Yu Sheng stood in the valley, his hands moving animatedly as he shared his ambitious plans with Little Red Riding Hood and the Long-Haired Princess. He spoke passionately about the grand temple he envisioned at the valley’s center and the additional buildings he intended to construct around it. Although he hadn’t yet decided their exact purposes, his approach was straightforward: “Build first, figure it out later.” He also felt the need to clarify why the rectangular structure beside the platform wasn’t actually a toilet.
The two girls listened carefully, at least until he reached the part about the “toilet.” That’s when giggles erupted.
Yu Sheng sighed, accepting the situation. He had to admit, even to himself, that the structure did resemble a bathroom. Embarrassed, he quickly shifted the conversation.
“These are the chickens Foxy is raising,” he said, pointing toward the coop. “Once the ecosystem here recovers, we can let them roam freely.”
Little Red Riding Hood’s reaction mirrored Irene’s initial surprise. Her eyes widened in disbelief. “You let a fox raise chickens?!”
“Well, she’s a fox demon,” Yu Sheng explained, trying to sound serious. “Big difference. And honestly, she takes excellent care of them.”
As if on cue, Foxy appeared, diligently refilling the chickens’ water and feed. She inspected the chicks with careful attention before skipping over cheerfully, her tail swishing behind her. With a flick of her tail, she pulled out two fluffy chicks and presented them to the girls. “These two are Boiled and Salted,” she declared proudly. “I’m grooming them to be the leaders of the flock.”
Little Red Riding Hood stared, mouth agape, until she realized that Boiled and Salted were their names.
Before she could comment, Yu Sheng eagerly led her to another part of the valley. “This area,” he said, pointing to a patch of land, “is for growing vegetables. See that water channel? It leads down from the mountain and will irrigate the fields. Over there,” he added, gesturing farther away, “I’m planning to build a reservoir in one corner of the platform. That patch will eventually be for pigs, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. And over there, did you notice the empty space? That’s where I want to set up a permanent gate. It’s just an idea for now, though; I still need to work out the details.”
The girls could only nod blankly as Yu Sheng continued outlining his vision. Little Red Riding Hood, in particular, struggled to reconcile her memories of this place as a terrifying subset plagued by “Hunger.” Every new project Yu Sheng mentioned made her feel like her worldview was flipping over and over again, like a restless spirit in its grave.
Oblivious to their inner turmoil, Yu Sheng grinned and asked eagerly, “What do you think? How’s the valley shaping up?”
The Long-Haired Princess opened her mouth, paused, then blurted out, “What kind of valley is this? It’s like Star X Valley or something!”
Yu Sheng considered her words. They weren’t inaccurate, but he decided against borrowing the name—it wasn’t worth the copyright trouble.
A fresh breeze swept through the valley, carrying the scent of grass, soil, and the distant sound of laughter. Xiao Xiao dashed across the meadow, her voice ringing with joy as she played tag with Irene.
“Can someone control this wild kid?” Irene shouted, half-joking, half-exasperated. “What about doll rights, huh?!”
The Long-Haired Princess chuckled and stood up. “I’ll take care of it,” she said, slinging Xiao Xiao’s little backpack over her shoulder. She walked briskly toward the pair. “Xiao Xiao! Take a break and have some water!”
Yu Sheng sat down at the edge of the platform, watching the scene unfold with a smile. He glanced at Little Red Riding Hood, who stood silently beside him, gazing into the distance. “Do you think tomorrow will be worth looking forward to?” he asked.
She didn’t respond immediately, her eyes fixed on the children playing. Finally, she murmured, “Could the Black Forest and other subsets of the ‘Fairy Tale’ become ?”
Her voice was soft, as if speaking louder might shatter a fragile hope.
“I’m not sure how to confront the core of the ‘Fairy Tale’ yet,” Yu Sheng admitted. “But at least we can start with the Black Forest. For now, it seems to follow the general rules of a subset, even though it’s an ‘awareness space.’ The entities it creates—mostly wolves—aren’t invincible and can be influenced by my blood.”
He paused, looking thoughtful. “The key question is how to find the Black Forest’s core—its essence. I don’t think it’s just a wolf.”
Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes widened. “Not a wolf?”
“What’s so special about a wolf in Little Red Riding Hood?” he asked calmly.
She blinked, momentarily thrown off.
“Little Red Riding Hood, with quotation marks,” he clarified. “If the essence of a ‘Fairy Tale’ is its collection of stories, then no single element can represent the whole tale. Not the wolf, not the hunter, not even you. And the Black Forest itself? It doesn’t represent Little Red Riding Hood either.” ȑἁ𐌽Ô𐌱Ε𝐬
Understanding dawned on her face as she began to grasp what he meant by “essence.”
“The Black Forest is different from this valley,” Yu Sheng continued. “Here, ‘Hunger’ is the sole core. Every rule, every feature of this environment revolves around that concept. That’s typical for most subsets. But the Black Forest? Its rules are far more complex. Every ‘character’—you, the Big Bad Wolf, Granny, the hunter, even that quirky squirrel—is just one piece of its system. They’re surface-level manifestations.”
He gestured in the air, and the ground near the platform shifted. Stones and dirt rose to form a crude stage, where clumsy stone figures rolled and tumbled about. Some crumbled, only for new ones to emerge and repeat the same aimless, meaningless movements.
“It was Xiao Xiao’s experiences that made me think of this,” Yu Sheng said, watching the makeshift stage. “You’re bound by the perspective of ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ so it’s hard for you to see beyond the wolf. From the outside, though, I realized that the wolf isn’t the real enemy.”
He paused, then added, “Or, to put it another way, I already killed the ‘enemy’ once—the wolf that devoured Xiao Xiao’s Granny. It was her ‘final boss.’ But when I defeated it, the Black Forest didn’t change. The wolves remained, the forest persisted, and I knew Xiao Xiao would fall into it again. A new wolf would take the last one’s place. The story didn’t lose its script.”
The silence stretched between them as Little Red Riding Hood stared at the stone figures. Finally, she spoke, her voice tinged with resolve. “So, the real enemy is the story itself.”
“Exactly,” Yu Sheng said. “Not necessarily to ‘kill’ the story, though—stories might not die. But maybe we can control it, rewrite it, even dismantle it. To do that, we need to focus on its ‘weak points,’ not just its surface-level ‘characters.’” He gestured to the crude stage. “What do you think the essence of this stage is?”
Little Red Riding Hood hesitated, frowning in thought.
“The answer’s right in front of you,” Yu Sheng said with a grin, tapping his temple. “It’s me.”
With a wave of his hand, the stage collapsed, crumbling back into earth and stone.
Little Red Riding Hood’s breath hitched as a realization struck her. “You’re saying there’s a ‘storyteller’ behind the Black Forest?”
“Maybe not a person, but definitely a source,” Yu Sheng replied. “It could be the core of the ‘Fairy Tale’ or just an extension of it. Ever since my first trip into the Black Forest, I’ve been searching for it. I thought we’d found it in that ‘special house’ deep in the woods, but it wasn’t. That house was just part of the stage—a corner of the set. Whatever’s shaping the Black Forest is hiding backstage.”
“I never thought about it like that,” Little Red Riding Hood admitted, her eyes wide. “I’ve never seen the Black Forest this way.”
Yu Sheng chuckled. “That’s because I’m a meddling adult. Meddling adults ruin kids’ stories with rational thinking. Our favorite line is: ‘It’s all made up.’”
She blinked, then broke into a laugh. “No wonder fairy tales don’t like adults.”
“Good thing I’m not trying to make them ‘like’ me,” Yu Sheng said, standing up and brushing off his hands. “Alright, field trip’s over. Time for the kids to go home.”
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation