Chapter 120 – The Forest’s Temptation

The squirrel looked somewhat shaken. The little rodent stood frozen on the railing as if petrified, its beady black eyes staring at Yu Sheng, motionless for a long while.

Honestly, being stared at like this by a talking squirrel felt rather eerie.

Yu Sheng couldn’t help but wonder—what exactly was this squirrel’s origin?

If this Dark Forest was the “Fairy Tale Otherworld” that Little Red Riding Hood had mentioned—the one that brought her curse—then was this squirrel an entity generated within the Otherworld? An entity with such rich emotions and rationality? Were those wolves also entities within the Otherworld? Could entities with such diametrically opposed allegiances appear within the same Otherworld?

Yu Sheng felt his understanding of the Otherworld was still far too shallow.

“Strange, strange,” the squirrel snapped out of its daze. It paced back and forth along the railing, its bushy tail sweeping restlessly from side to side. “This has never happened before! Never happened before! Only Little Red Riding Hood can come here—I’ve never heard of any ‘friend’ business… Too strange. Something unprecedented is happening in the forest! Something bad is going to happen, I just know something bad is going to happen… How did you get in? How on earth did you get in?”

The squirrel suddenly leaped onto Yu Sheng’s arm, clutching his sleeve with its claws. It looked so anxious it was nearly frantic, repeating over and over, “How on earth did you get in?”

“…I don’t know either.” Yu Sheng shook his head.

He didn’t tell the squirrel the truth—after realizing that this seemingly rational and friendly squirrel might, at its core, be nothing more than an “entity” generated by the Dark Forest, he had to maintain a degree of wariness toward it as well.

After all, he still didn’t know all the “Rules” of this forest. Heaven only knew whether the squirrel’s current demeanor was genuinely born of rationality, or merely a “simulation” produced by the Dark Forest.

“You don’t know… alright, you don’t know,” the squirrel climbed up to Yu Sheng’s shoulder. “Did you hear a bedtime story? Did you have a dream with a forest, little flowers, and candy? Did you?”

Yu Sheng’s heart stirred instantly. “Little Red Riding Hood entered this forest after hearing a bedtime story and having that kind of dream?”

“That’s how it always works, always,” the squirrel looked rather agitated. “But only children experience this. Adults don’t—adults shouldn’t, in theory…”

Yu Sheng frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“How would I know? How would I know? I’m just a damn squirrel!” The squirrel looked increasingly frantic. It spoke rapid-fire while scratching its own face with its claws. “No time for chit-chat—the lights are dimming, this path is about to disappear. We need to head to the next safe place… Go, go, hurry, before they catch up…”

As the squirrel’s words fell, Yu Sheng immediately noticed that the fantastical “street lamps” lining both sides of the path were indeed dimming at a visible rate. And with each lamp that darkened, the forest trail that had been clearly defined under their light began to blur along with them, as if the forest’s own gloom was gradually devouring the path—a cold, viscous malice slowly invaded the trail, and the dangerous Atmosphere of the forest crept in from all directions.

Yu Sheng instinctively quickened his pace, walking briskly while asking, “Which way? Where are we going?”

“Follow the path, just follow the path,” the squirrel’s voice was high-pitched and tense. “As long as you keep walking along the trail, you’ll see other paths with street lamps, or you’ll see the light from a cabin—cabins are sometimes dangerous, but sometimes they’ll let you rest. But be very careful, watch out for the things that tempt you from the sides of the path. When the lights dim, those things will lure you off the road and into the depths of the forest. It’s a trap set by the wolves…”

Yu Sheng instantly recalled the warnings the squirrel had issued when it first appeared—don’t let the pretty flowers and mushrooms catch your eye.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be lured by wildflowers and mushrooms on the roadside,” he shook his head. “I’m not a child.”

Even as he said this, he couldn’t help but think—what would happen if it really were a child trapped in this endless Dark Forest? When had Little Red Riding Hood first fallen into this forest? How old had she been? Had she ever been lured by the wildflowers and mushrooms along the path and left the trail?

After all, according to the squirrel, being hunted and killed by the wolves could happen more than once—a “child” trapped in this forest gradually sank into darkness through being hunted by the wolves again and again.

Even an “adult” like him could barely evade those wolves. A terrified child trapped in the forest would have to be devoured by the wolves who knew how many times before gaining power like Little Red Riding Hood’s…

“Let’s hope you won’t be tempted,” the squirrel muttered. “Things always appear in the darkness to confuse people. The forest has its ways—it always has its ways…”

Yu Sheng smiled faintly, quickened his pace, and hurried along the forest trail where the lamps grew ever dimmer and the path ever hazier, keeping a wary eye on the roadside with his peripheral vision.

Then he suddenly froze.

In the dim Shadow beside the path, Yu Sheng caught a glint of something. Focusing his gaze, he saw it was a brand-new *090 graphics card, lying quietly in the grass.

Then he looked again and saw that the grass also contained a brand-new laptop, plus a limited co-branded gaming controller with smart haptic feedback, complete with RGB lighting kit modifications and a carrying case.

Yu Sheng rubbed his eyes and then spotted a limited-edition professional power tool set hanging from a nearby tree—eighteen pieces in a case—along with cases of wild-brewed iced tea and a carbon fiber fishing rod set… From the other side of the path came the sound of splashing water. Yu Sheng turned to see an open pond. Beside it sat a rocky shelter just big enough to block the wind and rain, furnished with a folding chair, a tackle box, half a case of beer, a sun umbrella, and a fisherman who appeared to be packing up and about to leave.

The squirrel stood on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, completely dumbfounded, its beady eyes nearly popping out of its head. “…What the hell is all this?!”

“The adult version of ‘wildflowers and mushrooms,'” Yu Sheng said, his mind violently shaken. He nearly had to slap himself to tear his gaze away, then lowered his head and pressed forward through gritted teeth. “Too dangerous. This forest is way too damn dangerous…”

He walked for he didn’t know how long, with countless insidious and malicious temptation traps springing up on both sides of the path, until at last the illusions stopped appearing—and by then, the lights along the path had dimmed to near total darkness, leaving only a few vague, firefly-like points of light drifting in the air, barely outlining the trail’s contours.

In the dense forest ahead, Yu Sheng spotted a faint light.

“There it is! A resting place!” The squirrel immediately jumped up on his shoulder, letting out an excited squeal. “Hurry over, hurry! Let’s hope there’s a warm fireplace and hot vegetable soup.”

Yu Sheng unconsciously quickened his pace.

The “street lamps” beside him had gone completely dark. Darkness once again shrouded everything, the forest’s malice whispered in the wind, carrying distant, muffled wolf howls.

The howling was drawing steadily closer. With the path gone, the invisible wolves had caught the scent of their prey once more. A new encirclement was gradually forming, closing in on the uninvited guest in the forest.

But Yu Sheng had already reached the warm light—he saw a cabin.

A cabin built of wood, looking somewhat weathered with age, stood silently in the depths of the forest.

Warm, honeyed light spilled from the cabin’s windows. In such a dark and frigid forest, that light was impossibly inviting.

Yu Sheng came to the cabin’s entrance. He noticed a scrap of red cloth hanging on the door, along with many similarly red strings wound around the doorframe, the window lattice, and the wooden beams beneath the eaves—though whether they held special significance or were merely decorations, he could not tell.

“Don’t rush in just yet,” the squirrel reminded him in rapid-fire speech. “Go to the door—there’s a crack, see it? Press your eye to it. You can see the bed inside from there. Check if anyone’s on it—if no one’s there, the cabin is safe and you can go in and rest. But if ‘Grandmother’ is inside, then we’ll have to keep going deeper into the forest.”

Yu Sheng frowned and, following the squirrel’s instructions, came to the door and peered through the crack into the cabin’s interior.

A warm fire burned in the hearth. On a simple wooden table sat bread, a bouquet of flowers, and candles. The bed lay deeper in the room—empty.

“There’s no one inside,” Yu Sheng told the squirrel.

“Wonderful! We can go in,” the squirrel cheered up at once. “How lucky—we can rest in there for a long time, maybe even until you wake up!”

Yu Sheng nodded. Accompanied by the increasingly clear and closing wolf howls in the Distance, he reached out and pushed open the cabin’s wooden door.

The howling receded almost instantly.

Yu Sheng and the squirrel entered the cabin and shut the door behind them.

The lamplight and the warmth radiating from the fireplace dispelled the unease and oppression of the forest with an almost miraculous force. The crackling fire brought a warmth so surreal it was nearly dreamlike, and Yu Sheng, who had been tense throughout, felt himself involuntarily relax, just a little.

“Relax, take it easy. A cabin without a grandmother is the only place in the entire forest where you can truly let your guard down,” the squirrel said, noticing the Change in Yu Sheng’s expression. It hopped nimbly onto the nearby table. “Let’s just hope we don’t suddenly hear footsteps or a knock at the door…”

(End of Chapter)