After sending Erin back early, Yu Sheng returned to the living room and saw Little Red Riding Hood sitting on the sofa talking with the young man in his twenties.

The latter still looked exhausted, clearly having not rested well for many days while handling his relative's funeral arrangements.

Seeing Yu Sheng come out of the bedroom, the young man stood up slightly and greeted him, then pointed to a cup of hot milk tea on the coffee table: "Thanks for your hard work, I just bought this back."

"Um… thank you." Yu Sheng didn't stand on ceremony, sitting next to Little Red Riding Hood, and they both sipped milk tea together.

Sitting across from them, the young man broke the silence: "Did you find anything?"

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood exchanged a glance, the latter thought for a moment and then nodded slightly: "We did find some clues… but I want to confirm first, do you know the 'nature of your uncle's job'? To what extent do you know? I mean… about the things he collected and the 'special nature' of the things he usually dealt with."

"I know some," the young man nodded and said, "He mentioned the 'Curious Object Association' to me, and let me see some… relatively 'safe' things. I know he's been dealing with unusual things, and it's dangerous at times. Actually, I was interested too, almost went through the Special Service Bureau's external recruitment—but my uncle didn't let me, he said my curiosity was too strong, and I have something called… oh, spiritual talent, of the high sensitivity and low stability type, which makes it dangerous to do this work."

"Your uncle was right. High sensitivity and low stability combined with strong curiosity, you indeed can't do this. You might not even get through the internship period," Little Red Riding Hood sighed, "Since you know so much, I'll give you a rough situation—Old Zheng might have been contaminated by extremely dangerous things and contacted illegal secret cults. But as it stands, he seems to be just a victim—I can only say this much, the Special Service Bureau might be willing to reveal more to you as 'family' later."

The young man sat there quietly, not saying anything, or not knowing what to say.

Yu Sheng broke the silence: "Did your uncle interact with any suspicious people or do any suspicious things in the last days before his death? Any sudden new 'friends,' or habits and taboos he never had before?"

"I don't know," the young man slowly shook his head and said, "My uncle rarely contacted the family for over twenty years. He volunteered at an orphanage back then. It seems he encountered something—some say it was emotional, others say he got scared by something—then he moved here to live alone. I was too young to remember; I heard all this from the adults at home."

He paused for a moment, carefully recalling before speaking hesitantly: "But I occasionally received messages from him. If anything, I'd say he seemed happy recently, for about two months now. He said he finally had a chance to let go of the burden in his heart. Recently, he said he planned to visit home and asked me to find a notebook in the old house… but then, he had his accident."

"Notebook?" Yu Sheng's heart skipped a beat upon hearing this and quickly asked, "Did you find it? Did you bring it?"

"I brought it," the young man said, rising to find the notebook in a black suitcase beside the TV cabinet. After a moment, he pulled out a thick, dark blue notebook, handing it to Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood, "This is it—I haven't looked inside, brought it just like it was."

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood exchanged a glance and immediately took the twenty-year-old notebook, flipping through it quickly.

Most of it seemed to record mundane, trivial matters, daily memos, and some work records and observations as an orphanage volunteer. Some entries could help Yu Sheng understand the orphanage's situation twenty years ago, but obviously, this content had nothing to do with Old Zheng's death now.

Was this time-spanning notebook merely a "memento" for Old Zheng, near fifty, to reminisce about his youth?

Just as Yu Sheng thought so, his eye caught something on a previously flipped page. He hurriedly turned back to the page.

It was a drawing—sketched by the notebook's owner in pencil. The technique wasn't outstanding but clearly drawn with care.

On the slightly yellowed page, a woman around twenty-six or twenty-seven stood in front of an orphanage swing set, wearing a simple long dress and smiling gently and warmly.

Yu Sheng frowned, subconsciously wondering who this young woman in the notebook was, what story she had with the deceased Old Zheng, and why she appeared at the orphanage where Little Red Riding Hood spent her childhood—clearly an adult, but not wearing the Council employee's attire.

Then he heard Little Red Riding Hood suddenly exclaim: "Huh."

Before Yu Sheng could ask, Little Red Riding Hood quickly took out her phone, dialing a number: "Long Hair, can you take a photo for me? Of the one in the middle on the wall of the East Building's display room… yeah, the 'Cinderella' one, quickly snap and send it to me."

She hung up the phone, and after a while, her phone buzzed. Yu Sheng moved closer and saw a photo appear on the screen.

It was a young woman in her twenties, almost identical to the one in Old Zheng's notebook.

"This is…?" Yu Sheng asked curiously.

"Many years ago, a Cinderella... she lived until she was twenty-six," Little Red Riding Hood said softly, looking at the smiling figure in her notebook, "the longest-lived person in the orphanage's history—after she died, the 'Cinderella' role remained vacant for a decade until a new Cinderella emerged a few years ago. We all say she used her life to temporarily suppress the operation of the 'Eternal Ball' subset, though there's no real basis for this claim."

Little Red Riding Hood pursed her lips and continued, "It's said that at the time, she was even considering whether to try living an ordinary life."

Yu Sheng listened in silence, raising his head to look at the table not far away.

A photo of Old Zheng stood quietly there. He was nearly fifty, his face etched with loose skin and wrinkles creeping into the corners of his eyes. The exhaustion in his eyes seemed to record a journey spanning over twenty years.

He had spent twenty years searching for 'Mysterious Objects', trying to combat a continuously recurring curse, but in the end, he lost to a scam.

He wasn't the first to attempt to fight against the 'Fairy Tales', nor would he be the last.

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood stood up. The latter solemnly handed the notebook back to the young man across from them.

"Thank you for the clues," Yu Sheng said in a deep voice, "We'll seek justice for Old Zheng."

"Thank you," the young man said as he took the notebook. He seemed to want to ask something, but in the end, perhaps recalling his uncle's warnings, he held back. He simply waved at the two 'detectives' in front of him, saying, "I won't see you out. There's still a lot to tidy up here."

"Alright," Little Red Riding Hood nodded, then recalled something and reminded him, "There are some 'things' under the bedroom carpet. Although they should be powerless now, it's best not to touch them and wait for professionals to handle it."

"Got it, I understand."

After leaving the apartment building, the sky outside had turned completely dark.

Neon lights illuminated this immense and seemingly boundless city. The Wolf Pack took Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood to the highest rooftop nearby. Standing there, Yu Sheng looked down at Boundary City, watching the lights flow through the forest of buildings, as the vast city continued its cacophony under the night sky.

How many people lived in this strange city? Millions? Tens of millions? How many of them were ordinary people, and how many were detectives and investigators from the 'other side'? How many were protectors and Order Maintainers of the city, and how many lurked in the shadows of those lights, like the tendrils of some formless madness, preying on those careless victims...

For the first time, Yu Sheng felt that this unfamiliar, bizarre, and even eerie city was alive, with flesh and blood.

Little Red Riding Hood broke the silence, "I'll continue the investigation after returning. I need to visit the headquarters of the Curious Object Association and plan to see the other Spirit Realm detectives and investigators Old Zheng had contacted before his death."

Yu Sheng: "Do you need me to come along?"

"No," Little Red Riding Hood shook her head, "I want to ask you to go to the Special Service Bureau instead."

Yu Sheng frowned: "Go to the Special Service Bureau?"

"Go and tell them about Old Zheng. Although intelligence regarding the Angel Sect will definitely catch their attention, if you go to them personally, they will surely take it more seriously."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, uncertain: "...Will they?"

The girl looked helpless: "...Do you really have no self-awareness at all?"

Yu Sheng smiled awkwardly, then nodded seriously: "Alright, I'll go tomorrow."

The two fell into silence again, and after a few seconds, Yu Sheng finally spoke thoughtfully: "Do you think there's any connection between the 'Dark Angel' and the Exotic Realm of 'Fairy Tales'?"

Little Red Riding Hood pondered seriously for a while before shaking her head: "I don't have any leads—while many things happened coincidentally at the same time, they lack the essential 'connection'. Those Angel Sect members targeted Old Zheng, who was trying to fight the Fairy Tale curse, and used him to lure me into that white exhibition hall. But the key question is, what were they really after? Was it my identity as a member of 'Fairy Tales', or were they simply looking for a sufficiently powerful 'victim'?"

"Ultimately… there's more than one Dark Angel in the world. We still don't even know which 'Angel' those sect members are following, so we naturally can't determine their motives."

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