Chapter 196 – The Secret of the Stage

Seeing the unfamiliar Red-Clothed Girl charge into the cabin, Yu Sheng only paused for a brief moment before rushing in after her.

The instant he crossed the wooden doorway, he felt as though he had passed through something thin and ice-cold, like a water mist. Immediately after, many of the surrounding sounds vanished all at once. The wolf howls that had been circling around them, seemingly having closed in right behind them, abruptly disappeared. The sound of wind receded as well, leaving only the crying of an infant that only he could hear — the one that persisted ceaselessly whenever he entered the Black Forest — still faintly audible, yet muffled as though separated by a thick barrier.

Yu Sheng cautiously raised his weapon, scanning the surroundings in a full circle, then unconsciously furrowed his brow.

He didn’t see those hanging red cloaks.

Not on the walls, not on the floor — not a single red cloak anywhere.

The only splash of red in the room was the Red-Clothed Girl herself, sitting on the floor and gasping for breath.

Yu Sheng and Hu Li walked over, stopping in front of the girl. He tried waving his hand before her eyes, but she showed no reaction whatsoever.

Just then, Hu Li seemed to notice something as well. She furrowed her brow and sniffed, then suddenly whispered, “Benefactor, there’s no scent.”

Yu Sheng didn’t understand at first. “What?”

“There’s no scent on her,” Hu Li explained.

Yu Sheng frowned, a contemplative look crossing his face. Then, as though he had suddenly sensed something, he immediately opened the wooden box containing the Angel’s Umbilical Cord.

The cord still lay quietly at the bottom of the box, but at some point, part of this withered cord had plumped up, as if it had regained blood and vitality. The “revived” portion accounted for less than a fifth of the entire cord, yet it was strikingly conspicuous.

Eileen spotted the change in the cord instantly and gasped. She grabbed Yu Sheng’s hair, then whipped her head around to look at Hu Li. “Quick, quick quick… get out those dipping sauces you’ve got hidden in your tails…”

“Cut it out,” Yu Sheng immediately interrupted the Little Doll’s mischief. “It hasn’t reached that point yet.”

Then he noticed the chili powder and barbecue dipping sauce that Hu Li had already produced from her tails, and his eyebrow couldn’t help but twitch. “Put those back.”

The Red-Clothed Girl sitting on the floor was completely oblivious to what was happening “beside” her. She seemed like a projection from another space-time, merely replaying events that had once occurred before Yu Sheng and the others.

After Yu Sheng confirmed that the Angel’s Umbilical Cord showed no further signs of revival, the girl also seemed to have rested long enough. She began struggling to her feet, apparently wanting to inspect the cabin.

From her eyes, Yu Sheng could tell she was quite unfamiliar with and wary of this cabin.

Then, in the next second, Yu Sheng noticed something abnormal about the girl.

She struggled to stand, but her legs and arms bent at bizarre angles as though they couldn’t straighten. She seemed to be mumbling something, yet the only sound that came from her throat was a hoarse, strange growl. She staggered forward two steps, then involuntarily tried to drop onto all fours — fine fur began sprouting from her cheeks and wrists, her ears gradually elongated and sharpened, her eyes became wolf-like, and then she began growing fangs and claws.

As though a long accumulation had finally crossed some critical threshold, she was transforming into a wolf at an alarming speed.

It seemed even her mind had been affected. Only now did the girl notice what was happening to her body. She lowered her head in horror and saw that her entire frame had already begun to twist and deform. She opened her mouth, but what emerged from her throat was not a human cry of terror — only a mournful whimper.

“Holy shit…” Yu Sheng finally couldn’t hold back. Although he had already guessed that the girl before him might be nothing more than a phantom, that she and he were seemingly not in the same space-time, he instinctively set his mace aside and rushed forward, wanting to help her.

But his arms passed straight through her body.

The Red-Clothed Girl collapsed. Before Yu Sheng’s eyes, she finally completed her transformation into a twisted, half-human, half-wolf monstrosity.

But she didn’t seem to have completely lost her reason. After panting heavily for a long while, she struggled back up and crawled on all fours, slowly making her way toward a corner of the cabin.

The sound of nails scraping across the floorboards broke the silence of the cabin.

She was using her sharp nails to carve words into the floor.

“This forest is alive.

“The chaotic noise has become clear whispers.

“There is something enormous. It is dreaming. It hides within the shared dreams of all the children in the orphanage. I can’t make out what it is, but it has already burrowed into my mind.

“I can’t go back. I’m so tired now, so cold, so hungry, and I can’t remember how long I’ve been here…

“I found a cabin, but it’s cold here too. If only there were a fire…

“The wolves are outside. They’re out there waiting for me…

“I am… ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ The first one, but I’m afraid not the last. I’ve already seen that ‘it’ is selecting new targets. To those who come here after me — good luck…”

She began to convulse. The words carved by her nails grew shallower and thinner until they could continue no more.

She stopped, gasping, and rolled over. Her grotesquely twisted body lay on its side on the floorboards, her gaze passing over Yu Sheng to fix on some corner of the cabin.

“It’s so cold… if only there were a fire…”

Yu Sheng sat down beside her. He placed his hand on her already bent and deformed arm, but could not convey any warmth to her. Hu Li came over too, piling several of her tails beside the wolfified girl, but this likewise offered not the slightest comfort.

Yet suddenly, the girl’s eyes brightened for just an instant. She seemed to truly feel some warmth reaching her. A smile surfaced on her face, and she let out one final sigh: “It’s getting warmer…”

And then she dissolved into a flowing shadow that gradually faded away.

A faint crackling sound broke abruptly through the cabin’s deathly silence.

Yu Sheng looked up in astonishment toward the source of the sound and saw a spark leaping to life in the pitch-black fireplace in the corner of the cabin.

Then came a second crackle, and the spark became a flame.

The warm fireplace blazed to life, hot and bright flames dancing in the hearth. At some unknown point, a candelabrum had appeared on the table in the center of the cabin. The candles ignited silently out of thin air. The cold retreated from the room, and warmth filled this tiny space like a miracle descending all at once.

Yu Sheng stared at the scene in bewilderment. Then, all at once, something seemed to click.

And almost the instant that answer formed in his mind, he heard a faint sound from the windowsill. Immediately after, the Squirrel’s familiar voice reached his ears —

“The first Little Red Riding Hood died, and brought the first hearth-fire and candlelight to the Black Forest.”

Yu Sheng jerked his head up and saw the Squirrel standing on the windowsill. He had no idea when it had slipped in — or perhaps it had been here from the very beginning.

“So that’s how it is… The original Black Forest had none of these ‘shelters,’ did it?” Yu Sheng gazed thoughtfully at the Squirrel. “What I just saw was a ‘record’ from a very long time ago?”

The Squirrel rubbed its face with its paws, but unlike its usual hyperactive, constantly-bouncing-off-the-walls demeanor, it seemed unusually quiet today, as though even it could be weighed down by heavy thoughts.

“That’s right. The Black Forest originally had nothing. In the very beginning, there was only the forest and the wolves, and also, also the pitch-dark little cabins…”

Yu Sheng slowly furrowed his brow. “And then, when Little Red Riding Hood appeared as the story’s ‘protagonist,’ the stage of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ finally began to take shape?”

The Squirrel rose up on its hind legs, but its gaze wasn’t on Yu Sheng — it seemed to be looking at somewhere far, far away.

It began to speak, slowly —

“…The second Little Red Riding Hood died, and so there came to be those red threads and strips of cloth wound around many places — they can slow the process of wolfification.

“After the third Little Red Riding Hood died, food and water to restore strength began appearing in the cabins.

“After the fourth Little Red Riding Hood died, paths finally appeared in the forest. When walking on the paths, the chance of encountering wolves is very low, and a shelter cabin always appears at the end of each path.

“The fifth Little Red Riding Hood lit the lanterns along both sides of the paths — now, unless the lanterns go out, the wolf packs won’t approach the paths.

“After the sixth Little Red Riding Hood died, no new additions appeared. But from that point on, every ‘Grandmother Wolf’ must first ‘knock on the door’ — though this may only buy a moment’s delay, before that, Grandmother Wolf actually spawned directly inside the cabin.

“Now, after Grandmother Wolf ‘knocks,’ every Little Red Riding Hood has roughly a one-in-ten greater chance of escape.

“The seventh Little Red Riding Hood… she wasn’t here long, but she was formidable. After she left, the Big Bad Wolf no longer appears during the dusk phase. All the dangerous periods are now compressed into nighttime…”

The Squirrel spoke slowly, as though recounting the story for Yu Sheng’s benefit yet also merely talking to itself, lost in memory. Finally, it tugged at the tattered red strip of cloth wound around its own body, looking up at the three before it. “So I’ve always been curious — which Little Red Riding Hood brought ‘you’? You… don’t belong to this forest.”

“Sorry, we’re uninvited adults,” Yu Sheng stepped forward, calmly meeting the Squirrel’s eyes. “Just like that equally uninvited ‘Hunter’ — you deliberately left them out just now, didn’t you?”

The Squirrel tugged at its cloth strip again but said nothing.

Yu Sheng didn’t press the question. He was quiet for a few seconds, then asked something entirely unexpected: “What about you?”

“…What do you mean?”

Yu Sheng looked into the Squirrel’s eyes and spoke, enunciating every word: “Which Little Red Riding Hood were you?”

(End of Chapter)