He returned.
He was back in this strange "City of Realms."
Not long ago, this place had felt like an enormous, eerie city filled with unsettling sights.
But now, witnessing the familiar street lamps and buildings, seeing the streets and sky bathed in the soft morning light, a sense of “nostalgia” stirred within him, a feeling so profound that he could hardly believe it himself.
The experience of being trapped in that Nightfall Valley had given him a strange longing for this “City of Realms,” as if it were home.
Yet before he could dwell on that thought, a wave of disorientation washed over him, a consequence of his fleeting life.
He glanced down and saw bright red blood slowly spreading beneath him.
He had been pierced—that frightening wound was enough to kill him in no time.
Even though his current body possessed exceptional healing capabilities and vitality, he knew he was close to death again, and that that familiarity with “again” was something he had mastered.
The culprit responsible for this horrific wound lay beside him—a scaly tail cut from a monster, which had fallen out of the entrance along with him.
It appeared to still have a trace of life, even a sort of “thought,” as it writhed slowly in the pool of blood, attempting to crawl away from him.
He felt that this piece of flesh was afraid of him.
He frowned and struggled to rise from the ground.
Glancing at the home just a short distance away, he grabbed the writhing scaly tail that lay beside him and staggered forward.
As he walked, he muttered to himself, “Didn’t they say that escaping from a desperate situation would lead to everything being fine? What’s with this ridiculous design where injuries remain even after the map’s closure… Damn, it hurts so much…”
The continuous loss of blood made his consciousness gradually dim, each step feeling really unsteady, requiring immense effort, as if he would collapse at any moment.
In those last few steps, he moved instinctively forward, unsure of why he felt the need to return home—perhaps to greet Erin? Or maybe to prevent morning passersby from discovering his “corpse”?
Everything around him slowly darkened, the morning light tinged with deep red.
Memories of Hu Li’s golden-red eyes surfaced in his mind—those eyes filled with a bloodthirsty hunger, yet still holding onto the last shred of humanity, struggling to maintain their place in the bloodied depths.
As for that fox… he wondered what had become of her.
She had said she wouldn’t die, but whether that was true, he didn’t know.
With those thoughts swirling in his mind, he finally struggled to reach his front door.
The door was unlocked.
He grasped the doorknob and pushed it open, stepping inside.
His gaze fell upon the dining room opposite the entrance.
The familiar oil painting remained leaning against the wall, and Erin was looking up from it, astonished at the sight of him, her eyes widening slowly in surprise.
He forced a smile, though it was more of a moment of clarity. “Erin, I’m back.”
He knew his injuries were severe.
If it weren’t for this body’s astonishing healing and resilience, he would have been dead outside.
Just then, as that thought crossed his mind, his vision swayed, and he slumped against the door frame, overwhelmed by a familiar darkness closing in from all sides—accompanied by Erin’s terrified scream.
He was now dead in the house.
…
With a soft screech of brakes, two electric bikes came to a stop deep in Wutong Road.
Two figures dismounted, observing this old and quiet street.
One was a middle-aged man, looking calm and reliable.
He wore a brown long coat, tall and robust, his complexion slightly dark.
A jagged scar around his neck added a hint of intimidation to his presence, yet the fatigue and dark circles beneath his eyes contradicted his strong physique and fearsome scar—his face showing signs of never having taken a break from work for three months.
The other was a young man, perhaps barely in his twenties.
He had the same short black hair but was much shorter and slighter than the middle-aged man.
He looked ordinary, the kind of face that would get lost in any crowd.
Dressed in a black and blue jacket and trousers, he wore an expression of tension, as if he were being ushered out for fieldwork just days after starting his job.
The pair rode into this tranquil old city, surveying the unremarkable buildings around them.
Occasionally, residents strolled past, yet hardly anyone glanced in their direction.
“This place doesn’t seem strange at all…” muttered the young man. “Captain Song, are you sure it’s here?”
“There was a boundary alert just now, and the coordinates are indeed correct,” nodded the middle-aged man, referred to as Captain Song. “Though the signal vanished instantly, we can confirm an exotic reaction occurred.”
“We hurried but still missed it,” the young man glanced back at the electric bike, hesitating to voice his thoughts. “Should we have driven instead…?”
Captain Song shot him a glance. “Cars from the bureau are all out on fieldwork. All that’s left is Xu Jiali’s broken-down car. You want to drive that? It’s not even as fast as your electric bike when you’re flooring the gas pedal.”
The young man chuckled awkwardly, trying to shift the conversation. “Uh, about that person before… the code name ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ right? That Fairy Tale organization member? She didn’t seem to find anything around here either?”
“Right, she found nothing, which makes it more certain something is off,” Captain Song nodded slowly. “Little Red Riding Hood has done plenty of work for the Special Operations Bureau. I understand her abilities—her wolves can sniff out even the faintest hints of ‘anomalies’ in the surroundings. Yet she spent the entire night here and found nothing at all.” The young man blinked, seemingly processing this information.
“Found nothing? Didn’t get it?” Captain Song reiterated. “It’s too ‘clean’ and too ‘normal.’ There should never be this level of cleanliness at a boundary area! Little Red Riding Hood’s wolves can detect anomalies everywhere in this city, no matter how weak that sensation is. Yet here… from a mystical perspective, this whole street is cleaner than a vacuum!”
Upon hearing this, the young man finally understood—it all clicked with the training he’d undergone at school.
“Either this place really is that clean, with a section of the boundary existing in a ‘pure area’ that’s deeply parallel to the ‘outside world’—that’s possible, given that this is a boundary area; everything in the world might connect here,” Captain Song waved his hand, looking weary. “Or, there’s something… big lurking here, something that is continuously altering the environmental conditions of the area. Little Red Riding Hood’s wolves encountered true boundary vacuum here.”
The young man’s already tense expression grew even tenser.
“I won’t allow you to transfer to the logistics department,” Captain Song looked at him. “You can’t transfer to another team either.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to run!” The young man quickly waved his hands. “When I joined, I was prepared to remain loyal and diligent in my duties…”
Suddenly, a ringtone interrupted their conversation, a delightful melody—an iconic tune from some popular new show.
At the sound, the young man froze, looking at his superior with a peculiar expression. “You… watch that too?”
Captain Song’s expression twitched visibly as he reluctantly pulled out his phone, muttering, “It must be my daughter who changed it without me knowing. She’s been watching it lately…”
The young man’s expression shifted subtly, struggling to voice the thought that it might not be appropriate for a middle schooler to be watching a show featuring a group of girls forming a band…
Captain Song answered the call, placing it to his ear.
After listening for a while, he spoke, “Yes, I’m here with Li Lin. Like with Little Red Riding Hood’s previous investigation, this place feels ‘too clean’ in a creepy way. Arrange something for us. We might need to set up a fixed monitoring point here. I’ll decide on personnel when I get back. Also, contact the ‘Fairytales’ team to see if they can send another person over. This might be a long-term task…”
After hanging up, Captain Song took a long breath and turned to find the young man named Li Lin still staring at him.
He blinked, unable to resist chuckling, “Seriously, it is my daughter’s doing. I don’t usually watch cartoons.”
Li Lin quickly cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, I believe you. I believe you.”
The two shared an awkward moment before mutually deciding to skip that topic.
Just then, Li Lin seemed to discover something.
He furrowed his brow and hurried toward a corner of the wall not far ahead.
“Captain Song, come check this out!” He bent down to examine something, then raised his head to call out.
Captain Song approached and followed Li Lin's pointing finger.
A patch of dark red stains appeared at the wall corner, looking like dried blood.
The area was small, easily overlooked from a distance, yet still visibly shrinking at an astonishing speed.
It wasn’t seeping into the cement; it was disappearing into thin air.
“Blood?” Captain Song furrowed his brows, then swiftly reacted, pulling a plastic tube and a portable scraper from his coat pocket. “No, it’s not blood—collect a sample!”
“Got it.” Li Lin replied, taking the sampling tools and preparing to scrape the dark red “bloodstains” from the wall.
However, just before the scraper touched the surface, the last remaining tiny bit of red abruptly hissed and then completely vanished.
(End of Chapter)