Chapter 189 – Thorny Shadows

Before leaving the Special Operations Bureau, Yu Sheng took the opportunity to share some details he’d uncovered during his investigation at Old Zheng’s place with Baili Qing.

After hearing about Old Zheng’s ordeal, Song Cheng immediately wore an expression of indignation. Even with their superior present, he couldn’t help but let a curse slip: “Goddammit, those Angel Cult bastards never do anything remotely human…”

Baili Qing listened in silence, then pondered for a moment, her brow furrowing slightly. “That ‘séance ritual’ the cultists taught Old Zheng—the pattern drawn in blood—did you record it?”

Yu Sheng froze for a second, his expression turning somewhat awkward. “Uh, I really can’t remember it clearly. The pattern itself had already been cleaned once, so it was extremely faint, and you couldn’t really see—”

Before he could finish, Eileen suddenly blinked beside him and raised her hand happily. “I memorized it!”

The Little Doll glanced at Yu Sheng, then quickly explained, “When you were ‘spacing out’ earlier, the pattern on the ground lit up for a moment. It was only bright for a very short time, but I memorized it.”

Baili Qing immediately grabbed paper and a pen from her desk and handed them to the Little Doll. “Can you draw it?”

Eileen struggled to grip the pen that was nearly as long as her arm. “Probably, let me try…”

As she spoke, she bent down and began carefully sketching on the paper—a complex circular array composed of numerous eerie symbols and patterns. She was clumsy at first, seemingly unaccustomed to the pen in her hands, but soon her movements became fluid, and a circular array that made one faintly dizzy just looking at it gradually took shape beneath her pen.

Yu Sheng watched from the side in stunned amazement, and after a long pause managed to blurt out, “Wait, hold on… your memory is that good?! I’ve never seen you remember anything actually important!”

Eileen kept laboriously sketching without lifting her head. “I forgot a lot of things because of the seal, it’s not like my brain got broken too! Under normal circumstances my memory is excellent, thank you very much… Ugh, my hands are too small, drawing this thing is so exhausting. Yu Sheng, when are you going to get me a normal-sized body…”

Listening to the Little Doll’s muttering, Yu Sheng’s first instinct was to steal a glance at her head, a question surfacing in his mind—

The three Eileens were either molded from clay and lotus root, or built from rebar and stone… Did she actually have an organ called a “brain” inside that little skull of hers?

While Yu Sheng was silently wondering about this, the Little Doll had nearly finished drawing the complex array. Just as she was about to complete the final section, Baili Qing suddenly broke the silence. “Don’t complete the last section of the pattern. Draw it on a separate sheet of paper.”

Eileen let out an “oh” and scurried over to another sheet of paper to continue drawing carefully. Yu Sheng couldn’t help but feel surprised. He looked up at Baili Qing, thinking to himself that this was why you needed a professional—he’d never even considered that kind of safety precaution.

“Finally done—damn, that wore me out,” the doll lady said after a while, having at last completed the entire pattern. She looked up at Baili Qing and handed over the two sheets of paper. “It should be accurate.”

Baili Qing accepted the papers with utmost solemnity, her expression grave as she studied the patterns on both sheets.

“It does possess the fundamental elements of a Séance… but the key nodes have been modified. They’re likely used to ‘point toward’ that slumbering Twilight Angel. This might help us understand its true nature—extremely important intelligence. Thank you.”

Eileen immediately puffed out her chest, her expression gradually turning smug.

…

Little Red Riding Hood strolled across the open space between the East Building and the West Building. As she passed the outdoor activity area, she couldn’t help but stop, gazing somewhat absently in a certain direction.

Near the sandbox where children played, a brightly colored swing set came into view.

Looking at the swing set, she found herself recalling the drawing from Old Zheng’s notebook—and the girl who stood smiling before the swings.

This should be the place from Old Zheng’s memories, but the swing set before her was no longer the one from twenty years ago. The old one had been excessively worn and posed safety hazards, so it had been replaced with this new one several years back.

Little Red Riding Hood hesitated for a moment, then walked over and sat on the swing, gently rocking back and forth.

It was winter, bitterly cold, with some wind blowing as evening approached. Swinging outdoors in this season wasn’t exactly pleasant, and Little Red Riding Hood soon stopped. Just then, something seemed to catch the corner of her eye.

In the evening glow cast by the setting sun, a shadow appeared to float near the corner of the East Building’s outer wall—its silhouette resembled a patch of thorns clinging to the wall, creeping from the base up to roughly a meter in height.

Little Red Riding Hood frowned and immediately pulled out her phone to snap a photo, then quickly leaped off the swing and sprinted toward it. Her figure seemed to flicker through the shadows, reaching the wall corner almost instantly. But by the time she arrived, the thorn-like shadow that had been creeping upward was gone.

She pulled out her phone and checked the photo she’d just taken. Everything in the picture looked normal—there was no thorn-shaped shadow at the wall corner.

An illusion? Eyes playing tricks because of the poor lighting at dusk?

Little Red Riding Hood dismissed that thought almost instantly. After all these years as a Spirit Detective, one of the most important lessons she’d learned was to never casually write off those fleeting moments of wrongness as mere “illusions.” In the realm of the mysterious, even if it truly was just your eyes playing tricks and you saw something that didn’t exist, the moment a scene was observed by you, it held “significance for interfering with reality.”

Footsteps approached from nearby. Little Red Riding Hood looked up toward the sound and saw a petite girl with an ear-length bob, looking two or three years younger than herself, walking past with a stack of books in her arms. The girl noticed her and stopped curiously to say hello. “Red Hood, what are you doing?”

At the orphanage, members who had become “family” were accustomed to calling each other by their code names. Only those children who hadn’t yet passed through their Awakening period were called by their real names—this was a rule that had been passed down from long ago. Supposedly it helped stabilize one’s “character identity” after the Awakening period, but whether it actually worked, nobody knew.

Within the Fairy Tale organization, there were many, many such “rules” that no one knew whether they were truly effective, but everyone believed could be used to stabilize conditions and extend survival periods.

“I just saw some strange shadows, but they vanished when I turned to look. Better arrange for someone to do extra patrols around this building tonight,” Little Red Riding Hood said casually. Then she noticed the stack of books in the petite girl’s arms. “Snow White? Where did these books come from?”

The petite girl called “Snow White” shifted her arms. “Donated. Came through the Sunshine Foundation channel. I’m taking them to the reading room.”

Little Red Riding Hood frowned and asked in a very serious tone, “Have you checked the contents?”

“Checked them. No boy-love, no girl-love. Books rated for fourteen and above all contain normal heterosexual relationships, and the ones for under fourteen don’t have any romance at all…”

“That’s not what I told you to check!” Little Red Riding Hood immediately glared at Snow White. “What do you even pay attention to on a daily basis…”

“Just kidding. You’ve been so tense lately,” Snow White laughed. “I really did check them. The books’ contents are fine—no tampering or substitutions, and no suggestive elements that could destabilize the children’s mental state.”

Little Red Riding Hood waved her hand helplessly. Just then, her phone suddenly rang—that monkey started doing somersaults again.

The moment Snow White heard the ringtone, she couldn’t help but complain. “Red Hood, seriously, have you ever considered changing that ringtone? And where did you even find that tune? You’ve had it for years and never changed it…”

“I met an Argladian during a mission years ago. They shared it with me—said it was a tune that came from the ‘Distant Realm’ star sector,” Little Red Riding Hood said offhandedly. “I quite like it, and I’m not used to anything else.”

As she spoke, she answered the call. The next second, Yu Sheng’s voice came through the receiver: “Hello, is this classmate Wang Jiajia?”

Little Red Riding Hood’s eye twitched instantly. Beside her, Snow White grinned. “Oh, your real name’s been exposed, huh?”

“Shoo, shoo,” Little Red Riding Hood waved her away, then cleared her throat twice. “Ahem, I wasn’t talking to you—what do you need?”

Yu Sheng’s voice came through the receiver: “I’m back from the Special Operations Bureau. I’ve told them about Old Zheng’s situation. Also, they’ve caught the Angel Cult members who were conducting the sacrifice in the White Exhibition Hall. I dug some things out of one of their heads.”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression visibly changed, her tone turning grave in an instant. “What did you find?”

“Are you at the orphanage right now? I’ll come over and fill you in, and discuss something while I’m at it.”

“I’m here…”

Little Red Riding Hood was mid-sentence when a door not far away suddenly swung open, and Yu Sheng walked out with Hu Li, still holding up his phone and giving it a wave. “Perfect timing then. Same room as last time?”

Eileen poked her head out from behind Yu Sheng’s back. “Hiya, we’re here again!”

Little Red Riding Hood: “…”

The girl held it in for a long while before finally managing a single sentence: “Can’t you give me a heads-up before you open a door?”

Yu Sheng: “I reported to the Special Operations Bureau while I was on the phone with you just now…”

“I mean give me a heads-up!” Little Red Riding Hood glared at him. “What if I was in the middle of a shower?!”

Yu Sheng’s face immediately flushed with awkwardness, and he hurried to explain. “That wouldn’t happen. Unless it’s a random teleportation, I can only open doors to places I’ve been before. You’ve never taken me into your bathroom—and I’m not a pervert.”

Eileen headbutted him in the knee. “You’d better stop explaining. The more you explain, the more you sound like a pervert.”

Yu Sheng: “…”

(End of Chapter)