Chapter 61

Chapter 61: Assessment

Yu Sheng and Irene brought Foxy downstairs.

The urgent thing was finding the demon fox girl somewhere to sleep.

“Right now there’s one empty room on the second floor and one on the first.” Yu Sheng stood in the hallway upstairs and pointed to the door across from his own. “This room is across from mine. No one’s lived there for a long time, so I’ve been piling junk inside, but it’s still pretty clean. The empty room downstairs doesn’t have junk, but it also has no furniture and it hasn’t been cleaned in a long time. There’s also the basement, but it’s spacious and damp, so it’s not good for living.”

“However Benefactor arranges it is fine.” Foxy nodded, then casually pulled a biscuit from her tails and nibbled it in small bites. “Either way, it’s better than the valley.”

Yu Sheng’s gaze drifted to those thick, fluffy tails. Even now, he couldn’t understand how she hid things in there.

Or how her tails slipped through clothing like phantoms—passing straight through fabric without any hole cut in her pants—yet still knocked into furniture with solid force.

All he could conclude was that demon foxes were truly magical.

Foxy suddenly noticed something and pointed toward the door at the end of the hall. “What is that room for?”

“That one…” Yu Sheng followed her finger, his expression going a little strange. “Technically, it’s Irene’s room. But right now, that room has a small problem.”

“A small problem?” Foxy pulled out half a pack of instant noodles from her tails. While crunching the dry noodle cake—crunch, crunch, crunch—she asked, genuinely curious.

“After door opening, the condition inside the room isn’t very stable. I still need to observe it for a while.” Yu Sheng spoke, then finally couldn’t keep the twitch out of his eye as she kept producing food. “How much stuff did you cram in there?”

“After I finished showering, I passed by the living room and put all the food Benefactor gave me inside.” Foxy held the noodles and smiled, satisfied. “I didn’t touch anything else.”

Then she looked toward the end of the hallway again and sighed, sincere. “Benefactor’s cave dwelling is very magical.”

Yu Sheng stared at the pile of tails and thought, if anything here was magical, it was her. How did she fit all of that in there? Was it the pocket of that round-handed blue robot?

He shoved the thought away and pointed at the room across from his own. “Then stay in this room for now. Aside from the clutter, it already has furniture. Later, help me move all the messy stuff down to the basement… and I’ll find you a clean set of bedding.”

Foxy nodded eagerly. “Okay!”

Irene jumped in like a firecracker. “Yay! Moving stuff, moving stuff! I love cleaning!”

“Don’t join in and make trouble.” Yu Sheng looked down at Little Doll—66.6 cm of attitude. “You’re not even as tall as a box. If you try carrying something and tumble down the stairs again, you’ll break your arms and legs and I’ll have to fix you.”

Irene flew into a rage. She charged, leapt with all her might, and kicked him square in the knee. “Yu Sheng, you jerk!”

Yu Sheng yelped and hopped—higher than Irene ever could.

Foxy stared, confused—then realized it was just their daily routine. The worry on her face melted into a delighted smile.

And then she pulled out a sausage from her tails.

…

Deep in the old quarter, inside a private clinic that looked ordinary from the outside, Lin Yi—white coat, dark brown shoulder-length hair—frowned as she examined the girl’s right arm.

Little Red Riding Hood sat across from Dr. Lin in a sleeveless T-shirt, her arm resting on the desk. The dark red coat missing a sleeve hung on a rack near the door.

“Dr. Lin, is it serious?” After the doctor stayed silent for too long, Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t help asking.

“This time it isn’t serious—but your situation is serious.” Lin Yi lifted her head, irritation sharp in her eyes. “How many times has this been now? Your injuries never stop. If this keeps up, your aftereffects from the mutation will have almost no gaps. Your body and mind won’t have time to recover. This time it’s fine, but sooner or later something will go badly wrong.”

“I know, but the situation really was urgent. I had no choice.” Little Red Riding Hood’s gaze slid away. “We were being hunted by an entity with danger level three or higher, and it had a tendency toward mental contamination. Getting out alive and intact was already a miracle…”

Lin Yi held her stare for a long moment, then said nothing. She only picked up a scalpel and, without hesitation, sliced her own arm.

In the next instant, a matching cut appeared on Little Red Riding Hood’s right arm as if carved by an invisible hand. Dark red blood welled—and vanished in a blink, swallowed by something unseen.

The black markings across the girl’s arm faded rapidly and dispersed.

“Thank you, Dr. Lin…” Little Red Riding Hood bowed her head, voice sincere. “Once the Special Operations Bureau pays the bill, I’ll transfer the fee to you.”

“Forget it. This time I’m helping you. No charge.” Lin Yi sighed, helpless. After a few seconds, she added, “I know you’re their guardian, but you should still keep some money for yourself. Look how skinny you are.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” Little Red Riding Hood puffed out an impatient pout.

“It’s always just that one sentence.” Lin Yi shook her head, tossed the scalpel into a ceramic tray, then adjusted her posture. “Since you’re here today, let’s do an evaluation early. When was the last time you dreamed?”

Little Red Riding Hood straightened at once, expression sharpening. “Three days ago.”

“In the dream, was it from a human viewpoint, or wolf’s perspective?”

“Two-thirds of the time it was human, one-third was wolf—and for one moment, it was Hunter.”

“Who did Hunter shoot?”

“The wolf.”

“Good. That seems stable.” Lin Yi pulled a form from a cabinet, then grabbed a ballpoint pen from the cup on her desk. She scribbled—no ink. Tried another—still nothing. Her brow furrowed. “It has to be those two new assistants. They write like they’re carving gravestones…”

She rummaged through her coat pocket until she found a working pen, then started recording briskly as she spoke. “Did you see grandmother at the end? Human or wolf?”

“…Wolf.”

“From your expression… you got caught?”

“I got caught, but that part is messy. The last image I remember is fleeing from the forest with the wolf pack.”

Lin Yi stopped, tapping her pen against the desk. “Then there’s still some risk. Before you leave, take one dose of Intervention Agent No. 2. Inject it intravenously tonight before sleep. I’ll put it on your tab.”

“Okay.”

Lin Yi fired off several more questions. Little Red Riding Hood answered obediently.

This was the evaluation she had to do every month. Including her, every member of fairy tale needed regular evaluations like this.

In the Borderland, there were plenty of doctors who could do it and provide the corresponding treatment. Dr. Lin was just the one she knew best.

The long questionnaire finally ended. Lin Yi wrote “temporarily stable, observe” at the bottom of the form and exhaled.

Little Red Riding Hood saw the conclusion. Even trying to keep her face calm, she couldn’t hide the relief.

“So you do worry, huh?” Lin Yi shot her a look. “If you’re that scared, protect yourself properly. Don’t end up like the last Little Red Riding Hood…”

She cut off, not finishing the sentence.

Little Red Riding Hood fell silent, and the clinic sank into a heavy quiet.

After a long time, warmth pressed over her hand.

Dr. Lin had covered it with her own.

“Little Red Riding Hood, you’re different from the others—at least, different from the other fairy tale members I’ve met.” Lin Yi stared into her eyes, voice low and serious. “Your wolves… the wolves you first subdued. They’re very close to you. I can’t sense it the way you can, but I can tell. They want to protect you.

“So your chances of getting through adulthood, and even getting through metamorphosis, are higher than everyone else. But because of that, you can’t waste this gift just because you’re more stable than others. You have to find a way to stay alive first. And live longer. Understand?”

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t speak. After a long moment, she nodded slightly. “…Mm.”

In the shadow beside her, several pairs of eerie green eyes opened silently. One pair drifted closer, and a tongue slipped out of the shadowspawn to gently lick her fingers.

Lin Yi sensed the shift in its aura but didn’t look. She stood, crossed to the fridge in the corner, and took out a faintly glowing vial.

“Here. Intervention Agent No. 2. This one happens to be the last one left. Half price for you—and when you get paid, hurry up and settle the bill. You owe me several thousand already.”

“Thank you, Dr. Lin.”