Chapter 178 – Home Investigation

This was a wondrous experience Yu Sheng had never had before—traveling alongside the wolf pack, passing through the city’s distorted reflections.

Ambiguous building silhouettes retreated rapidly from view. In this shadow world, the entire Boundary City seemed to have transformed into countless shattered, constantly drifting “fragments.” Buildings and streets were haphazardly stacked and intertwined—distant neighborhoods might connect at the very next intersection, while houses that originally stood side by side had been separated into different “fragments.” The nimble wolves wove through these inverted, disordered urban structures, following invisible “roads,” leaping across one intersection after another.

A flash of red shadow approached from the edge of his vision. Little Red Riding Hood wore a cheerful smile on her face as she turned to look at Yu Sheng. “Pretty impressive, right!”

“Very impressive,” Yu Sheng said with genuine admiration. “Is this what you see every time you ‘go out’?”

“I only use this when traveling long distances,” Little Red Riding Hood said happily. “Sometimes I also use the wolf pack to take other members of the Organization out on missions—but you’re the first ‘outsider’ to ever receive an invitation.”

“Then I’m quite honored—by the way, you normally have to shuttle other people around too?”

Little Red Riding Hood waved her hand dismissively. “Can’t be helped. Nobody at the Orphanage can drive, and taxis are really expensive.”

Yu Sheng looked at the girl riding a wolf alongside him, pressed his lips together, then suddenly said loudly, “Next month you’ll be old enough to get your driver’s license.”

Little Red Riding Hood froze for a moment.

Then she suddenly broke into a grin and replied just as loudly, “That’s right, I can take my driving test next month!!”

……

The shadows receded, and forms coalesced from the darkness. Under the fading light of approaching dusk, Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood’s figures emerged from the shadow of a building.

“It’s no match for your ‘Doors’ or the Special Operations Bureau’s ‘shortcuts,’ but at least it’s faster than a taxi, right?” Little Red Riding Hood turned back and said to Yu Sheng with a smile.

Yu Sheng pulled out his phone to check the time and found that from leaving Wutong Road to arriving here, it had taken just a little over ten minutes—pretty fast indeed.

“Which way do we go?” He looked up at the tall buildings before him. This was already one of the city’s bustling districts, with high-rises everywhere, vastly different from the Old City District he was familiar with.

“Right over here,” Little Red Riding Hood raised her hand and pointed at a building ahead. “Old Zheng lived alone in one of the upper floors here before he died. It’s very close to the Curiosities Association’s office. The building has pretty strict management—we’ll need to register with security when we enter. I’ve already contacted Old Zheng’s nephew to let him know. When we go in, just say you were also a friend of Old Zheng’s and came along.”

Old Zheng—that was the “liaison” Little Red Riding Hood had known.

Yu Sheng noted what the girl had told him, then followed her through the apartment complex’s pathways and into a high-rise apartment building that looked anything but cheap. Before passing through the access-controlled entrance to the elevator lobby, Yu Sheng spotted the security guard Little Red Riding Hood had mentioned—an expressionless young man sitting in a small booth, sliding two visitor registration forms out through the little window.

Yu Sheng cooperatively filled in some basic information on the form, then happened to glance at the form Little Red Riding Hood had filled out. He froze.

After they finished the forms and security had verified them against the records on file and let them through, Yu Sheng waited until no one was around, then leaned close to the girl and whispered, “Who’s Wang Jiajia?”

Little Red Riding Hood’s steps faltered. She looked up at Yu Sheng with an expression that was equal parts bewildered and innocent, and after a long pause managed to squeeze out: “I am Wang Jiajia.”

Yu Sheng: “……?”

Little Red Riding Hood: “……?”

The two stared at each other in mutual bewilderment for several seconds before Little Red Riding Hood was the first to react. “You didn’t actually think my surname was ‘Little,’ did you?!”

Yu Sheng tried his hardest to keep a straight face, his expression gradually contorting somewhere between holding it together and falling apart. “……For a second there I actually thought Wang Jiajia was your undercover alias for field operations……”

“Little Red Riding Hood IS the codename!” The girl’s eyes looked ready to pop out of her head. “Who on earth is actually named Little Red Riding Hood? I have a real name!”

Yu Sheng opened and closed his mouth several times before finally breaking into an awkward laugh, chuckling vaguely while doing his best to pretend nothing had happened as he walked forward.

He truly hadn’t thought of this. The main issue was that from the very first day he’d met the girl beside him, he’d only known her as “Little Red Riding Hood.” Then they’d gone on several missions together—exploring the Museum, fighting in the Black Forest—and there had never been any situation that called for real names. Instead, the name “Little Red Riding Hood” had become increasingly familiar and natural, and it simply never occurred to him all this time that her surname probably wasn’t “Little”……

This awkwardness persisted for quite a while, until the two of them stepped out of the elevator and arrived at the door of the apartment where the deceased client had lived.

Little Red Riding Hood stepped forward and pressed the doorbell. After a moment, the door opened, revealing a young man with a faintly weary look on his face, slightly disheveled black hair, wearing a T-shirt and long pants, with an unremarkable appearance.

The young man was not one for many words. After a brief exchange with Little Red Riding Hood, he stepped aside half a pace and let the two of them in.

Yu Sheng’s eyes were immediately drawn to the black-and-white memorial portrait sitting on the living room table. A man who looked to be in his forties or fifties, his hair neatly combed, his face slightly plump, with features that bore a faint resemblance to the young man who had just opened the door, and a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

A member of the Curiosities Association, a liaison known to two generations of Little Red Riding Hoods—in the memorial portrait, he looked like nothing more than an ordinary middle-aged man.

After pulling his gaze away, Yu Sheng began surveying the surroundings.

There was nothing particularly special about the furnishings. The layout was simple—past the entryway was the living room, with a semi-open kitchen on one side and a hallway leading to the bedroom and bathroom on the other. There was also a small balcony, where the plants were still growing well, as if attesting to their owner’s careful tending during his lifetime.

And aside from that memorial portrait, there was almost nothing in the apartment that had anything to do with “death” or “funerals.”

Yu Sheng naturally expressed his puzzlement.

“My uncle said before he passed that he didn’t want any big fuss,” the weary-looking young man walked over from nearby and poured a glass of water each for Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood. “And he specifically instructed—no funeral, bury him as soon as possible.”

Little Red Riding Hood instinctively furrowed her brows, sensing something suspicious, but before she could speak, Yu Sheng beat her to it: “Specifically instructed before he died? He……”

As he spoke, Yu Sheng turned to glance at the memorial portrait on the table.

An elderly person making arrangements for their passing was understandable, but according to what Little Red Riding Hood had revealed on the way here, this liaison was not even fifty years old, and had always been in good health. For someone like that to suddenly start making posthumous arrangements with their family……

“I know what you two are here to investigate,” the young man cut Yu Sheng off. He sighed and sat down on the sofa across from them. “I won’t hide it from you either—before my uncle’s incident, he seemed to have had a premonition. At least half a month beforehand, he called me and told me about a lot of things. But the specifics, he never would reveal. He only said that no one was harming him, that everything was as it should be……”

Yu Sheng instinctively exchanged a glance with Little Red Riding Hood.

This “client” was definitely suspicious!

But that “false commission” that had nearly caused Little Red Riding Hood to lose control……was it really a trap deliberately set by this “client”?

What should have been a natural suspicion now suddenly wavered. The fragments of the client’s final words, as relayed by the young man, raised far too many questions.

“……Where is Old Zheng now?” Little Red Riding Hood pressed her lips together and broke the silence after a brief hesitation. “Can we ‘take a look’ at him?”

The young man raised his hand and pointed to a low cabinet not far away—on top of which sat a porcelain urn.

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood both froze on the spot.

“What?! He’s already been cremated?!” Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes went wide. “That fast……”

“That was also my uncle’s instruction—to cremate as soon as possible,” the young man said slowly, then looked up at Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood. “I’m not a person from ‘your world,’ so I don’t really understand the rules or taboos of that side of things. But I know what my uncle did for a living. He dealt with all sorts of strange and dangerous things, so when he gave me instructions, I didn’t dare delay.”

Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth but couldn’t think of anything to say. She could only turn to look at Yu Sheng.

“That ‘speaking with the dead’ ability of yours……” the girl lowered her voice and leaned close to Yu Sheng’s ear, “can it still work in this situation?”

Yu Sheng was completely dumbfounded himself at this point. “I need to make contact with blood for it to work……I didn’t expect this either!”

“So what do we do?” Little Red Riding Hood’s tone was delicate. “He’s already been burned……do you still want to try?”

Yu Sheng’s eye twitched. He looked at the deceased’s family member sitting across from them and after a long struggle managed to say: “Grab a handful of his relative’s ashes right in front of the family?”

Little Red Riding Hood immediately fell silent. “……”

The young man sitting across from them, however, seemed not to have noticed the two “visitors” whispering to each other. He just sat there with his head lowered, as if thinking about something. After quite a while, he suddenly stood up. “I’m going to go out and buy a few things. Make yourselves at home.”

Yu Sheng was slightly startled, then watched as the young man got up and walked to the entryway. Just before pushing the door open to leave, he suddenly paused and half-turned to add: “I sorted through some of the things my uncle left behind earlier. The books he used to read, along with his notes and memos, are all on the desk in the bedroom. You’re welcome to look through them if you’re interested, but don’t make too much of a mess—there are some things in there that I’ll want to take with me later.”

“Uh……alright,” Yu Sheng said reflexively, then nodded earnestly. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. I hope you can actually find something……Also, I’ll be leaving in a few days, so you’d better work quickly.”

(End of Chapter)