Chapter 143: The Story in the Eyes of Adults

Yu Sheng very seriously introduced his construction plan for this valley to Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel, including the magnificent Grand Temple in his mind and a series of auxiliary buildings to be established around this platform in the future—though he hadn't yet thought about what these buildings could do, he figured they needed to be built first anyway—and then casually explained why the square house by the platform wasn't a toilet.

The two girls listened quite seriously, with the most serious part being when they tried to hold back their laughter in the second half.

Yu Sheng felt helpless about this too—because he also thought that Phase One project did indeed look a bit like a toilet...

He could only awkwardly end the topic and find a way to divert his guests' attention.

"These are chickens raised by Hu Li," he introduced other things in the valley to Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel, "once the ecology here recovers, they can run around outside."

Little Red Riding Hood's reaction was the same as Erin's back then; her eyes immediately widened: "You let a fox raise chickens?!"

"She's a fox demon—the difference is huge," Yu Sheng corrected very seriously, "I'm serious, actually she takes very good care of them."

As he spoke, Hu Li had already added water and feed to the chicken coop, carefully checked the condition of the chicks, then happily walked over, reached into her tail, pulled out two chicks, and showed them to Little Red Riding Hood: "These are Bai Qie and Salt-Baked, I plan to let them be the leaders of the flock in the future~"

Little Red Riding Hood stared blankly for a long time before realizing that Bai Qie and Salt-Baked were the names of two chickens.

Before she could even speak, Yu Sheng enthusiastically pulled her to introduce other places: "This area, I plan to use for growing vegetables, did you see that irrigation ditch over there? It draws water from the foot of the mountain and can irrigate the fields. Later, I also plan to build a reservoir in one corner of the platform. Another piece of land I plan to use for raising pigs in the future, but I don't have the time for that yet. A bit further over, did you notice that empty space over there? I plan to set up a fixed 'Gate' there, but that's just a preliminary plan now; we still need to research exactly how to implement it. Right now, the main focus is still on farming and building houses..."

Both Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel were dumbfounded, just staring blankly and nodding as they listened to Yu Sheng's string of introductions, especially Little Red Riding Hood—her impression in her mind was still stuck on the time this place suffered from "Hunger"; every time Yu Sheng introduced a project to her, her brain subconsciously ran through "this place is an Otherworld," and her worldview was dying and coming back to life like doing sit-ups in a coffin.

Yu Sheng didn't think that much about it; after proudly finishing his introduction, he looked happily at the two girls and asked expectantly: "How does it feel? How is this valley?"

Rapunzel opened her mouth, and after a long pause managed to blurt out: "What kind of valley is this! Is this a Star X Valley?"

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, feeling the other party's summary was quite accurate, but he didn't have the copyright, so he couldn't use that name.

A fresh breeze blew from the depths of the valley, carrying with it the scent of green grass and soil, as well as Xiaoxiao's cheerful laughter—the little girl was running back and forth on the grass, playing and chasing with Erin with great excitement.

Erin was also quite excited, shouting and yelling while running: "Is there anyone who can come and manage this brat! Huh!? No one cares about the rights of dolls, is that it?!"

"I'll go watch them," Rapunzel looked up, smiled helplessly, then picked up Xiaoxiao's small schoolbag with one hand and walked lightly towards the distance, "Xiaoxiao! Take a break and drink some water before playing!"

Yu Sheng, with a smile on his face, sat down on the edge of the platform. He looked at Rapunzel who was taking care of the children, Xiaoxiao who was speaking excitedly about something, and Erin who was desperately trying to communicate with the brat, then turned back to look at Little Red Riding Hood standing nearby: "Do you feel that tomorrow is something to look forward to?"

Little Red Riding Hood was also gazing quietly at the distance; hearing Yu Sheng's words, she fell silent for a moment before speaking: "The Black Forest... and other subsets in the 'Fairy Tales', can they become like this too?"

Her voice was very soft, as if afraid that speaking any louder would shatter a wisp of faint light.

"I still don't know how to fight the 'Entity' of the Fairy Tales, but at least we can start with the Black Forest. From what we see now, although the Black Forest is a 'consciousness space', it still follows the general rules of Otherworlds in all aspects, and the entities it generates—mainly wolves—are not invincible and are also affected by my blood."

Yu Sheng spoke slowly and calmly.

"The key issue now is how to find the most core, most essential part of the Black Forest—I suspect that is not some 'wolf'."

Little Red Riding Hood widened her eyes slightly: "Not a wolf?"

"For 'Little Red Riding Hood', what is so special about the wolf?" Yu Sheng asked back calmly.

Little Red Riding Hood was stunned for a moment, seemingly unable to follow the other's train of thought all at once.

"'Little Red Riding Hood', with quotation marks," Yu Sheng continued speaking, expressing his thoughts, "since the essence of 'Fairy Tales' is a 'collection of stories', and each of its subsets is a story, that means any single 'element' in a story cannot serve as the 'representative' of the entire story alone; a single wolf won't do, nor will a single hunter or a single Little Red Riding Hood, and even that Black Forest... cannot represent 'Little Red Riding Hood'."

Little Red Riding Hood finally showed a thoughtful expression; she seemed to understand what Yu Sheng meant by "essence".

"That Black Forest is different from this valley—the 'Hunger' generated in this valley is its only core; all the original rules here, even the entire valley environment, were built around 'Hunger', and this is also the characteristic of most 'conventional' Otherworlds. However, that Black Forest has extremely complex rules; any 'character' in the forest, including Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, the Grandmother, the Hunter, and perhaps even that mystical squirrel, is just a 'link' under this rule system, merely its 'surface' part."

As Yu Sheng spoke, he raised his hand and waved it gently in the air; accompanied by the sound of friction between soil and rocks, Little Red Riding Hood was shocked to see a patch of ground at the edge of the platform suddenly bulge up. Immediately, that patch of ground formed a small "stage". Ugly, crude things made of stone rolled and ran on that stage; some quickly disintegrated, but new "actors" emerged from the stage, continuing their blind and meaningless activities.

"I thought of this after witnessing Xiaoxiao's experience, and you, as the person involved, are limited by the perspective of 'Little Red Riding Hood', making it hard to notice this point," Yu Sheng continued speaking to the young girl beside him while manipulating that crude little stage, "your attention always falls on that 'evil wolf', so naturally you would take the wolf as the only and ultimate 'villain' in the 'Black Forest subset', but standing from a perspective outside the story... I found that what I need to kill is not the villain in the story."

"Or to put it another way, I have already successfully killed a 'villain' once—that Wolf Grandmother who swallowed Xiaoxiao was the 'final villain' from Xiaoxiao's perspective. But in the process of killing it, I only felt... emptiness. The Black Forest didn't change at all because a Wolf Grandmother died; the wolf pack still exists, the forest still exists. I can feel those gazes; Xiaoxiao will fall into the forest again next time, and a new Wolf Grandmother... will still be waiting for her at the end of the darkness."

"Because for this 'story', its script has not suffered any damage from beginning to end."

The platform fell silent. Little Red Riding Hood quietly watched the stone "actors" still rolling and running on the stage, and finally spoke while pondering: "So, what needs to be killed is the 'story' itself..."

"Yes, the story, though it doesn't necessarily have to be 'killed', because stories might be unkillable, but perhaps we can find a way to control it, tamper with it, or even dismember it. To achieve this, we cannot limit our gaze to the 'actors' on the surface of the story, but must find the 'weak point' of the entire story," Yu Sheng nodded gently and pointed at that crude stage, "just like this stage—what do you think its true essence and 'core' are?"

Little Red Riding Hood was stunned for a moment, her expression thoughtful, but it seemed she couldn't get an answer right away.

"The answer is right before your eyes," Yu Sheng smiled, raised his hand, and pointed at his own head, "it's me."

As he spoke, he waved his hand again; the crude stage of soil and rocks then exploded apart, turning back into clumps of earth and stones, quickly merging into the ground.

Little Red Riding Hood suddenly realized what he meant, gasped sharply: "Are you saying that behind the Black Forest... there is a 'storyteller'?!"

"Not necessarily a person, but it must be a 'source'. That could be the Entity of the 'Fairy Tales', or it could be a tentacle extended from the 'Fairy Tales'," Yu Sheng said slowly and calmly, "Ever since I first entered that Black Forest, I have been searching for this 'tentacle'. Originally, this time we found the 'special cottage' at the deepest part of the forest; I thought this tentacle was there, but it turned out it wasn't; it was just a special corner of the stage. We are still wandering around the 'front' of the stage, but the thing that shaped the Black Forest is hiding behind the 'back' of the stage."

"I... never thought you would think so much," Little Red Riding Hood looked at Yu Sheng with surprise, "I have never thought about the Black Forest in this way before."

Yu Sheng smiled: "Because I am a detestable adult. Detestable adults always use this utterly uninteresting rational thinking to pierce through children's stories. The most common phrase we use is—'this is all made up by people'."

Little Red Riding Hood was stunned for a moment, then suddenly laughed too: "So that's why Fairy Tales don't like adults."

"It doesn't matter; I wasn't trying to make it 'like' me in the first place," Yu Sheng stood up, clapped his hands, "Alright, the picnic time is over; the children should go home."

(End of Chapter)