Chapter 137 – The Hunter

Yu Sheng belatedly noticed the deathly silence surrounding the cabin.

The invisible wolf pack had vanished, retreating at some unknown point back into the shadows of the Dark Forest. Stillness blanketed everything. Yet the most ferocious wolf of all — the great wolf belonging to “this generation’s Little Red Riding Hood” — had never appeared. Even so, Yu Sheng could feel that wolf’s gaze.

The wolf that had once devoured him was now watching this cabin from somewhere very far away. It had detected the appearance of its prey, yet for some reason, it had taken no action.

What was it observing? What was it waiting for? Or could it be… that the wolf was wary, on guard against something?

Yu Sheng cautiously extended his perception, trying to analyze the wolf’s behavioral patterns or logic from its line of sight. But just then, he suddenly “saw” a shadow within that gaze.

Near the cabin, in the open space between the forest undergrowth, a figure had abruptly appeared — a human figure.

Yu Sheng’s nerves went taut in an instant, and almost at that very same moment, he heard footsteps coming from outside.

Human footsteps, gradually drawing closer, treading over the fallen leaves and rotting soil outside — unhurried, already nearly at the door.

Yu Sheng’s heart suddenly clenched. Something occurred to him, and he immediately raised his head to scan the room before swiftly hiding himself in a corner.

Almost the very instant he finished concealing himself, the cabin door was pushed open.

A tall figure appeared in the doorway. Under the dim, cool starlight, Yu Sheng could only make out hunting garb of green and brown, along with a thick hood that concealed the newcomer’s face. He saw the figure carrying a long hunting rifle, walking into the cabin in a somewhat comical posture, half-bent at the waist.

The hunter had arrived.

But the Big Bad Wolf was already dead — dead before the hunter even got here.

Yu Sheng watched as the tall figure in hunting garb took two steps forward and suddenly froze, clearly having spotted the Big Bad Wolf lying on the ground with its belly cut open.

The “script” that was supposed to have been completed by the hunter had been tampered with, and so this “entity,” also generated by the Dark Forest, simply ground to a halt right where it stood — like a deadlocked process.

The hunter didn’t move. Yu Sheng, hidden in his corner, didn’t dare move either. And so the cabin descended into an eerie silence.

Yu Sheng even felt the silence was a bit awkward.

Just then, Eileen’s voice burst abruptly into his mind: “Hey! Yu Sheng! You alive? What’s going on over there? Why haven’t you come back yet?”

“I’m fine, but there’s been a small complication,” Yu Sheng said rapidly in his mind while keeping his eyes locked on the motionless “Hunter.” “How are things on your end? Did Little Red Riding Hood and the child both ‘come back’?”

“Everything went smoothly on my end! Little Red Riding Hood is in the washroom next door throwing up right now, and the little kid woke up too — went off to throw up with Little Red Riding Hood. Looks like the ‘Forced Awakening’ hit them both pretty hard,” Eileen chattered on. “Honestly, even I was shocked! That kid actually came back to ‘life’ — someone whose heartbeat and breathing had been gone for so long actually revived! How on earth did you pull that off… Hey, wait, what exactly happened on your end? I heard from Little Red Riding Hood that you killed ‘Grandmother Wolf’? So now…”

“Yeah, I killed Grandmother Wolf, so the ‘Hunter’ is stuck here,” Yu Sheng sighed, cutting off Eileen’s rambling. “Do you know about the ‘Hunter’? The one who shows up at the last moment to rescue Little Red Riding Hood — I stole his job.”

Silence from Eileen’s end, probably needing a moment to process.

Two seconds later, the puppet’s voice sounded again: “Huh?! It’s stuck?! That can actually happen?!”

“That’s the only explanation. What else could it be?” Yu Sheng’s tone was equally helpless. “Anyway, the hunter is still standing there right now, and I’m hiding in the corner behind a cabinet. I don’t feel right about going out — mainly because I’m not sure how this thing might react. After all, it should also be an entity generated by the Dark Forest, so there might be taboos or something.”

“So you two are just going to have a staring contest? If it’s not working, just pull out of there. Let me yank you back…”

“Hold on!” The moment he heard Eileen preparing to forcibly “yank” him out, Yu Sheng hurriedly cut her off. He recalled how it had felt after the last “Forced Awakening” and immediately decided he’d rather go poke the bear. “Let me test the waters first. At least let me get a good look at what this hunter actually looks like.”

Even as he spoke, he was already tiptoeing out from his hiding spot, then slowly approaching the tall figure in hunting garb.

The “Hunter” seemed not to have heard the movement behind it, still standing stock-still beside the Big Bad Wolf like a statue.

Yu Sheng gradually grew bolder and stopped muffling his footsteps. In a few strides he was beside the hunter, leaning over to get a look.

Eileen’s voice echoed in his mind: “Hey hey, how is it? You didn’t get killed, right? What does the hunter look like?”

Yu Sheng was silent for two seconds. “…Under the clothes, it’s empty.”

He stared at the “Hunter” before him and saw that it was nothing but a hollow set of hunting garb. Beneath the hood there was no face — only a faint, empty darkness.

The entire “Hunter” was just a set of clothes floating there, nothing more.

But whether it was his imagination or not, he kept feeling as though beneath that empty hood there existed… a “gaze.” It was as if an invisible face was there, a pair of eyes staring right at him.

Yu Sheng shifted half a step to the side. The “Hunter” before him remained perfectly still, but he had the distinct feeling that the “gaze” emanating from beneath the hood had also shifted slightly to follow him.

“Hello,” Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment, then finally tried greeting the “entity” before him. “My name is Yu Sheng. Uh, I’m new here.”

Eileen’s commentary immediately piped up in his mind: “Wow, that sounded so lame.”

Yu Sheng kept his expression blank: “Shut up!”

The hunter showed no reaction whatsoever to his greeting. Only that sense of invisible observation persisted.

Yu Sheng felt a bit awkward. He raised his hand and pointed at the wolf carcass on the ground. “That — I did it. Sorry for stealing your job.”

In that instant, he keenly noticed a change in the creases along the edge of the hunter’s hood.

This “entity” was shifting its gaze to follow the direction of his pointing finger, and moreover… it might have even nodded.

It could communicate!

Yu Sheng’s heart stirred, but he immediately controlled his expression while cautiously continuing: “The child who was eaten by ‘Grandmother Wolf’ — I’ve already rescued her.”

The hunter’s hood moved slightly again. This time Yu Sheng saw clearly — it really was nodding.

“It seems you bear me no hostility,” Yu Sheng tried to make himself look more friendly and slightly extended his right hand toward the figure. “If we’re both standing against the ‘evil wolf,’ then we’re on the same side.”

The hunter suddenly stepped back half a pace.

Yu Sheng was caught off guard by this sudden reaction, and then he watched as the figure continued to retreat rapidly — as though playing its entrance in reverse. This invisible entity draped in hunting garb and hood backpedaled in that slightly comical yet deeply uncanny gait, retreating to the cabin door in just a few steps before vanishing into the vast darkness outside in the blink of an eye.

“Wait—” Yu Sheng instinctively reached out and called after it, but there was no stopping the strange entity.

Eileen’s voice came from within his mind: “What happened?”

“The hunter suddenly bolted — right when I was about to shake its hand,” Yu Sheng said, just as baffled. “I don’t think I did anything to provoke it.”

Even as he spoke, he sighed. But just then, something caught the corner of his eye.

It appeared to be a scrap of paper, dropped on the ground when the hunter had made its hasty departure.

Yu Sheng bent down and picked up the scrap. It was yellowed and fragile, roughly palm-sized. Its surface might have once had something written on it, but it was covered in layer upon layer of grime — ink stains, grease, possibly even bloodstains — rendering whatever had been on the paper completely illegible.

“I found something…”

After holding the scrap up and scrutinizing it closely for quite a while without success, Yu Sheng muttered in his mind.

“Huh? What did you find?”

“A piece of paper. Fell off that ‘Hunter.’ But it’s so dirty and damaged that nothing on it can be made out.”

“Um, do you think you can bring it out?” Eileen’s tone sounded a bit sheepish. “I should only be able to ‘pull’ your consciousness out… Or should I dive in there and take a look in person? I’ll have you know, when it comes to artifact studies and relic appraisal, I’m really quite lacking in skill. You absolutely should not count on me.”

Honestly, Yu Sheng didn’t even catch what was off about the puppet’s words at first. He paused for a moment before it clicked, then laughed in spite of his exasperation: “Well, at least you’re honest!”

Shaking his head, he carefully stowed the scrap of paper that seemed ready to crumble at any moment, then walked over to the wolf carcass.

“I’m going to try opening a Door from this side — see if I can bring things out with me. But this is my first time opening a Door from an ‘consciousness world’ like the Dark Forest into the Real World, so I’m not sure what might happen. Have Little Red Riding Hood and the others stand back — preferably wait outside the room. Just you and Hu Li stay nearby to keep watch.”

“Oh, got it!”

After receiving Eileen’s confirmation, Yu Sheng took a deep breath, and then… pulled out his phone for a quick look.

He wasn’t entirely sure whether the “phone” he’d produced while his consciousness was inside the Dark Forest should count as a physically existing object or just something he’d dreamed up in a dream. Either way, there was no signal here.

It looked like filing a report was out of the question. Though the Special Operations Bureau was probably used to it by now… right?

A jumble of stray thoughts flashed through his mind. Yu Sheng put away his phone, then bent down and grabbed one of the wolf carcass’s legs. With his other hand, he made a pulling motion in midair, and a translucent, faintly glowing Door materialized out of thin air beside him.

(End of Chapter)