Chapter 192 – Smooth Entry Into the Dream

In the end, Snow White still politely declined Yu Sheng’s suggestion to find her a straw or paper cup to use, and chose instead to go straight for it.

“I have to say, this scene looks a bit off,” Eileen critiqued from the sidelines as she watched. “It’s three parts morbid curiosity, seven parts deviant, and the remaining ninety parts look like some kind of unspeakable evil ritual. Snow White, if you go ahead and add a single-knee pledge of loyalty pose with a few candles lit around you, I could snap a photo and report you both to the Special Operations Bureau right now…”

“Say less and nobody will mistake you for a mute,” Yu Sheng shot a glance at this chatterbox, then hesitated for two or three seconds before finally giving in and reminding Snow White, who was still sucking away with all her might, “So, uh… just a little sip will do. You don’t need to drink your fill. My arm’s already getting a bit cold…”

Only then did Snow White snap out of it. She hurriedly set down Yu Sheng’s arm, wiped the “dragon fruit juice” from the corner of her mouth, and spoke with an embarrassed expression: “Sorry, you guys didn’t tell me how much was needed. I was worried the ritual wouldn’t take effect.”

Yu Sheng raised his hand and blew on the wound, thinking to himself that this girl looked small and thin but had quite the grip. Then Hu Li reached her hand over from beside him and began healing the small wound.

The fox-spirit girl looked quite pleased — she had finally seized an opportunity to cast a healing spell on her benefactor.

“What’s next?” Snow White smacked her lips, slowly adjusting to the lingering taste of blood in her mouth, and asked with a curious expression. “Is there anything else I need to do?”

“That’s it. The rest is just waiting — go do whatever you need to do,” Yu Sheng waved his hand. “The ‘ritual’ is that simple.”

Snow White listened with some skepticism, her brows slightly furrowed. “So you’re saying, if I fall into danger in a nightmare tonight, I’ll enter that ‘Wasteland’ you mentioned earlier?”

“Theoretically, yes.”

“Oh.”

The petite girl asked a few more detailed questions about the “Wasteland,” confirmed the process with Little Red Riding Hood multiple times, and only then seemed to finally put her mind at ease before turning and leaving the room.

After she left, Little Red Riding Hood turned her gaze back to Yu Sheng and his companions. “What’s next? What are your plans?”

“What time does your orphanage turn the lights out?” Yu Sheng asked casually.

“An hour and a half from now,” Little Red Riding Hood answered. “Tonight, neither Snow White nor I are on night watch duty, so we’ll go to sleep with the other children after lights out.”

“An hour and a half…” Yu Sheng thought for a moment and quickly made his decision. “Alright then, I’ll just head home and go to sleep. We’ll see what happens tonight.”

As he spoke, he took out his phone and sent a briefing to the Special Operations Bureau, then casually opened the door leading to No. 66 Wutong Road. “Goodnight in advance. Sweet dreams.”

…

The ethereal, flickering veil before his eyes receded rapidly, replaced by the sensation of solid ground beneath his feet. Yu Sheng opened his eyes within the dream and saw the endless, bleak wasteland stretching out before him. The foggy, overcast sky hung over this place as it always did, and the entire world was tranquil and still.

After steadying himself for a moment, he turned to look beside him.

Hu Li’s figure materialized as well, followed immediately by Eileen, floating in midair in her oil painting form.

“I have to say, your ‘dream guidance’ ability is really quite useful,” Yu Sheng looked at the puppet lady floating in the air and offered genuine praise. “And it can even pull Hu Li into this place too.”

Eileen puffed out her chest smugly while floating in the air, but maintained a facade of modesty: “It’s nothing impressive. It’s all just Dream Intrusion anyway — very simple.”

Hu Li, meanwhile, curiously reached out her hand and poked the oil-painting-form puppet.

“Sealing someone inside a painting — what a fascinating trick. Eileen, can you really not get out when you’re in this state?”

“Stop poking! Stop poking! Why are your hands so restless,” Eileen spun in circles in midair from Hu Li’s poking and complained loudly, “I already told you I’m a painting when I’m in dream state, and you still have to bring it up!”

“It’s just us here,” Yu Sheng paid no mind to the friendly interaction between Hu Li and the puppet, instead raising his head to gaze into the distance. “Looks like Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White haven’t fallen into nightmares yet.”

Eileen propped one hand under her chin. “Maybe they’ll get lucky tonight and have a rare good night’s sleep.”

Yu Sheng nodded gently. “Let’s hope so.”

His gaze remained fixed on the distance, surveying the landscape of this wasteland.

“What are you looking at, Benefactor?” Hu Li asked curiously from beside him.

“I’ve always been curious about this place,” Yu Sheng said offhandedly. “I’m curious about where exactly this is, what kind of existence it represents, and what connection it has to me. Honestly, I know remarkably little about this place — so little that I feel like using it as a refuge for the Fairy Tale children is a bit reckless. It’s just that there’s no other option. Otherwise, I really should spend more time investigating this place thoroughly.”

As he said this, his gaze drifted involuntarily to the small hill in the distance.

On this boundless, open wasteland, that hill — perpetually within sight — was the only thing here that could be called “scenery.”

“What I’m most curious about is that ‘mountain.'”

“That mountain?” Hu Li shaded her eyes with her hand and looked into the distance. “What’s on that mountain?”

“No idea,” Yu Sheng shook his head. “It’s precisely because I can never reach that mountain no matter what I do that I’ve always been so curious about it. Everywhere else on this wasteland, I only need a single thought to move to instantly, as easily as truly traveling through a dream. But that mountain is the exception. It just stays right there in that position. Walking doesn’t work, teleporting doesn’t work.”

Hu Li listened thoughtfully, then suddenly blurted out: “Then let me try running over there.”

“You?”

Hu Li looked completely serious. “Benefactor, you’re special here. Maybe it’s some kind of restriction in this place that’s specifically targeting you — that mountain won’t let you approach, but I’m an ‘outsider.’ Perhaps I wouldn’t be affected?”

Yu Sheng looked at her with some surprise, suddenly feeling like the girl might have a point.

“Then go have a look. Be careful — if anything seems wrong, come right back.”

“Okay!”

Hu Li agreed happily and took off running toward the small hill. After running several dozen meters, she crouched down and transformed into the enormous Nine-Tailed Fox Spirit, accelerating rapidly. In the blink of an eye, her figure became a silver-white blur propelled by nine Fox Fires, hurtling into the distance with a deafening sonic boom.

Yu Sheng stared intently at the scene, and as time passed, his brow gradually furrowed.

Hu Li’s figure shrank smaller and smaller, quickly becoming nothing more than a tiny distant glimmer. But that hill… it was still there, still far away from her.

The distance between the Nine-Tailed Fox Spirit and the mountain seemed to be locked in place, to the point where it had even begun to defy the physical law of “closer means larger, farther means smaller.”

Even Hu Li, still running, seemed to notice something was wrong. She suddenly began decelerating hard, several tails swinging around to provide reverse thrust. A brilliant flash of light erupted in the distance — and then she came racing back.

It wasn’t until Hu Li, slightly out of breath, slowed to a stop before Yu Sheng and shifted back to human form that he heard a sonic boom and continuous rumbling rolling in from the distance.

“No good, Benefactor. There’s absolutely no way to get there,” Hu Li said, running over quickly. “It stays just as far away the whole time. I looked back once, and you two were already almost out of sight!”

Yu Sheng’s brow furrowed deeply, and he was silent for a long while.

“Then let’s not try again.” After a moment, he said with a grave expression.

Hu Li nodded repeatedly. “Mm-hmm.”

And just then, the corner of Yu Sheng’s eye suddenly caught a twisted ripple appearing in the air above the nearby grassy spot.

The next second, before he could make out what the ripple was, a red-clothed figure and several wolves made of shadows tumbled out of midair in utter disarray. The wolves were still snarling and snapping even as they hit the ground, as if they had been locked in fierce combat with some powerful enemy just a moment before.

Yu Sheng and the others hurried over and pulled the somewhat dazed Little Red Riding Hood up from the ground.

Eileen floated to her side. “Didn’t expect you’d be the first to arrive… Couldn’t win the fight?”

“I almost won!” Little Red Riding Hood had already realized she’d entered the “Wasteland” and immediately erupted in indignant protests, followed by a string of complaints — something about “the other side having no honor,” something about “sneak attacks” — clearly quite vexed.

That is, until Yu Sheng casually remarked: “Want me to open a door so you can go back and keep fighting?”

Little Red Riding Hood went quiet immediately, sitting down right there on the grass. “Tired. Resting.”

Then she noticed Eileen floating in the air and couldn’t help showing an expression of surprise. “How are you—”

Eileen cut her off instantly. “Don’t ask!”

“…Fine, I won’t ask. No need to yell.”

Yu Sheng just smiled at the scene without saying anything, and sat down on the grass alongside Little Red Riding Hood.

“Will Snow White come?” he asked.

“Very likely,” Little Red Riding Hood said softly. “Her situation has always been terrible. Her power has grown dramatically over the past two years, which has also caused the ‘Bloodstained Court subset’ she faces to mutate severely. She hasn’t been able to have a peaceful dream in a long time…”

Yu Sheng nodded without speaking.

After a moment of silence, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly added: “Oh, and when she appears, she might be in the middle of combat just like I was — don’t be alarmed.”

“Alarmed?” Yu Sheng was somewhat puzzled. “What’s there to be alarmed about? She—”

A howling spatial distortion suddenly interrupted his unfinished sentence.

Yu Sheng froze for a moment, then scrambled to his feet from the grass and looked toward the source of the sound.

He saw enormous figures materializing in the air, one after another.

They were clad in seven types of armor forged from gold, silver, copper, iron, stone, ice, and lightning. Each one that touched down brought a heavy, thunderous boom.

The petite girl sat atop the shoulder of one of these figures, like a commander — though at the moment, she looked rather listless.

Yu Sheng and his two companions stared in stunned silence.

They heard Little Red Riding Hood’s voice drift over from beside them —

“There you go. Snow White — and her seven Thunder Titans.”

(End of Chapter)