Little Red Riding Hood did not seem to suspect Yu Sheng's explanation—irresponsible adults are always able to lie without blushing or skipping a beat, easily fooling the JK who'll only be celebrating her eighteenth birthday next month.

So she simply reminded Yu Sheng to be cautious and alert when facing the Dark Angel before quickly steering the topic back to "Exotic Realm."

"Exotic Realms are mainly divided into four types. The first three categories are the most intuitive—based on size and form, they are 'Wilderness', 'Kingdom', and 'Fortress'," Little Red Riding Hood said solemnly to Yu Sheng, "From their names, you should be able to roughly guess their meanings."

Yu Sheng quickly adjusted his attitude, following Little Red Riding Hood's lead, he pondered and said: "I have read a bit about this part... I remember the 'Wilderness Type' Exotic Realm refers to 'open spaces without clear visual boundaries, with most within being primal natural environments, and one cannot leave by simply walking to the end', right?"

"That's right, so 'Nightfall Valley' is a typical Wilderness Type Exotic Realm," nodded Little Red Riding Hood, "Generally speaking, Wilderness Type Exotic Realms are vast, and they lack clear and fixed 'entrances and exits', basically requiring specific conditions or a particular timing to leave.

"Whereas 'Kingdom' is another expansive type, sometimes its spatial scale compares with the Wilderness, but what differentiates it is that Kingdoms tend to have an abundance of 'man-made traces'—a continuity of houses, cities, even booming factories unaware of what they are producing—'Kingdom' type realms feel like a slice of civilization relic situated within an abnormal space, but in fact, those structures spread throughout are filled with illogical aspects, and with a little observation, one can find their distorted and dissonant places.

"In addition, in Kingdom Type Exotic Realms, you can generally find exits that lead reliably back and forth to reality, which is the biggest difference from the Wilderness.

"And the third type 'Fortress' often presents itself as a single, closed building or facility, 'smaller' in 'scale' compared to Wilderness and Kingdom, but that doesn't mean that Fortress is any safer. On the contrary, Fortresses often have more complex and changeable rules and eerie environments. 'Uncertainty' is the largest feature of Fortress Type Exotic Realms, and because of this characteristic, the way in and out of Fortresses is also full of variety—some have stable entrances, while others, like the Wilderness, are 'conditionally reversible'.

"The 'Museum' we explored together is a typical Fortress Type Exotic Realm, and another 'Fortress' you are more familiar with..."

Little Red Riding Hood paused here, her gaze calmly fixated on Yu Sheng's eyes: "Guess which one?"

Yu Sheng was stunned for a moment, soon realizing, and said uncertainly: "It can't be my home, can it?"

Little Red Riding Hood appeared a bit speechless: "...Isn't it obvious?"

"Ah, well, yes, but I never thought about it this way," Yu Sheng touched his nose awkwardly, then quickly changed the subject, "Alright, there are four types of Exotic Realms, and you've listed three in one breath, so obviously, 'Fairy Tales' has got to be the fourth type, right."

Little Red Riding Hood sighed and nodded with a complex expression: "The fourth type, 'Abnormal'."

Before Yu Sheng could speak, he heard Erin beside him chime in: "Ah, just from hearing it, you know it's going to be tricky."

Hu Li stared blankly at the little doll in his arms: "Why do you say that?"

Erin rolled her eyes: "Nonsense, Exotic Realms as a whole are already off, and now there's even a class of realm with the name emphatically highlighting 'offness', it's totally like Yu Sheng entering No. 66 Wutong Road—outrageously weird!"

Yu Sheng immediately poked the doll head with a finger: "I said don't use my group's idiom as a proverb!"

Then he turned his head to look at Little Red Riding Hood: "Explain in more detail?"

"If you say a normal Exotic Realm is a piece of twisted space-time, then an 'Abnormal' realm... is that 'something' beyond 'space-time'," Little Red Riding Hood chose her words carefully, trying hard to explain the following overly abstract and bizarre matters clearly, "Those abstract, conceptualized, even unimaginable... 'things'. For example, an emotion, a memory, some sounds, or... a story."

Yu Sheng, Erin, and Hu Li all looked baffled.

Yu Sheng was baffled for half a minute before he was the first to break the silence: "Huh?"

Then he immediately waved his hand: "Wait a sec, I think my imagination can keep up, it's just my understanding lagging behind... Are you saying that emotional memories and even sounds... can also form an Exotic Realm?"

"It's not that they form the Exotic Realm, but that the Exotic Realm manifests in these forms."

"I got it, I got it, anyway..." Yu Sheng looked perplexed, faintly feeling that he had opened the door to a new world, "I always thought that no matter how outrageous an 'Exotic Realm' is, it at least has to be a 'place'... at least something tangible, that you can enter and leave. What you are describing is... Let me tell you, my vocabulary as a novelist is almost not enough to handle how outrageous this is!"

Little Red Riding Hood was taken aback for a moment: "Ah? You write novels?"

Erin immediately leaned in: "Yes, and they're pretty bizarre too. Later you could ask Ren Wenwen from the Special Service Bureau..."

"That's not important!" Yu Sheng promptly pushed Erin back and fixed his gaze on Little Red Riding Hood, "Anyway, now I understand why there's a type of Exotic Realm called 'Abnormal', because they're all this kind of bizarre stuff that can't be classified, right? So, 'Fairy Tales' are what you just mentioned as the 'story type' within the Abnormal Realm?"

Little Red Riding Hood nodded her head.

"But the Black Forest that I entered seems to still be a 'space'?" Yu Sheng noticed something was off, "Or not... was that more like a dream?"

"This is precisely the characteristic of most 'Abnormal' type Exotic Realms, their essence is abstract, yet they trap people in a seemingly 'alternate dimensional' concrete environment through illusions or dreams. Some only trap your spirit, while others will pull your body in as well—therefore, many of these Abnormal Realms were initially misjudged in the present world, even by professional scholars, who took a long time to realize that there's more to those bizarre 'spaces' than meets the eye. By then, for many victims, it was already too late..."

Little Red Riding Hood paused for a moment, organizing her thoughts, and then continued— she spoke of her own affairs yet she sounded as calm as an outsider: "As for 'Fairy Tales', even among the Abnormal Realms, it is a rather special one because it has a large number of 'Derivative Branches', or say... 'Subsets'.

"The Black Forest is one of the subsets of 'Fairy Tales'.

"You can view 'Fairy Tales' as an invisible, unknowable, untouchable 'mansion,' a 'mansion' that is intangible itself, but because of its existence, it has spawned countless 'rooms.' The Black Forest where the Evil Wolf dwells is just one of the rooms, there is also Dorothy's Wilderness, the Tower that imprisons the long-haired princess, Cinderella's ball that is in eternal circulation—and in addition, there are some special 'rooms'."

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow: "Special 'rooms'?"

"Not pointing to any particular fairy tale story but pointing to a category of classic fairy tale elements, or... 'fictional scripts'," Little Red Riding Hood gently nodded, "like the King's 'castle', or the Evil Dragon's 'treasury'—we have not found which specific fairy tale or 'role' these 'subsets' correspond to."

Yu Sheng furrowed his brows; he listened carefully to every word Little Red Riding Hood told him, understanding and picturing the various characteristics and possible patterns of the special realm of 'Fairy Tales'. Vague and general impressions formed in his mind, while Little Red Riding Hood's subsequent story began to resonate in his ears again.

"Here is where 'Fairy Tales' first broke out."

Yu Sheng lifted his head in some astonishment and saw Little Red Riding Hood looking out the window at the open space with a complex expression—a group of children was running back and forth between the swing sets, their loud voices crossing through the window, sounding very lively.

"That was many, many years ago. There weren't these two buildings here, but some older, lower constructions. However, the 'function' of this courtyard has never changed; it has always been an orphanage, past and present, and will be in the future," Little Red Riding Hood spoke slowly, "As for that outbreak back then, many documents are missing for various reasons. Only from sparse records can it be known that after the outbreak, this place was temporarily sealed off for a while.

"Back then, the Special Service Bureau thought it was just some 'ordinary' Exotic Realm phenomenon and transferred the children affected by 'Fairy Tales' to another high-security containment facility temporarily. But only a few years later, the 'Fairy Tale' phenomenon began to appear in other parts of the Boundary Land, and those initial children started showing various anomalies, and only then did people belatedly realize that an unknown 'Abnormal Realm' had 'unfolded' within the Boundary Land.

"After that, the Special Service Bureau tried many ways to contain the influence of 'Fairy Tales' but with little success. Even the most professional deep divers, upon entering those 'subsets,' became helpless, and some even lost their lives in vain. After paying many more costs, some rudimentary rules about 'Fairy Tales' were deduced, and among them, the most important one... is what I just mentioned, 'Fairy Tales do not like adults'—as you can see, this is the foundation for the existence of this 'Kingdom,' governed autonomously by the children."

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