Chapter 76 – The Oddballs Living in the Otherworld

“Can you two see the house up ahead?”

Standing before the gate of No. 66 Wutong Road, Yu Sheng raised his hand and pointed at the old building in front of them, addressing Hu Li beside him and Eileen, who was cradled in Hu Li’s arms.

“Sure,” Hu Li nodded naturally. “It’s right there. I could see it when we left, and I can see it now that we’re back.”

Yu Sheng nodded, then turned to Little Red Riding Hood, who had come along with them. “Can you see it?”

Little Red Riding Hood widened her eyes, staring at the empty stretch of ground ahead and the low wall at its far end, then turned to look suspiciously at Hu Li and Eileen. “You two can actually see something?”

“So you can’t,” Yu Sheng understood the situation immediately. “Even though I extended an ‘invitation’ to you, you still can’t see it standing right here.”

Little Red Riding Hood spread her hands in a shrug.

Yu Sheng fell into thought.

There were many things he was curious about now—things about himself, about the Otherworld, about the Special Operations Bureau, and about the Night-shrouded Valley—and of course, that included the strange mansion he’d been living in for the past two months. Out of a bit of “necessary research spirit,” he had invited Little Red Riding Hood along when coming home today, wanting to test just how many oddities the “nonexistent No. 66 Wutong Road” still held.

Now he had his preliminary results.

Hu Li and Eileen could see No. 66 Wutong Road, but Little Red Riding Hood could not. Even with an “invitation” from the house’s owner, she couldn’t perceive its existence.

After a moment’s thought, Yu Sheng identified the key difference between Hu Li, Eileen, and Little Red Riding Hood.

“So… it must be a matter of ‘blood’?” he murmured thoughtfully, his gaze shifting back and forth between Little Red Riding Hood and the other two.

Both Hu Li and Eileen had “received” his blood, which had established a subtle “connection” between him and them. It was through this connection that the two of them could even sense his “death and resurrection”—Little Red Riding Hood had never had such an experience.

That was the most likely explanation Yu Sheng could think of at the moment.

Little Red Riding Hood, however, hadn’t noticed the change in Yu Sheng’s expression. She was busy curiously surveying her surroundings.

The setting sun was gradually sinking. In the shadows of the roadside buildings, the outlines of wolves flickered in and out of sight. The pack watched over the entire block, serving as the girl’s eyes and ears.

She noticed something: from the moment they entered Wutong Road, the closer they got to this open space deep within, the fewer pedestrians there were. By the time they reached the clearing where “No. 66 Wutong Road” was located, there wasn’t a single passerby in sight.

It was as if some invisible dispersing force was preventing ordinary people from approaching the mansion.

Yet even her wolves couldn’t detect how this force operated. The “environment” of this entire block was so “clean”—under the lens of supernatural perception, it was as pristine as a vacuum.

Just then, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly noticed a gaze resting on her. She immediately turned to look and saw Yu Sheng staring at her with a completely serious expression.

The girl instantly felt a bit awkward. “Uh… is something wrong?”

Then she watched as Yu Sheng extended his hand straight toward her. “Want a taste?”

Little Red Riding Hood: “…Huh?”

“Blood. Both Eileen and Hu Li have come into contact with my blood before, and certain changes happened afterward. Plus, they can now see No. 66 Wutong Road,” Yu Sheng explained with perfect seriousness. “So I was thinking maybe you could give it a try too, just as an experiment…”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression grew visibly strange. She even took half a step back, her eyes like those of a bristling guard dog. Only after confirming that Yu Sheng was genuinely acting out of pure “research spirit” did she relax slightly, but her face still screamed refusal. “No way!”

“It won’t upset your stomach,” Yu Sheng had actually anticipated this reaction—after all, walking up to someone and inviting them to take a bite out of you did sound rather sudden. But he wanted to give it one more try. “Don’t you want to see what No. 66 Wutong Road looks like from the outside?”

“I’m not a cat—why would I be that curious!” Little Red Riding Hood retreated another half step and turned to look at Hu Li and Eileen. “Does he always come up with ideas out of nowhere like this?”

Eileen shifted slightly in Hu Li’s arms. After confirming no one else was around, she finally had a chance to speak. “That’s just how he is—one random idea after another, and he calls it ‘research spirit.’ Just ignore him.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Yu Sheng was immediately displeased. “Am I really that bad?”

Eileen said nothing more, simply sitting quietly in Hu Li’s arms, emanating a faint lotus-root fragrance.

Yu Sheng: “…”

“If you don’t want to, forget it,” he said with an awkward laugh after two or three seconds of silence, waving his hand at Little Red Riding Hood. Then he walked up to the front door, but just as he unlocked it and was about to go inside, something occurred to him. He stepped aside and beckoned to the fox girl following behind him. “Come here and see if you can open this door.”

“Huh? Sure.” Hu Li blinked in surprise but nodded, stepping forward to grasp the door handle.

Click—the already-unlocked front door swung open with ease.

From Little Red Riding Hood’s perspective, however, a door had materialized out of thin air in the middle of the empty lot, hovering near that low wall covered in abstract graffiti.

“Good, at least this means you and Eileen can come and go freely without needing me to open the door every time.” Yu Sheng breathed a sigh of relief. After learning that No. 66 Wutong Road was an “Otherworld” that outsiders could neither observe nor enter, he’d developed many concerns about the finer details—including but not limited to delivery drivers being unable to reach the door, appliance technicians unable to find the house, online shopping having no valid address, and his two housemates being unable to come and go freely. But now he could relax a little—at least one of those problems was solved.

“Come on in and have a seat,” Yu Sheng said with a smile, extending his hand toward Little Red Riding Hood. “I’ll cook dinner later. Consider it my thanks for spending the whole day out with Hu Li and Eileen.”

“It’s nothing—you already did half my homework for me,” Little Red Riding Hood said, but accepted the invitation and stepped into the mansion that didn’t exist in the real world.

Yu Sheng flipped on the living room lights. The bright illumination chased away the evening dimness and quickly warmed up the house’s lonely atmosphere.

He then swiftly organized the things they’d bought, fished out the ingredients for that evening’s meal from the shopping bags, told Little Red Riding Hood to find somewhere to sit, and headed for the kitchen.

Little Red Riding Hood looked around with a mixture of unease and curiosity.

This was the second time she’d been to this place, and this time she was here as an “invited guest.”

She rarely visited other people’s homes—she’d actually been to various Otherworlds far more often than she’d stepped through someone’s front door. But from another perspective, she knew full well that this ordinary-looking house was in fact an “Otherworld,” and today’s “visit” was essentially an Otherworld expedition.

This was truly the strangest “expedition” she’d had since becoming a Spirit Detective. No eerily twisted landscapes, no all-pervasive contamination, no phantoms disguised as teammates—just bright lights and a warm environment. A gentle, friendly fox spirit stood beside her, an ecstatic little doll had run off to turn on the TV, and the Otherworld’s entity… that powerful entity capable of devouring Hunger whole was in the kitchen cooking dinner.

She could even sit at the dining table and do homework while waiting for the food.

There were so many things that felt out of place that she didn’t even know which one to comment on first.

But the boisterous Eileen soon left her no time to overthink. The little doll’s ruckus drifted in from the living room: “Come watch TV! The one in the living room is bigger than the one in the restaurant!”

“I need to catch up on my homework,” Little Red Riding Hood shook her head, answering casually as she walked toward the table. “I’ve still got half a book to go!”

“Ugh, you humans are so exhausting,” Eileen, who had already clambered onto the sofa, exclaimed loudly. “Fox, you coming?”

Hu Li waved her off and ambled toward the kitchen. “I’m going to see if my benefactor needs any help…”

She disappeared into the kitchen, then emerged again less than two minutes later, gnawing on a braised chicken drumstick as she walked.

Little Red Riding Hood, who had just started on her homework, stared at the scene in astonishment. “…Why are you back out already?”

“Got kicked out. My benefactor said I was sneaking bites of the spices—that if I ate them all, he wouldn’t be able to braise the meat,” Hu Li said with an innocent expression, then proudly held up the drumstick in her hand. “But he gave me a chicken leg. Want some?”

Little Red Riding Hood hesitated. “Uh… I’ll just—”

Hu Li instantly pulled the drumstick back. “If you don’t want any, I’m eating it all.”

Little Red Riding Hood: “…”

The aroma of stir-frying had already begun drifting out of the kitchen, teasing everyone’s appetite.

After a moment’s thought, Little Red Riding Hood reached into her bag, pulled out her phone, and dialed a number.

“It’s me. I won’t be home for dinner tonight—I’m eating at a friend’s place. Yeah, someone I just met. It’s totally safe, I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. I’ll definitely be home before ten. Okay, bye bye…”

She hung up and turned her head, only to find Hu Li staring at her intently—all while continuing to gnaw on the chicken leg without missing a beat.

“This isn’t edible,” Little Red Riding Hood instinctively clutched her phone to her chest.

She had no idea why that was the first thing to come out of her mouth.

But Hu Li didn’t seem to care about that. She simply asked curiously, “Were you just calling your family?”

“Yeah.”

“Your mom and dad?”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression grew slightly stiff. “Uh… my parents died when I was young. I was talking to other family members.”

“Oh,” Hu Li nodded. Little Red Riding Hood had no idea what had gone through the fox spirit girl’s mind in those few seconds, but then she saw Hu Li suddenly extend the nearly-finished chicken leg toward her. “Want a bite? Just one small bite, though.”

Little Red Riding Hood: “…?”

She decided that she truly could not understand these… “oddballs” living in the Otherworld.

(End of Chapter)