The emergency evacuation of the nearby neighborhood was proceeding in an orderly manner and was now almost complete. Numerous node devices and protective equipment had been transported to the site. At that moment, engineers were installing them near the orphanage's walls. An invisible barrier was rising over the entire area. If someone with a spiritual talent were to look at the neighborhood, they would see that barrier emitting a faint glow in the night sky, enveloping large areas of shadows that constantly expanded and contracted, like a bizarre "cocoon".

The threat level of the angel descent was paramount. The "Standard Technology Limitation Act" was temporarily suspended, and a large number of technically advanced devices beyond the permitted usage were delivered to the scene. As various protective devices gradually started working, the stability of the area boundary finally began to recover.

At least, no more terrifying scenes could be seen from outside the orphanage's walls.

But the situation inside the walls was still far from optimistic.

Dozens of black vehicles arrived one after another, and more Special Service Bureau officers appeared within the blockade. One of the cars drove straight to the orphanage gate. After the car door opened, a figure with long gray-white hair and dressed in a white suit skirt emerged. She gazed solemnly at the sky above the orphanage.

Li Lin felt his breath tighten—a colorless gaze did not aim at him, but he could distinctly feel a pair of eyes directly on him.

"How long have they been inside?" Baili Qing asked.

"Thirty-two minutes," Li Lin immediately replied. "Since they entered, there's been no significant change in the pollution readings inside the walls. The overall environmental depth is still steadily rising. Currently, the internal depth is L-2, and the danger level is unassessable."

As soon as he finished speaking, a monitoring staff member quickly approached, handing over a surveillance tablet.

"... The depth has reached L-3 and is still rising," visible beads of sweat formed on Li Lin's forehead as he cautiously spoke to Baili Qing, "The conventional monitors have gone off-line, and we can't capture any video signals inside the walls."

"Hmm."

Baili Qing simply nodded, saying nothing more, and continued to stare at the sky above the orphanage.

A pair of hidden, gigantic eyes slowly opened behind her, scanning the situation inside the walls.

To human eyes, observing the orphanage from outside the walls now showed that "everything is normal," but in Baili Qing's mind, the true appearance of it gradually being swallowed by a "nightmare" was simultaneously manifesting.

Towers entwined like an umbilical cord, the ground covered by "sludge," expanding and contracting. And... three small points of light moving within the "umbilical cord".

Baili Qing fixed her gaze on those three points of light until an overwhelming sense of dizziness forced her to look away.

"Can you lock onto them?" she asked inwardly.

"It's too difficult. They are almost not in the real world anymore. In another ten minutes or so, it will likely be impossible to track them," a slightly mechanical female voice responded. "But it can be confirmed that the 'corrosion' of the Dark Angel has no effect on them—They have been active inside the walls for over thirty minutes, the 'Gaze Mark' I left on them remains pure and intact."

Baili Qing softly acknowledged, then shifted her gaze away from the orphanage and took out her phone.

"... It's me. Prepare for 'Dome Shattering.' If no cancel command is received within twenty-four hours or if the angel descent is observed in the meanwhile, execute Dome Shattering—I'll take responsibility. At the very least, try to drive that thing outside. Of course... the best outcome would be for the night to pass peacefully."

...

Inside the orphanage walls, the dream realm of the angel fused with reality, like flesh bonding with flesh, mud soaking into mud.

Everything was tangled together. The boundary of reality became blurry and turbulent inside these walls. Thoughts echoed hollowly in the constant material collapse, reflecting in perception, gradually transforming into a spreading forest.

That was the first story of some fairy-tale book.

A poor-quality, old, riddled with many errors and gaps, fairy-tale book that had once brought immense joy to many children.

Yu Sheng entered a room.

This was once the reading room at the end of the orphanage's second floor, but now the original room structure and the illusion of the Black Forest intertwined, making everything appear strange and chaotic. Large trees pierced through the roof and floor, tree crowns hung with lamps and the skeleton structure of the ceiling, the walls turned into shattered soil and stones, haphazardly buried among the decaying leaves and bushes in the massive trees. Yu Sheng also saw those bookshelves and tables, crookedly embedded in tree trunks, already fused with the wood—and scattered books covered the nearby ground.

Yu Sheng cautiously entered this "room" of the dense forest, walking between the continually changing, expanding forest scenery. His gaze swept over the scattered books, then suddenly stopped.

He saw a stack of books—still sealed, bound with plastic strips, lying in a pile of weeds.

His eyes were strongly drawn to them, even the scorching bullet in his hand seemed to faintly tremble.

Yu Sheng hurried over, casually untied the binding strip, and shook out those vividly covered books meant for children.

They were all normal books.

Most were brand new, at least printed in the past two years, with good printing quality and paper. None of them were related to that "Squirrel Knight..."

But Yu Sheng still felt that inexplicable "connection," a sense of scrutiny on these books from the Black Forest, maybe even from Anka Aela.

He frowned, and then suddenly thought of something. He turned his head to the puppet, who was nervously observing the surrounding forest environment, and said, "Erin!"

The little puppet responded in a hurry, "Ah, ah?"

"Look at these books," Yu Sheng said seriously, "Are they 'hiding' something? Like the letter we found in Old Zheng's house—"

"Wait, let me see!" Before Yu Sheng finished speaking, the little puppet on his shoulder jumped down and struggled to move those books that were too huge for her, "This thing is so heavy... Wait! There's paper stuck in here—didn't you see?"

While talking, Erin had already opened the cover of one of the books and naturally pulled out a sheet of yellowed old paper with torn edges from the pages in front of Yu Sheng—just as if the paper had been brazenly placed in the book from the beginning.

Yu Sheng reached out to take the paper, and the first line of words that caught his eyes was the title "Little Red Riding Hood"!

"Ah, there's more here, it's also stuck in this book, lots of them!"

Erin's voice followed as she quickly flipped through several books, pulling out one "hidden" sheet after another and handing them to Yu Sheng.

One fairy tale after another, one yellowed sheet of old paper after another, and that cover with crude colors and lines, depicting a forest and a reddish-brown squirrel—

"Squirrel Knight Takes You to Read Stories."

Yu Sheng finally understood why Bai Xue didn't notice anything unusual when checking these books donated by the "Sunshine Foundation."

Those cultists had infiltrated the process and used a technique similar to the one they used to communicate secret messages with Old Zheng, breaking up the entire old book and 'stuffing' it into the normal donated books!

In this way, they sent a highly symbolic and telling 'old object' related to Anka Aela into the orphanage!

It might even be… an important step in 'cultivating' the entire orphanage into a qualified 'container.'

Many clues instantly connected, and Yu Sheng felt the tangled threads in his mind suddenly become clear. Sitting among a pile of books and weeds, Erin raised the last two books into the air and shook them, casually tossing them aside, "That's it! That's all of them!"

Yu Sheng slowly nodded while roughly organizing the collected book fragments, but his gaze was involuntarily drawn to the book cover.

The reddish-brown squirrel with a fluffy big tail was there, holding a pine needle in a goofy pose, pointing to the title on the cover.

It blinked and got up from the cover.

It took a few muddled steps, jumped onto Yu Sheng's wrist, and looked around.

"Ah! It's you!" the squirrel cheerfully exclaimed, nuzzling Yu Sheng's finger, "I'm so glad you're okay! Those wolves were terrifying… and you brought a friend this time?!"

"…Wow," Erin stared wide-eyed, "This really is... uh, really in the 'dream'?"

Hu Li seemed not surprised at all and greeted the squirrel matter-of-factly, "Hello."

"Hello! Squirrel Knight is very happy to see friends!" the squirrel exclaimed happily, then finally noticed what Yu Sheng was holding.

She saw the book—on the old cover, a squirrel was still sitting foolishly on a tree stump beside the forest path, holding a pine needle in its paw.

"You… you found it?!" The squirrel's face showed an extremely humanlike expression of shock, even dropping the pine needle it was holding, "Where did you find it?!"

"This isn't the one you sent out originally," Yu Sheng explained, placing the squirrel on his arm while flipping through the disassembled fairy tale book to show the other the condition inside the pages, "This is another book that someone 'outside' had been keeping, but it's from the same batch and edition as the one you sent out. For some very… complicated reasons, this book was recently sent to the orphanage."

The squirrel clung to Yu Sheng's sleeve, watching him turn the old pages, making a tiny sound, "Ah, it really isn't that one… the one we had was written all over."

Yu Sheng turned his head abruptly, "Written all over?"

"Yes," the squirrel nodded, seeming to smile, "Because many parts of the book didn't have printed words, some older kids would tell stories following the illustrations, and those who could write would jot down stories in the blank spaces—some that were meant to be there, some created by everyone, and others… heard from elsewhere.

"That book was everyone's treasure, it was… it was everyone's treasure..."

As the squirrel spoke, it began to cry suddenly.

"I'm sorry… I lost it… It can never be found again… boo...

Yes, she had lost the 'treasure' that many children had built with their joint efforts.

That was the story written by all the children in the orphanage.

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