Chapter 118: In the Forest

This time, Yu Sheng fell asleep very quickly—probably because he had truly exhausted too much energy. Once the earlier exhilaration of pushing himself with a single breath faded, the moment he lay down on the bed he was almost instantly in dreamland.

It was a series of bizarre, fragmented shallow dreams whose details were impossible to recall.

He drifted in a daze, feeling as if his consciousness were floating above a layer of hazy water. Through the surface he looked down and saw himself lying on the bed, saw No. 66 Wutong Road, saw Irene fiddling with the TV remote, saw Hu Li washing her tail by the sink, then hanging the freshly washed tails one by one on the balcony clothes-drying pole, a neat row…

Yu Sheng gradually found it hard to tell what was real and what was not, and could not figure out whether he was dreaming or had truly "seen" these scenes. His consciousness drifted on like that for a long time, slowly sinking through an ever-darker chaos—until suddenly, he felt a solid sensation against his back.

Yu Sheng's eyes snapped open.

The first thing that met his gaze were the towering trees surrounding him on all sides.

An endless forest, endless trees, dense canopies layered and interwoven, covering the murky sky. Beneath the canopy lay shadows like perpetual dusk, dark vines twisting through the thicket, shrubs running wild across the open ground, and nameless flowers and grasses—lush, yet all bearing a greyish, hazy quality—blanketing the spaces between the giant trees.

Yu Sheng rose in confusion, feeling thick layers of fallen leaves and rotting earth beneath him.

And with his movement, this boundless dim forest seemed to come further "alive." He began to hear all manner of unidentifiable birds and beasts calling from within the trees; something darted swiftly across a clearing, the sound of flapping wings echoing through the canopy; and from far away came a howl… a wolf's howl, yet tinged with a strange, almost human tone.

Yu Sheng froze for a moment, feeling his mind gradually clear, and a single thought popped into his head—Good lord, where the hell did I end up after one nap?

Am I dreaming? Or have I fallen into some strange "Other Domain" again?

Yu Sheng reached out and pinched his thigh, feeling a slightly numb pain. He tried calling out to Irene in his mind, but only heard a hollow, wind-through-a-valley kind of whistling echoing within.

All these anomalies instantly put Yu Sheng on high alert.

His first instinct was to reach out into the empty air; a moment later, a faintly glowing illusory great door emerged vaguely in the atmosphere.

Good—the "Door" still worked.

Only then did Yu Sheng let out a breath of relief. He waved the door away, summoned every ounce of his concentration, and carefully walked forward.

He had to figure out what this place was first.

He could vaguely sense that this place was different from the "Nightfall Valley" he had stumbled into before. He should still be dreaming, but this was definitely no ordinary dream. He couldn't say how this place connected to the "Other Domain," but this forest was absolutely not something that should appear in his own dreams.

His feet pressed into the thick layer of rotting leaves, a sense of finding no foothold accompanied by faint rustling sounds. Yu Sheng carefully walked forward for a long stretch, crossed a small clearing, climbed over two fallen giant trees, yet the scenery around him never changed. The forest seemed infinite; traveling on foot through this boundless thicket appeared to have no meaning at all.

And just then, a rustling sound suddenly reached Yu Sheng's ears.

He instantly heightened his vigilance and whipped his head toward the direction of the sound.

A fluffy-looking large squirrel stood on a nearby withered tree stump, watching him with bright little black eyes.

It seemed to be just a small forest creature, curiously emerging from its hiding place to observe this "uninvited guest."

The atmosphere around him was eerie, but upon seeing this harmless little squirrel, Yu Sheng couldn't help but let out a breath and offer it a slight smile.

The squirrel glanced at him, swept its big tail across the stump, and let out a thin, high-pitched voice: "Don't leave the path…"

The smile on Yu Sheng's face froze instantly, and the next second his eyes went wide: "Holy—! It talked!"

"I haven't finished my lines yet," the squirrel said, slapping the stump hard with its tail and standing upright. "Damn it, what's the next line… oh, don't be distracted by pretty little flowers and mushrooms, hurry back to the path, that's how you'll get home safely before dark~ Right, there has to be a cute little lilt at the end too, way too freaking cute."

Yu Sheng: "…"

The squirrel not far away stood with arms akimbo in a most self-important manner, staring fixedly in this direction.

Yu Sheng pinched his thigh hard again, as if to confirm whether he'd just been hallucinating—what on earth had that cute, harmless-looking creature just said?

But the squirrel seemed to be getting impatient. Seeing Yu Sheng hadn't moved in ages, it slapped the stump a few more times with its big tail, "bang bang": "Move! What are you standing there for? Don't die in the Black Forest before you've even taken your first step."

Yu Sheng finally confirmed he hadn't been hallucinating, but he didn't do as the squirrel said—"keep walking, get back on the path." Instead, out of sheer curiosity, he walked toward the squirrel, his face full of wonder and confusion: "Who are you? What is this place?"

"Are you blind? I'm a squirrel, damn it!" the squirrel said fearlessly, arms akimbo, staring straight into Yu Sheng's eyes. "Can't you tell where this is? A forest. The Black Forest. A freaking huge Black Forest—what's with that dopey look on your face."

As it spoke, this cute-looking but rough-talking squirrel shuffled two steps to the side, glancing around as if searching for something, muttering all the while: "That's weird… that one isn't dead yet, so how'd a new one pop up… is that one about to die now? But why's this one a guy…"

Listening to the squirrel's muttering, Yu Sheng felt his heart stir for some reason and blurted out: "Die? Who's about to die?"

"Little Red Riding Hood, obviously," the squirrel said casually, wiping its face with a paw. "Don't know which number to count her as… the eighteenth generation? Or the twenty-eighth Little Red Riding Hood…?"

Yu Sheng's eyes suddenly went wide, his heart skipping several beats in an instant. Then, as if something had clicked, he looked up at this boundless forest and tilted his head to listen to that faint, eerie howling.

That distant, familiar nursery-rhyme melody seemed to be echoing in his mind already—that small figure in a red cloak, that figure walking along the forest path, those flowers and mushrooms luring her deep in the thicket… and that big bad wolf.

Yu Sheng suddenly felt a faint sting and a bit of warmth on his shoulder. He turned to look and saw blood seeping from his shoulder at some unknown moment, the scarlet slowly spreading across his clothes, becoming a jarring splash of color in this dim, grey forest.

That was the place where the big bad wolf, which had crawled out of Little Red Riding Hood's shadow on the night of the museum, had bitten him.

The bloodstain slowly faded again, but Yu Sheng had gradually figured out what had happened.

His blood had ultimately established a connection with Little Red Riding Hood… Could the big bad wolf hunting her also be considered a part of her? So, this place was actually her dream?

Thoughts flashed through his mind at lightning speed, but the squirrel's voice suddenly cut in, interrupting Yu Sheng's wandering thoughts: "No! No, no, no!"

Yu Sheng was startled: "What's wrong?"

"That Little Red Riding Hood really isn't dead yet! And it's not even close to time for her to die!" the squirrel jumped up on the stump, looking somewhat panicked. "The wolf hasn't caught up to her, the wolf is still searching the forest… who the hell are you? How the f*** did you get in here?!"

Yu Sheng vaguely felt that the squirrel's last sentence sounded a little familiar…

But he didn't dwell on it, and quickly spoke up: "I'm her friend—what did you just say? You said Little Red Riding Hood would die? And you said which number? What does that mean?"

"Friend? What friend popped out of nowhere! She walks alone on the forest path—there are no Little Red Riding Hood's friends in the forest!" the squirrel suddenly got agitated, leaping up and down on the stump. "Something's wrong, something's wrong, this forest shouldn't be changing, and if it changes that makes things even harder… don't make things difficult for a squirrel! The squirrel is already very busy! This place…"

It suddenly stopped again, as if hearing something, and froze, tilting its head to listen.

Yu Sheng instinctively spoke: "What's…"

"Shhh—" the squirrel raised a paw in a very human-like gesture, signaling Yu Sheng to stay quiet. "Listen carefully… the wolf stopped howling."

The forest fell utterly silent. The faint wolf howls that had been drifting from afar had vanished at some unknown moment; even the sounds of other birds and beasts that had been coming from nearby had gone quiet along with them.

An eerie, unsettling deathly stillness descended over the forest.

Yu Sheng's nerves tensed up, and the very next second, the squirrel suddenly leapt off the stump, then shot onto his shoulder like a bolt of lightning, letting out a shrill cry: "Run! The wolf is coming!"

Yu Sheng was startled by the little creature's sudden move, but his body reacted long before that—he instinctively turned and ran. Only then did a belated, hair-raising dread and a chill that seemed to pierce his soul finally catch up—a crushing wave of immense malice and the omen of imminent death slammed into Yu Sheng's mind, mingling with the howling wind, chasing his footsteps.

The wolf had come.

(End of chapter)