Chapter 193 – An Unexpected Discovery Among the Relics

Chapter 193 – An Unexpected Discovery Among the Relics

Yu Sheng admitted that he had completely lost his composure.

He had even considered the possibility of Snow White showing up with the Forty Thieves, but he had never imagined the niche combination of “Snow White and Her Seven Thunder Titans.” Watching those silent giants, each standing two stories tall, appear before him, his entire being felt as though he’d been struck by lightning for two straight hours. After a long, dumbfounded silence, he finally managed to squeeze out a few words: “I… what… she… what the hell is going on?!”

“Every subset is a distorted story. Sometimes the distortions can be quite severe,” Little Red Riding Hood said, looking remarkably calm by contrast, a half-smile playing across her face. “Just like how the original Little Red Riding Hood story never had giant wolves four or five meters tall, or packs of shadow wolves howling through the forest—in the ‘Bloodstained Court’ that Snow White faces, the hunt and pursuit between her and the ‘Queen’ is even more brutal than you can imagine.”

Yu Sheng listened in stunned disbelief. His brain barely managed to keep up with Little Red Riding Hood’s explanation, yet the more he understood, the more baffled he looked. He couldn’t help but point at Snow White, who was standing there in a slight daze from suddenly arriving in an unfamiliar environment: “She needs this kind of firepower just to fight the ‘Queen’?! What the hell is her Queen—some kind of gene progenitor?!”

“…I don’t really get that reference, but the Queen of the Bloodstained Court can manipulate magnetic field rotation.”

Yu Sheng: “…?”

He suddenly fell silent, merely lifting his gaze to watch as the Thunder Titan clad in steel armor slowly bent down, carefully lowering the frail girl from its shoulder to the ground. Then the giants’ figures vanished one after another into thin air—and only after they disappeared did the pallor on Snow White’s face finally ease somewhat.

“I’m suddenly feeling like your ‘Black Forest’ is actually a pretty mild, comfortable, and livable place,” Yu Sheng finally said to Little Red Riding Hood after a long silence. “Finding a breakthrough into the ‘Fairy Tale’ through the Black Forest is definitely more feasible than going through Snow White’s subset.”

“I agree—her side is truly insane.”

As they spoke, Snow White had already made her way over to Yu Sheng and the others. This thin, petite, harmless-looking girl with short hair gazed around in wonder, as though she still couldn’t quite believe she had actually “jumped” from that terrifying Bloodstained Court to a safe zone: “So this is the ‘Wasteland’ you were talking about?”

“That’s right, a boring but very safe place,” Yu Sheng quickly composed his expression and said with a smile. “Looks like our attempt was a success.”

Snow White tilted her head, looking at the gray, overcast sky in the distance. Then she suddenly lay down right where she stood, sprawling on the dim, gray grass. Her entire body tensed for a moment, then slowly relaxed.

The girl narrowed her eyes slightly, and after a long while, she spoke softly: “I don’t want to move at all.”

“I understand how you feel. Same here,” Little Red Riding Hood simply lay down as well, settling in side by side with her. “It’s really been exhausting—finally we can catch our breath.”

Yu Sheng had been about to bring up tomorrow’s arrangements—to ask whether they could go ahead and conduct the formal “blood-sharing” ceremony for the others—but seeing the two girls like this, he swallowed the words that had been on the tip of his tongue.

It could wait a few more minutes. It wouldn’t make a difference—they hadn’t been able to relax like this in their nightmares for a very long time.

…

Early the next morning, Yu Sheng arrived at the orphanage. This time, he met all of the “guardians.”

The blood-sharing process need not be described in detail; everything proceeded according to plan. However, given the number of people involved, having everyone come up one by one to take a sip was clearly impractical (mainly because the scene would have been far too bizarre). So Yu Sheng drew his blood in advance, mixed it with an appropriate amount of water, and distributed it to everyone.

He sat in the center of the room, watching more than a dozen teenagers (and one cat) each holding a bowl like they were swearing a blood oath, and couldn’t help feeling that any second now they’d smash their bowls on the ground and then crowd around him to join a bandit stronghold…

Fortunately, these wild thoughts didn’t show on his face. He kept his expression stern and composed until the ceremony was complete.

“With this, everyone among us who was at the highest risk of losing control now has a ‘barrier’ in place,” Little Red Riding Hood exhaled softly, a great weight lifting from her heart. “For the remaining younger children, we’ll arrange for them to be ‘inoculated’ in batches over the next few days.”

“…I have a feeling that ‘Wasteland’ is about to get quite lively,” Yu Sheng mused thoughtfully. “I just wonder if we could do some construction there, set up some entertainment facilities or something, so that whoever goes there won’t complain about how boring it is.”

“We’re not that picky,” Little Red Riding Hood immediately pursed her lips. “We can actually get a good night’s sleep now—what more could we ask for?”

Yu Sheng laughed, but just as he was about to say something, a rapid phone ringtone interrupted his train of thought.

He pulled out his phone and saw it was an unfamiliar number.

After answering, a somewhat familiar young man’s voice came through the receiver: “Um, hello, is this Mr. Yu?”

Yu Sheng paused for a moment before it suddenly clicked where he’d heard that voice before—it was Old Zheng’s nephew.

He had left the young man his phone number when he’d departed after the last investigation.

“Speaking,” he replied immediately. “What’s going on?”

“While sorting through my uncle’s belongings, I found something rather strange… I thought you might be interested.”

Yu Sheng’s expression instantly turned serious. He glanced up at Little Red Riding Hood while responding rapidly into the phone: “Alright, we’ll head over immediately. We’ll be there soon.”

“What is it?” Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t help asking curiously after Yu Sheng hung up.

“It’s Old Zheng’s nephew. He seems to have found something while going through Old Zheng’s belongings,” Yu Sheng said as he stood up. “We just finished up here anyway, so let’s go check it out right now, just the two of us.”

Little Red Riding Hood froze for a moment, then immediately rose to her feet as well: “How are we getting there?”

“Door Opening.”

When Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood arrived, Old Zheng’s nephew was visibly surprised.

He probably hadn’t expected that “we’ll be there soon” on the phone could mean this soon.

Compared to a couple of days ago, the weariness on the young man’s face had receded somewhat, and his mental state had clearly improved. He quickly recovered from his surprise and, without pressing the question of how these two “detectives” had appeared at his door moments after hanging up the phone, stepped aside to let his guests in.

Yu Sheng noticed that many things in the apartment had already been packed up. Some of the larger furniture and appliances were gone—perhaps sold secondhand or shipped back to the family’s hometown over the past two days. The empty living room had only a slightly worn tea table and a few stools remaining, with a finished but not yet cleaned-up takeout rice noodle container still sitting on the table.

“Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess right now. There was more stuff than I expected, and after two more days of sorting I’m still not done,” the young man said somewhat awkwardly, tossing the takeout packaging from the tea table into the trash can and giving the table a cursory wipe with a napkin. “The Special Operations Bureau came by these past couple days. I told them about my uncle’s situation, and they said the case has already attracted attention from higher up, and those criminals will be apprehended soon… Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Thanks, but no,” Little Red Riding Hood waved her hand, speaking quickly. “Let us see this ‘strange thing’ you found first.”

“Right, it’s this,” the young man said, opening the drawer beneath the tea table and pulling out a small wooden box that looked quite old but finely crafted. “The item is inside. My uncle had it hidden in a secret compartment in the cabinet. I think it must have been very important to him.”

Yu Sheng took the wooden box and opened it curiously.

Little Red Riding Hood immediately leaned her head in to look.

But inside the box there was only a wrinkled, blackened, strip-like object that looked like a piece of dried kelp.

This unremarkable dried object lay quietly on red velvet cloth. Yu Sheng couldn’t make out what it was, though it reminded him of the sort of thing middle-aged and elderly people liked to steep in medicinal wine—which would have been quite fitting for someone Old Zheng’s age.

But just as he was puzzling over it, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly let out a low gasp beside him.

Yu Sheng quickly turned to her: “What’s wrong?”

“A bit dizzy…” Little Red Riding Hood frowned, already having cautiously averted her gaze from the wooden box. “And I’m hearing strange noise. This thing… there’s something wrong with it.”

“Right? I got dizzy too. I just took one look after opening it and immediately felt dizzy and disoriented, so I hurried and closed it back up,” the young man said at once, looking visibly shaken. “That’s why I suspected this was some kind of ‘artifact’ from my uncle’s collection. In any case, it’s definitely not something an ordinary person like me should be handling—”

The young man was only halfway through his sentence when Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood both fixed their gazes on him.

“…I didn’t know what it was before I opened it,” the young man said, immediately flustered. “My uncle hid it so carefully—I had to check whether it was something useful.”

Little Red Riding Hood twitched the corner of her mouth: “…Good thing you never joined the Special Operations Bureau, or you’d already be up on the annual wall of cautionary incidents by now.”

Meanwhile, after a moment’s hesitation, Yu Sheng cautiously extended his finger toward the dried object inside the box.

The young man across from him was alarmed at the sight and quickly spoke up, trying to avoid looking into the box: “Hey, didn’t I just say don’t—”

Yu Sheng didn’t even look up: “It’s different for us. We’re professionals.”

Before his words had finished, his finger had already made contact with the object in the box.

The cry of an infant pierced directly into Yu Sheng’s mind.

The sound seemed to emanate from the very depths of his soul, yet also from somewhere impossibly distant, transmitted through this strip-like object directly into his consciousness. The clear, unsettling weileeng echoed through his mind, causing even Yu Sheng to freeze for an instant.

The next second, he yanked his finger back.

In that brief moment of contact, “knowledge” had already been transferred. He now knew what this thing was.

Little Red Riding Hood’s worried voice came from beside him: “Are you alright?!”

“I’m fine,” Yu Sheng shook his head somewhat sluggishly, then gradually came back to his senses, staring at the box in his hand with a strange expression. “I know what this thing is now.”

“What?”

“…It’s an umbilical cord.”

(End of Chapter)