Erin let go, and the unfolded "secret message" immediately burst into layers of illusory flames, then in the blink of an eye, shrank and folded into an unremarkable piece of paper.

Yu Sheng, however, remained motionless, staring at the paper, his brows furrowed with seriousness and contemplation.

After a while, Little Red Riding Hood's voice came from beside him: "…Old Zheng… it really is him..."

The girl's tone carried hesitation and resistance; evidently, she found the clues before her difficult to accept. Though she came here wanting to uncover something, it turned out the discoveries were not what she had hoped for.

The sacrificial trap in the museum's white hall was indeed set for her, and it was set in motion by the "contact" she was familiar with.

Despite the clear words in the secret message, it was not hard to judge that the contact known as "Old Zheng" was likely deceived and misled.

"The signature is Angel's Servant. Clearly, the ones who wrote this letter are the followers of the Dark Angel, the same group who conducted the sacrificial ritual in the white hall," Yu Sheng said calmly, shaking the piece of paper in his hand. "The reason they used such an 'ancient method' to communicate is also to hide their tracks with this special 'spell'."

"The recipient of the letter was undoubtedly fully duped," Erin added from beside him. "Blessings, getting rid of curses, good intentions, being misunderstood by the world—all classic cult talk, but sometimes it really works."

Yu Sheng glanced at Little Red Riding Hood's expression and, after a brief consideration, said, "Judging from the content, 'Old Zheng' didn't know it was a trap. He probably thought he was helping you... he might have wanted to help you for a long time and got ensnared by those Angel Sect members because of that."

Little Red Riding Hood listened silently, not saying a word for a long time until she murmured, breaking the silence, "A person who deals with 'Mysterious Objects' and the Exotic Realm daily, how could he fall for this... how long has he been deceived?"

"...Probably for quite a while," Yu Sheng thought, recalling the contents of the secret message. "The letter mentioned witnessing first-hand scenarios, indicating 'Old Zheng' didn't just believe verbal promises from the Angel Sect but was also possibly dragged into certain rituals, at least making contact with things related to the Dark Angel—he was already deeply involved before luring you to the white hall."

He paused for a moment, then continued: "And this letter reveals another crucial piece of information... those guys were likely not targeting you specifically, but the 'Fairy Tales' behind you."

Little Red Riding Hood remained silent, only shifting her gaze to other letters and notes scattered around.

"Erin," Yu Sheng immediately reacted, "can you see if there's anything hidden similar to this letter?"

"I'll look," Erin replied. She sat in the midst of the pile of items on the table and began sorting through them.

But after a long while, she found nothing.

"No, the rest are just ordinary things, including these letters—it looks like using traditional letters was just a personal preference," the puppet sitting on the table swung its legs by the edges as it glanced around. "I also scanned the room briefly, nothing noteworthy."

Yu Sheng was not surprised by the puppet's response.

It seemed the items related to the Angel Sect had either been moved beforehand or destroyed, leaving only this last letter unhandled.

But Yu Sheng was not discouraged. He only became more meticulous in observing the room, then began examining every corner.

Although the correspondence or items directly related to the Angel Sect might have been moved or destroyed, this did not mean there were no other clues left— the contact had fallen deeply, to the extent of actively engaging with the Dark Angel. This influence would certainly be reflected in his daily life, in habitual changes, unintentional traces, fragmented notes in the diary... Living people leave marks; he couldn't have cleaned everything out.

Little Red Riding Hood picked up on Yu Sheng's intent and began checking every corner of the room alongside him, even summoning her wolves to sniff out clues imperceptible to the human eye.

Erin also started meticulously looking through the papers and books on the table—though these appeared to be merely "mortal items," clues could still be hidden among these ordinary notes and messages.

Just then, one of the Shadow Wolves stopped abruptly in the center of the room, making low growls and constantly pawing at a carpet by the bed.

Little Red Riding Hood's brows furrowed instantly, and she quickly lifted the carpet.

There was nothing hidden beneath the carpet, but faint, hard-to-discern traces remained on the floor.

They were strange symbols and lines, circled into an approximately one-meter diameter, with a dim reddish tint. They seemed to have been carefully scrubbed once, leaving only faint traces. Perhaps due to the repetitive process of "smearing-wiping," those faint outlines still remained on the floor.

"Looks like it was smeared with blood," Little Red Riding Hood frowned, carefully discerning the faint marks on the floor. "It's a basic spirit communication ceremony, but it only left traces of runes, no offerings and corresponding prayers or invocations—making it difficult to track what it was specifically used to communicate with."

"Could it have been used to communicate with the Dark Angel?" Yu Sheng asked out of curiosity.

"Hard to say," Little Red Riding Hood frowned and shook her head, "You know, I never deal with this kind of stuff. I've just heard that although those Angel Sect members claim to have the ability to communicate with the 'Envoy', most of the time they are just experiencing drug-induced hallucinations. The Dark Angel itself actually doesn't respond to humans at all, or rather... its way of responding is to drive people insane directly."

She paused, her expression turning somewhat grim: "Old Zheng is clearly a 'Beginner' who was duped into this. Plus, he's using such a basic Spirit Communication Technique, it's hard to say what he could actually connect with... Most likely it's just another layer of the scam prepared by those Angel Sect members to make him believe that he can genuinely hear the 'Divine Will.'"

Yu Sheng listened but didn't comment. After a moment of contemplation, he crouched down and slowly brushed the vague dark red marks with his hand.

Then he suddenly pulled out a small knife from his pocket and made a small cut on his hand.

Bright red blood dripped onto the floor.

Little Red Riding Hood was instantly startled and instinctively reached out to stop him: "Hey, what are you doing! You can't just randomly use something with an unknown purpose..."

The blood was instantly absorbed by the vague dark red marks, just like water droplets on a sponge.

The exclamation from Little Red Riding Hood suddenly seemed to recede, transforming into a stretched-out, intermittent noise.

Yu Sheng looked up and saw that everything in the room seemed to be covered in a thin veil, with a vague feeling as if falling into a dimension gradually detaching from reality. Little Red Riding Hood and Erin became two shadows in a stasis not far away, seemingly still moving slowly towards him, but the whole process seemed to be elongated into infinity.

Yu Sheng rubbed his eyes and stood up from the ground. He was somewhat amazed by the situation in front of him but not very surprised—after witnessing so many bizarre scenes, his acceptance of such 'sudden changes' had reached an extremely high level, his nerves virtually as sturdy as mainstay pillars.

He then noticed that the vague 'veil' around him seemed to slowly fade away.

Though the room remained the same, everything was stained with a layer of gloom, the daylight streaming in from outside turned into a dull white. Despite still seeming very bright, it felt as though it could never illuminate the area beyond the window.

Yu Sheng suddenly widened his eyes.

He saw that in the places the 'sunlight' failed to reach, on those gray walls and floor, words started to emerge continuously.

It was as if someone's 'thoughts' were intensely projected into this eerie spacetime, and Yu Sheng saw those words appear everywhere around him—

"I want to help them...

"I went to the orphanage again. After months... more familiar faces have disappeared...

"The tree planted by the previous Little Red Riding Hood has grown very tall. Today, another new child came to find me. She said she's the new Little Red Riding Hood...

"Only fourteen, she said she needed a job...

"No one can do anything about it, neither the Special Service Bureau nor the Association. I've collected and researched so many things to break curses and fight the Dream Realm, but nothing works.

"... Someone approached me voluntarily, said they could help...

"They seemed suspicious. I suspected they had connections with some illegal secret cult, but they showed me something..."

The words extended across the floor and walls, through the air, reaching the corners of Yu Sheng's vision, eventually covering almost every inch of the space within his sight, only to silently fade away moments later.

A strange, slow squirming sound as if something was moving slowly came from above.

Yu Sheng slowly raised his head and looked in the direction of the sound.

He saw that the ceiling of the room had unknowingly cracked open a hole, a circular gap corresponding to the dark red ring marks on the floor.

A low, chaotic noise came from the gap, accompanied by a strange scraping sound of some creature slowly moving. A slender limb, covered in bizarre protrusions and intricate patterns, emerged from it.

This tentacular limb silently expanded and contracted in the air, beginning to move slowly, inching towards the spot where Yu Sheng stood...

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