"No! Where's my Xiao Lang Mao? Can your mouth open 1.7 meters?!"
Even though this was a fairy tale world, Mu Yang found it incredibly absurd.
And what about the conversation between Little Red Riding Hood and Big Bad Wolf? Was it eaten by the man?!
The man completely ignored Mu Yang, who was standing beside him, and continued to snore loudly, his snores attracting a "tall" 1.5-meter hunter.
"Woof!"
"Good child, don't bark randomly; it's not good to scare Wolf Grandmother."
Footsteps approached from afar, and the hunter finally left several hunting dogs outside the house, entering the treehouse himself.
This hunter should be the real Little Red Riding Hood, with golden hair, blue eyes, and a small, cute figure, perfectly matching the description in the fairy tale.
"Oh! My goodness! This bad guy actually ate Wolf Grandmother and Xiao Lang Mao! I must rescue them! Then I'll kick his butt hard with Granny Velen's boots from next door!"
Little Red Riding Hood shouted in her authentic English accent, then looked at Mu Yang and asked for help:
"Sir, please help me cut open the bad guy's stomach so we can rescue Xiao Lang Mao and Wolf Grandmother!"
"…Alright."
Mu Yang nodded expressionlessly, then snapped his fingers at the man with his right hand; flames, appearing from nowhere, ignited on the man, burning him and the two wolves in his stomach to ashes.
However, Little Red Riding Hood, dressed in hunter's attire, calmly continued her dissection, holding a small knife to virtually cut open the man's stomach, and then Wolf Grandmother and Xiao Lang Mao, who should have been dead, were inexplicably pulled out by her.
"Is it an illusion? There's no reward or prompt for killing them…"
Mu Yang pondered everything that had just happened; all content basically followed the original plot, except for the man directly swallowing Xiao Lang Mao whole at the end.
It seemed there were no clues… And Reincarnation Paradise said he could return upon completing this fairy tale event. Could he really be so lucky as to have chosen a micro-mutated fairy tale with an extremely low probability?
As this thought arose, Mu Yang felt a blur before his eyes; he suddenly "ran" from inside the treehouse to outside, and Wolf Grandmother, who should have been talking to the hunter, was now lying on a lounge chair sunbathing.
This scene, it's so familiar…
Does it even have time loops?
It truly is an illusion or an illusion-like ability, but how can it be broken?
Mu Yang had tried killing the plot characters with ordinary methods; it was useless, as the illusion could easily "resurrect" them.
After a moment of thought, Mu Yang couldn't find a way to break the situation, so he decided to go through the plot again to see how this time differed from the first.
Perhaps that difference would be the key to his breakthrough.
He still communicated with Wolf Grandmother, obtained the [Person-Finding Trumpet Flower] to find Xiao Lang Mao, and accepted the side quest.
The previous side quest was gone; this time, [Visiting Relatives] was exactly the same as the first.
After finding Xiao Lang Mao with the trumpet flower, Mu Yang did not return the same way this time but started taking a detour.
This forest was so large, and he suspected there were other people or things he hadn't encountered, and the other Contractors were also nowhere to be found.
While exploring the forest, he also wanted to test the reason for the man playing Big Bad Wolf's appearance.
Did he appear at a certain time? Or did he only appear when approaching the treehouse within a certain distance? Or did he have to walk a certain distance…
When he deviated from the original path, the trumpet flower even unhappily whipped Mu Yang's arm with its vines, then he put it into his storage space.
Go tell Reincarnation Paradise if you have something to say!
I just want to complete the main quest; we are all trying hard to live.
Initially, Mu Yang forcefully dragged Xiao Lang Mao off the original route. But as they got further and further from the small stone path, Xiao Lang Mao gradually stopped resisting, and the stiff smile on its face slowly disappeared.
Had it returned to normal?
"Can you hear me?"
Usually, at this time, Xiao Lang Mao would say, "I can hear you, Big Brother~," but this time, it only nodded.
"You should be Big Bad Wolf, right?"
Xiao Lang Mao continued to nod.
"Is there something that has confused your mind? Making you dazed and starting to play Little Red Riding Hood?"
Xiao Lang Mao made no movement this time, but the apprehension it showed on its face answered for it.
"Is that thing always watching us?"
No answer; Xiao Lang Mao was expressionless.
But sometimes no answer is the best answer; that thing was indeed monitoring them.
Its sphere of influence seemed related to that small stone path; the closer they were to the small stone path, the greater the influence on the original characters.
After circling the forest for a long time, Mu Yang found nothing. He unknowingly returned to the treehouse under the influence of that thing, and Xiao Lang Mao was also controlled by it again.
"Woof!"
"Woof woof!!"
Upon hearing the dog barks, Mu Yang coldly watched the hunter rescue Wolf Grandmother and Xiao Lang Mao again, and with a blur before his eyes, he returned to the treehouse once more.
Ignoring Wolf Grandmother's perfectly standard greeting, he ran along the small stone path without stopping, in the opposite direction from Xiao Lang Mao.
"Woof!"
Familiar barks came from afar; Mu Yang quickly rushed forward, taking large strides, and upon seeing Little Red Riding Hood, he also clearly saw the true forms of the hunting dogs—they were all Contractors he had met once at the beginning of the world!
Initially, there was only one hunting dog, then two the second time, and this time, there were three.
It was unclear what the rule for the increase in hunting dogs was, but it seemed that every time Mu Yang started a loop, one Contractor had to play the hunter's hunting dog.
The several Contractors, forced to move on all fours, saw Mu Yang and their eyes widened, as if they had seen a savior.
The next second, they kept saying something, but the sounds they made were ultimately converted into barks in Mu Yang's ears.
Little Red Riding Hood, playing the hunter, was no longer as dull and mechanical as she appeared in the treehouse; her eyes were bright, and she was incredibly surprised and delighted the moment she saw Mu Yang.
But even so, she dared not communicate directly with Mu Yang, clearly worried about the mastermind hiding in the shadows.
A normal Contractor now had only one choice: find a way to take Little Red Riding Hood out of the small stone path and then discuss a way to break the situation.
However, Mu Yang was different; he had his own rules of the game! His strength also allowed him to choose a simpler option!
Solar Power enveloped the scorching sun, sending it out of his body.
The banished power transformed into a small scorching sun behind Mu Yang's head, and its warm light illuminated Little Red Riding Hood and the three Contractors, greatly relieving their tense nerves.
His black eyes were stained with blood, and illusory wings of blood and black intertwined unfolded on his right side. A terrifyingly deep aura spread out from his body like a tsunami, pressing the flowers and grass so low they couldn't straighten up.
"Hint: You have banished the scorching sun and embraced the Blood Sun."