Recaps

Yu Sheng watched the Special Operations Bureau analyze the samples from No. 66 Wutong Road and learned that the mysterious metal was an unknown foreign object. Baili Qing then gave him archived records about the Black Forest incident, revealing that the Bureau’s early understanding of Fairy Tale had been disastrously mistaken.

• Yu Sheng entered the observation room with Huli and Eileen, where Baili Qing showed them the laboratory staff examining the paper scrap and metal sample.
• Baili Qing explained that the Bureau could not identify the metal and was concerned because foreign objects rarely appeared in a stable Otherworld.
• Yu Sheng’s mention of things appearing at No. 66 Wutong Road alarmed Baili Qing until he clarified that he meant ordinary groceries he had brought home.
• Baili Qing gave Yu Sheng archived files on the operation codenamed Adulthood and explained that its pioneers had made mistakes while discovering how Fairy Tale worked.
• Baili Qing said the Bureau had initially misjudged Fairy Tale as a limited mental trap because affected children seemed able to resist its contamination for a long time.

Yu Sheng learned how the Special Operations Bureau’s failed “Adulthood” operation began and what it cost, as Baili Qing explained the early investigation into Fairy Tale. The surviving records suggested the deep divers had entered somewhere other than the Black Forest, leaving the nature of Fairy Tale’s deeper regions uncertain.

• Yu Sheng read how the Bureau investigated the Warm Sun Orphanage but failed to detect Fairy Tale before a runaway Sleeping Beauty incident caused disappearances.
• Baili Qing explained that a second runaway case led the Bureau to identify the Black Forest and launch the Adulthood operation.
• Yu Sheng learned that the operation’s deep dives caused numerous deaths, disappearances, and lasting harm to monitoring personnel.
• Yu Sheng questioned why the deep divers’ reported experiences did not match the Black Forest, and Baili Qing confirmed they had entered somewhere else.
• Baili Qing said the unknown place might have been an adult-only subset, the void between subsets, or Fairy Tale’s main body, then pointed Yu Sheng to two further records.

Yu Sheng read records of the failed “Adulthood” operation and learned how the sealed laboratory’s personnel experienced its final hours. Analyzed scrap paper was reconstructed as a deep diver’s old Special Operations Bureau work ID, suggesting the Black Forest “hunter” had taken part in the operation.

• Yu Sheng read an on-site operator’s chaotic note describing the deep divers’ deaths, strange sounds and visions, and the laboratory’s apparent descent into madness.
• Baili Qing showed Yu Sheng photographs and rubbings of other survivors’ indecipherable traces, then he read an outside monitoring officer’s account of the lab falling silent after lockdown.
• Yu Sheng realized the records offered a more dangerous and fundamental view of the “fairy tales” than the children’s accounts had.
• A laboratory worker alerted Baili Qing that analysts had reconstructed the scrap of paper, and she displayed the image to Yu Sheng.
• Baili Qing identified the scrap as an old work ID belonging to an unnamed Special Operations Bureau deep diver, and Yu Sheng concluded that the Black Forest “hunter” had been one of the participants in the “Adulthood” operation.

Yu Sheng and Baili Qing investigated a link between the Black Forest Hunter and the Deep Dive team that vanished seventy years ago. Yu Sheng planned to use the team’s group photo to reach the Hunter and learn how to find the Fairy Tale’s backstage.

• Yu Sheng and Baili Qing speculated that one of the twelve Deep Divers might have become the Hunter, while Eileen suggested the Hunter could instead have taken the identification document as a trophy.
• Baili Qing obtained personnel files and a group photo of the twelve Deep Divers for Yu Sheng to examine.
• Yu Sheng asked to take the group photo, and Baili Qing let him keep it on the condition that he did not share it and destroyed it after the incident.
• Yu Sheng told Baili Qing he wanted to draw out the storyteller behind the Black Forest and believed the Hunter might know a path to the Fairy Tale’s backstage.
• Yu Sheng planned to show the group photo to the Hunter in hopes of restoring her humanity and getting her help.

Baili Qing questioned Huli about her lost home and learned that its planet and sun had been traveling under the guidance of the Heavenly Beings. Suspecting the crashed immortal shuttle in Nightfall Valley could reveal more, she asked Yu Sheng to let the Special Operations Bureau investigate it, and he began negotiating for help with farming and livestock.

• Baili Qing told Yu Sheng and Huli that the bureau had found no match for Huli's hometown or biological samples.
• Huli described Hengyu, its floating continents, the Heavenly Beings' Navigation Beacon, and how the planet and sun were kept on a voyage through the Star River.
• Huli recalled that her immortal shuttle had hit a rift after its navigation malfunctioned and sent it into a danger zone.
• Baili Qing asked Yu Sheng to let the Special Operations Bureau examine the shuttle wreck in Nightfall Valley, offering a reasonable price in return.
• Yu Sheng said he had requests of his own and asked whether anyone in the bureau knew how to reclaim wasteland, farm, and raise cattle and sheep.

Yu Sheng arranged a cooperation with Baili Qing to investigate Star Valley and provide supplies and personnel. Baili Qing showed him the Crossroads’ strange Nth Floor and revealed that the Bureau suspected Huli came from beyond their known universe.

• Yu Sheng described his Star Valley agritainment project and asked Baili Qing for power equipment, supplies, and personnel in exchange for allowing Bureau specialists to investigate the valley.
• Baili Qing agreed to arrange support after an on-site survey, and Yu Sheng proposed a tour of the Bureau headquarters while Eileen and Huli waited in the laboratory.
• Baili Qing took Yu Sheng by elevator to the Nth Floor, where she showed him a floating rocky island surrounded by streams of light and offered him a drink.
• Yu Sheng asked Baili Qing what was happening with Huli’s homeland, and she said the Bureau suspected Huli came from outside their universe.
• Yu Sheng objected that Huli was a victim of the Dark Angel, and Baili Qing clarified that she considered Huli a possible outsider, not an invader.

Yu Sheng learned that Huli came from beyond the world and reflected on how distant his own homeland might be. After meeting Baili Qing’s unseen younger sister and leaving the Crossroads, he asked the Special Operations Bureau to share any intelligence about the Dark Angels so he could help Huli find a way home.

• Baili Qing explained that the Bureau had concluded Huli’s hometown lay outside the world, and Yu Sheng wondered whether his own home was similarly unreachable.
• Baili Qing’s younger sister watched Yu Sheng through a pair of illusory eyes, but vanished when Yu Sheng greeted her; Baili Qing revealed that she was her sister.
• Yu Sheng declined to pry into Huli’s origins or Baili Qing’s family and prepared to leave.
• Yu Sheng asked Baili Qing to share any future information about the Dark Angels with the Travelers’ Inn, explaining that he had promised to help Huli return home.
• Baili Qing agreed to prioritize sharing the information and warned Yu Sheng that dealing with the Dark Angels was dangerous.

Yu Sheng returned to the Special Operations Bureau with Huli and Eileen, then opened a door directly to No. 66 Wutong Road and went home. Afterward, Baili Qing discussed the incident with Song Cheng and learned that the observing eyes believed Yu Sheng’s humanity was genuine and that he may have generated No. 66 Wutong Road in the Crossroads.

• Huli offered Yu Sheng a cake stuffed with nuts and a rock-hard raisin, and Yu Sheng thanked her before taking the group home.
• Yu Sheng left a metal object with Baili Qing for the Bureau to examine and opened a door to No. 66 Wutong Road despite the Bureau’s spatial interference systems.
• Baili Qing told Song Cheng that Yu Sheng had crossed their spatial defenses without noticing them, but said she trusted him and wanted the Bureau to be his friend.
• Song Cheng reported that the Technology Department was developing automatic filtering and labeling for recorded door-opening signals.
• The eyes watching Baili Qing said Yu Sheng had genuine humanity and was likely not generated by No. 66 Wutong Road, but had instead generated the house in the Crossroads to exist in their world.

Yu Sheng settled into a peaceful evening at home with Eileen and Huli, then fell asleep while the two girls went to cook for him. In his recurring dream, he reached a silent wasteland and heard a distant wolf howl.

• Yu Sheng enjoyed the familiar warmth of home and discovered that Huli's shedding tails also built up static electricity.
• Yu Sheng asked Huli if she was happy living with him, and she said she was before he fell asleep on the sofa.
• Eileen and Huli decided to cook dinner while Yu Sheng slept, and Huli covered him with her tails.
• Yu Sheng entered a recurring dream of a dim, empty wasteland and recognized it as the place where he had once encountered Huli's dream projection.
• Yu Sheng heard the faint howl of a wolf in the wasteland.

Yu Sheng encountered Little Red Riding Hood in his dream and witnessed fragments of her childhood, including the moment she lost her parents in the Black Forest. He told her he planned to find the Hunter and destroy the Black Forest, then warned her not to approach the Hunter.

• Yu Sheng touched the flickering wolf projection and received memories of Little Red Riding Hood’s childhood, including her parents’ deaths in the Black Forest.
• Little Red Riding Hood appeared in Yu Sheng’s dream and asked where they were; he explained that people connected to him by blood could be drawn into it.
• Little Red Riding Hood recalled how she had mistaken the figures in the forest for her parents when she was a child.
• Yu Sheng told Little Red Riding Hood he planned to kill the Black Forest and whatever was behind it, beginning by finding the Hunter.
• Yu Sheng said the Hunter might be one or all of the Deep Dive Team members who entered the fairy tale’s depths seventy years earlier, and warned Little Red Riding Hood not to contact her casually.

Yu Sheng spoke with Little Red Riding Hood about the lessons her late guardian had taught her before the girl woke from his dream. He then rushed to the kitchen, where Eileen had accidentally set her cooking on fire, and rescued her before the house was damaged.

• Little Red Riding Hood explained how her former guardian had encouraged her to study and hold on to hope despite the children’s short lives.
• Yu Sheng told Little Red Riding Hood how to leave his quiet dream, and she decided to stay until she woke naturally.
• Yu Sheng smelled something burning, woke from the dream, and rushed to the kitchen after landing on Huli’s tails.
• Yu Sheng rescued Eileen from the stove, extinguished the wok fire, and ventilated the kitchen.
• Huli explained that Eileen had insisted she could use the gas stove and had tried to toss a wok that was nearly as big as she was.
• Yu Sheng dried Eileen, then carried her toward the bathroom for a bath and said he would check the kitchen before lunch.

Yu Sheng discovered that Huli’s bizarre-looking cooking tasted surprisingly edible, and Huli was pleased that he and the chicks enjoyed it. After dinner, Yu Sheng agreed to mend Eileen’s dress and buy her new clothes, while the household settled back into its usual bustle.

• Yu Sheng filled the bathtub for Eileen, who asked for a smaller showerhead and a low valve before going to bathe.
• Huli proudly served Yu Sheng a strange-looking stew made from all the foods she liked, and he found it unexpectedly edible.
• Huli fed the stew to White Cut and Salt Baked, who ate it happily alongside her and Yu Sheng.
• Yu Sheng wondered whether Eileen had drowned, but she called out from the living room that she was drying her hair.
• Eileen showed Yu Sheng the holes she had burned in her dress, and he agreed to mend it and buy her more clothes.
• Eileen brought Yu Sheng a hair dryer and asked him to dry her hair.

Yu Sheng prepared to enter the Black Forest that night with Huli and Eileen to help Little Red Riding Hood, and decided to strengthen Eileen beforehand. Their attempt to make her a sturdier body in the valley hit an unexpected snag when Yu Sheng forgot to bring a welding torch.

• Yu Sheng told Eileen he planned to return to the Black Forest that night to help Little Red Riding Hood, and Eileen insisted on joining him.
• Yu Sheng messaged Little Red Riding Hood to contact him before she went to sleep, and she agreed while thanking him.
• Yu Sheng brought Huli and Eileen to the valley and prepared a ritual to strengthen Eileen with a rebar frame.
• Yu Sheng realized he had forgotten to bring a welding torch, and Eileen attacked him for the oversight.
• Huli cut and welded the rebar with foxfire, prompting Yu Sheng to marvel at her argon fox welding.

Yu Sheng and Huli built Eileen a new body from a rebar skeleton and living soil, intending to make it 1.67 meters tall. Eileen successfully took control of it, but it immediately shrank to 66.6 centimeters, leaving her furious and Yu Sheng wondering what went wrong.

• Huli welded a life-sized doll skeleton from rebar while Eileen watched and complained that the work was not alchemy.
• Yu Sheng used blood and the valley’s soil and rock to form a body around the skeleton, then awakened it and guided Eileen into it.
• Eileen entered the new shell, but it shrank to just over half a meter tall as soon as she took control.
• Both Eileens circled Yu Sheng and complained about the body’s size until Huli restrained them with her tails.
• Yu Sheng blamed the materials and mentioned buying supplies from a five-yuan store, prompting the rebar-bodied Eileen to break free and grab his arm.

Yu Sheng, Eileen, and Huli joined Little Red Riding Hood in the Black Forest to explore it together. They set off toward a patch of light and encountered the squirrel whose warnings had once guided Little Red Riding Hood.

• Little Red Riding Hood fell asleep and entered the Black Forest in a dream, where she summoned her wolves and waited for Yu Sheng.
• Yu Sheng opened a doorway into the forest and arrived with Eileen and Huli, carrying a blood-soaked rebar weapon he called the Tetanus Staff.
• Yu Sheng explained that the weapon and his scratches were by-products of making dolls, then led the group toward the light.
• A squirrel leaped from the bushes and began reciting a warning about Little Red Riding Hood before noticing the group and exclaiming that things had gotten weird.

Yu Sheng’s group entered the Black Forest’s lamp-lit path and learned that the Hunter was dangerous and might appear wherever Wolf Grandma did. The chapter ended when two gunshots sounded nearby, revealing that the Hunter was close.

• Little Red Riding Hood grabbed the panicking squirrel, and Yu Sheng asked it where to find the Hunter.
• The squirrel warned Yu Sheng that the Black Forest had become unstable and said the Hunter would come wherever Wolf Grandma appeared.
• Little Red Riding Hood explained the forest cottages’ dangers and described the lightless cottage covered in red capes, which frightened the squirrel.
• Yu Sheng’s group followed a streetlamp-lit path, and Eileen explained that its lights acted as a temporary safe object rather than the path being a safe zone.
• A gunshot rang out beyond the path, and Huli located its direction before a second shot followed.

Yu Sheng's group ignored the Black Forest's gunshot lure and fought through the wolf pack with Huli's missiles and foxfire. They carved a path toward the distant lamplight, heading to find Wolf Grandma as the forest summoned ever more wolves.

• Yu Sheng recognized the hunter's gunshots as bait and led the group onward along the path.
• As the lamps dimmed and the wolf pack gathered, Yu Sheng directed Huli to fire Fox Carrot Missiles at the source of the evil wolf's gaze.
• Huli and Yu Sheng blasted through the wolves and forest while Little Red Riding Hood's shadow wolves finished off those that got past them.
• Yu Sheng ordered Huli to open a path toward the distant lamplight so they could reach Wolf Grandma.
• The squirrel panicked at the group defying the forest's rules, while Little Red Riding Hood said she was glad to see it.

Yu Sheng led Little Red Riding Hood, Huli, Eileen, and the squirrel through the Black Forest, battling wolf packs and setting the woods ablaze before reaching the protective cabin. They rested inside as the wolves withdrew, though the Big Bad Wolf survived and circled nearby.

• Yu Sheng and the others fought through multiplying wolf packs as Huli fired Fox Carrot Missiles and Yu Sheng battered wolves with his Tetanus Staff.
• Yu Sheng led the group toward the lit cabin, where the wolf packs retreated and dissolved in the lamplight.
• Yu Sheng knocked and called for Wolf Grandma, then opened the silent cabin door and brought everyone inside.
• Eileen hit her head on the low doorframe, easing the group's tension, and they settled down to rest while Huli ate dried meat.
• Yu Sheng told Little Red Riding Hood that the Big Bad Wolf had survived and was circling nearby, then offered her some of Huli's dried meat.

Yu Sheng helped Little Red Riding Hood confront her fear of wolves by having her eat jerky made from Wolf Grandma, then sent her out of the cabin before Wolf Grandma appeared. He learned that the evil wolf, Wolf Grandma, the wolf pack, and the Black Forest were intertwined, and prepared to face the creature at the door.

• Yu Sheng offered Little Red Riding Hood jerky made from the Wolf Grandma he had killed, and she overcame her reluctance enough to eat it.
• Yu Sheng questioned Squirrel, who explained that Wolf Grandma, the evil wolf, the wolf pack, and the Black Forest were aspects of one tangled nightmare centered on Little Red Riding Hood.
• Yu Sheng sensed Wolf Grandma forming outside the cabin and sent Little Red Riding Hood away with Eileen.
• Wolf Grandma knocked, and Yu Sheng opened the door and swung his wolf-fang club at the monster.

Yu Sheng fought Little Red Riding Hood's Wolf Grandma with Eileen and Huli’s help, then tore out the monster’s heart and let its venom enter his body. Wolf Grandma collapsed, while Yu Sheng remained at the little house’s doorway clutching the withered heart.

• Yu Sheng used black threads to restrain Wolf Grandma while Eileen held the monster in place, then smashed open its chest with his mace.
• Wolf Grandma attacked through its expanding shadow, but Eileen ensnared the shadows and Huli burned them away with foxfire.
• Yu Sheng climbed a webbed staircase to Wolf Grandma’s exposed heart and smashed through the ribs regrowing around it.
• Yu Sheng tore out the heart and pressed it against his chest, allowing its venom and the Black Forest’s malice to enter his body.
• Wolf Grandma shrank and collapsed into rotten mud as its heart weakened, and Yu Sheng fell beside the little house clutching the heart.

After killing Wolf Grandma, Yu Sheng stayed behind in the Black Forest while wolf venom slowly killed him, hoping to meet the hunter. When the hunter arrived, Yu Sheng showed it a photograph of twelve armored people, but it raised its rifle and shot him instead of answering.

• Huli and Eileen helped the poisoned Yu Sheng into the cabin after Wolf Grandma temporarily died, and he sent them home with the Tetanus Staff and the shriveled wolf heart.
• Yu Sheng chose to remain in the Black Forest and wait for the hunter, while asking Eileen and Huli to prepare cold noodles for his return.
• Squirrel Knight found Yu Sheng dying from the wolf venom and panicked when it realized he might die in the real world too.
• As the venom clouded his mind, Yu Sheng glimpsed the structures supporting many storybook worlds but could not see their source.
• The hunter entered the cabin, and Yu Sheng showed it a photograph of twelve people in protective armor and asked whether it had been one of them.
• The hunter raised its rifle and shot Yu Sheng without answering.

After returning from the Black Forest, Yu Sheng told Huli and the three Eileens that the hunter had shot him, then discussed the attack with Little Red Riding Hood. The hunter’s bullet emerged from his throat during a coughing fit, and Yu Sheng sent a photo of it to Baili Qing.

• Yu Sheng returned home, reassured Huli, and told the Eileens that the hunter had killed him with one shot.
• Yu Sheng wondered whether the hunter had mistaken him for a wolf, but Little Red Riding Hood insisted the hunter could identify wolves accurately and would not be fooled by blood contamination.
• Yu Sheng told Little Red Riding Hood that they had weakened Wolf Grandma and that he had planted a back door in the Black Forest’s cycle system.
• Yu Sheng began coughing violently and brought up a strange, blood-streaked bullet that he identified as the hunter’s message.
• Yu Sheng photographed the bullet and sent it to Baili Qing.

Yu Sheng investigated the Hunter’s bullet and reported his encounter to Baili Qing, while Little Red Riding Hood watched the orphanage children settle into a peaceful morning. Baili Qing prepared the Special Operations Bureau for a possible deep-diving mission, believing the fairy tale’s core might soon be uncovered.

• Yu Sheng concluded the Hunter probably had not known he could survive, and decided to take the bullet back into the Black Forest next time.
• Baili Qing identified the bullet as an old standardized exorcism round used by a twelve-person deep-diving team seventy years earlier, and Yu Sheng told her the Hunter had shot him with it.
• Yu Sheng promised to send Baili Qing a detailed report and said he wanted to try contacting the Hunter again to help Little Red Riding Hood and the orphanage children.
• Little Red Riding Hood admitted to Rapunzel that she feared and looked forward to her birthday, then watched Xiao Xiao and the other children share a peaceful breakfast.
• After reading Yu Sheng’s report, Baili Qing ordered Song Cheng to ready another deep-diving squad and prepare the large pool at D2 Submergence Port.

Song Cheng learned that an arrest team had captured two Angel Cultists, while Yu Sheng encountered the Hunter in a strange dream and nearly put on its outfit. He then found Xiao Xiao in the wilderness, suggesting that the place was a persistent space of consciousness rather than an ordinary dream.

• Song Cheng reviewed Fairy Tale case files and heard from Ren Wenwen that the South City arrest team had captured two Angel Cultists but found no larger targets.
• Yu Sheng fell asleep after returning from the Black Forest and encountered the silent Hunter in a dark, dreamlike space.
• Yu Sheng noticed that his arm moved the Hunter's sleeve as if he were putting on the outfit, causing the space to shake and collapse.
• Xiao Xiao appeared beside Yu Sheng in the gloomy wilderness and said she had dreamed of a gray wolf, run until she tripped, and fallen into the place.
• Yu Sheng concluded that the wilderness was an existing space of consciousness that he could enter while dreaming.

Yu Sheng discovered Xiao Xiao in his dream before waking to Little Red Riding Hood’s call about their unpaid museum commission. They agreed to investigate the suspicious death of her client and the missing Curiosity Association records, while the chapter ended with Eileen pouncing on Yu Sheng after he banned her from his bed.

• Yu Sheng met Xiao Xiao in the dream, reassured her that it was safe, and returned to reality when he heard his phone ringing.
• Yu Sheng answered Little Red Riding Hood’s call and learned that her client had died and that the Curiosity Association had no record of the commission to recover the Weeper statue.
• Little Red Riding Hood suspected her client had been silenced, and Yu Sheng agreed to help her investigate.
• Yu Sheng learned that the Special Operations Bureau would also investigate, and Little Red Riding Hood agreed to come to his home.
• Yu Sheng scolded the three Eileens for crushing him and banned Rebar Eileen from sleeping on the bed, prompting her to pounce at him.