Chapter 166 Gunshots
Creatures with small brains really have poor receptive abilities - the neurotic squirrel went crazy the moment it saw Yu Sheng and his group, threw down its acorns and began jumping and screaming in the bushes. Its palm-sized body made almost the same noise as Irene, and it kept yelling things like "this is weird", "where the hell did they come from", "is this still Little Red Riding Hood".
Finally, Little Red Riding Hood couldn't stand it anymore. She stepped forward and grabbed the squirrel that was about to jump off the branch. She held it close to her and said fiercely, "Be quiet! Or I'll throw you into the thorn bush!"
The squirrel stared at Little Red Riding Hood with his eyes wide open and his body tense. He then looked up in the direction of Yu Sheng and the other two. Then he stretched his neck, tilted his head, and fainted with a "click".
Yu Sheng: “…”
Irene was shocked when she saw this scene: "What the hell is this? It's so useless... Are you scared to death?"
However, as soon as she finished speaking, the squirrel woke up slowly. It struggled hard in Little Red Riding Hood's hands. After confirming the situation, it seemed to finally calm down a little, but it still couldn't help muttering: "Is something big going to happen... Is this still the Black Forest? How did such a large group of people appear... None of them look like the new Little Red Riding Hood?"
"Hello..." Hu Li bravely walked over and greeted the squirrel politely, "My name is Hu Li."
"This is Irene on my shoulder." Yu Sheng also walked over carrying Irene, grinning at the squirrel with a bright and sunny smile, "We meet again, little squirrel."
"Yes, we meet again. Of course the squirrel remembers you. I don't know how you got in here, 'adult'... You brought in more weird guys. I'm confused, I'm confused," the squirrel crawled out of Little Red Riding Hood's hands and climbed onto her shoulders while mumbling nervously, "The Black Forest won't be happy. The Black Forest doesn't like troublemakers... You are disobedient and you will be in big trouble. Run away, you have to run away..."
"What a coincidence," Yu Sheng heard the squirrel's mumbling, and a happy smile appeared on his face, "We are here to make the Black Forest 'unhappy'."
The squirrel looked at Yu Sheng blankly, as if he couldn't understand what he meant.
Yu Sheng did not explain anything, but slightly restrained the smile on his face, and then walked towards the faint light in the woods in the distance and said calmly: "Do you know where to find the 'Hunter'?"
The squirrel made a high-pitched, puzzled sound: "Hunter? What do you want a hunter for?"
"I'm going to ask him about something," Yu Sheng said casually, and then immediately added, "Don't ask anything else, just tell me where to find him."
"It's not safe. It's not safe for you to go find the hunter like this..." The squirrel looked very nervous. "The hunter has a gun and will shoot anything that looks like a wolf. Little Red Riding Hood already looks like a wolf... If you're not careful, you'll be treated as prey, especially tonight, tonight..."
Yu Sheng's steps slowed down for a moment, and his eyes changed slightly: "Tonight? What happened tonight?"
The squirrel nervously grasped the hood of Little Red Riding Hood’s coat. It seemed hesitant, but under Yu Sheng’s gaze, it finally shrank its neck in fear. “Since yesterday, the Black Forest has been unstable. Wolves have gone crazy, some areas are disappearing, and there was a big explosion… The situation tonight may be worse… The hunter becomes unstable when the Black Forest is unstable. He wanders around, angry and dangerous, sometimes more dangerous than wolves…”
Yu Sheng was silent for a while.
Irene reached out and poked the back of his head: "Why do I feel like this has something to do with you?"
Yu Sheng stiffened his neck and said sternly: "...This is all part of the plan."
"What are you talking about?" The squirrel raised his upper body and looked at Yu Sheng and Irene with a puzzled look.
"Nothing," Yu Sheng shook his head with a stern face, and then quickly diverted the other party's attention. "Don't worry about anything else. Just take me to find the 'Hunter'. Whether we can deal with each other is my business. At worst, you can just run away, just like last time."
"You are such a fool!" The squirrel waved his paws anxiously, but soon lowered his tail and hid half of his body in Little Red Riding Hood's hood again. "Well, well, you asked for it... Go find the hunter. Wherever there is Grandma Wolf, there is the hunter. No matter where he was wandering before, as long as Grandma Wolf appears, he will definitely come."
"Okay, this piece of information is enough. It's pretty much what I expected."
Yu Sheng nodded and continued walking towards the lights in the distance.
Irene was a little confused - she was not familiar with the rules of the Black Forest, so she couldn't help but ask curiously: "Do you know where to find the 'wolf grandmother'?"
"A cabin," answered Little Red Riding Hood, who was walking beside her. "There are paths illuminated by street lamps in the Black Forest. At the end of the path, you can usually find a cabin. There are usually two situations in the cabin - one is a safe empty room, and the other is where the 'Grandma Wolf' is hiding. By the way, under normal circumstances, I should hide in the cabin with the 'Grandma Wolf'."
Irene listened carefully to Little Red Riding Hood's story and suddenly noticed a word she used: "'Usually' there are two situations? What about 'unusually'?"
"...There is another situation. There is no Grandma Wolf in the hut, but when you hide in the hut, Grandma Wolf will knock on the door." Little Red Riding Hood paused. Her tone was still calm, but there was a hint of fear in her eyes. "This situation is the most dangerous. The opportunity to escape is only a split second. I was caught a few times... when Grandma Wolf knocked on the door."
She paused here, and exhaled after a moment: "And the 'fourth situation' that Yu Sheng and I encountered recently: a small house that is not connected to any trails, stands alone in the depths of the forest, and has no lights. The house is full of red cloaks."
Irene reacted immediately: "Ah, I know that, it's the one you met last time."
Yu Sheng noticed that the squirrel hiding in the hood of Little Red Riding Hood instantly shrank back when it heard the words "a small house with no lights" and "covered with red cloaks". When it poked its head out a moment later, its little black eyes were full of fear.
He walked over and looked the squirrel straight in the eye: "Why are you so afraid of that unlit cabin?"
The squirrel's body trembled noticeably, and it screamed like it was begging for mercy: "I don't know! The squirrel knows nothing!"
Yu Sheng frowned tightly.
"Don't push it," Little Red Riding Hood sighed, interrupting Yu Sheng's next questioning. "If it reacts like this, then we won't be able to get anything out of it. When the pressure reaches a certain level, it will faint again."
"Yes, yes, yes," the squirrel shouted immediately, "Little Red Riding Hood and the squirrel are friends! Best friends!"
"Yes, and he's not a very reliable friend." Yu Sheng frowned and muttered, but he didn't ask any more questions. He just continued to walk forward, while paying attention to the squirrel's every move.
The path appeared in the group's sight.
The winding forest path is illuminated by fantastical street lamps. The path leads deep into the forest, and the scene at the end is shrouded in darkness. The limited illumination range of the street lamps outlines a clear "boundary" on both sides of the path. The malice of the Black Forest retreats temporarily where the lights reach, and the path is filled with a safe atmosphere.
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The moment I stepped onto the trail, the malice and sense of surveillance that had always been following me retreated temporarily, and even the occasional howling of wolves around me seemed to fade away all of a sudden.
"Wow... this is quite interesting." Irene immediately noticed the change in the surrounding "atmosphere". She opened her eyes wide and looked at the "light balls" floating in the air in surprise. "But this doesn't look like the 'special safety zone' in ordinary foreign lands... The stability of this path seems to be maintained by these lights?"
"Is there any difference?" Yu Sheng didn't react for a moment, "Aren't they all safe areas?"
"It's different," Irene shook her head. "In ordinary foreign lands, a 'specific safety zone' refers to an area that is inherently stable. Even if the area moves or disappears over time, as long as it is within a specified time and range, the safety zone will not be affected by dangerous things such as entities. Here, it's more like a temporary safety barrier formed by 'strange objects'. With these lights, the path is safe. Without the lights, this place should be unsafe again. In other words, what is safe here is not the path, but the street lights. This is not a safe zone, but a safe object."
Yu Sheng listened very carefully and followed the little puppet's thoughts without much effort.
He found that he really had to bring this doll with him when exploring foreign lands - although she was not very reliable in most cases, in the field of mysticism, her observation perspective and her sometimes effective and sometimes ineffective experience and intuition might really play a role.
But at this moment, his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a voice coming from outside the path.
"Bang!"
It was a gunshot.
The dull, abrupt sound of shotgun fire.
Several people who were walking on the path suddenly stopped and looked at each other when the gunshot was heard.
The squirrel came out from Little Red Riding Hood's hood and rubbed his paws nervously: "The hunter shot... The hunter shot..."
"My benefactor, the sound came from this direction," Hu Li tugged at Yu Sheng's sleeve and pointed to a certain direction outside the path. Her ears trembled sensitively in the air, and she slightly adjusted the angle of her large auricles. "It's about one or two hundred meters away."
As soon as Hu Li finished speaking, another gunshot was heard.
"Bang!"
Still from the same direction, a second gunshot was heard.
(End of this chapter)
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