Chapter 98: Sacrifice and Contamination

“My wolf is me myself.”

Yu Sheng felt that when Little Red Riding Hood said this, there seemed to be a hint of very complex emotion hidden in her expression, but he couldn’t quite read it.

All he could sense was that the atmosphere around her at that moment was somewhat low and oppressive—it seemed that “the wolf is me” wasn’t a good thing at all.

If the timing and mood weren’t so off, he would definitely have pressed for details. But even though he didn’t ask now, Yu Sheng still tucked this curiosity about Little Red Riding Hood and her wolves into the back of his mind, ready to inquire properly once he got to know her better or when another opportunity arose.

And now, his gaze shifted back to the white exhibition hall at the end of the corridor.

Even he could faintly smell a trace of blood in the air now.

The “security guards” would only react to the intruder himself. They had only vision, no hearing or smell. These guards were actually very rigid, acting strictly according to rules, with plenty of loopholes…

A thoughtful expression gradually appeared on Yu Sheng’s face.

Little Red Riding Hood lowered her voice and spoke again: “So, should we retreat first? We can come back tomorrow…”

“No,” Eileen suddenly interrupted her. “Look at Yu Sheng’s expression.”

Little Red Riding Hood turned her head in confusion and glanced at him: “What’s with his expression?”

“He’s got another idea.” Eileen let out a sigh.

As soon as the puppet finished speaking, before Little Red Riding Hood could even ask, Yu Sheng had already finished his train of thought. He turned his head and looked at the fox girl standing beside him: “You guys tell me—does Hu Li’s tail count as part of ‘herself’?”

Everyone present was stunned. Little Red Riding Hood didn’t react at first; her mouth moved ahead of her brain: “Of course it does—it’s something that grows on her…”

“But her tail can be launched out,” Yu Sheng said very seriously. “Strictly speaking, they’re all magic artifacts she refined—and the kind that can be reloaded.”

Little Red Riding Hood stood frozen with her mouth open, her brain finally catching up.

The next second, she stared at Yu Sheng in shock: “Wait! What are you planning to do?”

“Just give it a try. If those plastic men actually get triggered, we can open the door and leave,” Yu Sheng said with an adventurous spirit. “Didn’t you say those ‘security guards’ only have vision? As long as we block their line of sight without being seen, it’ll be fine…”

Then, ignoring Little Red Riding Hood’s shocked gaze, he turned to the still-confused fox girl and explained: “I have a plan that needs your tail…”

“Wait, wait,” Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t help interrupting halfway through. “Didn’t you say there are at least seven or eight ‘security guards’ in that exhibition hall? Hu Li already launched two tails earlier—are the remaining ones enough?”

As she said this, she felt a strange sense of dissonance—like a normal person’s worldview being forcibly shattered and reassembled to accommodate the abnormal. But just after she finished speaking, she realized she’d been too early in feeling strange.

Hu Li had already understood what Yu Sheng meant. She reached back, casually pulled two tails from behind her, and laid them flat on the ground. Then she pulled two more and arranged them on the floor as well. When there were almost no tails left behind her, the demon fox looked back, paused for two or three seconds, and then—with a *vroom* like a fine blade being drawn from its sheath—nine more tails sprouted from behind her.

Little Red Riding Hood: “…?”

“She’s been stockpiling them,” Eileen said with the air of someone who’d been through it, patting Little Red Riding Hood’s arm with her nimble body. “She usually eats a lot—that’s how she stores up tails.”

Little Red Riding Hood’s face was still full of question marks: “…?”

She understood every word individually, so how had they formed such an obscure sentence? Was that even human speech she’d just heard?!

At that moment, Hu Li was even pointing at the tails on the ground and introducing them: “This one cost twenty chicken legs, this one cost ten…”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression was vacant, and she had no idea how her brain was keeping up (or if it even was): “Because the second one is half off?”

“Because this one can only accelerate to subsonic speed—it’s a subsonic cruise tail,” Hu Li looked at Little Red Riding Hood with a strange expression. “Matter and energy are proportional—don’t you have common sense?”

Little Red Riding Hood considered whether she should give herself another shot of sanity suppressant.

By now, the “very commonsensical” fox girl had neatly arranged all the tails ready for use—fluffy fox tails floating a few centimeters above the ground, as if resting on the surface, each one trailing faint, eerie foxfire. They emitted a light trembling sound, like… rocket boosters fueled up and ready to launch.

The moment that comparison popped into her head, Little Red Riding Hood felt that her life was ruined—she had probably already been influenced by the trio from the Inn, and her brain was starting to malfunction.

Dealing with physical entities was dangerous—even someone like Yu Sheng, who seemed harmless, was no exception.

At the same time, Hu Li gently raised her hand.

The silver-white fox tails surrounded by eerie foxfire slowly rose into the air.

These refined treasures could normally fly at subsonic or even supersonic speeds, but now, under the demon fox’s careful control, they moved through the museum corridor with a slow, cautious, almost sentient grace.

“If those ‘security guards’ don’t react, we’ll block their line of sight and go in to check the situation. If they suddenly move, we’ll grab whatever’s in the center of the exhibition hall and pull back as fast as possible, then open the door and leave,” Yu Sheng said, watching the fox girl’s high-precision control while reaching into the air. A faint, illusory door took shape in his hand. “I’ll get the door ready. You give me the signal.”

“Mm,” Hu Li nodded a little nervously, guiding her fox tails to cautiously poke into the white exhibition hall.

Only Little Red Riding Hood was still looking wooden. She felt she should be nervous—the atmosphere called for it—but she just couldn’t muster it, because the atmosphere had gotten so bizarre that her brain couldn’t keep up with her worldview, and her worldview couldn’t keep up with her senses. There was a glitchy feeling in her heart.

Even her wolf had been frozen in a daze since a moment ago.

“They didn’t move…” At that moment, Hu Li finally broke the silence. A trace of joy appeared on her face. “I tried blocking their line of sight all at once… I think it worked.”

Only then did Yu Sheng finally breathe a slight sigh of relief.

The illusory door silently dissipated in his hand.

After receiving another confirmation from Hu Li, he waved to the others: “Let’s go over and check it out.”

The group walked with mixed feelings toward the white exhibition hall, now eerily quiet.

Their tense nerves peaked at the sight of the dark blue security uniforms, then gradually relaxed as the plastic mannequins remained motionless.

Everyone’s eyes immediately fell on those “security guards.” Little Red Riding Hood was the first to spot the one standing by the main entrance, seemingly guarding the passage—a mannequin in a dark blue uniform, standing still, with its head completely wrapped in a silver-white fox tail.

It was a beautiful tail—on the demon fox, it looked like a light, airy piece of art. But now, wrapped around the plastic mannequin’s head, it felt like… a grotesque and sinister cocoon.

Then she heard Yu Sheng’s low exclamation: “…Holy shit.”

Little Red Riding Hood whipped her head around and followed Yu Sheng’s gaze to the center of the exhibition hall.

That was where the “Weeping One” statue should have been.

But now, there was no statue on that platform—only a bizarre and horrifying corpse: a man, bound tightly to the table with iron thorns covered in spikes, tied into a posture of kneeling in sorrow, hands covering his face.

The posture was exactly the same as the “Weeping One” statue mentioned in the files.

The victim’s blood had already drained; he appeared to have been dead for a while. There was no sign of the killer nearby, only the pungent smell of blood filling the entire exhibition hall.

Yu Sheng felt his heart clench. He wasn’t unfamiliar with death—after all, he had died suddenly more than once—but this was the first time he had witnessed such a horrific scene from a third-party perspective. And what struck him even more than the scene itself…

Was the intense atmosphere of a sacrifice that permeated it.

The victim had been bled to death by iron thorns binding him, deliberately posed to replicate the “Weeping One” sculpture in a sacrificial position. Blood flowed from the platform, the white exhibition hall was contaminated, and around the sacrificial victim stood the plastic mannequins, silent and motionless.

This was a different kind of “horror” from Entity-Hunger.

“Little Red Riding Hood, do you know…”

Yu Sheng instinctively turned to ask the only “experienced person” present if she understood what was going on, but suddenly noticed that the girl in red seemed off.

She was staring intently at the sacrificial victim on the platform, her eyes—unknowingly—turning as blood-red as those of her shadow wolves. A low, murmuring sound came from her throat, and fine fuzz was sprouting from her cheeks and the backs of her hands.

The next second, Yu Sheng saw the shadow behind Little Red Riding Hood suddenly stretch and grow. A huge beast emerged from that shadow—it stood upright, like a wolf wrapped in human skin, or a wolf that had devoured a human and now possessed human bones and contours. This hybrid of man and wolf charged out of the shadow without a roar, without warning, without any meaningless intimidation—just a direct pounce.

But not at Yu Sheng—straight at Little Red Riding Hood, who remained completely unresponsive.

It was hard for anyone to dodge an attack from their own shadow.