Chapter 147: A Very Wild Meal

Accompanied by an earth-shaking explosion, a massive plume of fireworks shot up from the Black Forest. This light and heat was quickly swallowed by the boundless darkness of the forest, but the shock it brought was enough to silence the howling wolves echoing through the woods for a brief moment.

Yu Sheng knew that after that, the howling would soon resume, the forest would quickly heal, and the Black Forest would continue to run according to its own script and rules. The "Source" hiding behind the stage, weaving dreams, would continue to whisper in the nightmares it spun—let it whisper; he didn't care about it anymore.

Yu Sheng had already taken Hu Li through that door and returned to the valley.

"I just saw a huge commotion through the door!" Erin immediately ran over, grabbing Yu Sheng's pants and climbing up, muttering as she climbed, "You didn't start a forest fire, did you?"

"It would be great if it actually burned, but unfortunately, that little bit of firepower is far from enough to ignite a Black Forest," Yu Sheng said casually while supporting the small doll, "Don't worry, it's not time to launch a total assault on that Black Forest yet. I haven't dragged out whatever is hiding behind the stage... but soon, very soon."

Hu Li came over and tugged on Yu Sheng's sleeve, looking a bit embarrassed: "Benefactor, I'm a bit hungry. When are we going home to eat?"

Yu Sheng, who had been immersed in planning a "Cyber Fox Immortal Beats Up Children's Literature" campaign for the Black Forest, was reminded by Hu Li and quickly pulled out his phone to check: "Ah, now that you mention it, it really is almost mealtime. This place has no change in sky color; I accidentally forgot the time..."

"Ah, you're not doing other experiments?" Erin, sitting on Yu Sheng's shoulder, asked curiously, "Didn't you say opening the door to the Black Forest was just the first test?"

Yu Sheng hesitated, rubbing his forehead, and sighed after a moment: "I was going to try again on how to construct a door that could stay open continuously without me personally maintaining it, but let's save that for next time—opening the door to the Black Forest failed a few times and left me dizzy. I'm not messing around today."

Erin was deeply moved: "It's rare; you have a time when you're tired of messing around too."

Yu Sheng ignored the doll on his shoulder and pulled out his phone to dial Bai Liqing's number: "... Yes, it's me. My experiments are done here. Thanks to the duty staff... Hmm, I'll let you know in advance next time we do this. By the way, there might be one or two signal bursts later; that's just the noise of me opening the door to go home. Nothing else, I'll hang up now. Bye."

Erin looked utterly bewildered: "You're getting more and more skilled now; you don't even give the other person a chance to curse in their heart?"

Yu Sheng casually ruffled the head of the incessantly beeping doll, then turned to look at the fox girl beside him: "Tonight we'll eat something fresh—you let that big gray wolf out of your tail first. I'll process it; that thing is too big for the kitchen at home..."

Hearing this, Hu Li's drool was about to fall. She immediately followed Yu Sheng's instructions to release the massive wolf corpse hidden in her tail, and then conveniently pulled out a cleaver, a machete, a wok, two soup pots, two spatulas, a cutting board, cooking wine, soy sauce, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, and a bucket of peanut oil...

Yu Sheng, who was just about to open a door to go home and fetch things, saw the items Hu Li had released and his eyes went straight. It took him a long while to react: "When did you bring all these things with you?!"

Hu Li lowered her head embarrassedly: "Just when I went out; I casually stuffed them away."

Yu Sheng: "... You casually stuffed away the entire kitchen when you went out?!"

"No, no!" Hu Li quickly waved her hands to explain, "I didn't take the gas stove..."

"Nonsense! It's connected to the pipes! You'd want to take that!" Yu Sheng discovered that humans indeed laugh when they are at the limit of speechlessness, and he quickly realized another thing: "Wait, if that's the case... every time you go out with me, you actually take the kitchen with you?!"

Hu Li nodded repeatedly: "Mm-hmm."

"Then every time you go home, you rush into the kitchen before me... is it to put things back?"

Hu Li continued: "Mm-hmm."

Yu Sheng's expression was a bit dazed: "... Why?"

"I thought... what if we need it," the fox girl stuck out her tongue, muttering softly, "What if we need to cook outside, like for a picnic or something... and look, we used it this time, didn't we?"

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, wanting to remind the fox that a "picnic" wasn't supposed to be this wild, that it was a bit too wild, but after thinking it over carefully, he suddenly felt that this actually wasn't bad.

Look at this place: blue sky, green fields, green mountains, and green waters. While the real world outside was almost completely dark, this side still looked bright and sunny. In such a place with a gentle breeze, lush grass, and a vast expanse of heaven and earth... how could we not roast a wolf grandmother to liven things up?

As an after-party for exploring the Black Forest, leading his gang to dismember a wolf grandmother in the base camp was simply too fitting.

So Yu Sheng immediately controlled the rocks beneath his feet to set up a temporary table and stove on the platform, instructed the fox girl to set up the temporary kitchen, then picked up the cleaver and the bone-chopping knife to start attempting to dismember the massive wolf corpse. While busy, he muttered with some emotion: "It's a pity, Little Red Riding Hood and Xiao Xiao have already gone back. Otherwise, I'd definitely drag them both to taste this..."

Erin stood on the stove built temporarily from stones, hands on her hips: "You're not afraid of scaring people sick!"

"What do you know? The best way to conquer fear is to face it directly. Is there a more thorough 'facing' than eating it?" Yu Sheng raised his eyelids and glanced at the small doll, "As for you, stop showing off up there, or you'll fall into the pot later."

Erin made a face at him, didn't come down, and continued to walk around on the stove, while curiously observing how Yu Sheng dismantled the corpse, which was two or three times larger than an ordinary wolf.

And halfway through his work, Yu Sheng suddenly discovered a problem.

"Wait, there's no fire here." He raised his head and looked around; all he could see was a bare wilderness. Although there was quite a bit of green land in the valley now, it was still far from trees growing, let alone expecting to find any firewood—forget about gas and such. At least for now, Yu Sheng couldn't think of how to connect the gas pipe from 66 Wutong Road to this Star X Valley...

But as soon as he finished speaking, Hu Li walked over: "It's okay, Benefactor, I have fire."

While speaking, the fox girl casually pulled a tail from behind her, then rubbed the silver-white furry thing against the stove twice, like striking a match, and a burst of fox fire suddenly "whooshed" up from the tip of her tail.

"Here for you." She smiled happily and brightly, holding her burning tail out to Yu Sheng.

Yu Sheng: "... Can this thing be used for cooking?!"

"Yes, just control the power output. High power can be used for steelmaking; low power can be used for warming up."

"... Then just stick it in the stove first and boil a pot of water."

"Oh," Hu Li nodded, then walked towards the stove with her tail, but halfway there she turned back, "Benefactor, should I fish Erin out of the pot first?"

Hearing this, Yu Sheng quickly turned his head and saw the small doll, soaking wet, climbing out of the large soup pot with hands and feet, and he was instantly stunned: "Whoa, when did you fall in?!"

"Just when Hu Li was striking the fire; I got distracted and fell in... No laughing! No laughing, you two, did you hear me?!"

It was a peaceful night—long overdue, calm, and relaxing.

Little Red Riding Hood hadn't slept a full night like today in a long time.

With adulthood approaching, her sleep had been decreasing, and now her daily sleeping time had shrunk to only about two hours. During these two short hours of sleep, she spent almost all of it amidst the terror and malice of the Black Forest—she couldn't remember how long such days had lasted; the erosion of the Black Forest had confused her judgment of time. In her dreams, she even felt that her life had been like this from the very beginning.

But today, she fell asleep early, then rose and fell in a series of light and peaceful dreams.

She vaguely knew she was dreaming. She wandered through scenes she had seen in daily life, through her school memories from her early years, through the corridors and courtyards of the orphanage. She drifted in a light dream, seeing neither the tree shadows that blocked the sky nor the howls surrounding her; only occasionally would she see those familiar, close wolf shadows walking relaxedly with her.

Then, in who knew which dream, she saw herself walking into a small alley.

It was an alley in the old town district, somewhat familiar, as if she had been there not long ago.

She didn't remember why she was going there; she only saw herself walking quickly through the alley with the wolf pack.

She saw her wolf discover something, growling uneasily ahead. She saw herself walking quickly to the depths of the alley, seeing a figure lying on the ground, with blood everywhere and a familiar face.

Deep in the dream, Little Red Riding Hood's eyes widened.

She saw Yu Sheng lying quietly in the alley, the dead Yu Sheng—a large hole torn in his chest, the rain frog having taken his heart.

A moment of terror and panic seized the girl's mind. She stood in the dream, bewildered, watching that familiar person who had died before her eyes long ago. Then suddenly, she saw that night-dark forest again, seeing Yu Sheng fall under the attack of the Entity-Hunger.

She saw blood spreading out, spreading onto herself.

Little Red Riding Hood suddenly opened her eyes, gasping for air in large gulps.

The light outside the window was already bright.

A head poked out from the top bunk. Rapunzel stared at her with wide eyes. After a long while, she spoke incredulously: "You slept all night yesterday! You haven't slept so soundly in a long time!"

Little Red Riding Hood did not speak; she was still just gasping for air. After a long time, she finally calmed down, but her eyes still looked a bit dazed.

The Princess with long hair noticed her strange state and immediately grew tense: "What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare? Or... did you enter the Black Forest again?"

"... No," Little Red Riding Hood hesitated, slowly shaking her head. "I just... suddenly remembered some things, things I can't believe. Long Hair, things are getting strange."

"Huh?"

(End of this chapter)