Little Red Riding Hood knew that people who lived in a strange city were bound to be odd, but she found she had still underestimated just how strange the "family of three" at Yu Sheng's place was—especially once they started eating.
One was a doll who didn't need to eat, sitting perfectly upright right at the dining table, with a dedicated set of bowl and chopsticks laid out before her, looking like an offering at a memorial.
Another was a fox spirit with a whole bunch of tails, who during meals kept pulling all sorts of snacks out of her own tails, her food combinations utterly chaotic—including but not limited to flatbread wrapped around a steamed bun, chili with banana—basically stuffing anything she could get into her mouth.
But the strangest was still Yu Sheng—he actually ate human food. Incredible.jpg.
Yu Sheng noticed Little Red Riding Hood looking a little dazed and assumed the girl was just being reserved on her first visit here, so he urged her warmly: "Eat, eat—let me tell you, I'm fairly confident in my own cooking."
Halfway through, he suddenly remembered something and pointed at a dish on the table, adding, "Oh, right—you'd better not eat this one." Little Red Riding Hood froze for a moment; seeing that it was just an ordinary-looking plate of pepper stir-fried pork, she asked, puzzled, "Why?"
"This one's made with a 'local specialty' from a foreign domain—I'm not sure ordinary people can eat it," Yu Sheng explained casually. "Anyway, Irene and Hu Li are both pretty put off by it." Little Red Riding Hood's expression went a little blank: "A... local specialty from a foreign domain?"
"It's meat cut off an entity—Entity-Hunger. I've got a taste for it—but ordinary people don't eat this," Yu Sheng said, utterly matter-of-fact, and then, not forgetting to add a note in his own defense, "I actually do have some common sense in this area."
Then he saw the girl across the table go completely rigid, as if she'd turned to stone.
Only after several seconds did Little Red Riding Hood's eyes suddenly blink, and with a stiff expression she turned to look at Irene, who sat on the table savoring the smell: "That's... really niche wording..."
"First time, mm-hmm?" Irene reached over and patted Little Red Riding Hood's arm, looking like a seasoned veteran. "I reacted the same way the first time I heard it—no use doubting it, that's exactly what it is. And besides, you've already seen with us how the entity in that valley got wiped out, so don't make such a fuss—at least this stuff was cooked before eating."
"This is best cooked before eating," Yu Sheng said, nodding as he picked up a chopstickful of the stir-fried pork slices and put them in his mouth. "I tried it as sashimi—no good, too tough."
Little Red Riding Hood instantly looked at the rest of the dishes on the table with a horrified expression, and suddenly began to regret why she had accepted Yu Sheng's invitation today—she had only been thinking that this might be a chance to get close to this strange "person" and the strange No. 66 Wutong Road, and perhaps pick up some new intelligence about this foreign domain that she could sell for a good price to the Special Affairs Bureau later. But now she realized something:
If an entity appears completely harmless, then it must be seriously uncanny in some other way; if a foreign domain looks especially safe, then it must possess some very creative form of mental pollution...
Little Red Riding Hood swallowed nervously, watching Yu Sheng as he feasted with relish, and suddenly wanted badly to ask one question—now that you've finished eating this, you won't eat me next, will you? But after hesitating for a long while, she still couldn't bring herself to say it.
"Not to your taste?" Yu Sheng noticed the girl across from him hadn't touched her chopsticks for a while and found it a little odd. "Uh, I do have a heavier palate, but you can try this plate of stir-fried greens—those are all right."
Under that gaze, Little Red Riding Hood couldn't dodge and didn't dare shake her head; after holding out for a long while, she could only reluctantly stretch out her chopsticks and pick up a bite, silently chanting in her heart "this stuff is edible, this stuff is edible" as she forced it down like swallowing medicine—and then, to her surprise, discovered it was delicious.
Just a perfectly normal stir-fried vegetable dish.
"The benefactor's cooking is great, isn't it?" Hu Li, beside her, beamed happily.
Little Red Riding Hood nodded with a complicated expression. Watching Hu Li keep eating without pause, and recalling that the other's mouth seemed to have never stopped since she walked in the door, she finally couldn't help her curiosity: "You eat so much—won't you get stuffed?"
"I won't," Hu Li said, the tail behind her giving a sway. "Eat more, store up a bit of tail—so I can use it to help the benefactor fight later." Little Red Riding Hood: "..?"
What kind of nonsense is all this!?
She suddenly began to doubt whether there was something wrong with her own comprehension. She even felt that No. 66 Wutong Road seemed to run on an entirely different "worldview" from the normal world—the things looked normal, the words sounded normal, so how was it that everything here reeked of something uncanny?
Just then, Yu Sheng's voice came from beside her again, cutting off Little Red Riding Hood's wandering thoughts: "By the way, the reason I actually invited you over today—there's something I wanted to consult you about."
"Ah... ah?" Little Red Riding Hood was half a beat slow to react, looking at Yu Sheng with a bewildered expression.
Yu Sheng didn't know why she was reacting like that either, and without thinking much of it, asked directly: "How does a 'spirit realm detective' like you usually go about your work? Or rather, is there anything you need to be careful about as a spirit realm detective?"
"My usual work? Most of the time I take outsourced jobs from the Special Affairs Bureau, and sometimes requests come in from other organizations or individuals, but the latter aren't stable," Little Red Riding Hood said casually. "Most spirit realm detectives actually get their main commissions from the Special Affairs Bureau, or from subcontracting units under it—they're an official organization, after all, so they're well-informed, and a lot of commissions get pooled directly on their end—look at this."
As she spoke, she pulled out her phone, tapped at it a few times, and showed it to Yu Sheng.
Yu Sheng leaned in curiously and saw that the phone screen displayed a long list of chat windows. More than half of the chat avatars bore a uniform marker, tagged with a Special Affairs Bureau label.
"This is a dedicated platform, built by the Special Affairs Bureau. Spirit realm detectives and independent investigators can all use it. People usually use it to exchange intelligence, chat, shoot the breeze, and whatnot—public commissions get posted on here too. Its official name is 'Border Communications,' but plenty of people just call it 'Didi Odd Jobs'..."
Yu Sheng listened in amazement to her description and wanted to take another look at the screen, but Little Red Riding Hood had already put the phone away.
"By rights this shouldn't be shown to others—it's kept secret from ordinary people—but even though you're not a spirit realm detective or investigator, you're not an ordinary person either, so I'll let you have a look. As for what we should watch out for in this line of work..."
Little Red Riding Hood paused here, a hint of teasing in her expression: "Everyone has their own work habits. If you insist on some common 'framework,' there are only two. First, don't disrupt the order of the boundary zone. Second, try to stay alive—and if you really can't manage the second one, then try to die somewhere 'shallow,' so you don't make things too hard for the body collectors."
She suddenly looked a little puzzled again, gazing curiously into Yu Sheng's eyes: "What did you suddenly ask that for?" Yu Sheng looked utterly at ease: "Oh, we might soon be in the same line of work."
Little Red Riding Hood: "..?" ..
After dinner, Little Red Riding Hood left.
"Why do I feel like her expression was weird when she left," Irene said, sitting on the table, muttering as she watched Yu Sheng clear the dishes. "Like her whole person was a bit dazed..."
"High schoolers are under a lot of pressure—it's normal. On top of that she has to work part-time during the holidays—her phone screen is cracked, too, so her living conditions probably aren't great," Yu Sheng said casually as he wiped the table. "That's why I was thinking of having her over for a meal, just to relax a bit."
"Is that so?" Irene looked a little doubtful. "I feel like she was even more nervous leaving than when she came.."
"That's just your imagination," Yu Sheng said with a wave of his hand. "Trust my judgment—only humans truly understand humans. Besides, I was a high schooler myself once. If I invite her over more often in the future, she'll definitely be fine, no doubt about it."
"R-right?"
As they talked, Yu Sheng had already finished clearing the table. After handing the dishes to Hu Li, who had volunteered to help wash them, he let out a long breath, ready to get some real business done. "I'm going to open a door."
Irene, who was just then climbing down from the dining table, about to run off to the living room to watch TV, turned her head back at this: "Huh? Where are you going?" "To take another look at that valley."
Irene fell right off the table leg, and with a plop, landed smack on the ground, painting and all.
"You've run out of the meat in the fridge, haven't you!" the little doll scrambled up in a sorry state, staring at Yu Sheng in horror. "Are you going to restock?!"
"No," Yu Sheng hurriedly waved his hand. "It's about that 'Director' who came to see me today—something she said has been on my mind." With that, he told Irene about the matter Baili Qing had specifically brought up with him before leaving.
Miss Doll listened with a frown: "It's not a trap, is it... like leading you into a minefield or something? Big shots who suddenly show up and prattle on at you like that love to do this kind of thing—that's how it always goes on TV."
"Then watch less TV," Yu Sheng shot the doll a withering look. "Besides, even if she has some other agenda, I'm still going to take a look at that valley." Irene kept frowning: "Why?"
"There's something I want to look into a bit more—I left in too much of a hurry back then," Yu Sheng said earnestly. "Don't be so nervous. It's not like I can't come back—the passage is stable now, so if anything seems off I can pull out immediately."
"Well... all right," Irene thought it over and reluctantly set her worry aside. "Do you still need to tell Hu Li? She might worry."
"I'm just going over to check on things this trip—shouldn't take long. If she comes out and asks, just tell her I'll be back soon," Yu Sheng said, already reaching out into the air. An illusory door opened in his hand. "Though I figure I'll be out before she's even finished washing the dishes—it's only a quick look, after all."
Just then he suddenly stopped and turned to glance at the door he had opened. "..Should I have given the Special Affairs Bureau a heads-up first?"
"You only think of that after the damn door's already open? Hurry up and go in—complaint calls are going to start coming in soon! Go on, go—I'll wait for you here."
Chapter 77