Chapter 77 – Dining Hospitality at No. 66 Wutong Road

Little Red Riding Hood knew that anyone living inside an Otherworld had to be strange, but she discovered she’d still underestimated just how bizarre the “family of three” at Yu Sheng’s place truly were.

Especially once they started eating.

A doll that didn’t need to eat sat prim and proper right on top of the dining table, with a dedicated set of bowl and chopsticks placed before her, looking for all the world like a memorial offering.

A fox spirit with a mass of tails kept pulling all manner of snacks out of her tails while eating, creating an utterly chaotic combination of foods—including but not limited to flatbread wrapped around steamed buns, chili peppers paired with bananas, basically shoving whatever she had into her mouth.

But the strangest one was still Yu Sheng—he actually ate human food.

Unbelievable.jpg.

Yu Sheng noticed Little Red Riding Hood looking a bit dazed and assumed the girl was just feeling shy about visiting for the first time. He warmly urged her, “Eat up, eat up. Let me tell you, I’m pretty confident in my cooking skills…”

Halfway through his sentence, he suddenly remembered something and pointed at a dish on the table, adding, “Oh right, you’d better not eat that one.”

Little Red Riding Hood froze for a moment, then saw that it was just an ordinary-looking plate of stir-fried pork with chili peppers. She looked confused. “Why not?”

“That’s made from Otherworld ‘local specialties.’ I’m not sure if ordinary people can eat it,” Yu Sheng explained casually. “Eileen and Hu Li both find it pretty off-putting anyway.”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression went blank. “Otherworld… local specialties?”

“It’s meat cut from Entity-Hunger’s body. I have a taste for it—but normal people don’t eat this stuff,” Yu Sheng said with complete nonchalance, then didn’t forget to give himself a pat on the back. “I’m actually quite sensible about these things.”

Then he watched as the girl across the table went completely rigid, as if she’d been turned to stone.

Several seconds passed before Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes finally blinked. Expression frozen, she turned to look at Eileen, who was sitting on the table sniffing the food. “What a… niche cuisine…”

“First time, hm?” Eileen reached over and patted Little Red Riding Hood’s arm, wearing the expression of someone who’d been through it all. “I had the exact same reaction the first time I heard about it. Don’t doubt it—it’s exactly what you think. Besides, you were right there with us watching how the entity in that valley was destroyed. No need to make such a fuss—at least this is cooked first.”

“This one’s better cooked,” Yu Sheng said, nodding as he picked up a piece of stir-fried meat with his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth. “I tried sashimi once. No good—too tough.”

Little Red Riding Hood immediately looked at the remaining dishes on the table with an expression of pure horror, suddenly regretting why she’d accepted Yu Sheng’s invitation today. Originally, she’d just thought it would be a chance to interact with this strange “person” and the strange No. 66 Wutong Road, hoping she might pick up some new intelligence about this Otherworld that she could sell to the Special Operations Bureau for a good price. But now she realized something:

If an entity appears harmless, then it must be disturbingly weird in other ways. If an Otherworld looks especially safe, then it must possess remarkably creative forms of mental contamination…

Little Red Riding Hood swallowed nervously, watching Yu Sheng devour his meal with gusto, and suddenly desperately wanted to ask—after you finish eating that, you’re not going to eat me too, right?

But after hesitating for a long time, she still couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Not to your taste?” Yu Sheng noticed the girl across from him hadn’t touched her chopsticks for quite a while and found it a bit odd. “Uh, I tend to cook on the heavier side, but you could try this plate of greens. It’s pretty good.”

Pinned under his gaze, Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t dodge and didn’t dare shake her head. After struggling with herself for a while, she hesitantly reached out with her chopsticks and took a bite. While mentally chanting “this is edible” to herself, she swallowed it down as if taking medicine—and then was surprised to discover that it was delicious.

It was perfectly normal stir-fried vegetables.

“Our benefactor is a great cook, isn’t he?” Hu Li beside her broke into a happy smile.

Little Red Riding Hood nodded with a complicated expression. Watching Hu Li eat nonstop and realizing the fox’s mouth seemed to have never stopped moving since she walked in the door, she finally couldn’t help her curiosity. “You eat so much—don’t you ever get too full?”

“No,” Hu Li said, her tails swaying behind her. “Eating more stores up tails, so I can help our benefactor fight when the time comes.”

Little Red Riding Hood: “…?”

What kind of nonsense was all this!?

She suddenly began to wonder if there was something wrong with her own comprehension. She even felt as though No. 66 Wutong Road operated on an entirely different “worldview” from the normal world. Everything looked normal, everything sounded normal, so why did it all feel so unsettling?

Just then, Yu Sheng’s voice came from beside her, interrupting Little Red Riding Hood’s wild thoughts. “By the way, the reason I invited you over today is that there are actually some things I’d like to ask you about.”

“Ah… huh?” Little Red Riding Hood was half a beat slow in reacting, turning her bewildered gaze toward Yu Sheng.

Yu Sheng had no idea why she was reacting this way, and didn’t think much of it. He asked straightforwardly, “How do spirit detectives like you normally work? Or rather, is there anything you need to watch out for as a spirit detective?”

“Normal work? Most of the time I take outsourced jobs from the Special Operations Bureau. Sometimes there are requests from other organizations or individuals, but those aren’t stable,” Little Red Riding Hood said offhandedly. “Most spirit detectives’ main commissions actually come from the Special Operations Bureau, or subcontracting units under the Bureau. After all, it’s an official organization—they’re well-informed, and a lot of commissions get consolidated there. Look at this.”

As she spoke, she pulled out her phone, tapped a few times, and showed the screen to Yu Sheng.

Yu Sheng leaned in curiously and saw a long string of chat interfaces on the phone screen.

More than half of the chat avatars bore a uniform insignia, tagged with Special Operations Bureau labels.

“It’s a dedicated platform built by the Special Operations Bureau. Spirit detectives and independent investigators can all use it. People normally use it to exchange intel, chat, shoot the breeze, and public commissions get posted on it too. The official name is ‘Frontier Communications,’ but a lot of people just call it ‘Didi for Jobs’…”

Yu Sheng listened to her description with amazement and wanted to get another look at the screen, but Little Red Riding Hood had already put her phone away.

“Technically I shouldn’t be showing this to anyone. It’s supposed to be kept secret from ordinary people. But even though you’re not a spirit detective or investigator, you’re not exactly an ordinary person either, so I’ll let you have a look. As for what to watch out for in our line of work…”

Little Red Riding Hood paused here, a hint of wry humor entering her expression. “Everyone has their own work habits. If I had to say there are any common ‘guidelines,’ there are just two. First, don’t disrupt the order of the Borderland. Second, try to stay alive. And if you really can’t manage the second one, try to die somewhere ‘shallow’—don’t make it too hard on the body retrieval people.”

A look of curiosity suddenly crossed her face as she studied Yu Sheng’s eyes. “Why are you suddenly asking about this?”

Yu Sheng’s expression was perfectly casual. “Oh, we might be colleagues pretty soon.”

Little Red Riding Hood: “…?”

…

After dinner, Little Red Riding Hood left.

“Why do I feel like her expression was kind of weird when she left?” Eileen sat on the table, muttering to herself while watching Yu Sheng clean up the dishes. “She seemed like her whole mind was somewhere else…”

“High schoolers are under a lot of pressure. It’s normal. Especially when she’s also working part-time jobs during breaks—look, her phone screen was cracked. Her living conditions probably aren’t great either,” Yu Sheng said casually as he wiped down the table. “That’s why I thought I’d invite her over for a meal. Give her a chance to relax.”

“Is that so?” Eileen looked somewhat skeptical. “I feel like she was even more tense when she left than when she arrived…”

“That’s just your imagination,” Yu Sheng waved dismissively. “Trust my judgment. Humans understand humans—and I was a high schooler once too. If we invite her over more often in the future, it’ll be fine. Guaranteed.”

“If… if you say so?”

While they talked, Yu Sheng had already finished clearing the table. After handing the dishes to Hu Li, who had eagerly volunteered to help wash them, he let out a long breath, ready to get down to real business.

“I’m going to open a gate.”

Eileen, who had been climbing down from the table to go watch TV in the living room, turned back. “Huh? Where are you going?”

“To take another look at that valley.”

Eileen promptly fell right off the table leg, landing on the ground with a splat, person and painting and all.

“You’ve run out of meat in the fridge, haven’t you!” The little doll scrambled to her feet, staring at Yu Sheng in horror. “You’re going to restock!?”

“No,” Yu Sheng quickly waved his hands. “It’s about that ‘Bureau Chief’ who came to see me today. Something she said has been bothering me.”

He then told Eileen what Baili Qing had specifically mentioned to him before leaving.

Miss Doll listened with furrowed brows. “Could it be a trap? Luring you into stepping on a landmine or something? Important figures who suddenly show up and ramble on and on at you always pull stuff like that. I’ve seen it on TV all the time.”

“Then maybe watch less TV,” Yu Sheng shot the doll an annoyed glance. “Besides, even if she has some other agenda, I need to go check out that valley anyway.”

Eileen continued frowning. “Why?”

“There’s something I want to investigate again. We left in too much of a hurry last time,” Yu Sheng said very seriously. “Don’t be so nervous. It’s not like I can’t come back. The passages are stable now. If anything seems off, I can pull out immediately.”

“Then… alright,” Eileen thought about it and reluctantly felt reassured. “Should we tell Hu Li? She might worry.”

“I’m just going over to check things out. It shouldn’t take long. If she comes out and asks, just tell her I’ll be back soon,” Yu Sheng said as he reached into the air. A phantasmal gate opened in his hand. “In fact, I bet I’ll be back before she finishes washing the dishes. It’s just a quick look.”

At this, he suddenly paused and looked back at the gate he’d just opened.

“…Was I supposed to give the Special Operations Bureau a heads-up first?”

“You’ve already opened the damn gate and NOW you think of that? Just hurry up and go in! The complaint hotline’s going to be ringing any second! Go, go—I’ll wait for you here.”