After shuffling between the three stories quite a few times, Lin Sanjiu was exhausted. She sighed and lay on top of a wooden table. The wooden table was extremely hard. Even though Emma, Red Riding Hood's grandmother, had placed a thin mattress over it, Lin Sanjiu could feel the uncomfortably hard surface. Emma's life was tough compared to Lila's. The small wood cottage had only one room; it served as a bedroom and a living room. She did not have even one guest bed, and the only furniture that looked a little more expensive was a mirror the king had given her as a gift. Mirrors were hard to produce in the past, so they were considered rare luxuries.
Light reflected off the mirror's polished surface as Lin Sanjiu flipped in her makeshift bed a few times. As the granddaughter and grandmother chatted softly, the anxiety she felt was like a fire that burnt away any chance of her sleeping.
It was nighttime at all three places.
First, Lila pulled her arm, requesting that she sleep in the same large bed. Then, she found herself banished by the stepmother to a small room. She was to share a straw bed with Cinderella. When she opened her eyes again in Emma's house, she had lost all sense of time.
As everything around her was changing all the time, Lin Sanjiu couldn't even estimate how long she had been in the pocket dimension.
Had Xueqin and the rest seen her letter? Could they trust the escape route provided by Gong Daoyi? Most importantly, how would she ever get out of this pocket dimension?
Even though she was an extra character in all the stories, the stories seemed to be progressing normally. The only thing that didn't happen was that the big bad wolf did not appear in Red Riding Hood's story...
'Could this be the key?'
But Lin Sanjiu had not even made sense of the goal of this pocket dimension. She could only sigh. The house went quiet after she sighed, and Red Riding Hood asked quietly, "What is bothering you?"
"No, I'm fine," Lin Sanjiu replied hastily, feeling that Emma was watching her. "I just need to get somewhere urgently, so I feel anxious..."
When they were sharing the cake that Red Riding Hood had brought, Emma tried to get more information about Lin Sanjiu. Perhaps she had a complicated past and was more guarded than her granddaughter. Though she couldn't find anything wrong with Lin Sanjiu's reply, Emma chose to sleep on the side of the bed closer to Lin Sanjiu and let her granddaughter sleep on the other side. As they chatted quietly, they suddenly heard rain hitting the windows. Lin Sanjiu could see the rain getting heavier and heavier through the windows. Soon, raindrops were violently assaulting the small, shabby little cottage.
Lin Sanjiu couldn't help thinking about what Red Riding Hood said about having no guests. She suddenly asked without thinking, "Emma, where do you... umm, dance? The rain looks heavy today."
"Smack!" There was a sudden sound in the darkness, followed by Red Riding Hood's yelp. The little girl was hit by her grandmother.
"This little girl always spouts nonsense..." Emma sounded a little embarrassed, "That was years ago. I stopped after my daughter started avoiding me. Right now, I sell some handicrafts for survival." Emma shared a little more, perhaps considering that Lin Sanjiu was also a woman and did not seem to look down on her.
"After I stopped dancing, my relationship with my daughter is improving... See. When she heard I was unwell, she sent Red Riding Hood to give me a cake." She seemed a little gratified after saying that.
Lin Sanjiu was suddenly urged to ask if they had ever seen other "travelers from other lands," but before she could ask, she was interrupted by a series of barks outside. Several dogs were barking loudly outside, and the noise got closer and closer to the door.
The three people in the house quickly got up and rushed to the windows. Through the pouring rain, the three could see the black figures of a few dogs. They were large dogs that stood almost half a human's height. They were barking crazily at the small cottage.
Red Riding Hood grew frightened and quickly held Lin Sanjiu with her small, cold hand. She looked at her grandmother and asked with a sobbing voice, "Whose dogs are those? Why are they acting this way? It's scary."
Emma's face turned pale, "They are Ive's dogs..."
Her words seemed to suggest that the man called Ive was one of the hunters around this area. Lin Sanjiu wasn't even half worried about the dogs, not even if they were some sort of demon dogs. She headed to the door and was about to say that she could chase them off when an angry male voice disrupted her thought.
"Emma! Are you alive?"
Emma was stunned. Though slightly confused by the question, she quickly regained her composure and yelled, "Link, I'm here." Then, she went to open the door.
She had barely opened the door when someone pulled it from outside and shut it again. Emma's hand hung in mid-air as she stared at the wooden door. Her expression turned dark.
"Is this some sort of prank?" She inhaled sharply before she shouted at the door, "My Little Red Riding Hood is here today! You're scaring her. Bring those dogs away!"
The men stopped talking when they heard her words. The dogs continued barking madly as if they could bark the house down. After a few seconds, a man finally spoke, "Are there only two of you in the house?"
Lin Sanjiu was shocked and slowly turned to look at Emma. "I have another guest." Emma looked out the window stiffly, "Why did you ask me that question?"
Lin Sanjiu could see that Emma's knuckles turned white as she gripped the edge of the window.
"Ive! Richard! Bring the dogs to the garden!"
The man called Link called out to two other men before he turned to the wooden cottage again. "I realized something was amiss, so I quickly called Ive and Richard to help..."
"Despite the heavy rain, our hunting dogs still behave erratically. My assumption must be right."
"In your house, there must be a werewolf amongst you."