then the signal dropped entirely.

Yu Sheng looked at Little Red Riding Hood. They stared at each other.

Before either of them could speak, Li Lin had already whipped out his own phone, dialed with practiced speed, and raised it to his ear. “Second Unit Li Lin, Abnormal Situation III. Heyang District, Wan Xiang Collection. Possible person trapped. Yes, there was a signal one minute ago, but communications are down now. Suspected sinking into an otherworld… Okay. Patrol unit is moving out? Good.”

Yu Sheng watched Li Lin’s reflex-level response and couldn’t hide his surprise. Li Lin noticed and looked a little awkward. “Uh… what?”

“You’re pretty reliable,” Yu Sheng said. “Do you deal with this often?”

“Not often, but we trained for it. This is what the Special Operations Bureau does,” Li Lin said quickly. His expression had gone stiff. “Honestly, I’m a bit nervous. It’s my first time reporting an Abnormal Situation III on my own…”

“I’m going over to check,” Little Red Riding Hood cut in. Shadows like a wolf pack were already flickering around her. “Yu Sheng, are you coming?”

“I’m coming,” Yu Sheng said without hesitation. “He called me.”

“I have orders. I have to stay here.” Li Lin shook his head helplessly. “But my colleagues are there. If you need anything, find them.”

Yu Sheng nodded. He called Foxy and Irene over, and followed Little Red Riding Hood’s wolf pack straight into the shadows.

The pack—formed from condensed shadowspawn—raced through the dimensions between light and darkness, leaping and weaving between abstract city “slabs” made of black. In the blink of an eye, they crossed several blocks.

Foxy copied Yu Sheng and sat astride a shadow wolf’s back. Her eyes were wide as she stared at the monochrome projections of half-real buildings sliding past. Irene clung tightly to Yu Sheng’s shoulder, looking around while muttering anxiously, “What’s going on? What the heck is happening… Is that Big Nephew okay?”

“This is what high sensitivity, low stability looks like,” Little Red Riding Hood’s voice came from nearby, irritated. “I should’ve applied for bureau protection for him. But his high sensitivity, low stability is way too extreme. After Old Zheng’s case, he barely had any formal exposure to supernatural factors. The only connection was that he got close to the scene… How can that alone get him targeted by the Other Side?”

“Who could’ve guessed,” Yu Sheng said, his tone complicated. It was his first time seeing, so directly, how an ordinary person could get latched onto by a supernatural incident again after being exposed to the Other Side. “After we wrapped up Old Zheng’s case, I told him to go home fast. I really thought it was over…”

He paused, then looked toward Little Red Riding Hood. “Do you know the mall he mentioned? Does that place have an otherworld?”

“Wan Xiang Collection? I know it. I’ve been there twice. It’s not an otherworld.” Little Red Riding Hood’s tone turned serious. “But entrances can move randomly. Sometimes, when conditions line up, they can appear right in front of the victim’s face. It’s not strange to run into one anywhere. You ran into a sudden freezing rain yourself, remember?”

Yu Sheng froze, recalling the frog in the rain. His expression went odd. “You didn’t have to remind me. I’d almost forgotten. It feels like it happened ages ago.”

He shook his head and forced that bizarrely broad-minded memory aside. “You’re the professional. From that call, can you tell what’s happening? Do you think Big Nephew is in trouble?”

“When the call first connected, his voice was clear. That means he hadn’t fully sunk yet. He was probably sliding from L-0 toward L-1,” Little Red Riding Hood said, shaking her head. “If he were an experienced Spirit Realm Detective or investigator, he could’ve run out on his own at that stage. Depth zero and level one are almost directly connected to reality. Safe fissures are visible to the naked eye.”

Her voice grew heavier. “Then the noise started, and the signal got disrupted. That means he crossed past L-1. After that, an ordinary person getting out depends on luck. The environment shouldn’t be fatal yet. Level one, most of the time, is just ‘something looks wrong.’ It almost never has lethal mechanisms, and there are still safe passages back to reality… But again—luck.”

“And the bad part is, the signal cut quickly. The whole process lasted about a minute. Then the noise completely drowned out his voice, and there was even mumbling—that means he sank fast. He might have skipped L-1 entirely. I just hope he stops somewhere in an otherworld at the L-2 tier… at least long enough for rescue to reach him.”

Yu Sheng listened carefully. He’d handled even dark-angel-level incidents, but this kind of foundational knowledge was still new to him. There were things you could only learn through experience—things no database could teach. Only a veteran Spirit Realm Detective like Little Red Riding Hood would know them.

Foxy twisted around on the wolf and added quietly, “He also mentioned people and objects changing, and lots of mirrors…”

“That doesn’t tell us much.” Little Red Riding Hood waved a hand. “Environmental distortion is the most common phenomenon while falling into an otherworld. Often it’s not that the surroundings changed—it’s that the victim’s field of view changed. As for mirrors… there are way too many mirror-related otherworlds. I know more than a dozen. We’ll have to judge after we reach the scene. The bureau should already be there. They’ve got more detectors, plus high-powered scan stations all over the city. They might have already caught signals from Big Nephew during the sinking.”

Irene raised her head, looked at Little Red Riding Hood, then at Yu Sheng, and finally couldn’t hold it in. “…You keep calling him Big Nephew, Big Nephew, but he’s got a name, right? What’s his name?”

Little Red Riding Hood and Yu Sheng looked at each other.

“…No idea!” they said together.