Chapter 263

Chapter 264: In the Mirror

Shadows of wolves surfaced around Little Red Riding Hood, and with a thought from their master they slipped away without a sound, scattering into the rolling fog.

Behind Foxy, a mass of tails slowly fanned open; six tails detached and flew out as Fox Roaming Cannons, circling the group and patrolling the air, two more were hugged in the Fox Maiden’s arms, one on each side, their tips flickering with Fox Fire and ready to strike, and one last tail was for storage, drooping on the floor like a grounding wire.

Irene let her hand fall lightly past Yu Sheng’s side as threads of Black Spider Silk wandered through the mist like a living thing, spreading to probe for any trace of a mind while also warning against ill intent; even though the depth here might be only L-2 or even L-1, the Otherworld never follows Reason, its depth and danger do not always match, and very dangerous Entities sometimes appear in shallow layers.

Yu Sheng glanced at the people beside him and sighed: [Why is everyone so flashy?]

Unable to hold it in, he muttered: “Honestly, I want a skill with special effects like yours too, so that whoosh, even if it’s useless, it would at least scare people first.”

On his shoulder, Irene turned her head and said: “You do have special effects. When you use Door Opening, isn’t that special enough?”

Yu Sheng sighed again, then casually opened The Door and pulled out his war club, the one nicknamed ‘brush once and you bleed out, smash once and you’re severely disabled,’ the weapon called Reason; he hoisted it onto his shoulder.

Irene smoothly flipped, looped an arm around his neck, and switched to sit on his other shoulder.

Little Red Riding Hood stared, surprised at the club he had taken from The Door, and asked: “You turned your The Door into storage?”

Yu Sheng brightened and said: “I opened The Door to the basement at No. 66 Wutong Road, and using it is basically the same as storage, right?”

Little Red Riding Hood clicked her tongue in wonder, while Foxy watched Yu Sheng’s move with a thoughtful look, as if connecting it to some image of an Immortal; Yu Sheng’s attention, however, went to the thick fog and the streets within it.

This place looked like the Open Ground in front of the mall and the main avenue, matching the real world outside.

Except an eerie fog filled everything, and not a single person was in sight.

Cautiously, Yu Sheng walked only a few steps before he saw the Special Affairs Bureau’s black vehicles; several cars stood at the small Plaza’s edge, right where he remembered them.

The cars, of course, were empty.

Little Red Riding Hood frowned at the scene and said: “So this is… the world inside a mirror?” She shook her head almost at once and added: “No, it’s just an Otherworld with mirror traits. It reflects objects from reality, but it doesn’t reflect humans.”

Yu Sheng asked: “Have you heard of this Otherworld?”

Little Red Riding Hood thought carefully, then slowly shook her head and said: “No. There are many mirror-related Otherworlds, but none that match this.”

Foxy murmured that the fog felt strange and said: “It keeps feeling like something in the mist is drawing closer, but when my Divine Sense sweeps over it, there’s actually nothing there.”

Yu Sheng looked at the Doll on his shoulder and asked: “Irene, is there anything nearby?” The Doll shook her head, and Little Red Riding Hood said: “My Wolf Pack finds nothing either. No new Entities forming and no human scent left behind. People shouldn’t be able to run that far.”

Yu Sheng nodded lightly and let his gaze fall on the mall’s door as he said: “The ‘big nephew’ said he escaped from inside the mall. Maybe he saw that it was bad outside and hid back in there?” Irene considered it and said: “Maybe. Let’s check it out?” Yu Sheng nodded and said: “Let’s go. Everyone, don’t get separated. Foxy said the fog is weird, and if we split up in it, who knows what might happen.”

The team closed ranks, then carefully crossed the fog-choked Plaza and went through the open glass door into the mall.

Inside, it was just as empty. Only the still-on lights shone over cold, quiet shops and Open Ground, while thin mist seeped in through every gap and drifted before them like gauze.

Right then, Foxy let out a small gasp and said: “There are mirrors everywhere.”

Mirrors were everywhere in the mall: shop glass doors had become mirrors, ad screens had become mirrors, and even many items sitting on counters were now mirrors of all sizes; the few goods not replaced by mirrors had twisted into strange shapes, like geometry models with the wrong scale or failed rendering, piled on counters and racks in a warped and hateful way.

Yu Sheng walked past one mirror and glanced at his reflection.

Before he could see any detail, the mirror cracked with a sharp snap, and then, as if years of weathering came in an instant, the glass-like surface shrank, wrinkled, and shriveled into a curled black lump that crumbled silently into gray ash.

He only remembered seeing a pitch-black human shape in the mirror, standing there wrapped in black fog.

Startled, Irene blurted: “What was that? It just shattered!”

Yu Sheng didn’t know either. He watched the black ash scatter on the floor, then crouched, touched a bit with his finger, and rubbed it. He had no idea what rubbing would do, but in detective shows, the great detectives always rub powder they find at the scene.

After just two rubs, all color vanished from his sight as a world of black, white, and gray after death suddenly made a Descent, and a blurry voice burst into his mind: “What the heck, I died!”

It lasted only about a second, then the gray world faded, and normal color and sound returned to his senses.

Yu Sheng stood there baffled and thought: [Rubbing actually works?] Foxy seemed to sense the change in his aura, turned at once, and asked: “Benefactor, what happened?”

Yu Sheng wore a mixed expression as he brushed the ash from his hands and said: “I think I found two things. First, the mirrors here are alive. Second, I heard its last words.”

Foxy, Irene, and Little Red Riding Hood all stared, confused. Irene asked: “What did it say?” Yu Sheng said: “It said it died.” Irene said: “What the heck!?”

Yu Sheng frowned and carefully looked at the other mirrors.

But instead of all shattering with a chorus of ‘I died’ at his glance, the mirrors simply stopped reflecting him.

In the biggest mirror ahead, only Foxy and Little Red Riding Hood stood there, while Irene looked like she was sitting on empty air, and his figure had been cut out of the image. [Not even pretending anymore.]

Yu Sheng asked: “Can you see me in the mirrors?” Little Red Riding Hood nodded and said: “Yes, you’re right next to us, looks normal… wait, you can’t see yourself?” Yu Sheng nodded and said: “Right. I can’t.”

So maybe the key was not who showed in the mirror but who was looking at it, or both conditions together made the mirror ‘drop dead’; why was that, and what was the principle behind it?

Yu Sheng had a head full of questions, and the others had even more. Little Red Riding Hood gave him a strange look and said: “I can’t tell if this place is more cursed, or if you are even more cursed. Do you eat too many weird things?” Yu Sheng said nothing.

The brief interlude did not slow their search.

With Foxy’s Divine Sense, Irene’s Spider Silk, and Little Red Riding Hood’s Phantom Wolf Pack pouring into the mist, they swept the mall quickly but found no sign of anyone hiding.

Out of options, they returned outside to the endless fog.

Maybe it was a trick of the eyes, but the fog seemed thicker than before. They couldn’t even make out the black luxury cars at the Plaza’s edge.

Irene muttered: “Doesn’t it feel like the fog is chasing us? Wherever we go, it gathers there, and more and more comes from all directions.” Yu Sheng frowned. He couldn’t feel the ‘chasing’ she described, nor the ‘something approaching’ that Foxy sensed. He wasn’t a Doll or a Demon Fox with cool Spider Silk senses and Divine Sense scans, but he did feel the mood turning wrong, like his Spiritual Intuition was warming up and stretching before it started bouncing. The fog was transforming. Somewhere deep in it, a sound stirred.

Little Red Riding Hood’s face changed and she said: “My wolves were attacked.”

A Shadow Wolf suddenly showed up at her side, as if something had taken a bite out of it out of thin air, nearly cutting it in half; it growled in wild anger, then its growl turned to a frustrated whine. After rubbing its master’s feet twice, it withdrew into the shadows.

The defeated wolf sent back useful information. Little Red Riding Hood snapped her head up and said: “There’s a huge monster in the fog with lots of hands and feet and sharp teeth. I didn’t catch its full shape. It beat a lone wolf in an instant.” As she spoke, Irene raised a finger toward the mall’s giant glass curtain wall and said: “Is it that thing crawling down the wall?”