Chapter Summaries

Yu Sheng returned home with news from the Special Operations Bureau and planned to tell the orphanage about the Dark Angel after confirming the shelter mechanism. Before that, he prepared an experiment in the basement to make a fixed portal to the Valley, with Eileen helping him draw the alchemical array and Baili Qing arranging support.

• Yu Sheng stopped Eileen and Huli from cooking unsupervised, then told Eileen that the Bureau had identified Squirrel as Zhao Lele and established when Ankaela first descended.
• Yu Sheng said he would visit the Valley with Eileen and Huli before entering the Wasteland later to speak with Little Red Riding Hood and the other parents.
• Yu Sheng retrieved an old door from the basement and explained that he wanted to use it as a medium to make a fixed portal to the Valley.
• Eileen recognized Yu Sheng's plan, enlarged and completed the alchemical array on the floor and door frame, and warned that the experiment might fail.
• Yu Sheng called Baili Qing to inform her about the experiment, and she revealed she had already arranged support after recognizing his unusually polite manner.

Yu Sheng infused a basement door with his blood and connected it permanently to the valley, creating a passage for people who had received his blood. After Eileen fell from the mispositioned doorway, Yu Sheng repaired the gate and left the group admiring its unusual design.

• Yu Sheng used his blood and an infusion ritual to reshape a door in the basement of No. 66 Wutong Road and establish a stable connection to the valley.
• Eileen and Huli watched as Yu Sheng formed a matching physical doorway on the valley side and confirmed that the passage stayed open.
• Eileen opened the new door, but Yu Sheng had placed it at the platform's edge, so she fell onto the gravel below.
• Yu Sheng raised the ground to retrieve Eileen, then adjusted the gate to face inward on the platform.
• Eileen, Yu Sheng, and Huli examined the repaired stone gate and its triangular doorknob, which Yu Sheng said represented the inn's three leaders.

Yu Sheng entered the wasteland to see whether the Mind Sanctuary was working and found Little Red Riding Hood growing more confident against the Black Forest. A flood of fairy-tale figures then fell into the wasteland from their nightmares, leaving Yu Sheng stunned as Snow White explained their bizarre subsets.

• Yu Sheng entered the wasteland with Eileen and Huli and found Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White there.
• Yu Sheng noticed Little Red Riding Hood feared the Black Forest less, and she confirmed that her confidence had grown.
• Little Red Riding Hood said the squirrel had acted distracted and only told her, “You’ll know.”
• Figures from the fairy-tale group began falling into the wasteland amid collapsing towers, burning vehicles, roses, and battles.
• The newcomers gathered as their powers settled, and Snow White explained to Yu Sheng that Dorothy, Cinderella, and Rapunzel each faced a different nightmare subset.

Yu Sheng welcomed the gathered Fairy Tale guardians to the Shelter Wasteland and shared what he had learned about the squirrel and the Dark Angel Ankaela. The group planned to investigate the orphanage for traces connected to Ankaela when they returned.

• The Cat King patrolled the Shelter Wasteland with summoned guards while Little Red Riding Hood explained its strange abilities to Yu Sheng.
• Yu Sheng greeted the nine Fairy Tale guardians who had gathered, then learned that seven of the sixteen guardians were absent for various reasons.
• Yu Sheng told Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and the Cat King what the squirrel had revealed about Ankaela and the Black Forest.
• Snow White explained that Fairy Tale’s subsets changed as their characters grew, but that the squirrel was unique to the Black Forest.
• Yu Sheng asked Little Red Riding Hood to search the orphanage’s basement and oldest buildings for traces of Ankaela, and she agreed to organize an investigation.

Yu Sheng joined the fairy-tale characters’ gathering in the Shelter Wasteland, then prepared to give the younger orphanage children blood-transfusion inoculations. Meanwhile, Little Red Riding Hood and the King investigated the suspected site of the descent beneath the West Building, where the King noticed there were no mice.

• Little Red Riding Hood introduced Yu Sheng to the fairy-tale characters and their quirks as they celebrated around a bonfire in the wasteland.
• Yu Sheng arrived at the orphanage the next morning to add his blood to Snow White’s vegetable soup for the younger children’s inoculations.
• Snow White prepared to draw Yu Sheng’s blood while Match explained that her code name was shortened from Little Match Girl.
• Little Red Riding Hood used old building plans to search beneath the West Building for the courtyard where the descent had occurred eighty-six years earlier.
• The King found nothing unusual at first but pointed out that the underground passage had no mice.

Little Red Riding Hood found signs that the Black Forest had appeared in the orphanage’s underground passage. Meanwhile, the Special Operations Bureau prepared to raid a building where Angel Cultists had apparently all died, leaving Yu Sheng’s group facing a new threat beneath the orphanage.

• Little Red Riding Hood and King searched the West Building’s underground passage and found that all the rats and cockroaches had disappeared.
• A Special Operations Bureau team surrounded a building, detected supernatural power inside, and prepared to breach it.
• Song Cheng learned that the Angel Cultists were all dead.
• Yu Sheng, Eileen, and Huli discussed protecting the orphanage’s children and the need to stop the fairy tale at its source.
• Little Red Riding Hood showed Yu Sheng a photograph of tree shadows on the underground passage wall and said the Black Forest had appeared there.

Yu Sheng investigated the underground passage where Little Red Riding Hood had photographed a Black Forest-like shadow, then went with Eileen and Huli to the Special Operations Bureau after learning that six Angel Cultists had died in a ritual. He prepared to speak with the dead and gave Song Cheng a long list of ritual supplies and food.

• Yu Sheng examined the underground passage with Eileen, Huli, and Little Red Riding Hood, and suspected that a leak from Ankaela’s realm had caused the strange shadows.
• Little Red Riding Hood asked King to watch the passage and arrange a three-assassin adventurer party to guard it.
• Song Cheng called Yu Sheng to report that the Special Operations Bureau had found six dead Angel Cultists at their hideout.
• Song Cheng explained that the cultists had sacrificed their own lives in a ritual to communicate with Ankaela, which suggested they believed their lord urgently needed them to die.
• Yu Sheng said he would speak with the corpses and asked Song Cheng to prepare ritual materials, food, and cola.

Yu Sheng questioned the dead Angel Cultists and learned that Ankaela’s child was nearing awakening and that they believed he had arrived too late. He then confronted a captured cultist, who died after hinting that a vessel had matured, and Yu Sheng began questioning him through his ability to speak with the dead.

• Yu Sheng used his conversation-with-the-dead ability on an Angel Cultist and heard that Ankaela’s child was about to awaken and that the cultists had fulfilled a pact by offering guidance.
• The dead cultists’ remains burst into pale flames, and Yu Sheng could no longer communicate with them afterward.
• Yu Sheng, Song Cheng, Eileen, and Huli went to question the captured bald Angel Cultist, but he insisted he had no secrets left.
• Yu Sheng told the captive that his fellow cultists were dead, and the man reacted with strange delight before saying that the vessel had matured.
• The captive suddenly died, so Yu Sheng used his ability on him and demanded to know what he meant; the dead man replied, “Fuck.”

Yu Sheng failed to learn the Angel Cultist’s secrets before the man died, but he discovered that the Dark Angel might descend through a child from the Fairy Tale organization. He and the Special Operations Bureau began weighing ways to protect the children, while Yu Sheng urged them to consult Little Red Riding Hood and the others first.

• Yu Sheng questioned the dead Angel Cultist, but a baby’s cry interrupted him and the cultist died after declaring that the Eternal Lord had come to welcome him.
• Yu Sheng told Song Cheng that the cultist had mentioned a vessel for an angel’s descent, possibly one of the children in the Fairy Tale organization.
• Yu Sheng explained that he had given every Fairy Tale member a mental refuge, and Baili Qing questioned whether it could protect them from the Dark Angel’s descent.
• Baili Qing and Song Cheng considered moving the children to containment facilities, while Yu Sheng warned that the children might object and that the Bureau’s earlier attempt to gather them had gone badly.
• Yu Sheng proposed consulting Little Red Riding Hood and the other Fairy Tale members to identify abnormal behavior and possible vessels before deciding how to protect them.

Yu Sheng told the Fairy Tale leaders that the Dark Angel Ankaela was nearing awakening and that one of them might be its vessel. They agreed to move the orphanage children out of the city, and Yu Sheng proposed sheltering them in his Star Valley.

• Yu Sheng briefed Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and King on the Angel Cultists, their sacrifices, and the unknown vessel.
• Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and King were identified as likely vessel candidates because of their roles and corruption.
• Yu Sheng proposed moving the children somewhere isolated, and Little Red Riding Hood agreed to relocate them with their parents after they had time to prepare.
• Snow White supported moving the group away from the urban district to prevent a possible disaster.
• Yu Sheng offered his Star Valley as an alternative to Tranquil Town or a Special Operations Bureau containment facility, with the Bureau supplying temporary housing and necessities.

Yu Sheng arranged for Little Red Riding Hood and the children of the Fairy Tale organization to shelter in his valley while the Special Operations Bureau prepared supplies and personnel. He began shaping a temporary camp near the valley’s Hub Platform, where Eileen stopped him from growing the whole camp and potentially housing the children in toilets.

• Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White discussed moving the children to Yu Sheng’s valley and agreed they still needed to confront the Dark Angel and Fairy Tale Curse at their source.
• Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood decided the orphanage needed to be monitored after the children left, since its strange phenomena might come from the building itself.
• Yu Sheng told Baili Qing that Fairy Tale had accepted the move, and she confirmed that supplies and personnel were ready to deploy.
• Yu Sheng, Eileen, and Huli traveled to the valley and selected open ground beside the Hub Platform for a temporary camp.
• Yu Sheng shaped the ground into camp infrastructure, then suggested growing the entire camp until Eileen warned him that it could leave the children living in toilets.

Yu Sheng finished preparing the valley settlement and went with Baili Qing to the Special Operations Bureau’s Frontier hub to arrange construction supplies. He stood before a warehouse door large enough for trucks and prepared to test whether he could open a passage through it.

• Yu Sheng shaped the valley’s foundations and built a rough stone castle for Little Red Riding Hood and the others, while Eileen teased him about its appearance.
• After the camp was ready, Yu Sheng called Baili Qing and used a phantom door to reach her office at the Special Operations Bureau headquarters.
• Baili Qing and Song Cheng took Yu Sheng, Eileen, and Huli to the Frontier, where Song Cheng explained that its port connected the Crossroads to the outside world through a natural passage.
• Baili Qing showed Yu Sheng the warehouse and its waiting construction crew, trucks, and supplies, explaining that a real door could reduce the energy needed to open a passage.
• Yu Sheng considered transporting the supplies through Huli if his attempt failed, then placed his hand on the warehouse door to test whether he could open it.

Yu Sheng opened a passage to the Otherworld valley so the Special Operations Bureau could bring supplies and build a temporary settlement for the orphanage children. After showing Baili Qing the valley and its preparations, he led her and Song Cheng to inspect the stabilized wreckage of Huli’s Immortal Shuttle.

• Yu Sheng opened a passage through the warehouse gate and held it open while Song Cheng directed the convoy into the valley.
• Baili Qing, Yu Sheng, and the others entered the valley, where Song Cheng marveled at its restored landscape and Eileen demanded a fee for smoking.
• Yu Sheng showed Baili Qing and the construction supervisor the prepared camp, and Baili Qing explained that orphanage staff would move to the valley with the children.
• Special Operations Bureau engineers began assembling temporary housing and utilities as Eileen watched the construction.
• Baili Qing asked Yu Sheng to take her to the crash site, and he brought her and Song Cheng to the stabilized wreckage of Huli’s Immortal Shuttle.

Yu Sheng and Huli agreed to let the Special Operations Bureau study the wreckage of the Immortal Shuttle, while Huli dismissed the danger of others learning about her homeland because they could not defeat them. Yu Sheng then returned to the orphanage, where he and Little Red Riding Hood discussed moving the children to the valley settlement and the challenges of life without night.

• Song Cheng and Baili Qing discussed analyzing the Immortal Shuttle and inviting Academy experts to investigate it and Yu Sheng’s other discoveries.
• Yu Sheng told Huli that she could decide whether outsiders studied the Immortal Shuttle, and Huli agreed to let them examine it because the wreckage alone could not bring back her homeland.
• Huli said that her people and the Heavenly Beings accepted risks and claimed that those who opposed peaceful coexistence were killed; she then rubbed Yu Sheng with her tails.
• Yu Sheng sent Song Cheng and Baili Qing back to Special Operations Bureau headquarters and discussed a research plan before returning his attention to the orphanage.
• Yu Sheng met Little Red Riding Hood on night patrol and learned that the children were ready to move to the valley settlement, where the lack of night would make maintaining their schedule difficult.

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood discovered that nightmare leakage had expanded from the Subsets into the orphanage, and they began evacuating the children and protecting those still trapped. Yu Sheng sent Eileen to warn the fallen fairy-tale members and ordered everyone to gather so he could take them to the valley.

• Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood patrolled the underground level with the King and its guards, but heard strange court-dance music coming from behind a wall.
• Little Red Riding Hood led the group to a storage room, where they witnessed a ballroom nightmare collapse into the orphanage before the visions vanished.
• Yu Sheng recognized that the nightmare leakage was expanding and ordered Little Red Riding Hood to wake the children and gather them on the first floor.
• Little Red Riding Hood ordered the King to summon royal guards to protect the bodies of those still inside the Subsets.
• Yu Sheng contacted Eileen and told her to warn the fallen members in the Wasteland, then gather everyone at the East Building for evacuation to the valley.

Yu Sheng encountered nightmares overflowing into the real world and warned the matchstick to hurry her performance or seek Eileen. After being drawn into the Black Forest, he learned Ankaela's gaze was searching across the Fairy Tale and helped the squirrel prepare to hide before returning to the orphanage, where the children were being evacuated.

• Yu Sheng crossed a winter-night nightmare and told the matchstick to speed up her performance or find Eileen at Shelter Wasteland.
• The underground passage transformed into the Black Forest, where the squirrel warned Yu Sheng that Ankaela's gaze was sweeping across the Fairy Tale's subsets.
• Yu Sheng told the squirrel to hide in a tree hollow and gave her his blood as protection for the coming danger.
• Yu Sheng escaped the fading dreamscape and rushed upstairs through a succession of story illusions.
• Yu Sheng reached the East Building hall and found Little Red Riding Hood and the older children organizing the children for evacuation.

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood evacuated the orphanage’s children through a door into the isolated valley as fairy-tale subsets leaked into reality. After the leakage subsided and everyone else withdrew, Yu Sheng saw a hollow figure dressed as a Hunter in the silent hall, but it vanished when he blinked.

• Yu Sheng learned that subsets were leaking into reality and helped Little Red Riding Hood arrange the evacuation of everyone at the orphanage.
• Yu Sheng opened a door to the valley, where Eileen and the others were ready to receive the children.
• Rapunzel led the children through the door in organized groups while the Royal Guards carried out those trapped in nightmares.
• The leakage and strange sounds subsided, and Eileen confirmed that the valley and wasteland were stable.
• After the others left, Yu Sheng spotted a hollow figure in a Hunter’s outfit in the hall, but it disappeared when he blinked.

Yu Sheng confirmed that the orphanage’s overflow had stopped and handed the site over to a Special Operations Bureau team led by Li Lin. He returned to the valley resettlement site, where the Fairy Tale members and children had settled in but were already overwhelming Eileen with their games.

• Yu Sheng searched the orphanage after seeing the Hunter, found no further anomalies, and learned from Song Cheng that outside sensors had detected none of the overflowing illusions.
• A Special Operations Bureau team arrived, and Li Lin took command of the orphanage’s monitoring and defense.
• Yu Sheng briefed Li Lin on the overflow and its precautions, then left for the valley resettlement site.
• Yu Sheng found the children adapting well, but Eileen was being chased by doll heads while Fox Girl carried excited doll heads through the air on her flaming tails.

Yu Sheng and the others settled the rescued children in the valley after escaping the orphanage, and the children began to relax and play. As the group prepared to rest and rebuild their routines, Yu Sheng arranged a communal breakfast for the children and Special Operations Bureau staff.

• Yu Sheng helped Huli bring down the doll heads attached to cruise missiles, then joined the fairy-tale group as the children played around the camp.
• Yu Sheng rescued Eileen from another group of children and sat with her and Little Red Riding Hood, who described their rushed evacuation as a mischievous adventure.
• Yu Sheng told Little Red Riding Hood that he had seen an illusion of the Hunter, inspected the East Building, and left the orphanage under Li Lin's team to monitor.
• Yu Sheng promised to retrieve the group's belongings and said Teacher Su and the council's employees could help them settle in.
• A Special Operations Bureau worker asked where the children should eat, so Yu Sheng raised a long stone table and chairs from the platform and invited the staff to share breakfast.

After relocating the orphanage to the valley, Yu Sheng welcomed its children and staff to a new settlement and coordinated with the Special Operations Bureau on further construction. He tried to catch up on sleep, but woke in the Black Forest to the sound of a crying baby.

• Yu Sheng shared the orphanage’s first hot breakfast in the valley with the children, Little Red Riding Hood, and the staff.
• At Baili Qing’s request, Yu Sheng opened a door to bring the council’s teachers and their homework supplies from the Special Operations Bureau.
• Yu Sheng showed the teachers around the camp and reminded everyone to eat and rest before dealing with lessons.
• The second batch of construction workers arrived as the orphanage’s older members took over camp facilities and settled the children in.
• Yu Sheng sensed the new settlement’s vitality and saw workers extending water pipes and power cables toward another construction site.
• Yu Sheng went home to sleep with Huli’s tail, then woke in the Black Forest as a baby cried nearby.