Little Red Riding Hood seemed in a good mood. If someone who knew her well saw her expression at the moment, they would be very surprised—she hadn't relaxed like this in a long time.

However, she seriously retorted to Yu Sheng, "Next month I will be 18 years old; you can't treat me like a child anymore."

"Anyone under eighteen is a child. After your eighteenth birthday, I'll consider you an adult," Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows slightly, "Don't forget to save me a piece of cake then."

As soon as he finished speaking, Hu Li, who was attentively observing a chick, suddenly looked up: "I want some too!"

It turns out that during the entire conversation between Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood, the fox girl caught just this crucial sentence.

Little Red Riding Hood laughed, her smile radiant, then she bared her teeth at Yu Sheng and Hu Li—like a mischievous wolf cub: "Fine, even if knives fall from the sky, you must come to celebrate my birthday. Whoever doesn't come is a coward."

Yu Sheng grinned, then took out his phone to quickly report something, and turning to the side, casually opened a door leading to the orphanage.

The door, shimmering with a faint light, silently opened. Opposite the door was an unoccupied corridor in the Orphanage West Building.

"Xiao Xiao! Long Hair! Come back home!" Little Red Riding Hood shouted from the edge of the platform, towards two kids—one big, one small—frolicking on the grass, "It's going to get dark soon!"

Long-haired princess came back to the platform with Xiao Xiao. The latter was still looking back reluctantly at the place.

"I haven't played enough," the little girl pouted, "Can we come again next time?"

"Of course," Yu Sheng immediately nodded, "I can come to visit you often in the future, maybe one day I can even set up a 'gateway' at your orphanage."

"Eh, that's unnecessary," Long-haired princess murmured, her face showing slight embarrassment, "That's a lot of trouble…"

"It's no trouble, it's my current research project," Yu Sheng was quite casual, "If there are any events like kid's outings or the older kids' sketching excursions, you can call me. My valley might not have much, but it's spacious—no park in the city can compare."

Little Red Riding Hood thought for a while, still finding it bizarre to associate "outing" with the "Exotic Realm".

But she was used to it by now.

The guests left.

"I don't like human cubs," Erin came over, her cheeks puffed in annoyance, arranging her dress before climbing up Yu Sheng's trousers while muttering, "So noisy, they always say a lot of pointless things, do a lot of pointless things. I don't see what's fun about running around on the grass…"

"But I saw you playing quite happily with that kid in the latter half," Yu Sheng, laughing, turned his head to look at Erin, who had now climbed up to his shoulder, "And you have the nerve to call someone else noisy?"

After thinking for a bit, Erin began to nibble on Yu Sheng's head.

But he simply pulled her down with one hand.

"What's next? Going home?" Erin, being held by her collar in mid-air, asked casually with a used tone, "It's not even dinner time yet."

Yu Sheng shook his head: "No rush, I still have some… 'experiments' to do, but I need to call Baili Qing first."

While talking, he took out his phone under Erin's puzzled gaze, slightly organized his thoughts, and then dialed the number that had been bothering him recently.

The call was picked up quickly this time: "Hello? Yu Sheng?"

"Ahem, it's me," Yu Sheng cleared his throat, "Sorry, things have been a bit chaotic here today, I just remembered to call you."

"It's okay, what did you want to talk about?"

Baili Qing's tone was very calm, as if she had forgotten about the "Ironclad Expression" comment from their last conversation.

"Two things. First, didn't I tell you that I have something I'd like the Special Service Bureau to help identify tomorrow? One of the items I found in Fairy Tales-Black Forest," Yu Sheng said, recalling a "suggestion" Teacher Su had mentioned to him, "I'd like to also request access to some documents… related to 'Fairy Tales'."

There was a two-second silence on the other end, and Baili Qing's voice came through, "You mean the initial files from when the Special Service Bureau managed the early victims of 'Fairy Tales' and the early exploration of the 'Exotic Realm', right?"

"You guessed it," Yu Sheng sighed, "Those are the documents, about seventy years ago."

"After knowing your actions today, I guessed," Baili Qing said calmly, "I'm just curious, what suddenly sparked your interest in this… is it because of that Spirit Realm detective called 'Little Red Riding Hood'?"

"The catalyst was her, but the main reason is that I'm concerned," Yu Sheng said, "I have some issues with this Exotic Realm, and I can't rest easy without addressing them. Is this reason sufficient?"

"Sufficient," Baili Qing immediately responded, "I can arrange it. Someone will come to pick you up tomorrow, before then, the analytical laboratory and archives will be ready for you."

Yu Sheng knew that Baili Qing was likely to agree, but he didn't expect such a swift agreement, momentarily stunned but quickly responded, "Ah, then thank you."

The voice on the other end of the phone remained unchanging: "You're welcome. What's the second matter?"

"Uh, the second thing isn't too troublesome, but rather annoying..." Yu Sheng said, suddenly feeling a bit awkward, "I am going to do some 'experiments' later."

"Experiments?"

"Experiments with opening doors," Yu Sheng said, then added, "There might be quite a few attempts, the methods may be innovative, and I can't say for sure about the scale or duration—At this point, the one-touch reporting feature on my phone probably won't suffice, I'll have to give you a call."

Erin (whom Yu Sheng had just put back on the ground) at this moment began to mutter: "Swearing, mentally swearing hey!"

"No problem," came Baili Qing's voice over the phone, still sounding very calm, but probably because there was a constantly babbling puppet nearby setting the mood, Yu Sheng always felt that the Director was speaking through clenched teeth, "I'll notify the monitoring team to temporarily bypass the automatic alarms and shift to manual recording—call me when you finish up there."

The phone hung up, and Yu Sheng looked down at the small doll, confidently placing her hands on her hips and tilting her head back.

"She definitely swore just now! My spiritual intuition told me so!"

Then she paused, looking curious: "What are you experimenting with?"

Yu Sheng took a deep breath, his hand already reaching in mid-air: "First, I'll try to open a door leading to the Black Forest from the outside."

A phantom door quickly took shape in his hand, a simple door glowing faintly, trembling slightly in the air.

Yu Sheng narrowed his eyes slightly, recalling the "frequency" he had recorded in the Black Forest, infused it into the door before him, and carefully pulled it open.

The next second, the door quietly shattered.

Erin and Hu Li watched in surprise, exclaiming softly in unison.

Then, a sudden intense dizziness hit, forcing Yu Sheng to hold his head and stagger backward.

"Savior!" Hu Li rushed over, wrapping her tail around Yu Sheng's body, "Is it the backlash of the Immortal Law?!"

"It's okay, just a bit dizzy," Yu Sheng steadied himself, feeling the dizziness in his head fading, and waved at Hu Li and Erin, "The attempt to open the door failed... and it's the first time."

"How could it fail?" Erin looked at him dumbfounded, slightly worried, "Hey, are you really okay?"

"I'm really fine." Yu Sheng forced a smile, wriggled out of Hu Li's tail, let out a breath, and looked at the spot where the door had shattered, frowning in thought.

"He shouldn't have," he muttered after a moment, "You can open a door to return to the outside world from the Black Forest, so why can't you open a door to the Black Forest from the outside?"

Erin thought for a moment, muttering, "Because 'this door cannot be opened from this side'?"

Yu Sheng felt a chill hearing that: "Don't say that, I'm allergic to that phrase!"

"Could it be because this valley is part of the 'Savior's dwelling'?" Hu Li also tried to think, speaking uncertainly, "After all, this isn't really the 'present world,' could that have an impact?"

Erin's eyes lit up: "Hey silly fox, sometimes your brain does work!"

"What Hu Li said makes sense," Yu Sheng nodded in agreement, "Let's try 'outside'."

While speaking, he casually pulled open a door leading to a deserted alley near No. 66 Wutong Road.

Moments later, Yu Sheng sat dizzily by his doorstep across the street, seeing double of everything.

Even the ghostly shadow standing by the lamppost appeared to have three heads.

The failure of opening the door, regardless of being in the real "real space," showed that any direct attempt from the "outside world" to enter the "Black Forest" would encounter issues.

In disappointment, everyone returned to the valley.

"It seems really impossible," Erin sitting on Yu Sheng's shoulder, supporting her cheeks with both hands, "You can only open doors from inside the Black Forest going out, but not from the outside into the Black Forest. You have to take the 'Dream Realm' path—I think it's related to the Black Forest essentially being a 'Consciousness Space.' It's like waking up from a dream, but it's unreasonable to physically 'walk' into a dream from the real world..."

Yu Sheng remained silent.

Listening to Erin's analysis, he also turned similar speculations in his mind.

But he always felt something was off.

The "unidirectional nature" of the Black Forest... Is it really because of this? Really because it's a pure "Consciousness Space"?

Then what about the "Wolf Grandmother" he brought out from the Black Forest, and that piece of paper?

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