After hearing Yu Sheng’s reply, Little Red Riding Hood said nothing. She quietly sat on the grass, appearing to be deep in thought—or perhaps simply dazing off.
After a while, Yu Sheng finally heard her mutter softly, “This place is so quiet… no squirrels or wolf packs around.”
“The way you say it makes me feel uneasy, like five hundred axemen are about to leap out of the bushes any second,” Yu Sheng replied, awkwardly glancing around before his gaze returned to her. “Uh… are you okay? You seem tired.”
“Of course I’m tired. I’m in my final year of high school,” Little Red Riding Hood rolled her eyes, “and I even dozed off during chemistry class.”
Yu Sheng hadn’t expected such a blunt and realistic response. He was momentarily stunned, but the girl didn’t wait for his reaction. She chuckled and shook her head. “I didn’t want to go to school at first, especially after the ‘Awakening’ phase. Knowing what was going to happen in the future… I had a huge argument with my previous ‘guardian.’ You heard some of what I yelled… seems pretty dumb, doesn’t it?”
Yu Sheng remained silent.
Little Red Riding Hood didn’t seem to care whether he answered.
“Now, I occasionally argue about the same things with those half-grown kids,” she continued, speaking to herself. “They never understand why the orphanage insists they follow the routine—going to school, studying. The ones who are slightly better off are even sent to regular schools; the less fortunate still have to attend lessons within the compound. To most of them, the stuff they learn will never be of any use. They won’t graduate, won’t get jobs, won’t have the chance to be designers, technicians, or drivers…
“They’re right, honestly. It is a waste of time—if you look at it from the perspective of only having an average lifespan of a dozen or so years.
“In this world, there’s very little we can control. Most things won’t go the way you want them to. So, in the end, your attitude becomes the only thing that’s truly yours… even though it’s often hard to control.
“She also said, it’s difficult to live a complete life, but we can at least try to make our childhoods whole… She told me not to smoke, not to drink, not to do bad things, and to learn something, to see how vast the world is. She said it’s very, very easy to go bad, and giving up is the simplest thing to do. That’s why we should challenge ourselves—like being a good student.”
Little Red Riding Hood kept talking, her words flowing endlessly. When she finally finished, she took a deep breath and lay on the dull yet soft grass, staring at the equally gray sky above.
“It wasn’t anything profound. She couldn’t really express big ideas—she was only eighteen when she left. She didn’t even have time to get a driver’s license.”
Yu Sheng turned to look at the girl lying on the grass. “But she taught you well.”
“Not that well. I ignored a lot of what she said, like not fighting with others. There are some things she believed that I still don’t agree with—even now. But what can I do? I can’t argue with her anymore.”
Little Red Riding Hood stared at the gray sky for a long time before finally breaking the silence. “This place is so quiet…”
“You’ve already said that once.”
“No, I mean… your dream is so boring. Is this grassland all there is?” She sat up abruptly. “Dreams should at least be… bizarre, intricate. This place feels like… the afterlife or something.” ŔÀΝÓВÊṤ
“Are you seriously nitpicking now?” Yu Sheng’s eye twitched. “Isn’t a peaceful dream nice? If you’ve rested enough, go back—find a high spot, turn your back to it, and fall backward. That should wake you up. Or I can call Irene to kick you out—that works 100% of the time.”
“No, thanks. I’d rather wake up to a piece of chalk flying at me from the teacher,” she waved her hands dismissively. “You’re right, a quiet dream is nice. When I accidentally fell asleep, I was worried I’d end up back in the Black Forest. Didn’t expect to find a peaceful refuge here.”
Yu Sheng shrugged, but just then, he caught a faint whiff of something unusual.
“Do you smell something?” he asked, frowning at the girl beside him. “It’s weird… kind of sharp and acrid.”
“Nope,” Little Red Riding Hood sniffed the air. “Just smells like grass. Maybe your sinusitis is acting up.”
“Impossible. Smells like something’s burning.”
“You’re imagining things. My nose is sharper than a dog’s, and I—”
Before she could finish, Yu Sheng leapt to his feet as if spring-loaded, his expression panicked. “No way! The kitchen!”
Little Red Riding Hood blinked. “…Huh?”
The moment Yu Sheng realized the danger, his figure vanished.
In the next instant, he jolted awake, flipping over in bed only to feel himself falling. He landed on a pile of fluffy tails.
The crackling static was like winter blossoms, whispering a message: the household fox spirit might actually have a lightning affinity.
Yu Sheng yelped and leapt out of the tails, almost slipping on the smooth fur and nearly crashing headfirst into the sharp edge of the coffee table. A fall like that would’ve delayed his investigation of the kitchen for at least half an hour, but fortunately, he managed to avoid serious injury. Scrambling to his feet, he rushed toward the kitchen. As soon as he pushed the door open, a wave of acrid smoke hit him.
Mixed with the smoky air was Irene’s frantic shouting, “Ah! Water, water! It’s burning! My dish is burning… I’M burning!”
Yu Sheng dashed forward, grabbed Irene, whose skirt had already caught fire, and threw her into the sink. He quickly turned off the stove, smothered the flames in the pan with a lid, and opened the window for ventilation.
Wutong Road No. 66 was safe once more.
In the aftermath, Foxy was huddled nervously in a corner of the kitchen. Irene lay in the sink, her face smudged with soot as water gushed from the faucet, and her small doll-like figure began to float. Yu Sheng stared at the chaotic scene—the two culprits and the dissipating smoke from the stove—his brain struggling to catch up with the rapid sequence of events.
At that moment, his phone buzzed twice. He glanced at it to find a text from Little Red Riding Hood:
“I woke up. Got caught by the teacher. Chalk hit me awake. Annoyed.”
Yu Sheng replied with a thumbs-up emoji before running a hand through his hair and looking back at the kitchen. “So… can someone explain to me what just happened?”
A few minutes later, Irene was strung up by her sleeves on a drying rod on the balcony, dripping water. Yu Sheng stood next to her with a large hairdryer, drying her as she wobbled from the gusts.
When the hairdryer proved too slow, he brought out a space heater, placing it under the rack to help dry her faster.
“You didn’t need to hang me up; I can dry myself…” Irene muttered timidly, glancing at Yu Sheng. “I can even… flip myself over.”
“I didn’t hang you up to save you effort. I hung you up so you’d remember this.”
Yu Sheng stared at the pitiful doll-like girl for a long moment before sighing and finally taking her down from the rod.
Irene immediately scampered onto the space heater, sitting cross-legged as wisps of white steam began to rise from her body.
Now Yu Sheng understood why she hadn’t noticed how close she was to the fire when her clothes caught flame.
She wasn’t afraid of the heat!
“I appreciate that you both wanted to help cook,” Yu Sheng began after a long pause, shaking his head. “But nearly burning down the kitchen is… terrifying. This shouldn’t have happened—Foxy, don’t you usually manage heating food just fine?”
“I… I always use foxfire,” Foxy murmured, her ears drooping as she nervously tucked her tail between her legs. “But Irene said she wasn’t used to that and preferred the gas stove… Then she wanted to show off by flipping the pan…”
Yu Sheng froze for a moment and turned to look at the doll sitting on the space heater, who was now surrounded by mist, looking almost transcendent. “You… flipping the pan?”
Irene awkwardly chuckled, her soot-smeared face failing to hide her embarrassment.
“The frying pan is almost as big as you are! Flipping the pan? Who’s flipping who?” Yu Sheng’s eyebrows shot up.
Irene laughed nervously and shifted her position on the heater, continuing to “smoke.”
Shaking his head, Yu Sheng stood and walked over, picking her up off the heater.
Irene gasped. “Hey, what are you doing—”
Yu Sheng sighed deeply, carrying her toward the bathroom. “Stop baking yourself. I just remembered—you should take a proper bath. You’re practically marinated in smoke.”
Dangling mid-air by her collar, Irene glanced up at Yu Sheng. “So… you’re not angry anymore?”
“Do I even have the energy to stay angry every day?” Yu Sheng replied with a mix of laughter and exasperation. “At least you didn’t actually burn the house down. I’ll go check the kitchen after this and figure out what we’re doing for lunch.”
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation