Chapter 129: The Beginning of a Fairytale

Little Red Riding Hood didn't seem to doubt Yu Sheng's claim—unreliable adults always manage to lie with a straight face, easily fooling a JK who wouldn't turn eighteen until next month.

So she merely reminded Yu Sheng again to be cautious when facing the Dark Angel, then quickly shifted the topic back to "the Other Realm."

"The Other Realm is primarily divided into four types; the first three are the most straightforward, classified by scale and manifestation as 'Wasteland,' 'Nation,' and 'Fortress,' " Little Red Riding Hood said seriously to Yu Sheng, "You can probably guess their meanings from the names alone."

Yu Sheng quickly adjusted his demeanor and, as Little Red Riding Hood spoke, he followed along, thinking aloud: "I've actually read a bit about this already… I remember 'Wasteland'-type Other Realms refer to 'open spaces with no clear visual boundaries, mostly consisting of primal natural environments, impossible to exit simply by walking to the edge,' right?"

"Correct. So that 'Nightfall Valley' is a classic example of a Wasteland-type Other Realm," Little Red Riding Hood nodded. "Generally, Wasteland-type Other Realms are vast and lack obvious, fixed 'entrances and exits'—you can only leave by meeting specific conditions or during certain times."

"The 'Nation,' on the other hand, is another large-scale Other Realm, sometimes comparable in spatial extent to a Wasteland, but unlike it, a Nation often contains massive amounts of 'artificial traces'—endless houses, cities, even factories rumbling loudly, producing unknown things—Nation-type Other Realms give the impression of a civilization's ruin buried in an anomalous space, yet in truth, every building and facility scattered throughout the Nation is illogical; a little observation reveals their distortions and dissonance."

"Moreover, in Nation-type Other Realms, you can almost always find stable entrances and exits to the real world—this is their greatest distinction from Wastelands."

"The third type, 'Fortress,' typically manifests as a single, enclosed building or facility. Their scale is smaller than Wastelands or Nations, but that doesn't mean they're safer—in fact, Fortresses often have more complex, variable rules and bizarre environments. 'Uncertainty' is the defining trait of Fortress-type Other Realms, and precisely because of this, their methods of entry and exit are wildly diverse: some have stable entrances, others are like Wastelands, requiring 'conditional return.'"

"The 'Museum' we explored together is a classic Fortress-type Other Realm, and another Fortress you're even more familiar with…"

Little Red Riding Hood paused here, her gaze calm as she fixed her eyes on Yu Sheng's: "Can you guess which?"

Yu Sheng froze for a moment, then quickly realized, uncertainly speaking: "Not… my house, right?"

Little Red Riding Hood looked momentarily speechless: "…Isn't that obvious?"

"Uh, well, yeah, but I never really thought of it that way before," Yu Sheng awkwardly rubbed his nose, then swiftly changed the subject. "Alright, the Other Realm types are four. You've just listed three—so obviously, 'Fairytale' must be the fourth, right?"

Little Red Riding Hood exhaled, nodding with a complex expression: "The fourth: 'Anomaly.'"

Before Yu Sheng could respond to the name, Ai Lin chimed in from beside him: "Oh, I can already tell this one's gonna be trouble."

Hu Li stared blankly at the doll in her arms: "Why say that?"

Ai Lin rolled her eyes: "Obviously! The whole concept of Other Realms is already weird, and now there's a whole category whose very name emphasizes 'weird'? It's like Yu Sheng walking into No. 66 Wutong Road—straight-up cursed!"

Yu Sheng immediately jabbed a finger into the doll's head: "I told you not to use my idioms!"

Then he turned to Little Red Riding Hood: "Explain in detail?"

"If a normal Other Realm is a twisted spacetime, then an 'Anomaly'-type Other Realm… is those things beyond spacetime itself," Little Red Riding Hood carefully chose her words, struggling to clarify the abstract and bizarre concept ahead: "Those abstract, conceptual, even unimaginable… 'things.' For example, an emotion, a memory, some sounds, or… a story."

Yu Sheng, Ai Lin, and Hu Li all stared blankly.

After half a minute of stunned silence, Yu Sheng was the first to break it: "Huh?"

Then he waved his hand: "Wait, my imagination caught up—I just can't quite grasp it… You mean emotions, memories, even sounds… can form Other Realms?"

"Not that they form the Other Realm. The Other Realm manifests as these forms."

"Got it, got it… anyway," Yu Sheng frowned, feeling as if he'd opened a door to a new world, "I always thought an Other Realm, no matter how bizarre, had to be at least a 'place'—something visible, tangible, something you could enter and exit. But what you're describing… I swear, as a novelist, my vocabulary's barely holding up here—how insane is that?!"

Little Red Riding Hood blinked: "Huh? You're a novelist?"

Ai Lin immediately leaned forward: "Yeah, writes some seriously weird stuff—ask Ren Wenwen from the Special Task Force later…"

"That's not important!" Yu Sheng shoved Ai Lin back, his gaze locked on Little Red Riding Hood. "Anyway, now I understand why one type is called 'Anomaly'—it's all these utterly unclassifiable, cursed things, right? So 'Fairytale' is the 'story-type' among Anomaly-type Other Realms, then?"

Little Red Riding Hood nodded.

"But the black forest I entered still seemed like a 'space'?" Yu Sheng sensed something off. "No… it felt more like a dream?"

"That's precisely the hallmark of most Anomaly-type Other Realms: their essence is abstract, yet they trap people within tangible, illusory environments resembling 'anomalous spaces'—through hallucinations, dreams, and the like. Some only ensnare your spirit; others drag your physical body in as well. That's why, in the early stages, many Anomaly-type Other Realms are misidentified—even professional scholars take a long time to realize the true nature behind those strange 'spaces,' and by then, it's often too late for the victims…"

Here, Little Red Riding Hood paused, gathering her thoughts, then continued—speaking of her own experience, yet calmly, as if recounting someone else's: "As for 'Fairytale,' even among Anomaly-type Other Realms, it's unusually unique, because it has countless 'offshoot branches,' or… 'subsets.'"

"The Black Forest is one of these subsets."

"You can think of 'Fairytale' as an invisible, unknowable, untouchable 'tower.' This 'tower' itself has no form, yet because it exists, it generates countless 'rooms'—the wolf-infested Black Forest is merely one room; others include Dorothy's wasteland, the tower imprisoning Rapunzel, Cinderella's endlessly repeating ball—and beyond these, there are some special 'rooms.'"

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow: "Special 'rooms'?"

"Not tied to any specific fairy tale, but to classic fairy tale elements—or… 'fictional scripts,' " Little Red Riding Hood nodded lightly. "For example, the king's 'castle,' or the dragon's 'treasure vault'—we haven't determined which exact fairy tale or 'character' these 'subsets' correspond to."

Yu Sheng frowned deeply, listening intently to every word Little Red Riding Hood spoke, piecing together the characteristics and possible patterns of this unique Other Realm called 'Fairytale.' Vague impressions formed in his mind, and her next words echoed in his ears.

"This place… is where 'Fairytale' first erupted."

Yu Sheng looked up in surprise, seeing Little Red Riding Hood gazing out the window at the empty field—children ran back and forth between swings, their loud shouts piercing through the glass, sounding lively and cheerful.

"It was many, many years ago. There were no two buildings here then—only older, lower structures. But this courtyard's 'function' never changed: it was always an orphanage, then and now, and it will remain so," Little Red Riding Hood said slowly. "Much of the documentation about that outbreak was lost for various reasons. Only scattered records remain, indicating that after the outbreak, the site was briefly sealed off."

"At the time, the Special Task Force assumed it was merely some 'ordinary' Other Realm phenomenon and temporarily relocated the children affected by 'Fairytale' to another high-security containment facility. But just a few years later, 'Fairytale' phenomena began appearing elsewhere in the Borderlands, and those initially relocated children started showing strange symptoms. Only then did people belatedly realize an unknown 'Anomaly-type Other Realm' had already 'unfolded' within the Borderlands."

"After that, the Special Task Force tried countless methods to contain 'Fairytale,' but with minimal success. Even the most skilled Deep Divers became helpless inside those 'subsets,' some even losing their lives. Only after great cost did people finally piece together a few crude patterns about 'Fairytale'—and the most important one… is what I mentioned earlier: 'Fairytale dislikes adults'—as you can see, this is the foundation of this kingdom ruled by children."

(End of Chapter)