Chapter 223 Defects
Yu Sheng woke up from the endless darkness and chaotic vision, opened his eyes in the dim bedroom, and then sat up suddenly... but didn't sit up.
Two Irenes sat on his arms, one on the left and one on the right, and there was a rebar sitting on his chest, and there was a Hu Li lying on the bedside, staring at him with eyes wide open. The latter's two big eyes glowed with golden red in the dim light, looking quite demonic.
Yu Sheng almost couldn't catch his breath and waved his hand to try to pull Rebar Irene down: "You agreed not to jump onto the bed suddenly. Why did you get on again? Don't you know how heavy this body is..."
The little doll stared with scarlet eyes: "I didn't jump up suddenly, I climbed up slowly."
Yu Sheng finally sat up after much effort. The dizziness in his head had not yet faded away, and he subconsciously said, "What are you doing here? You are gathering around like you are paying homage to the dead..."
Before he could finish his words, Irene nodded: "Yes, to pay her respects to the deceased."
Yu Sheng: “……?”
"My benefactor, you were completely breathless for half an hour just now. I think you are dead," Hu Li nodded beside him and said seriously, "Then I discussed with Irene how you died. Irene said that humans are very fragile and will die suddenly if they stay up too late. So you died suddenly - but I think you were crushed to death by her sitting on your chest. Then we waited here, and wanted to ask you when you came back to life..."
Yu Sheng: "...Can you learn something reliable from Irene!"
As he spoke, he felt dizzy again. He didn't know whether it was the aftereffect of coming back to life or the effect of a rebar + stone doll sitting on his chest that almost made him die twice. Then, he gradually recovered, and the experience just now emerged in his mind -
Squirrels, huts, hunters, the shimmering black forest, Ankaela's sweeping patrol across the sky, wolves... and death.
A pair of golden red eyes approached quietly from the side. Yu Sheng subconsciously raised his head and saw Hu Li's face just a dozen centimeters in front of him. The latter looked worried: "Benefactor...what's wrong?"
"I became a 'hunter' and saw the rift leading to the back of the Black Forest - and then was killed by a pack of wolves," Yu Sheng said. He suddenly realized what was happening and stood up to look out the window. "Wait! What time is it now?!"
"It's already dark, benefactor, you've been sleeping for a long time," Hu Li was startled and quickly replied, "Irene and I went to the valley this afternoon, and the situation there is good..."
"No, no, something is going to happen. It's almost night again—" Yu Sheng said, with a strong sense of uneasiness rising in his heart. He got off the bed and spoke quickly, "Ankaela's activities are still intensifying. It is preparing for a bigger attack... Something has been overlooked, something must have been overlooked..."
The three Erins looked at each other, and one of them suddenly jumped from the bed to the bedside table next to her, looking up at Yu Sheng: "Wait, what are you talking about? Something bad is going to happen... Isn't the most dangerous night over? And Hu Li and I just went to the valley to confirm that the children are all safe..."
"But Ankaela's activity has not decreased, but increased!" Yu Sheng interrupted Irene hastily. He looked at the scarlet eyes of the puppet in the dim light. "The previous blood-giving ceremony's protective effect on the children and the valley's own 'shielding' did weaken Ankaela's 'control', but its awakening speed is actually accelerating!"
The three Irenes were stunned at the same time: "...What?!"
"I saw in the Black Forest... the Dark Angel is scanning all the subsets," Yu Sheng had quickly put on his coat and picked up his phone to send a notification to the Secret Service, then he reached out to open the door and said, "I suspect it is looking for those 'disturbed' Fairy Tale members - my shelter measures for those children are some kind of 'abduction' in Ankaela's eyes. It has noticed that the stage is losing control, but I'm not sure how much its accelerated awakening has to do with this..."
Irene listened in a daze and jumped down from the bedside table: "Hey, where are you going?"
"To the valley—you and Hu Li come with me!"
The illusory door opened out of thin air, and Yu Sheng appeared directly in the temporary camp in the valley. The bright daylight made him feel a little uncomfortable as he was still in the dim room a second ago. Then, he saw Little Red Riding Hood standing not far away, looking at him in surprise.
"Why are you here?" The girl in red walked over quickly with a smile on her face. "I heard from Irene that you were exhausted and went to sleep when you got home. We were preparing to cook dinner. Do you want to join us?"
"Is everything normal in the camp?" Yu Sheng didn't bother to respond to the other party's invitation, and asked hurriedly, "Are there any children who suddenly fell into a coma or heard or saw anything wrong?"
Little Red Riding Hood immediately noticed the solemn expression on Yu Sheng's face and became nervous as well: "No, everything is normal in the camp - what happened?"
Yu Sheng then quickly told the other party what had happened to him, and then said, "Next, I will return to the Black Forest as soon as possible and find a way to get closer to the rift - but Ankaela's activeness is a big problem. My act of 'taking you away' seems to have stimulated it, a great deal."
Little Red Riding Hood listened with a serious and nervous expression. She opened her mouth several times but didn't find a chance. Finally, she spoke hesitantly: "So... the previous 'shelter' was too hasty? We shouldn't have provoked the dark angel so much?"
"Of course we can't think like that," Yu Sheng interrupted without thinking. He was still very clear-headed about this matter. "It's not like we're the only ones taking action - those angel believers have been trying every means to promote Ankaela's awakening. When we were performing 'blood donation' on other children, the situation didn't allow us to hesitate.
"In the final analysis, although the act of 'sheltering' will stimulate Ankaela, if the shelter is not implemented, Ankaela will still wake up early. After all, those cultists are crazy enough to hold a collective self-sacrifice to stimulate their master - so we must seize this opportunity. At least we can take the initiative in our own hands."
"Yeah, I was panicking too," Little Red Riding Hood nodded quickly, frowning, "What should we do now? Ankaela has further awakened and is starting to scan all the subsets... The nightmare after that might be even more dangerous."
"So I hurried over to check the situation. It's already dark in the real world, and the Fairy Tale stage will be active again. This evening party is particularly important," Yu Sheng said seriously. "As long as the Sheltering Wasteland is still effective, getting through the nightmare won't be a problem. No matter how much Ankaela's activity is improved, it is still trapped in the foreign land of Fairy Tale. In theory, its connection with the real world has been cut off with your 'refuge'."
"I understand," Little Red Riding Hood said immediately, "I will increase the number of patrols tonight. The king is also ready, and his court wizard will monitor the entire camp non-stop."
Yu Sheng nodded.
But he still felt a vague sense of uneasiness in his heart. Even though he had confirmed that the children in the camp were fine, and even though he had arranged patrols and surveillance of the camp tonight, he still felt that something was wrong, as if something was going to go wrong.
Yu Sheng's face was solemn, and just when he felt that he seemed to have grasped something key, a rapid ring of his cell phone woke him up from his thoughts.
He frowned subconsciously, picked up the phone and saw that it was Baili Qing calling.
After the call was connected, before he could even open his mouth, the cold and brief voice of the female director came from the other side: "I found the book."
Then she paused for less than half a second and added, "We have found the same batch and edition of the book that Zhao Lele handed to Ankaela. There are several scanned images and we have sent them to you on Border Communications. Please check them out."
Yu Sheng hung up the phone. Although his mind was full of restless thoughts at this time, he immediately opened the border communication on his mobile phone and checked the private message sent by Baili Qing.
Irene and Little Red Riding Hood nearby immediately came over, and even the fox, who could hardly read, came over.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
Yu Sheng quickly found the image file mentioned by Baili Qing. After clicking it, the first thing that caught his eye was a picture scanned with a low-fidelity scanner. It was a colorful but poor-quality fairy tale book cover that looked very old. Its edges were damaged, and it was obvious at a glance that it was an archive file left over from an old book.
The cover depicts a graffiti-style forest, a winding path, and... a reddish-brown squirrel sitting on a tree stump by the roadside.
An exaggerated and funny squirrel holding a pine needle in its hand and pointing it at the title of the book.
Squirrel Knight Reads Stories with You
Yu Sheng's gaze subconsciously stayed on the squirrel. He stared at it for a long time before he took a deep breath and clicked on the next page.
That's a scanned picture of the catalog.
The first story is "Little Red Riding Hood".
The second story is "Snow White".
The third story, "Sleeping Beauty"...
Little Red Riding Hood stood nearby, staring at the content on her phone without blinking. After a moment, she whispered, "Oh, so I'm the first story..."
Yu Sheng's eyes stayed on the directory for a few seconds, then he clicked on the next page.
The poor quality printed text on the yellowed and damaged paper tells the first story, supplemented by simple illustrations and some phonetic annotations.
The entire story, including the illustrations, takes up only two pages, which is extremely concise and obviously designed for children who are just able to read storybooks independently.
Yu Sheng then turned the page and looked through the subsequent scans -
He saw jumbled printing and occasional blank spaces.
(End of this chapter)
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