Chapter 175 – Old Matters Raise Suspicions

Chapter 175 – Old Matters Raise Suspicions

Yu Sheng quickly shook his head, setting aside the jumbled speculations swirling through his mind for the time being.

Whether this was some specially existing consciousness space or truly his “dream,” what really needed thinking about right now was why Xiaoxiao had appeared here.

Yu Sheng naturally thought of the two other people who had also appeared here before: Little Red Riding Hood, and Hu Li.

If he had to count, Eileen should be included too—though Little Doll had entered on her own using her “Dream Intrusion” ability.

…Was it because of a connection through blood?

Xiaoxiao was still standing off to the side, blinking as she watched him, looking a bit confused.

Yu Sheng reached out and rubbed the little one’s head. He didn’t know how to explain this place to a six-year-old, so he simply didn’t bother: “You’re dreaming.”

“Then are you someone I dreamed up, mister?” The little one’s face was full of curiosity.

Yu Sheng was taken aback, but could only push through: “…Yes, I’m someone you dreamed up.”

“Then can you turn into a Kamen Rider, mister?”

Yu Sheng finally realized the conversation was heading in a completely different direction than he’d imagined: “…No, I can’t.”

The little girl thought for a moment: “Ultraman would be fine too.”

Yu Sheng couldn’t keep a straight face anymore. He crouched down to Xiaoxiao’s eye level and said earnestly: “Even though this is a dream, there are still things that can’t be done in dreams…”

“Oh.”

The little girl let out an “oh,” as if she’d finally given up on her flights of fancy.

Then a few seconds passed.

“What about My Little Pony…”

“Also no.”

“Fine, then never mind.”

Xiaoxiao sat down on the spot, pulled up a few blades of grass from nearby, and began earnestly tying them into knots.

Yu Sheng couldn’t help but recall Little Red Riding Hood’s complaints about this place the last time she was here. He crouched down beside Xiaoxiao: “Do you feel like it’s a bit boring here?”

The little girl nodded, but then immediately shook her head vigorously.

“There are no wolves here,” she said quietly. “I think it’s better than my other dreams.”

Yu Sheng was startled, then fell into thought.

But just as he was about to say something more, he suddenly heard a faint sound in the distance.

It took him a moment to realize the sound was coming from the Real World.

“Mister has to leave now,” after a moment of quick thinking, Yu Sheng turned to Xiaoxiao and said. “You should stay here for a while longer. When nap time is over, your teacher will wake you up. Don’t be scared—it’s very safe here.”

Xiaoxiao blinked, then very politely waved at Yu Sheng: “Goodbye, mister.”

Yu Sheng then released his control over his consciousness, letting his thoughts fall through this “dream,” pulled back to reality by the sounds reaching his mind.

The next second, he suddenly felt pressure from all over his body. The heavy weight on his chest made it almost impossible to breathe. He opened his eyes and, sure enough, saw three dolls—two Eileens pinning down one of his arms and one leg respectively, while another Eileen was sprawled out sleeping on his chest in a spread-eagle position…

Even though the three dolls looked absolutely identical, he could instantly tell that the one lying on his chest was Rebar Eileen…

“Get off, get off, you’re going to crush me to death.” Yu Sheng hurriedly scrambled to get the Eileens off him, feeling like he was locked in a battle of wits with a pack of koalas. By the time he finally broke free, half his body didn’t feel like his own anymore. He even suspected he might have actually been crushed to death once and had just now been resurrected—and then he quickly stretched across to grab the phone that was ringing incessantly on the nightstand. When he looked at it, he saw it was a call from Little Red Riding Hood.

Ignoring the three dolls who were half-asleep and mumbling complaints, Yu Sheng casually answered the phone: “Hello?”

Little Red Riding Hood on the other end got straight to the point, but what she said caught Yu Sheng completely off guard: “Do you remember our operation at the museum last time?”

Yu Sheng was momentarily stunned. He had been thinking about Xiaoxiao slipping into his “dream,” and had assumed Little Red Riding Hood was contacting him because of some anomaly discovered at the Orphanage. He hadn’t expected her to bring up the museum operation. It took him a moment to respond: “Oh, yeah, I remember.”

“Then do you remember that the ‘payment’ for that operation never came through?”

“Oh, now that you mention it, I almost forgot!” Yu Sheng’s mind snapped to attention. “The payment really never came through… Did something happen? Did you go to collect? Did they stiff us?”

As he spoke, he also felt something was a bit strange, because recently whenever he talked with Little Red Riding Hood, they were always discussing matters related to the Fairy Tale Otherworld—the topics were always either the Black Forest or the Big Bad Wolf. Suddenly jumping back to the museum incident from quite some time ago felt like a jarring shift.

But her next words instantly blew that mild discomfort right out of his mind—

“My client is dead.”

“…What?!”

“Because I never received the payment from the Curiosities Association, I thought it was strange, so I tried to get in touch. But I found that none of the contact methods left by the client were going through,” Little Red Riding Hood began explaining the situation in detail. “So I contacted some other acquaintances within the Curiosities Association today, and they told me that my client had an accident a few days ago and is already dead.”

Yu Sheng didn’t speak for a moment, but he had already sensed from Little Red Riding Hood’s words that something about this was off.

After a brief pause, he pinpointed exactly what felt wrong: “…Wait, what about the commission targeting the ‘Weeping One statue’?”

“Looks like you’ve figured it out too,” Little Red Riding Hood’s tone was heavy with gravity. “The Curiosities Association is a highly influential legitimate organization. For commissions they publicly post, even if the person in charge has an accident, the organization should have follow-up procedures to take over. There shouldn’t be a situation where the responsible party dies and the subsequent payment just gets swallowed. So I went ahead and checked that commission through their proper channels… Care to guess the result?”

“Do I even need to guess?” Yu Sheng already knew the answer by this point. “Given the way you’re saying all this… The commission doesn’t exist, does it?”

“Correct, it doesn’t exist. In the Curiosities Association’s public commission records, there is no retrieval commission targeting the ‘Weeping One statue,'” Little Red Riding Hood sighed. “But I don’t know whether this commission was fake from the very beginning, or whether someone recently deleted its records.”

Hearing her final sentence, Yu Sheng’s brow gradually furrowed without him realizing it.

Quite a few days had passed since the museum operation, and although it had been followed by all sorts of unexpected incidents—cult sacrifices, Angel Cult members—in Yu Sheng’s view, this matter had at least been concluded on his and Little Red Riding Hood’s end. But now, new and troubling ripples were emerging from this supposedly closed case, and he could faintly smell… “the scent of conspiracy.”

If the commission had been fake from the very start, then things would actually be simpler—perhaps it was just a rogue member of the Curiosities Association trying to bypass the organization’s oversight to secretly acquire an “exhibit” from the “museum” for personal profit. The item was obtained but the person was gone, and the whole thing could still be contained within a “personal” scope. But if the commission had genuinely been issued by the Curiosities Association and someone had recently deleted all traces of it… then this matter was far more complicated.

“I felt like something was off about this, and the payment that was supposed to go to you still hasn’t materialized, so I thought I should contact you and explain the situation,” Little Red Riding Hood’s voice continued from the phone, carrying a note of apology. “I’m sorry—you put in so much effort on this, and it’s been dragging on for so long, and now it’s turned into this mess…”

“Forget about that for now,” Yu Sheng cut her off. “What are you planning to do next? This needs to be investigated further, right?”

“…Yeah, at the very least I need to find out what happened to my client,” Little Red Riding Hood hesitated for a moment, then continued. “I’ve been working with him for several years. He was the one who first helped me establish connections with the Curiosities Association, and even… the previous ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ had received his help. No matter what, I don’t believe he would do something like this for personal gain. And his death is really suspicious—it looks too much like…”

Yu Sheng spoke calmly: “Too much like he was silenced, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Let’s meet up and talk,” Yu Sheng let out a soft breath. “Should I come to you, or will you come to me?”

Little Red Riding Hood sounded rather surprised on the other end, pausing for a moment before hurriedly saying: “Huh? I wasn’t planning to trouble you with this. I was just letting you know about the payment situation. I was going to handle the investigation on my own…”

“Oh please, you’ve already told me this much—my curiosity is completely piqued now,” Yu Sheng cut her off again. “Besides, this is really outrageous. They’re even cheating a child laborer out of her money…”

Little Red Riding Hood: “…”

He could tell that in that moment of silence, she wanted to retort but couldn’t.

Yu Sheng grumbled indignantly for a few more lines, then suddenly remembered something: “Oh right, let me ask—does the Special Operations Bureau handle this kind of thing?”

“Of course they do. After all, it was a commissioned operation filed on the Frontier Communications platform. If there’s a breach of contract or if it involves the concealment and transfer of ‘curiosities,’ the authorities will naturally investigate. Especially since someone has died this time. But their investigation approach and methods would definitely differ from a Spirit Detective’s.”

“Then let them run their investigation and we’ll run ours,” Yu Sheng waved his hand. “You still haven’t said—should I come to you later, or are you coming to me?”

Little Red Riding Hood was silent for two seconds before finally speaking: “…I’ll come to you. I happen to be nearby right now. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

“Alright, I’ll wait for you at home then.”

“Okay, and also… thank you.”

The call ended. Yu Sheng watched the screen gradually go dark and let out a quiet breath.

Then he looked up—and saw three little dolls sitting neatly in a row on the bed, staring straight at him.

“Trouble~ a~gain~”

The three Eileens spoke in perfect unison, deliberately drawing out each syllable.

Yu Sheng glared at them and pointed at the one in the middle: “You—no more sleeping on the bed from now on.”

“…Why not?!”

“Why not? Because you nearly crushed me to death!” Yu Sheng glared. “Rebar plus solid stone, and you’ve compressed yourself from one meter sixty-seven down to barely over sixty centimeters. I’m terrified you’ll bounce on the bed and punch a hole right through it. Get down, now.”

He shouldn’t have said anything—the moment the words came out, Eileen’s eyes immediately turned red (though they were already red to begin with), and with a wail she lunged at him…

(End of Chapter)