“Grandma, you there? It’s Little Red Riding Hood—Mom sent me with cake and wine.”
Bai Linlin’s voice sounded thin and crisp outside the wooden door.
After speaking, she held her breath, pressing her ear close to the door panel.
Inside, it was utterly silent.
No coughing, no rustling of getting out of bed, not even breathing sounds.
Just dead quiet, mixed with the scent of aged wood and dust drifting from the house.
Now, sniffing carefully, there seemed to be a hint of something else—a rusty, stuffy odor.
“Grandma?”
She raised her voice a bit and knocked again.
“I’m coming in?”
Still no response.
She exchanged a glance with Lin Yan, hidden behind a distant tree.
Lin Yan’s brows were furrowed tightly, his gun barrel steadily aimed at the cabin window, signaling her to be “highly alert.”
Something was wrong.
According to the fairy tale, at this point, “Grandma” should at least respond from the bed.
“The door’s unlocked—come in, child.”
Bai Linlin drew in a breath and, with her free hand, gently pushed the wooden door.
The door creaked open a crack. Unlocked.
That rusty scent grew more pronounced.
She squeezed sideways inside, leaving the door ajar behind her.
The interior was much darker than outside, with only a few rays of sunlight slipping through window gaps, illuminating dancing dust in the air.
The living room was small: a table, two chairs, a fireplace.
The fireplace was cold.
Everything looked normal, but overly tidy—tidy to the point of lacking any human warmth.
Blood scent. It was here.
Faint, but definitely present, seeping thread by thread from the bedroom door crack.
Bai Linlin’s heart started pounding against her ribs.
She set down the heavy basket, moving lightly.
Then, on tiptoe, she inched little by little to the bedroom doorway.
The bedroom door was closed.
She extended a finger and lightly tapped it.
The door silently opened a darker crack.
“G-Grandma?”
Her voice trembled a bit as it squeezed through the gap.
No answer.
She pushed hard.
The scene in the bedroom slammed into her eyes.
An old wooden bed, with a “person” lying on it.
Covered by a quilt, wearing a nightcap, back to the door.
The size… huge. Very huge.
The quilt bulged out, definitely not the build of a sick old lady.
And under that nightcap, a tuft of gray-black, furry ear tip was clearly exposed.
Bai Linlin’s mind buzzed.
The script was right, yet not entirely.
The wolf was really here, disguised as Grandma.
But why wasn’t it moving?
Asleep?
Waiting for her to get close before pouncing?
She stopped at the doorway, not daring to go further.
Her palms were sweaty.
“Grandma?”
She called again, her voice weaker.
“Are… are you okay? Mom sent me to check on you.”
The massive “Grandma” on the bed remained motionless. Not even the ear tip twitched.
Too quiet.
Just her own increasingly loud heartbeat and that lingering blood scent.
Something was off. Very off.
Gritting her teeth, she inched extremely slowly to the side of the bed.
From this angle, she could see “Grandma’s” side profile.
The nightcap was pulled low, covering most of the face, but the exposed chin was covered in coarse gray fur.
The mouth area seemed crudely gagged with something.
Her gaze shifted down to the quilt-covered body.
The quilt’s shape was odd where limbs should protrude.
Not natural curves, but… several unnatural depressions.
A terrifying guess gripped her suddenly.
Bai Linlin held her breath, extending her badly shaking small hand to pinch a corner of the quilt and yank it down!
She bit her fist hard to keep from screaming.
Under the quilt, it wasn’t a complete wolf in Grandma’s nightclothes at all.
It was indeed a big gray wolf.
Wearing Grandma’s floral nightshirt top, the fabric stretched tight over its burly chest, two buttons popped off.
But the sleeves dangled empty.
Because its two front limbs were gone from the elbows down.
The stumps were wrapped in thick, blood-soaked rags, bandaged crookedly but stemming the flow.
Its two hind legs were similarly missing from the knees down.
Likewise wrapped in blood-seeping rags.
It lay posed on the bed like a giant stuffed toy with its limbs removed.
Only the barely perceptible rise and fall of its chest proved it was still alive.
Bai Linlin’s stomach churned, her legs going weak, nearly collapsing.
This wasn’t hunting, wasn’t a game duel.
This was torture.
Who did this?
It seemed her movement—or the influx of light—disturbed the dying wolf.
Its heavy eyelids trembled, laboriously cracking open a slit.
They were amber eyes belonging to a beast.
But now, no ferocity, no greed—just murky pain and boundless despair.
Tears quickly welled, rolling down in big drops from the corners, wetting the facial fur.
Its mouth was bound with rags, only able to emit faint “ho… ho…” sounds.
It looked at Bai Linlin, no aggression in its gaze—instead, like pleading.
Bai Linlin understood.
Those eyes were saying.
“Kill me… please… kill me…”
She staggered back a step, her back hitting the cold wall.
Who did this to it?
Why?
The hunter’s task wasn’t to kill the wolf?
Lin Yan was right outside—if it was him, why not finish it with a shot instead of this cruel way…
Bang—!
A deafening gunshot suddenly rang out from outside, shattering the indoor silence!
Bai Linlin jolted in fright, snapping instantly from the horror before her.
Lin Yan had fired!
Something was happening outside!
Not the wolf? Then what? Who was Lin Yan shooting at?
She could no longer spare thought for the barely breathing wolf on the bed, turning to rush out of the bedroom, stumbling through the living room, and yanking open the cabin door.
The scene outside froze her in place again.
Lin Yan held his double-barrel shotgun, body taut as a bowstring, barrel locked dead ahead.
His face held a gravity she’d never seen—and a trace of horror.
He wasn’t aiming at any beast.
It was a woman.
She stood in the sunlight of the forest clearing, less than twenty paces from the cabin door.
She was tall, with a curvaceous figure, even making Grandma’s clothes look somewhat coldly alluring.
Black long hair simply tied back, a few strands falling by her cheeks.
Her face was beautiful, but expressionless—delicate features like carved ice, only her eyes bottomless deep, coldly regarding Lin Yan.
She held no shotgun, no bow.
Just a blade.
A long blade.
The blade wasn’t ordinary metal but gleamed with an ominous black.
Looking closely, around that black edge, a faint pale glow seemed to flow faintly.
The hilt was dark-toned, steady in her grip without a tremor.
The tip angled toward the ground, sunlight hitting it with no reflection, as if even light was absorbed by that darkness.
Lin Yan’s shotgun muzzle pointed right at the woman’s brow.
While the woman’s black blade, though still, clearly poised to erupt at any moment, cleaving the hunter before her in two.
The air froze.
Only the sound of wind through leaves.
Bai Linlin looked at the woman, then at the on-edge Lin Yan, her mind utterly chaotic.
Who was this woman? Player? NPC? What was with her blade?
The wolf on the bed… her doing?
“Wait! Hold on!”
Bai Linlin’s voice exploded suddenly—she hadn’t even realized she could shout so loud.
The two in standoff turned their gazes instantly to her, this little one in the red cloak.
Bai Linlin pointed at the woman, her finger still shaking, but her words burst toward Lin Yan.
“What the hell is going on?!”
“Who is she?!”
“The wolf on the bed… did you do that, or did she?!”