Chapter 61 – Evaluation

Chapter 61 – Evaluation

Yu Sheng and Eileen brought Hu Li downstairs.

The next pressing matter was arranging a place for the foxgirl to sleep.

“Right now there’s one empty room on each floor,” Yu Sheng said, standing in the second-floor hallway and pointing at the door across from his own room. “This one’s across from mine. Nobody’s lived here so it’s been used for storing miscellaneous stuff, but it’s still fairly clean. The empty room on the first floor doesn’t have anything piled in it, but there’s no furniture either, and it hasn’t been cleaned in quite a while. There’s also a basement, but even though it’s spacious, it’s too damp to live in.”

“However you arrange it is fine, benefactor,” Hu Li said with a nod, casually pulling a cookie out of her tails and nibbling at it in small bites. “Anything’s better than the valley.”

Yu Sheng’s gaze involuntarily fell on the foxgirl’s mass of fluffy tails. Even now, he couldn’t figure out how she managed to hide things in there.

Just as he couldn’t figure out how Hu Li’s tails came through her clothes — they looked like phantoms passing straight through the fabric, no hole cut in her pants required. Yet those tails swept back and forth around her, occasionally bumping into nearby objects, clearly solid and physical.

All he could say was that fox-spirits were truly magical creatures.

“What’s that room for?” Hu Li suddenly seemed to notice something, raising her hand to point at the door at the end of the hallway.

“That one… theoretically it’s Eileen’s room,” Yu Sheng glanced in the direction she was pointing, his expression slightly peculiar. “But that room has a small problem right now…”

“A small problem?” Hu Li pulled half a pack of instant noodles from her tails, stuffing the noodle cake into her mouth and crunching away while asking curiously.

“After opening the door, the conditions inside aren’t very stable. I still need to observe it for a while,” Yu Sheng said. Watching Hu Li continuously pull things from her tails finally made the corner of his eye twitch. “…Just how much stuff did you cram in there?”

“After my bath, I passed through the living room and packed all the food you gave me in there, benefactor,” Hu Li said, cradling her instant noodles with a contented smile on her face. “I didn’t touch anything else.”

Then she looked at the room at the end of the hallway and remarked with genuine wonder: “Benefactor’s cave dwelling is truly magical.”

Yu Sheng stared blankly at Hu Li’s pile of tails, thinking that this girl was far more magical than his “cave dwelling”… How had she stuffed that entire bag of stuff in there? Was that thing the pocket of that round-handed blue fatso or what?!

He marveled to himself for quite a while before finally setting aside these questions for now. He pointed at the room across from his own: “Then you can stay in this room for now. Besides the miscellaneous stuff piled in there, it still has furniture ready to use. Later we’ll move all that junk down to the basement together… I’ll find you a clean set of bedding too.”

Hu Li immediately nodded happily: “Okay!”

Eileen chimed in excitedly from the side: “Yay! Moving things, moving things! I love tidying up!”

“You don’t need to butt in,” Yu Sheng looked down at the little doll (66.6 cm) with a glance. “You’re not even as tall as a box. You’ll end up tumbling down the stairs carrying something, and then I’ll have to repair your broken arms and legs.”

Eileen instantly flew into a rage, charged over, jumped with all her might, and kicked Yu Sheng right in the knee: “Yu Sheng, you son of a bitch!!”

Yu Sheng’s howl sent him bouncing far higher than Eileen ever could.

Hu Li watched the scene somewhat bewildered, but quickly realized this was just the friendly daily exchange between her benefactor and Eileen. The brief worry on her face transformed into a happy smile — and then she fished out a sausage stick from her tails.

…

Deep in the Old City District, inside a private clinic that looked utterly unremarkable from the outside, Lin Yi — with her deep brown shoulder-length hair and white lab coat — was furrowing her brow tightly as she examined the young girl’s right arm.

Little Red Riding Hood sat across from Dr. Lin wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, her arm resting on the table. Her dark red coat, now missing one sleeve, hung on a coat rack near the door.

“Dr. Lin, is it serious?” Seeing the doctor remain silent for so long, Little Red Riding Hood finally couldn’t help asking.

“This time it’s not serious — but your overall condition is very serious,” Lin Yi looked up, irritation in her gaze. “How many times has this been now? Your injuries have never stopped. If this keeps up, your alienation aftereffects will have virtually no intervals of recovery. Your body and mind won’t have time to heal. This time is fine, but sooner or later there will be a time when something goes seriously wrong.”

“I know, but the situation was really urgent. There was truly no other choice,” Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes shifted evasively. “We were being hunted by an entity rated danger level three or above, one with psychic contamination tendencies no less. Coming out of that alive and in one piece was already a miracle…”

Lin Yi gave the girl a long look but said nothing more. She simply reached over and picked up a sharp scalpel, then without hesitation drew it across her own arm.

In the next instant, a cut appeared from thin air in the exact same spot on Little Red Riding Hood’s right arm. Dark reddish-black blood surged from the wound, but it vanished in the blink of an eye as though absorbed by some invisible force.

The black patterns covering the girl’s arm began to rapidly fade and dissipate.

“Thank you, Dr. Lin…” Little Red Riding Hood lowered her head and thanked her earnestly. “I’ll transfer the consultation fee to you once the Special Operations Bureau settles accounts.”

“Forget it. Consider this one a favor — no charge,” Lin Yi sighed, looking at the girl across from her with some helplessness. She hesitated for a few seconds before continuing, “…I know you’re their ‘guardian,’ but you should keep some money for yourself too. Look how thin you are.”

“I know, I know.” Little Red Riding Hood pouted, putting on an impatient expression.

“That’s what you say every time,” Lin Yi shook her head, tossing the scalpel casually into a porcelain tray beside her. She adjusted her posture in the chair. “Since you’re here today, let me do your evaluation early — when was the last time you ‘dreamed’?”

Little Red Riding Hood immediately adjusted her own posture, her expression turning serious and focused: “Three days ago.”

“In the dream, was it from a human’s perspective or a wolf’s perspective?”

“Two-thirds of the time as human, one-third as wolf — and for one brief moment, as the ‘Hunter.'”

“Who did the Hunter shoot at?”

“The wolf.”

“Good, seems relatively stable,” Lin Yi rummaged through a cabinet beside her and pulled out a form, then grabbed a ballpoint pen from the pen holder on the desk. She scribbled on the paper — no ink. She grabbed another one — still no ink. Her brow furrowed immediately. “…It’s definitely those two new assistants. They both write like they’re carving tombstones, pressing so hard…”

She dug through her lab coat pockets for a while before finally finding a working pen. She began recording on the form with swift strokes, continuing her questions as she wrote: “At the end, did you see ‘Grandmother’? Was she human or wolf?”

“…Wolf.”

“Judging by your expression… you were caught?”

“I was caught, but that part of the memory is very chaotic. The last scene I remember is fleeing from the forest together with the wolf pack.”

Lin Yi paused, her brow furrowed tightly, tapping the ballpoint pen irritably against the desk beside her: “That still carries some risk. Take a dose of Intervention Agent No. 2 when you leave. Intravenous injection before bed tonight. I’ll put the cost on your tab.”

“Okay.”

Lin Yi then asked several more questions in succession, and Little Red Riding Hood answered each one honestly.

This was the “evaluation” she had to undergo every month. Including herself, every member of “Fairy Tale” was required to undergo this kind of evaluation regularly.

In the Borderland, there were actually many “doctors” capable of conducting these evaluations and providing the corresponding “treatments.” However, Dr. Lin was the one she was most familiar with.

The lengthy “questionnaire” finally came to an end. Dr. Lin wrote “temporarily stable, continued observation required” as the conclusion at the bottom of the form and let out a long exhale.

Little Red Riding Hood saw the conclusion at the bottom of the form. Though the girl tried hard to keep a straight face and appear calm, a relieved smile still crept through.

“So you do know how to worry, huh?” Lin Yi glanced at Little Red Riding Hood. “If you’re really that scared, then take better care of yourself. Don’t end up like the last Little Red Riding Hood…”

She suddenly stopped. She didn’t finish.

Little Red Riding Hood fell silent too, and the clinic sank into a heavy, oppressive quiet.

After what felt like an eternity, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly felt warmth on her hand.

Dr. Lin had placed her hand over hers.

“Little Red Riding Hood, you’re different from the others — at least different from the other ‘Fairy Tale’ members I’ve worked with,” the young aberration doctor said, fixing her gaze intently on the girl’s eyes, her tone earnest and solemn. “Your wolves… the first ones you tamed, they’re very close to you. I can’t sense it directly the way you can, but I can tell — they’re willing to protect you.

“That’s why your chances of safely reaching adulthood, and even surviving ‘Metamorphosis,’ are higher than anyone else’s. But precisely because of that, you can’t squander this gift just because your condition is more stable than others’. You need to find a way to survive first — to live longer. Do you understand?”

Little Red Riding Hood sat in silence. After a long time, she finally gave a small nod: “…Mm.”

In the shadows beside the girl, several pairs of faint green eyes quietly emerged. One pair drew closer, and a tongue extended from the shadow, gently licking her fingers.

Lin Yi sensed the shift in the shadows’ aura but didn’t look that way. Instead, she rose from her chair, turned, and walked to the refrigeration unit in the corner of the room, retrieving a vial of medicine that emitted a dim, faint glow.

“Here — Intervention Agent No. 2. This happens to be the last one I have left, so I’ll give you half price. Pay up as soon as you get your next paycheck — you already owe me several thousand.”

“Thank you, Dr. Lin.”

(End of Chapter)