Chapter 166 – Gunshot

Creatures with small brains really did have poor capacity for acceptance—the neurotic Squirrel went into a frenzy the instant it saw Yu Sheng’s group, hurling its acorn aside before leaping and scrambling across the shrubbery in a shrieking commotion. Despite being only palm-sized, it kicked up nearly as much of a ruckus as Eileen, constantly yammering things like “freaks are showing up,” “where the hell did they all come from,” and “is this even Little Red Riding Hood anymore?”

In the end, Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t take it anymore. She stepped forward and grabbed the Squirrel just as it was about to leap off a thin branch, clenching it in her fist and bringing it up to her face as she snarled: “Quiet! Or I’m throwing you into the thornbushes!”

The Squirrel stared at Little Red Riding Hood with wide eyes, its entire body rigid, then craned its neck to look toward Yu Sheng and the other two. Then it stretched its neck, tilted its head, let out a “gak,” and fainted dead away.

Yu Sheng: “…”

Even Eileen was stunned by this sight: “What the hell, how can anything be this useless… it just dropped dead from fright?”

Yet the moment her words fell, the Squirrel slowly came to. It struggled hard in Little Red Riding Hood’s grip, and after confirming the scene before it, seemed to finally calm down a little—though it still couldn’t help muttering: “Is something huge about to happen… is this still the Dark Forest? How did this whole mob of people pop up out of nowhere… none of them look like a new Little Red Riding Hood either?”

“Um… hello,” Hu Li mustered her courage and walked over, greeting the Squirrel very politely. “My name is Hu Li.”

“This one on my shoulder is Eileen,” Yu Sheng said, also walking over with Eileen on his shoulders. He flashed the Squirrel a wide grin, beaming with sunny cheer. “We meet again, little Squirrel.”

“Yes, we meet again. The Squirrel of course remembers you—the ‘adult’ who somehow barged in here… and now you’ve brought in even more strange characters. I’m confused, I’m so confused,” the Squirrel wriggled free from Little Red Riding Hood’s hand, scrambling up onto her shoulder while nervously muttering away. “The Dark Forest won’t be happy. The Dark Forest doesn’t like troublemakers… you people won’t behave, I can tell just by looking that you won’t behave. You’re going to be in big trouble. Run, you need to run right now…”

“What a coincidence,” Yu Sheng said, a delighted smile spreading across his face at the Squirrel’s muttering. “We’re here precisely to make the Dark Forest ‘unhappy.'”

The Squirrel stared blankly at Yu Sheng, apparently unable to comprehend what he meant.

Yu Sheng didn’t bother explaining. He simply toned down the smile on his face slightly, then spoke calmly as he began walking toward the faint light glimmering in the distant forest: “Do you know where I can find the ‘Hunter’?”

The Squirrel let out a thin, puzzled sound: “The Hunter? What do you want with the Hunter?”

“I want to ask him about some things,” Yu Sheng said casually, then immediately added, “Don’t ask about anything else. Just tell me where to find them.”

“It’s not safe. Going to find the Hunter like this isn’t safe at all…” the Squirrel looked very anxious. “The Hunter has a gun. He shoots anything that looks like it might be a wolf. Little Red Riding Hood already looks very wolf-like… if you’re not careful, you’ll be taken for prey. Especially tonight—tonight…”

Yu Sheng’s pace slowed for several beats, his gaze shifting subtly: “Tonight? What about tonight?”

The Squirrel clutched nervously at the hood of Little Red Riding Hood’s jacket. It seemed deeply hesitant, but under the fixed stare of Yu Sheng’s eyes, it finally shrank its neck in fear: “Since yesterday, the Dark Forest has been very unsettled. Wolves have gone mad, some areas have been disappearing, and there was a huge explosion… tonight things could get even worse… when the Dark Forest becomes unstable, the Hunter becomes unstable too. He wanders everywhere, seething with rage, very dangerous—sometimes even more dangerous than the wolves…”

Yu Sheng said nothing for a moment.

Eileen reached out and poked the back of his head: “Why do I get the feeling this has something to do with you?”

Yu Sheng stiffened his neck and kept a straight face: “…This is all part of the plan.”

“What are you talking about?” the Squirrel raised its upper body, looking at Yu Sheng and Eileen in confusion.

“Nothing,” Yu Sheng shook his head with a stiff expression, then swiftly redirected the Squirrel’s attention. “Never mind anything else. Just take me to the ‘Hunter.’ Whether or not I can deal with him is my problem—worst case, you bolt when the time comes, same as last time.”

“You never listen to warnings!” the Squirrel waved its paws in agitation, but quickly drooped its tail and burrowed halfway into Little Red Riding Hood’s hood. “Fine, fine, it’s your funeral… go find the Hunter then. Where there’s Grandmother Wolf, there’s the Hunter. No matter where he’s been wandering, as long as Grandmother Wolf appears, he will come.”

“Good. That piece of information is enough—more or less what I expected.”

Yu Sheng nodded and continued walking toward the distant glow of lights.

Eileen, however, was a bit confused—she wasn’t familiar with the rules of the Dark Forest, and couldn’t help asking curiously: “Do you know where to find this ‘Grandmother Wolf’?”

“The cabin,” answered Little Red Riding Hood, walking alongside them. “Paths illuminated by lampposts appear in the Dark Forest. At the end of the paths, you can usually find a small wooden house. Inside the house, there are typically two possible situations—one is a safe, empty room. The other has ‘Grandmother Wolf’ hiding inside. Incidentally, under normal circumstances, I’m supposed to avoid cabins that have ‘Grandmother Wolf’ in them.”

Eileen listened attentively to Little Red Riding Hood’s account, then suddenly noticed a particular word choice: “‘Typically’ two situations? What about the atypical ones?”

“…There’s a third situation. The cabin has no Grandmother Wolf, but when you enter to take shelter, Grandmother Wolf comes knocking at the door,” Little Red Riding Hood’s steps faltered briefly. Her tone remained calm, but a trace of dread surfaced in the depths of her eyes. “That situation is the most dangerous. There’s only a split second to escape. Several times, I was… caught by Grandmother Wolf precisely when she came knocking.”

She paused there, then let out a soft breath after a moment: “And then there’s the ‘fourth situation’ that Yu Sheng and I encountered recently: a cabin connected to no path at all, standing alone deep in the forest with no light. That cabin was hung full of red cloaks.”

Eileen immediately connected the dots: “Ah, I know about that one. That’s the one you two ran into last time.”

Yu Sheng, meanwhile, noticed that the Squirrel hiding in Little Red Riding Hood’s hood had instantly burrowed deeper the moment it heard the words “cabin with no light” and “hung full of red cloaks.” When it poked its head back out a moment later, those beady little eyes were still brimming with terror.

He walked over and looked the Squirrel directly in the eyes: “Why are you so afraid of that cabin with no light?”

The Squirrel visibly trembled, letting out a pleading shriek: “I don’t know! The Squirrel doesn’t know anything!”

Yu Sheng furrowed his brows tightly.

“Don’t push it,” Little Red Riding Hood sighed, cutting off Yu Sheng’s next round of questioning. “If this is how it reacts, you definitely won’t get anything out of it—push the pressure past a certain point and it’ll just faint again.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” the Squirrel immediately piped up. “Little Red Riding Hood and the Squirrel are friends! The best of friends!”

“Yes, and not a particularly reliable friend at that.” Yu Sheng muttered with a frown, but didn’t press further. He simply continued walking forward while keeping a sliver of attention on the Squirrel’s every move.

The path came into view before the group.

A winding trail through the forest, illuminated by fantastical lampposts. The path led deep into the woods, its far end shrouded in gloom—the limited reach of the lamplight carved a sharply defined “boundary” along both sides of the trail. The Dark Forest’s malice retreated where the light touched, and the path was suffused with an atmosphere of tranquility.

The instant they stepped onto the path, that ever-present sense of malice and lurking surveillance temporarily receded. Even the wolf howls that had been sounding intermittently around them seemed to suddenly grow distant.

“Whoa… now this is actually interesting,” Eileen immediately sensed the shift in the surrounding “aura.” She widened her eyes, gazing in surprise at the glowing orbs floating in midair. “But this doesn’t seem like a typical ‘designated safe zone’ you’d find in an ordinary Otherworld… the safety of this path seems to be maintained by these lights?”

“What’s the difference?” Yu Sheng didn’t immediately catch on. “Aren’t they both safe zones?”

“They’re different,” Eileen shook her head. “A ‘designated safe zone’ in an ordinary Otherworld refers to an area that is inherently stable. Even if the area moves, even if it disappears over time, as long as you’re within the designated timeframe and boundaries, you won’t be affected by dangerous things like entities. But this is more like a temporary safety barrier formed by ‘anomalous objects.’ As long as these lights are here, the path is safe. Once the lights are gone, this place probably becomes unsafe again—in other words, it’s not the path that’s safe, it’s the lampposts. This isn’t a safe zone, it’s a safe object.”

Yu Sheng listened attentively, following the Little Doll’s line of reasoning without much difficulty.

He realized that when exploring Otherworlds, it really was essential to bring this doll along—though she was unreliable in many respects, when it came to the field of the mysterious, her observational perspective and her sometimes-on, sometimes-off experiential intuition might actually prove useful.

But just then, his train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a sound from beyond the path.

“Bang!”

It was a gunshot.

Muffled, abrupt—the sound of a hunting rifle firing.

The group walking along the path froze in their tracks, exchanging glances the instant the shot rang out.

The Squirrel scrambled out of Little Red Riding Hood’s hood, neurotically wringing its paws: “The Hunter fired… the Hunter fired…”

“Benefactor, the sound came from this direction,” Hu Li tugged at Yu Sheng’s sleeve and pointed toward a certain direction beyond the path. Her ears twitched sensitively in the air, subtly adjusting the angle of her large ear flaps. “About one to two hundred meters away.”

The moment Hu Li’s words fell, another gunshot rang out.

“Bang!”

Still from the same direction, a second shot echoed through the forest.

(End of Chapter)