Recaps

Yu Sheng awakened Eileen’s second body, expanded his preparations in Nightfall Valley, and learned more about the Dark Angels from the Special Operations Bureau. After becoming trapped in Little Red Riding Hood’s Black Forest, he connected with its wolf and discovered that the forest was consuming her, leaving him to visit her the next day.

• Yu Sheng used his blood and a clay doll to awaken a second Eileen, then tested how far she could operate from her oil painting, even across different spaces.
• Yu Sheng developed Nightfall Valley as a future base, bought food, chicks, seeds, and tools, and received the Inn’s registration documents and a Bureau reward from Song Cheng.
• Song Cheng explained the Dark Angels, the Angel Cultists, and the Bureau’s suspicions about Yu Sheng’s encounter with the giant eye, while Yu Sheng asked for help arranging deliveries near No. 66 Wutong Road.
• Yu Sheng awoke in the Black Forest, escaped the wolves with a squirrel’s help, and learned that Little Red Riding Hood and her predecessors were caught in the forest’s recurring cycle.
• Eileen entered the forest through Yu Sheng’s drawing, but the forest rejected her as the giant wolf destroyed the cabin and swallowed Squirrel Knight.
• Yu Sheng merged with the dire wolf, returned to his body, and told Little Red Riding Hood he had entered the Black Forest and encountered its wolf.
• Little Red Riding Hood explained that the forest was consuming her and that she would turn eighteen next month, then invited Yu Sheng to visit her home.

Yu Sheng rescued Xiao Xiao from the Black Forest and began investigating the force behind its story, while helping Little Red Riding Hood recover memories of his deaths. He learned that his doors could connect places beyond the Crossroads and brought mysterious objects to the Special Operations Bureau for analysis.

• Little Red Riding Hood brought Yu Sheng to the orphanage, where she explained that Fairy Tales preyed on children and had resisted the Special Operations Bureau’s attempts to contain them.
• When Xiao Xiao transformed and vanished into the Black Forest, Yu Sheng entered the dream with Little Red Riding Hood and found her in Wolf Grandma’s cottage.
• Yu Sheng killed Wolf Grandma and freed Xiao Xiao, then discovered a scrap of writing beneath the bed and brought the wolf’s corpse back to the orphanage.
• Yu Sheng showed Little Red Riding Hood the Black Forest’s clues and took her, Rapunzel, and Xiao Xiao to Nightfall Valley, where he explained that he was searching for the source behind the forest’s story.
• Yu Sheng failed to open a direct door into the Black Forest until Eileen guided the connection through their linked minds, allowing Yu Sheng and Huli to enter and return safely.
• Little Red Riding Hood remembered Yu Sheng’s deaths and called him in alarm, while he explained how her memories had returned.
• Xu Jiali took Yu Sheng, Eileen, and Huli through the Special Operations Bureau’s anomalous headquarters, where staff explained that his doors could provide another way to travel beyond the Crossroads.
• Yu Sheng handed the Bureau the Hunter’s scrap and the metal object from his home, and the laboratory sealed the metal object in a marked alloy container.

Yu Sheng investigated the Black Forest’s connection to the Bureau’s lost deep divers, then fought Wolf Grandma and drew the Hunter’s attention. After discovering a dream-space linked to the storybook worlds, he agreed to help Little Red Riding Hood investigate her client’s death.

• Yu Sheng learned from Baili Qing’s archived records that the Bureau’s Adulthood operation had sent deep divers into an unknown place, and he identified the Black Forest’s Hunter as possibly one of them.
• Yu Sheng arranged Bureau support for his Star Valley project, asked Baili Qing to share information about the Dark Angels, and returned home with Huli and Eileen.
• Yu Sheng met Little Red Riding Hood in his recurring dream and told her he intended to find the Hunter and destroy the Black Forest.
• Yu Sheng made Eileen a rebar-bodied shell with Huli’s help, then took her and Huli into the Black Forest to find the Hunter.
• Yu Sheng’s group fought through the wolves and reached Wolf Grandma’s cabin, where Yu Sheng tore out Wolf Grandma’s heart and absorbed its venom and malice.
• The Hunter shot Yu Sheng after he showed it a photograph of the twelve Deep Divers, and Yu Sheng later coughed up an old exorcism bullet that Baili Qing identified as their standard ammunition.
• Yu Sheng encountered the Hunter in a dreamlike space and saw Xiao Xiao there, then concluded the wilderness was a consciousness-space he could enter while dreaming.
• Little Red Riding Hood told Yu Sheng that her client had died and the Curiosity Association had no record of the Weeper statue commission, so Yu Sheng agreed to help investigate.

Yu Sheng uncovered the Angel Cultists’ plan to free Ankaela and traced the mystery to a counterfeit umbilical cord, the Black Forest, and the Fairy Tale book. The investigation led the Bureau to identify the long-missing orphan Zhao Lele, while the book and Ankaela’s interrupted descent remained unexplained.

• Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood discovered that Old Zheng had been tricked into luring her to the White Exhibition Hall, then found a hidden ritual that exposed Yu Sheng to a tentacle in a warped space.
• Yu Sheng entered an Angel Cultist’s memories and learned that the cultists had used Old Zheng to help their Lord descend, then told Baili Qing the Dark Angel’s name was An-Ka-Ai-La.
• Yu Sheng warned the Fairy Tale organization about the cultists and proposed using his blood to protect the orphanage’s residents from dangerous dreams and erosion.
• Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood found a black umbilical cord among Old Zheng’s belongings, and Yu Sheng decided to investigate its connection to Ankaela in the Black Forest.
• In the Black Forest, Yu Sheng met the squirrel that had given the Fairy Tale book to Ankaela and learned that Old Zheng’s cord was a counterfeit of a longer, metal-like original.
• Yu Sheng told the squirrel that the Fairy Tale book may have helped imprison Ankaela, then returned to share his findings with Baili Qing and request a search for the missing book and child.
• Baili Qing showed Yu Sheng an archived photograph identifying the missing child as Zhao Lele, who had disappeared from the orphanage eighty-six years earlier.