Chapter 76: The Oddballs Living Inside an Other Domain

Chapter 76: The Oddballs Living Inside an Other Domain

“Can you two see the house up ahead?”

Standing in front of the gate of Wutong Road 66, Yu Sheng raised a hand and pointed at the old building before him as he spoke to Hu Li and Irene, who was being carried in Hu Li’s arms.

“Of course,” Hu Li nodded naturally. “It’s right there in front of us. We can see it when we leave, and when we come back too.”

Yu Sheng nodded, then looked toward Little Red Riding Hood, who had come along with them.

“Can you see it?”

Little Red Riding Hood widened her eyes and looked at the empty space ahead, as well as the low wall at the far end of the vacant lot. Then she turned and glanced suspiciously at Hu Li and Irene.

“You two can really see it?”

“Looks like you can’t,” Yu Sheng said, immediately understanding the situation. “Even though I invited you, you still can’t see it while standing here.”

Little Red Riding Hood spread her hands.

Yu Sheng, meanwhile, fell into thought.

He was curious about many things now. Things about himself, about Other Domains, about the Special Operations Bureau, and about Nightfall Valley.

And naturally, that included the bizarre old mansion he had been living in for the past two months.

Driven by a bit of necessary scientific curiosity, he had invited Little Red Riding Hood along when returning home today, hoping to test just how many strange properties the nonexistent Wutong Road 66 still possessed.

Now he had obtained a preliminary result.

Hu Li and Irene could see Wutong Road 66.

Little Red Riding Hood could not.

Even with an invitation from the homeowner, she was unable to perceive its existence.

After thinking for a moment, Yu Sheng identified the greatest difference between Hu Li and Irene on one side, and Little Red Riding Hood on the other.

“So... it’s probably a blood issue?”

Thoughtfully, he raised his head and looked back and forth between Little Red Riding Hood and the other two.

Both Hu Li and Irene had accepted his blood before.

That had established a subtle connection between them.

It was also through that connection that the two of them had sensed his resurrection.

Little Red Riding Hood had never gone through anything like that.

At present, this was the most likely explanation Yu Sheng could think of.

Little Red Riding Hood, however, did not notice the change in his expression.

At that moment, she was curiously surveying the surroundings.

The setting sun was gradually sinking.

Within the shadows cast by the roadside buildings, the outlines of wolves appeared and disappeared.

The wolf pack watched over the entire street, serving as the girl’s eyes and ears.

She noticed something.

From the moment they entered Wutong Road, the closer they got to the vacant lot hidden deep within it, the fewer pedestrians there were.

And by the time they reached the lot where Wutong Road 66 was located, there was not a single passerby left in sight.

It was as though an invisible dispersal force prevented ordinary people from approaching the mansion.

Yet even her wolf pack could not detect how that force operated.

The entire environment throughout the street was astonishingly clean.

From the perspective of supernatural perception, it was as clean as a vacuum.

At that moment, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly noticed someone looking at her.

She immediately turned her head and saw Yu Sheng staring over with a serious expression.

The girl instantly felt awkward.

“Uh... do you need something?”

Then she watched as Yu Sheng directly extended a hand toward her.

“Want a bite?”

Little Red Riding Hood: “...Huh?”

“My blood. Irene and Hu Li both came into contact with it before, and they changed afterward. They can also see Wutong Road 66 now,” Yu Sheng explained with complete seriousness. “So I was wondering if you’d like to try it too. Think of it as an experiment...”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression visibly became bizarre.

She even took half a step backward.

The look in her eyes resembled that of an alarmed wolf-dog with its fur standing on end.

Only after confirming that Yu Sheng was genuinely motivated by pure research interest did she relax slightly.

Even then, her face was full of rejection.

“No!”

“It won’t upset your stomach,” Yu Sheng said. He had actually expected this reaction. After all, suddenly inviting someone to take a bite out of him was admittedly rather abrupt. Still, he wanted to make one more attempt. “Don’t you want to see what Wutong Road 66 looks like from the outside?”

“I’m not a cat! Why would I be that curious?” Little Red Riding Hood took another half-step backward and turned toward Hu Li and Irene. “Why does he always come up with random ideas like this?”

Irene shifted slightly in Hu Li’s arms.

After confirming that no one else was around, she finally had a chance to speak.

“That’s just how he is. Always acting on whatever idea pops into his head. Then he calls it ‘research.’ Don’t encourage him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Yu Sheng immediately protested. “Am I really that bad?”

Irene said nothing.

She simply continued quietly radiating the fragrance of lotus root from Hu Li’s arms.

Yu Sheng: “...”

“If you don’t want to, then forget it,” he said after an awkward two or three seconds of silence. He gave Little Red Riding Hood a dry smile and waved his hand.

Then he walked up to the front door.

Just as he unlocked it and was about to enter, he suddenly remembered something.

Stepping aside, he beckoned to the fox girl behind him.

“Come over here and see if you can open this door.”

“Huh? Okay.”

Hu Li froze briefly but nodded and stepped forward, grabbing the handle.

Click.

The already unlocked front door was pushed open with ease.

In Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes, however, a door had suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the vacant lot, floating near the low wall covered in abstract graffiti.

“Good. At least this makes it easier for you and Irene to come and go. You won’t have to wait for me to open the door every time.”

Yu Sheng immediately sighed in relief.

Ever since learning that Wutong Road 66 was an Other Domain that outsiders could neither perceive nor enter, he had worried about countless practical details.

These concerns included, but were not limited to, food deliveries being unable to arrive, household appliances being impossible to ship, online shopping addresses becoming unusable, and the two residents of the house being unable to come and go freely.

Now he could finally relax.

At least one of those problems had been solved.

“Come on in and have a seat,” Yu Sheng said with a smile, extending a hand toward Little Red Riding Hood. “I’ll cook later. Stay for dinner. Consider it my thanks for spending the whole day accompanying Hu Li and Irene.”

“It’s nothing. You already did half my homework for me.”

Even so, Little Red Riding Hood accepted the invitation and stepped into the mansion that did not exist within the real world.

Yu Sheng switched on the lights in the living room.

The bright illumination drove away the evening gloom and quickly filled the house’s cold atmosphere with warmth.

Afterward, he quickly put away the things they had bought, dug out the ingredients needed for dinner from the shopping bags, told Little Red Riding Hood to find somewhere to sit, and headed for the kitchen.

Carrying a mixture of curiosity and unease, Little Red Riding Hood cautiously looked around.

This was her second visit to this place.

And this time, she had come as an invited guest.

She rarely visited other people’s homes.

In fact, she had entered far more Other Domains than ordinary houses.

On the other hand, she knew perfectly well that this seemingly ordinary residence was actually an Other Domain.

Today’s visit was, in essence, another exploration of an Other Domain.

It was the strangest expedition she had ever experienced since becoming a spirit world detective.

There were no twisted landscapes.

No pervasive contamination.

No illusions masquerading as teammates.

There was only bright lighting and a warm environment.

A gentle and friendly demon fox stood nearby.

A delighted doll was running off to turn on the television.

And the entity living within the Other Domain, the powerful entity capable of swallowing Hunger whole, was cooking dinner in the kitchen.

She could even sit at the dining table and do homework while waiting for the food to be ready.

There were simply too many things that felt out of place.

She did not even know which one she should complain about first.

Fortunately, the noisy Irene quickly prevented her from overthinking.

The little doll’s energetic voice came from the living room.

“Come watch TV! The one in the living room is bigger than the one in the dining room!”

“I need to catch up on homework,” Little Red Riding Hood replied, shaking her head as she walked toward the table. “I’m still half a book short!”

“Humans are exhausting,” Irene immediately declared from atop the sofa. “Fox, are you coming?”

Hu Li waved her hand and wandered toward the kitchen.

“I’m going to see if Benefactor needs any help...”

She entered the kitchen just like that.

Less than two minutes later, she pushed the door open again and emerged chewing on a braised chicken drumstick.

Little Red Riding Hood, who had only just started her homework, stared in surprise.

“...Why are you out already?”

“I got kicked out. Benefactor said I was stealing the spices, and if I ate them all there wouldn’t be any left for the stew.”

Hu Li spoke with complete innocence.

Then she raised the drumstick in her hand as though showing off.

“But Benefactor gave me a chicken drumstick. Want some?”

Little Red Riding Hood hesitated.

“Uh... I...”

Hu Li instantly pulled the drumstick back.

“If you don’t want it, I’ll eat the whole thing.”

Little Red Riding Hood: “...”

The aroma of stir-fried food was already drifting out of the kitchen, stimulating everyone’s appetite.

After thinking for a moment, Little Red Riding Hood pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

“It’s me. I’m not coming home for dinner tonight. I’m eating at a friend’s house. Yeah, someone I just met. It’s safe, it’s safe. I’ll explain when I get back. I’ll definitely be home before ten. Bye, bye...”

After ending the call, she turned her head and saw Hu Li staring straight at her.

At the same time, Hu Li had never stopped chewing on the drumstick.

“You can’t eat this.”

Little Red Riding Hood instinctively covered her phone.

She had no idea why that sentence had popped into her head.

Hu Li paid no attention to it and simply asked curiously,

“Were you talking to your family just now?”

“Yeah.”

“Your mom and dad?”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression became a little unnatural.

“Uh... my parents died a long time ago. I was talking to someone else at home.”

“Oh.”

Hu Li nodded.

Little Red Riding Hood had no idea what the demon fox girl had been thinking about during those few seconds.

Then she suddenly saw Hu Li extend the nearly finished drumstick again.

“Want a bite? Just one small bite.”

Little Red Riding Hood: “...?”

She felt that she still found it very difficult to understand these... oddballs living inside an Other Domain.