Chapter 846 - 845: Red’s Safe House

Chapter 846: Chapter 845: Red’s Safe House

This was an experience Yu Sheng had never had before—he felt himself being suddenly pulled into a visual space beyond imagination, where the entire world was repeatedly mapped and reorganized by broken mirrors from various angles, and even he seemed to lose his original form in this mirror world. He felt as if he was divided into pieces scattered all over the town by countless mirrors, but in a blink, all these chaotic lights and shadows silently collapsed into darkness.

The feeling of solid ground came back, and he rubbed his forehead, realizing he was standing in a strange space.

Surrounded by floating broken mirrors, he found himself standing on a flat pure white floor. Not far away, there was a round table and several chairs, and on that table was a set of exquisite tea ware, with a small kettle bubbling on the table.

Yu Sheng looked down and saw he was still holding that Meteor... Erin’s arm, while the doll with the broken arm was sitting helplessly at his feet, looking a bit dazed.

She must have been dazed by the fall when they came in, as keeping balance is not easy for her now.

"Good evening, Mr. Yu Sheng, and... Miss Erin," a familiar voice came from beside, carrying a hint of confusion, "I apologize for bringing you here in such a rough manner; it was sudden... however, why were you in the town?"

Yu Sheng followed the voice and saw, sure enough, that thin and frail vampire girl standing not far away. Her hand was touching a nearby broken mirror, seemingly stabilizing this area.

At this time, the stunned Erin also finally came to her senses. The Puppet Lady shook her head, looked at Red while standing up, and made a tactless utterance: "Wow! Mysterious blindfold girl!"

Red: "..."

The graceful Vampire Lady’s face visibly twitched, nearly losing her elegance.

"Ahem, well, don’t mind her, she’s not very educated," Yu Sheng hastily coughed twice to stop the uncouth puppet from speaking and shifted the topic, "What is this place?"

"This is my safe house, the only safe place in this nightmare," Red said with a calm expression, eyes closed, "But you haven’t answered my question yet—why are you here?"

Yu Sheng blinked; the moment he saw her, countless predictions emerged in his mind, but his face remained calm: "...Would you believe me if I said I was asleep and ended up here from a dream?"

Red lightly furrowed her brows.

"Believable, yet incredulous."

Yu Sheng: "What do you mean?"

"... Anything seems possible with what happens around you, so I believe you," Red replied unhurriedly, stepping towards the round table, "But this time, it’s indeed absurd—it’s the first time I’ve seen ’outsiders’ in this nightmare, especially... you appearing like this."

She pointed at the "Hunter attire" on Yu Sheng and Erin.

Yu Sheng and the puppet exchanged glances, rubbing his chin: "I must say, we’re also confused. We were dreaming, then woke up like this, and then got into a fight with a bunch of monsters. By the end, even the church stood up—were it not for meeting you, I was planning to die out of it."

Red tilted her head slightly. Though her eyes couldn’t be seen, she seemed to be thinking seriously. Then she smiled and pointed to the seat beside her.

"It seems we’ve all met with unexpected situations. Please sit down; it’ll be a while before outside calms down, we can exchange the intelligence we have."

Yu Sheng thanked her, and together with Erin, took a seat by the round table, as Red rose to make tea.

The aroma of black tea spread, and Erin looked at the teacup in front of her, somewhat dazed.

"Ah, sorry, I forgot."

Red suddenly realized, apologizing to the puppet awkwardly—it’s hard to say whether it was intentional or not.

But the casual Puppet Lady didn’t seem to mind and waved it off, casually sliding the teacup over to Yu Sheng. Meanwhile, she glanced at the arm in his hand: "Why are you still holding onto that? Not planning to put it back on me?"

"Oh right, forgot I was holding your part."

Yu Sheng slapped his forehead in realization, quickly checked the arm joint, then helped Erin roll up her sleeve, starting to fix the arm back onto the puppet.

Erin cooperated while directing, "Gently, gently, don’t pinch my clothes... further back in angle, yes, yes, that direction."

Then with a "pop" sound, the ball joint of the puppet’s arm was pressed into the torso.

Erin satisfactorily moved her arm, finally pleased, "Ah, balanced again."

Red silently observed, her expression giving nothing away, until Yu Sheng finished fitting the arm back on, when she hesitantly said, "Miss Erin’s current status..."

"Oh, don’t worry, it’s an issue with her ’original body,’" Yu Sheng quickly explained, "Something about the Puppet Progenitor’s blessing causes a joint to come loose on the Alice Puppet—she’s heavily blessed, so nothing’s secure."

Red hesitated for a moment: "...that’s not what I meant, I was referring to her height."

Yu Sheng was stunned for a moment, then realized this was the first time the other had seen Erin in her full puppet form—it was no wonder, since she usually appeared as a small figure standing 66.6 centimeters tall when outside.

"Ahem, this is her body’s original form," Yu Sheng explained, "but she can only revert to this state in the Dream Realm or the Soul World."

Red mused, "I see..."

"Let’s leave that for now and talk about what’s going on here," Yu Sheng changed the subject, "The fact that the two of us could enter might be related to that red spear..."

Right now, he didn’t hide anything and recounted the process of how he and Erin entered this strange "dream," along with some of his guesses, to the other person. After finishing, he noticed the person deep in thought and added:

"This place looks a lot like the scene we saw at that Mirror Rift in the Old World, especially with that red moon in the sky... You just said this is a nightmare? And you seem quite familiar with this place?"

"Yes, at least I’ve always thought of it as just one of my dreams," Red’s brow furrowed slightly, "This is the remnant memory of my ’Hometown World’, my ’Old World Nightmare Syndrome’. I never imagined anyone else could ’enter’... You said you came here because of that spear? Can you show me its current state?"

"Of course, no problem," Yu Sheng said as he casually summoned the blood-colored spear, "But the appearance hasn’t really changed much, it still looks the same as when you last saw it... Oh, maybe there’s a bit of a change, some added patterns or light effects."

He handed the blood-colored spear to the vampire girl in front of him, who hesitated slightly before reaching out to take it.

But as soon as she touched it, Red suddenly let out a low cry, instinctively releasing it as if burned: "Ah!"

"Are you okay?" Yu Sheng was startled, hastily grabbing the spear while asking—it’s worth noting that last time Red shook hands with Freyia without this kind of reaction.

Even Erin was a bit puzzled, "What’s going on? Doesn’t this thing’s style look like it’s related to you?"

"I don’t know," Red said, still shaken, "I just felt an extremely strong...rejection, as if this thing had caused me severe trauma in the past...but where this feeling comes from, I can’t tell."

Yu Sheng blinked and then studied the spear for a long time without figuring it out.

Then, as he tried to delve into information through the blood connection he had with the spear, a distinct "tributary" surfaced in his perception.

Confused, Yu Sheng looked up and found that this "tributary" appeared to be pointing directly at the vampire girl before him.

Under his gaze, Red felt a strange tension, "Is there a problem?"

Yu Sheng frowned, deep in thought, too distracted to speak immediately.

Indeed, he had conducted the "Blood Transfer" ritual with every representative of Boundary Land, so feeling a blood connection from Red was normal, but now the connection was unnaturally strong and seemed to form a "circuit" with the blood-colored spear.

What’s going on?

After several seconds of hesitation, Yu Sheng finally spoke, "...Where did you get more of my blood? Did you nibble on the Blood Grenades and Blood Storage Tanks I gave to the Old World Exploration Squad?"

Red: "...?"

"The ’Blood Trace’ mark on you is ridiculously strong now," Yu Sheng said, choosing his words carefully, "You must have had a little extra."

He then saw the vampire girl before him pause in shock for a few moments, and then a look of belated realization and embarrassment appeared on her face.

Yu Sheng and Erin together: "...?"

"I, I think I know what’s going on," Red’s tone suddenly turned a bit guilty, her always elegant smiling face now awkward; she adjusted her posture in the chair and spoke in a lower voice, "Earlier, I saw something strange happening in my room, blood was oozing out of the dressing mirror..."

Red recounted the strange events from before, and Yu Sheng listened wide-eyed halfway through, then remained astonished until the end.

After she finished, he cross-checked the time with her, reviewing the entire process of that "Abnormal Phenomenon," then compared it with his memory.

It matched the time he had lost too much blood on the sofa and nearly died.

The round table fell into silence, an uneasy quiet persisted for almost half a minute.

"...You actually dared to consume it?!" Erin finally broke the silence, "Even the silly fox knows not to rummage through trash when he’s hungry, and when your room was haunted, seeing blood oozing from the mirror, your first reaction was to go suck on it?!"

Red turned her face slightly, speaking softer, "Indeed, at the time, reason told me the situation was strange, and I should keep my distance from the blood."

Erin: "Then why did you...?"

Red: "I defeated my reason."