Chapter 327
Chapter 327: On Turning Eighteen
On the day she turned eighteen, what would happen?
For the past dozen years, Little Red Riding Hood had tried her best not to think about that question. Even though she always acted like the most mature one in fairy tale, the eldest sister the brothers and sisters trusted, and even though she sometimes talked about adulthood and a possible future with an indifferent tone, if someone truly asked how she planned to spend her eighteenth birthday, she would say…
It wasn’t a big deal.
She thought it should be like every birthday before, because that was what the previous Little Red Riding Hood had taught her. She would go to class as usual, talk to people, look at the world, then go home. Before it got dark, she would return to her brothers and sisters. Everyone would prepare cake and gifts for her, but this time she probably wouldn’t need to make a wish.
At the very end, before curfew arrived, she would go to a special room in the west building and lock herself inside. In that room, she would open her birthday gifts one by one. The King or Snow White would stand guard at the door, or some other child who was good at fighting.
If she’d ever made any plan for that day in her past life, her only plan was to make sure she opened the very last gift, then place them neatly around herself.
But now, that special room in the west building was gone. It had turned into a bubble that burst when she woke from a nightmare, during Anka Aila’s fall.
Everything else went just as she had once imagined.
She went to school and saw the teacher and her classmates. She didn’t really mention her birthday to people outside, but there were still classmates who were well-informed or thoughtful enough to bring her small gifts.
There weren’t many. Third-year students didn’t have much energy to spare, and she had very few friends at school to begin with.
Classes today weren’t difficult. Half the content was review, and she almost fell asleep in the last class…
In fact, she did fall asleep, but she was quickly woken by the noise of her deskmate leaping up and charging toward the cafeteria.
Lunch was good. She even ordered braised pork. In the orphanage’s harder days, she rarely ate things like that. But now, because the use of things like sanity-blocking agents had dropped sharply—and because someone who was very good at squeezing money out of the Special Operations Bureau kept “negotiating” funds and sharing them with the orphanage’s children—conditions were far better than before.
Every guardian no longer had to live the tight, miserable life they used to.
Afternoon classes were even more boring than the morning, and it was all stuff she already knew. So she spent half the time secretly browsing posts on the Border Comms through Wolf’s Perspective.
She saw another warning notice from the Special Operations Bureau to all spirit-realm detectives and investigators, reminding everyone to pay attention to abnormal phenomena in mirrors and any clues related to “fog.”
Three days ago, the Special Operations Bureau had publicly announced the existence of Mistbound City. In today’s notice, they added the latest exploration progress and released a set of confirmed safety rules.
The discussion thread below was buzzing. Among the serious replies, a ridiculous post about placing a humidifier in front of a mirror somehow got bumped to the front page, and the comments were nothing but people asking what brand of humidifier it was.
Meanwhile, Mermaid used a burner account to post, “Welcome to follow yuyu official meow~” in the comments, got cursed out by a ton of people, and liked every single one.
It wasn’t until school was almost over that the moderator finally deleted Mermaid’s post. Little Red Riding Hood found it embarrassing, but she wasn’t surprised. Saltfish had been doing weird nonsense for ages. Everyone believed it was because she played “merfolk murder” with a bunch of sailors on the ship every night…
And then school ended. The teacher didn’t drag things out today. The moment the bell rang, class was dismissed cleanly.
Little Red Riding Hood carefully packed up her books, stuffed the homework she needed to take home into her backpack, then stood at the classroom door and took a deep breath.
She would still come to school tomorrow.
After leaving school, she found a deserted place, rode a shadow wolf, and jumped into the shadow world together with the wolf pack. In just a moment, she went from school to the ruins of the old orphanage.
The entrance to the valley was right on the orphanage’s former site. It had been cleared into open ground, and a single small house stood at the corner of the old wall.
Little Red Riding Hood greeted the gate guard on duty inside the house, then pushed open the door into the otherworld.
The moment she stepped inside, two loud pops exploded.
But she knew her usual crowd of bear-sized children far too well. She’d already been tense before entering. The instant the party poppers went off, she darted away, and fluttering confetti and glitter rained down behind her without landing on her hair at all.
“Hey, that’s no fun!” Rapunzel shouted at once. She stood at the entrance holding a party popper, cheeks puffed. “Ceremony! Do you understand ceremony?!”
Little Red Riding Hood looked up and saw a group of familiar faces. Yu Sheng was there too. Rapunzel glared over, openly offended.
Little Red Riding Hood smiled and was about to reply, but the moment she relaxed, Rapunzel’s brilliant golden hair suddenly spread wide. Then more than twenty party poppers burst out of that hair all at once.
Little Red Riding Hood only had time to blurt, “Oh crap,” before a rapid chain of bangs went off and confetti covered her face.
“Happy birthday!”
“Happy birthday, Sister Red Hood!”
“You’re eighteen!”
“We’ve got a bonfire again today! Great bonfire!”
“Barbecue—and fireworks!”
Everyone shouted in a messy chorus. Little Red Riding Hood fumbled, flustered, brushing colored paper bits out of her hair. She tried to say something dignified, something befitting a guardian, but her brothers and sisters surrounded her and swept her forward.
In the middle of the crowd, she could only struggle and yell, “Hey! My backpack! Can I put my backpack in my house first… I’ll release the wolves if you keep this up!”
Yu Sheng wore a bright smile as he walked with them. He also pulled out his phone, checked the time, and casually waved a hand at the sky.
Clouds gathered. Tonight’s “nightfall” arrived earlier than normal.
Little Red Riding Hood saw the great bonfire already set up on the open ground outside the town, and the barbecue racks being pushed out of the warehouse. She watched the clouds gathering ahead of time.
A group of court musicians in colorful outfits assembled on the plaza, and the moment she got close, a cheerful tune burst out.
“Is this really necessary…?” The commotion left the girl at a loss. She knew everyone had been preparing to celebrate her birthday lately, but this was far beyond what she expected. “If it’s just a birthday, isn’t this budget way over the limit?”
“Sister Red Hood!” Dorothy shouted. “This isn’t an ordinary birthday, okay? You’re the first one among us to turn eighteen since the curse ended. That’s a huge milestone! I even wanted to set up eighteen ceremonial cannons around the plaza, and then when you came in there’d be a flying squadron doing aerial stunts, and on the ground my lionheart armored regiment would march in formation—but Bro didn’t agree…”
“From now on, every fairy tale member’s eighteenth birthday will get a grand celebration,” Yu Sheng said, patting Little Red Riding Hood on the shoulder. “Adulthood is worth celebrating—especially your kind of adulthood. Of course, Dorothy’s plan really was a bit much.”
Little Red Riding Hood listened in a daze. Before she could figure out how to react, the massive pile of firewood had already been lit into a roaring bonfire.
Streetlights inside and outside the town were already on. In the mix of lamplight and firelight, a few more familiar faces appeared on the plaza—council staff, including Teacher Su.
They pushed a large food cart. Sitting on it was the biggest cake Little Red Riding Hood had ever seen in her life.
The cake was decorated like a forest. Chocolate “shadow wolves” ran through the trees, and on top there was a big sign that read: “Happy Birthday to Wang Jia Jia.”
“The cake was sent by the Special Operations Bureau,” Yu Sheng said from the side. “The writing on the sign was done personally by Bai Li Qing. She said she once wrote a similar card back then, but never got to deliver it. Today counts as fulfilling a wish.”
Little Red Riding Hood looked stunned. Since earlier, she’d looked like she was about to cry, and now her eyes shimmered for real.
But Rapunzel always knew how to interrupt other people’s emotions at the perfect moment. The hair monster bounced over, pinched Little Red Riding Hood’s cheeks, and said, “The cake can wait! Take the gifts first!”
“Oh, right!” Snow White chimed in, beaming. “Everyone prepared gifts for you! I spent forever picking mine!”
“I prepared one too,” Yu Sheng said with a smile.
Little Red Riding Hood stood there, dazed, watching everyone carry gifts to the open ground beside the bonfire and pile them up like a small mountain.
She didn’t need to lock herself in that special room to open them anymore.
She could open them right here.
“Open them, open them! Let’s open them on the spot!” Cinderella urged. “Let’s see what everyone got you!”
Little Red Riding Hood hesitated, then finally walked toward the “mountain.”
The first box she picked up had Rapunzel’s name on it. It was heavy, and she had no idea what could be inside.
Rapunzel lit up at once. “Oh! You’re opening mine first!”
“Because you’re the one most likely to cause trouble,” Little Red Riding Hood said, wiping her eyes and glancing up at Rapunzel. “If I open yours first, I’ll feel safer afterward.”
She tore off the wrapping paper and opened the thick, sturdy-looking box.
Inside was another box: a brand-new boxed set of “Gaokao Sprint: 90 Days.”
Little Red Riding Hood didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She shot Rapunzel a look, then reached for the gift Yu Sheng had prepared, hoping to comfort herself.
Yu Sheng’s expression turned a little strange. “Well, uh…”
But she didn’t notice. She’d already opened the equally heavy gift box.
Inside: “Gaokao Sprint: 120 Days,” boxed set.
Little Red Riding Hood said, “…?”
After a long silence, the girl slowly raised her head and stared at the two of them.
“Are you two sick or something?!”