Chapter 122: Ai Lin Crawls Over

Not to mention, reconnecting with Ai Lin really did make Yu Sheng breathe a sigh of relief—and although this little puppet could be a bit punchable, she had indeed brought some very useful information with this contact.

The real-world him was still “dreaming,” but it was clearly different from a normal dream. Ai Lin believed his consciousness was “lost,” which meant…

Yu Sheng raised his head and looked around the cozy log cabin, then through the window at the vast darkness outside.

This “forest”… was a “mental space” that existed somewhere. It was complete and sealed, like a trap, pulling the dreamer’s spirit inside while cutting off contact with the outside world.

Thinking about it that way, Ai Lin seemed pretty impressive—she’d actually managed to track him down under these conditions?

All kinds of thoughts flashed through Yu Sheng’s mind. Meanwhile, Ai Lin finished rattling off her string of complaints and finally got to business. “Yu Sheng, what the hell is going on over there? How did you suddenly get ‘lost’ in one nap? Where exactly is your consciousness now?”

“…I’m in a black forest. If I’m right, it’s Little Red Riding Hood’s black forest.”

Ai Lin was a bit bewildered. “…What do you mean, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’s black forest’?”

“It’s complicated to explain, but to put it simply, back at the museum, I got bitten by that wolf that came out of Little Red Riding Hood’s shadow, right? Now it seems I’ve established a connection with her,” Yu Sheng said, organizing his words as best he could. “Little Red Riding Hood once said that ‘fairy tales’ are a foreign land, and her power is a curse. The place I’m in right now should be what trapped her…”

Yu Sheng told Ai Lin everything that had happened on his end, including being hunted by the invisible wolf and meeting a talking squirrel—but of course, he left out the details of the “temptations” he’d seen along the way.

“You mean… you’re with a squirrel right now?” Ai Lin was dumbfounded. The puppet girl probably never imagined that going upstairs to sleep could be this eventful. “So what’s the situation outside that cabin of yours? Is it safe over there? Can you get out on your own?”

“It’s quiet outside now, but I can feel eyes on me. Those wolves are gathered in the black forest,” Yu Sheng said, glancing out the window. “But I don’t think it’s a big deal. The cabin seems pretty safe for now, and if things really go south, I should be able to run out… Even though I don’t understand the principle, I can still ‘open doors’ normally in this ‘dream’.”

Ai Lin went “oh,” and then a few seconds later, her voice came through again. “Do you have a picture frame or a canvas or something over there?”

Instinctively, Yu Sheng looked around. “No… why do you ask?”

“I want to see if I can ‘crawl’ over to your side,” Ai Lin said. “You’re not in your own dream right now, so I can’t get there directly. I need a medium, like the coordinates you use when you open doors. If you don’t have a picture frame or canvas, do you have something to draw with? A pen and paper, anything will do.”

Yu Sheng got up and searched the cabin. In the end, he found a few black chunks of charcoal by the fireplace.

The squirrel stood on the table, holding a large acorn, watching Yu Sheng’s movements with a baffled expression. Finally, it couldn’t help asking, “What are you doing?”

Without looking up, Yu Sheng said, “I have a friend who wants to come see me.”

The squirrel was stunned. “…What?”

But Yu Sheng didn’t explain. Instead, he told Ai Lin about the situation on his end. “There’s nothing here. I only found some charcoal…”

To his surprise, the puppet immediately replied, “That’s fine. Draw a frame on the floor.”

Yu Sheng: “How is it that every time you settle for something less, you end up even less than before?!”

“This is a matter of expediency!” Ai Lin was quite open-minded about it. “Rituals are all about the process. Especially rituals in dreams—what matters most is sincerity. Even if you’re not sincere, it still works as long as there’s some symbolic meaning to create direction…”

“…‘Sincerity matters most; even if you’re not sincere, it still works’?!” Yu Sheng had a bellyful of complaints stuck in his throat, but he still picked up a piece of charcoal and went to the open space in the middle of the cabin. He drew a frame on the floor as Ai Lin had instructed. “Alright, the frame is drawn. Now what?”

“Then draw a stunningly beautiful, cute, elegant, mature lady—one that looks like me.”

Yu Sheng didn’t say a word. He just stood there silently.

Ai Lin’s voice immediately dropped by an octave. “…If you can’t make it that pretty, at least try to make it look like me.”

Yu Sheng continued to remain silent.

The puppet surrendered. “…A humanoid form. Write my name underneath it, using the letters I taught you.”

“That’s more like it,” Yu Sheng finally lowered his head and began sketching Ai Lin’s outline and true name inside the charcoal-drawn frame. As he drew, he muttered to himself, “You know my practical skills. You shouldn’t have made such an unreasonable request from the start…”

The squirrel, who had been watching Yu Sheng’s actions with curiosity, was now completely stunned. Seeing him drawing on the floor and writing some strange runic letters, the squirrel suddenly shrieked, “Hey hey, you! What are you doing?! Is that… witchcraft?! I’m warning you, don’t mess around! There are already enough deadly things in the black forest…”

“I told you, a friend is coming,” Yu Sheng said without looking up. “Don’t worry, it’s not some evil witchcraft. It’s just that my friend happens to be sealed inside a cursed oil painting, so I need a special method to summon her.”

Upon hearing that, the squirrel almost choked. Its big tail slapped the table as it jumped up and down, but it clearly didn’t dare to interfere.

Just then, Yu Sheng completed all the steps of this crude “painting.”

The squirrel, which had been bouncing around on the table, suddenly stopped.

It stared at Yu Sheng’s creation with its jet-black eyes, and its face actually showed a human-like expression of relief.

“Damn, you scared me. I thought you were some evil wizard practicing black magic. Turns out you’re into abstract art—something this ugly, what could you possibly summon…”

A shimmer suddenly rippled across the surface of the crude “painting” on the floor.

The squirrel bit its tongue and cut off the rest of its sentence.

A solemn, antique oil painting gradually rose from the shimmer. As the charcoal lines on the floor rapidly dissolved and evaporated, the painting fully materialized in the air.

It floated before Yu Sheng and the squirrel. Ai Lin stood proudly inside the frame, hands on her hips. “Yu Sheng! I’m here to help you!”

The squirrel let out a “kwa” and fainted on the spot, lying on its back with its tail twitching.

Seeing this, Yu Sheng quickly rushed over and poked the squirrel awake. “Hey, hey! What’s wrong with you?”

The squirrel slowly came to, and when it saw the oil painting floating unsteadily behind Yu Sheng, with the gothic puppet leaning forward curiously, it shuddered again, its tail curling up. “…Witches these days really aren’t picky, are they? They can summon something even if it looks like a wild goblin drawn by a child…”

“Is this the squirrel you mentioned?” Ai Lin looked at the “little animal” with interest, then turned her gaze to Yu Sheng. “It’s actually pretty interesting. It has a red cloth tied around it. By the way, what does it mean by ‘wild goblin’?”

“Ahem, I guess it’s a local specialty of the black forest… Never mind that. Let me introduce you first,” Yu Sheng quickly coughed to change the subject. He pointed at the puppet girl in the frame and said to the squirrel, “This is my friend. Her name is Ai Lin—and she’s also a friend of Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Hello,” Ai Lin greeted the squirrel politely, then added, “Actually, we also have a fox, another friend of Little Red Riding Hood’s, but she can’t come in. She’s only watching outside.”

The squirrel listened dumbfounded. Suddenly, it raised its paws and scratched its face frantically, then began pacing nervously in circles on the table. “What’s going on? What’s going on? This has never happened before… Nothing like this has ever happened in the black forest. Strange. It’s getting strange…”

“Um…” Ai Lin saw this and leaned close to Yu Sheng’s ear to whisper, “This squirrel doesn’t seem quite right in the head?”

“It’s always been like this. It was jittery from the moment we met. It even smokes,” Yu Sheng whispered back. “But think about it—a talking squirrel. What do you expect to be normal?”

The squirrel, which had been pacing on the table, suddenly stopped. Maybe it had heard their whispering. It looked up sharply and pointed at itself. “I’m a squirrel.”

Ai Lin was startled and nodded blankly. “Uh, I can see that. You’re a squirrel.”

“Does Little Red Riding Hood have a lot of friends?” the squirrel asked quickly, its eyes fixed on the puppet in the frame. “Lots of strange, seemingly capable friends like you who can run into the black forest?”

“This… I’m not sure how many friends she has. We haven’t known each other long, so I haven’t met her other friends yet,” Ai Lin hesitated, but then immediately became smug. “But if you’re talking about capability, we’re awesome! I’m a puppet from Alice’s Cabin! And we have a fox who can shoot her tail out—when she goes full form, she takes up two parking spaces…”

But the squirrel didn’t seem to be really listening to what Ai Lin said after that. It suddenly became happy, scurrying rapidly around the table, muttering to itself, “The important thing is that you can run into the black forest. You can get in… That means she doesn’t have to walk down the path alone… This has never happened in the black forest. Yes, never happened, something outside the rules. An ‘accident.’ With an accident, there’s a chance. Maybe…”

Yu Sheng frowned at this and exchanged a glance with Ai Lin.