Chapter 180: Leave a Trace
Irene loosened her hand, and the unfolded "secret letter" immediately began to rise with layers of illusory flames, and then in the blink of an eye it shrank and folded into an ordinary piece of letter paper.
Yu Sheng still stared at the paper motionlessly, his brows full of solemnity and thought.
After a long while, Little Red Riding Hood's voice came from the side: "...Old Zheng...it turned out to be him..."
The girl's tone was filled with hesitation and resistance. It was obvious that she found it difficult to accept the clues in front of her, even though she came here to find out something - but now that she had really found out something, the result was not what she expected.
The sacrifice in the white hall of the museum was indeed a trap set for her, and the one who led her into this trap was indeed the "contact" she was familiar with.
Although it is not difficult to judge from the words in the secret letter, the contact person called "Lao Zheng" was probably also bewitched and deceived.
"The signature is 'Servant of the Angel'. It's obvious that the person who wrote this letter is a follower of the Dark Angel. They are the same group of people who performed the sacrificial ceremony in the white exhibition hall," Yu Sheng shook the letter in his hand and said calmly, "The reason why they use the primitive method of 'letters' to communicate is probably to use this special 'spell' to hide their actions."
"The person who received the letter must have been fooled," Irene said. "Blessings, getting rid of curses, kindness, being misunderstood by the world, etc., these are all classic lines from cults, but sometimes they really work."
Yu Sheng glanced at the expression on Little Red Riding Hood's face, thought for a moment and then said, "Judging from the contents of the letter, 'Old Zheng' actually didn't know it was a trap. He probably thought he was helping you... He might even have wanted to help you a long time ago, and because of this, he was tricked by those angel believers."
Little Red Riding Hood listened silently without saying a word. After a long while, she broke the silence by muttering, "How could someone who deals with 'strange things' and foreign lands all day long be fooled like this... How long has he been fooled?"
"...I'm afraid it took quite a while," Yu Sheng recalled the contents of the secret letter, thinking as he spoke, "The letter mentioned witnessing things with his own eyes, which means that 'Old Zheng' didn't just believe the verbal promises of the Angels, but he might have even been dragged into some rituals by the cultists, or at least come into contact with things related to the Dark Angels - before he tricked you into going to the White Exhibition Hall, he was already deeply involved."
He paused for a moment and then said, "This letter also reveals another important message... I'm afraid those guys are not targeting you personally, but the 'fairy tale' behind you."
Little Red Riding Hood said nothing, but turned her attention to the other letters and notes.
"Erin," Yu Sheng immediately responded, "Can you see if there is anything else hidden here that is similar to this letter?"
"I'll look for it." Irene agreed, sat down among the pile of things on the table, and began to rummage through them.
But after searching for a long time, she found nothing.
"That's all. The rest are just ordinary stuff, including these letters. It seems that traditional letter communication is this person's personal hobby." The doll sat on the table, dangling his legs on the edge of the table, and looked around. "I took a quick look around the room, but there's nothing worth noting."
Yu Sheng was not surprised by the little doll's answer.
It seems that those things related to the Angel Cultists had either been moved in advance or destroyed, and this last letter had not been dealt with in time.
But Yu Sheng was not discouraged. He just looked at the room more carefully and then began to check every corner of it.
The correspondence or items directly related to the Angel Cult may have been transferred or completely destroyed in advance, but this does not mean that there are no other clues left here - the contact person has obviously been deeply involved, even to the extent of actively contacting the Dark Angel, so this influence must be reflected in his daily life, changes in habits, certain traces left inadvertently, and a few words left in the diary... People always leave traces when they are alive, and it is impossible for him to clean up everything.
Little Red Riding Hood also noticed Yu Sheng's intention, and she began to check every corner of the room with him. She even summoned her wolf and asked these creatures in the shadows to check for clues that were difficult for the human eye to distinguish.
Irene also began to carefully look through the papers and books on the table - although these things were ordinary "ordinary things", clues might be hidden in these ordinary notes and messages.
At this moment, a shadow wolf suddenly stopped in the middle of the room, making a low humming sound and tapping a carpet next to the bed with its claws.
Little Red Riding Hood frowned instantly, stepped forward and lifted the carpet.
There was nothing hidden under the carpet, but on the floor, one could still barely see some traces that were difficult to distinguish.
There were some strange symbols and lines, forming a circle with a diameter of about one meter. The color was faintly dark red. They seemed to have been carefully scrubbed once, leaving only very faint marks. But perhaps because the "smear-scrubbing" process was repeated too many times, those vague outlines still remained on the floor.
"It looks like it was smeared with blood," Little Red Riding Hood frowned, carefully distinguishing the extremely faint marks on the floor. "It's a very basic spiritual ritual, but only traces of runes are left. There are no sacrifices and supporting prayers or calls. It's hard to trace what it was used to communicate specifically."
"Could it be used to communicate with the dark angel?" Yu Sheng asked curiously.
"It's hard to say," Little Red Riding Hood frowned and shook her head. "You know, I don't deal with this kind of thing. I just heard that although the angel believers claim that they have the ability to communicate with the 'messenger', in fact, most of the time they just have crazy hallucinations when they take too many drugs. The dark angels themselves don't respond to humans at all, or... their way of responding is to drive people crazy."
She paused, her expression slightly gloomy. "Old Zheng is a 'newbie' who is obviously being fooled. He uses such a basic spiritualism. It's hard to say whether he can successfully communicate with anything... It's probably just another scam prepared by the angel believers to make him mistakenly believe that he can really listen to the 'will of God'."
Yu Sheng listened without making any comment. After a moment's contemplation, he squatted down and slowly brushed his hand across the vague dark red marks.
Then he suddenly took out a knife from his pocket and cut a small cut on his hand.
Bright red blood dripped onto the floor.
Little Red Riding Hood was startled for a moment, and subconsciously reached out to stop him: "Hey, what are you doing? You can't just casually do something with an unknown purpose like this..."
The blood was absorbed by the vague dark red marks in the blink of an eye, like drops of water on a sponge.
The scream of Little Red Riding Hood from beside her suddenly faded away and turned into a long, intermittent noise.
Yu Sheng looked up and saw that everything in the room seemed to be covered with a veil. He vaguely felt as if he was trapped in a dimension that was gradually being separated from reality. Little Red Riding Hood and Irene turned into two shadows that were stagnant not far away. They seemed to be still moving slowly towards this side, but the whole process seemed to be stretched to infinity.
Yu Sheng rubbed his eyes and got up from the ground. He was somewhat surprised by the situation before him, but not too surprised - after witnessing so many strange scenes, he was extremely receptive to this kind of "sudden change of situation", and his nerves were almost as strong as pillars of his body.
Then he noticed that the vague "veil" of his surroundings seemed to gradually fade away.
The room was still the same room, but everything was stained with a layer of gray. The light from the sky coming in through the window turned into a dull pale color. Although it still looked bright, it seemed as if it could not illuminate the area outside the window no matter what.
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Yu Sheng suddenly opened his eyes wide.
He saw that in those places where the "sunlight" could not illuminate, on those gray walls and floors, words were constantly emerging.
It was as if someone’s “thoughts” were strongly projected into this strange space and time. Yu Sheng saw those words constantly emerging and spreading in all directions——
“I want to help them...
"I went to the orphanage again, a few months later... and another familiar face disappeared...
"The tree planted by the last Little Red Riding Hood has grown very tall, and today a new child came to me and said she was the new Little Red Riding Hood...
"She was only fourteen years old, and she said she wanted a job...
“No one can do anything about it. The Secret Service can’t do anything about it, the Association can’t do anything about it, and I’ve collected and researched so many things that can be used to remove curses and fight dreams, but there’s still nothing I can do.
"...someone came to us and said they could help...
"They are a bit suspicious. I suspect they are related to some illegal cult, but they showed me something..."
The words extended on the floor and walls, extended in the air, and extended in Yu Sheng's field of vision, and finally even covered almost every inch of space within his sight, and then gradually faded away in silence.
A strange sound, as if something was slowly crawling, came from above.
Yu Sheng slowly raised his head and looked in the direction where the sound came from.
He saw that a hole had appeared in the ceiling of the room at some point, a circular gap corresponding to the dark red ring-shaped mark on the ground.
A low, chaotic noise came from the gap, accompanied by the strange sound of some creature moving slowly and rubbing against each other. A slender limb with strange bumps and fine lines on its surface protruded from it.
The tentacle silently expanded and contracted in the air, began to slowly move, and moved towards Yu Sheng's location little by little...
(End of this chapter)
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