Chapter 125 – Dinner

Chapter 125 – Dinner

After sending the message, Yu Sheng headed downstairs and patiently waited while cooking in the kitchen—Little Red Riding Hood was always online. Even when she was in class, her wolf would be responsible for carrying the phone to receive new messages at any time.

However, the other party didn’t reply for quite a long time.

Yu Sheng wasn’t in a hurry. That girl would definitely reply sooner or later.

He worked quickly, frying up the meat sauce, then took advantage of the time while the water was boiling to julienne a large plate of cucumber—fried sauce noodles were simple and quick to make, and Hu Li loved them too.

The kitchen door was carefully pushed open. A pair of fluffy white ears poked in first, twitching alertly twice in the air. Yu Sheng turned his head and saw the fox girl stretching her nose forward to sniff, her eyes sparkling.

“Almost ready. Fried sauce noodles tonight,” Yu Sheng said casually, then glanced at the cluster of tails behind the nine-tailed fox that were swishing so fast they were practically leaving afterimages. “Hungry?”

As he spoke, he couldn’t help but wonder—how did this girl manage to swing all nine tails in different directions simultaneously without getting them tangled?

Hu Li immediately nodded enthusiastically, and the tails behind her fanned out into what looked like a solid wall of silver-white.

Faintly, they could hear Eileen’s exclamation: “What the hell, why is there wind in the Restaurant?!”

Yu Sheng scooped a small half-bowl of fried sauce and grabbed a cucumber, handing them to the Fox-Spirit Girl whose eyes were practically glowing gold. “Here, go eat—don’t bother bringing the bowl back later. Just use it for your rice.”

Hu Li happily trotted off cradling the fried sauce and cucumber.

Almost at the same moment, Yu Sheng felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, accompanied by a pleasant ringtone.

He pulled it out and, entirely unsurprised, saw Little Red Riding Hood’s name on the screen—she hadn’t sent a message. She’d called him directly.

Yu Sheng answered the call. He’d barely put the phone to his ear and hadn’t even had a chance to speak before the girl’s urgent, nervous voice came through from the other end: “I wrote a really long message just now but felt like calling would be clearer, what’s actually going on?! Everything you just said, is it all tru—”

“You can’t just make that stuff up out of thin air, and you know it,” Yu Sheng had anticipated Little Red Riding Hood’s reaction. He cut her off, his tone calm and steady. “Don’t panic. Listen to me first. Remember what happened in the museum? A wolf crawled out of your shadow and bit me—remember?”

Little Red Riding Hood on the other end paused for a moment, then quickly replied: “Yes, of course I remember.”

“It came into contact with my blood—ingested it,” Yu Sheng wedged the phone under his chin, dropped a handful of noodles into the pot of boiling water, and continued talking casually while cleaning up the cutting board and knife from the cucumber. “The amount probably wasn’t much, and since it was absorbed indirectly, you haven’t had any reaction yet. But based on my experience, it will eventually take ‘delayed effect’ on you too. As for the current stage… it seems I’ve first established a connection with the ‘curse’ on you, or to put it another way…”

Yu Sheng paused briefly, thought for a moment, then said: “To put it another way, I’ve first established a connection with the part of you that belongs to the ‘wolf.'”

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t speak for a moment—only her suddenly rapid breathing could be heard.

With her intelligence and experience as a Spirit Detective, she should have been able to understand what Yu Sheng meant, but she was clearly still a bit confused.

“You see, you did end up getting ‘a taste,’ even if the process was a bit unexpected,” Yu Sheng stirred the noodles in the pot, leaning against the stovetop as he continued. “Relax first. I know you’re probably a bit nervous right now, but don’t be scared—it won’t cause any harm. Before we get into that, I want to talk to you about that Dark Forest.”

Little Red Riding Hood remained silent. After a long pause, she finally spoke: “What do you want to know?”

Her tone carried a resigned weariness.

“That squirrel—do you know its origins?”

“I… don’t. It was already there the first time I fell into the forest, but I was very disoriented then and don’t remember how it appeared,” Little Red Riding Hood said. “It told me a lot about the Dark Forest. Based on my assessment, it’s probably a special entity generated within the Dark Forest—another manifestation of the Fairy Tale rules.”

She paused there for a moment, seemingly organizing her thoughts, before continuing: “There have to be bad guys who harm children, but there also have to be friends who help children. That’s how fairy tales work. You… understand, right?”

“It’s easy enough to understand. I wasn’t in the Dark Forest for long, but I could roughly sense its patterns,” Yu Sheng said, then suddenly hesitated a bit. “Also, that squirrel was eaten by the wolf… uh, things were really chaotic at the time and I couldn’t stop it. If it’s also an entity generated by the Dark Forest, it should be fine, right?”

“Don’t worry, this isn’t the first time the wolf has eaten it,” Little Red Riding Hood’s answer confirmed Yu Sheng’s guess. “Including me—the wolf has caught me many times too. The squirrel will be fine. It’ll appear near the Small Path again next time.”

Yu Sheng made a sound of acknowledgment, then after a moment’s hesitation, asked directly: “Be honest with me—are you about to have a ‘big problem’?”

“…The squirrel even told you about that?”

“It rambles all over the place, but it’s not hard to understand,” Yu Sheng turned off the stove, scooped out the noodles and ran them under cold water, then leaned against the cabinet. “The Dark Forest is gradually consuming you, and you’re not the first Little Red Riding Hood… is that the curse you mentioned? What happens next? What about the other Fairy Tale members? Is their situation the same?”

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t speak for a moment.

But Yu Sheng didn’t mind. After waiting two or three seconds, he asked calmly: “How much time do you have left?”

Little Red Riding Hood remained silent, but this time she eventually spoke: “…Next month. My eighteenth birthday.”

Yu Sheng involuntarily drew a sharp breath.

The answer caught him off guard—he’d considered that Little Red Riding Hood’s situation might be bad, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad!

“I won’t necessarily die. Dr. Lin said my situation is the best among us,” Little Red Riding Hood quickly added. “My chances of successfully making it through adulthood are quite high, and I’ve always been good at hiding. The number of times that wolf has caught me…”

“That squirrel said the most dangerous thing isn’t being caught by the wolf—it’s becoming a member of the pack,” Yu Sheng interrupted her, his expression and tone turning particularly serious. “We need to meet and talk. I need to know everything related to that forest—and not just the forest. The Fairy Tale too. As I understand it, the Fairy Tale shouldn’t consist of just one Dark Forest, right?”

The other end of the line was quiet. After a few seconds, the girl’s voice came through the receiver: “Why do you care so much? This originally had nothing to do with you… I don’t mean anything by that. I’m just a little curious.”

Yu Sheng thought about it: “Aren’t we more or less friends?”

“We’ve only known each other for a few days. Not counting that time in The Valley, we’ve only worked together once,” Little Red Riding Hood’s tone was very serious. “I don’t think that really counts as a friendship—at least not enough to warrant caring this much.”

“…Don’t be so stiff about everything at your age. I’m an adult and even I’m more easygoing than you,” Yu Sheng said casually. “I’ve always been the type to just do whatever I want to do. No need for a pile of reasons. Besides, you’ve helped me out quite a bit. And on top of that, the wolf in your shadow crawled out and bit me—now I’m tied to that Dark Forest too. What am I supposed to do? It’s not like I can run away from it.”

Clearly, Yu Sheng’s last remark carried extremely high persuasive power.

After a brief silence, the girl on the other end of the line sighed: “Fair enough. Then let’s meet tomorrow. I’ll give you an address—it’s our home. You can… come see us.”

“Alright.”

The call ended.

Yu Sheng stood by the stove, spacing out for a few seconds, then sighed and picked up the stainless steel basin holding the noodles.

“Dinner’s ready—Hu Li, come help carry things.”

“Coming!”

Dinner was served.

Little Red Riding Hood set down her phone and stood there in a daze for a moment before feeling someone tap her from behind.

“What are you spacing out for?” said a short girl with an ear-length bob. “Time to eat—come help out.”

Only then did Little Red Riding Hood snap back to reality. She looked up at the long table before her.

The youngest children were already seated in a row on the opposite side of the table. The older children were helping bring out food and dishes. At the end of the long table, beside a steaming pot of soup, Cinderella and Dorothy were ladling soup for the children. They wore smiles on their faces while keeping a watchful eye out for any particularly mischievous little brother or sister who might try to crawl under the table.

Night had already fallen. Per regulations, the employees dispatched by the Council to help had left well before sunset—nighttime was when Fairy Tale was most active. Although the “employees” who came here had also received training, under non-essential circumstances, they didn’t need to risk staying in the orphanage after dark.

Little Red Riding Hood let out a breath, walked over to help correct the youngest children’s chopstick grip, while keeping part of her attention focused—paying special notice to the nervous, silent girl sitting at the end of the table.

The child looked about six or seven years old, with a rather adorable face. Her black hair had a slight natural curl to it. She wore an old dress and sat with pressed lips among a group of children around her age, guarded and wary.

Little Red Riding Hood had actually skipped school that afternoon—she’d taken a half-day off.

Because a new child had arrived at their home today, and as the “parent,” she needed to come back to host the welcome gathering.

(End of Chapter)