Chapter 478: Shadow of the Ill Omen

Deep inside the Special Operations Bureau building, in the spacious Director's office, Yu Sheng pushed the door open and walked in. "I happen to have some free time—and there's quite a bit I want to ask you about."

Baili Qing, sitting behind the desk, was clearly long accustomed to Yu Sheng barging in like this. She didn't even move, just looked up as he found a chair on his own, then watched him drag the chair over and sit down across from the desk. After a long pause, she finally spoke: "What do you want to ask?"

Yu Sheng settled into the chair. Just as he was about to speak, he seemed to notice something and glanced at Baili Qing's desk. "Got a new desk?"

Baili Qing's tone was subtle. "...Is that one of the questions?"

"Uh, no, that doesn't count—just a casual remark," Yu Sheng coughed twice, then organized his thoughts, sifting through all the recent events before speaking. "'Goddess of Ill Omen'—I want to know if the Bureau has any information about that name. Or any intelligence related to the term 'Ill Omen.'"

The moment he finished speaking, Baili Qing shook her head. "No."

"...So sure?" Yu Sheng was a bit surprised. "You're not going to check?"

"I already checked before you came," Baili Qing said flatly. "I've been in contact with Elderborn Yuanling, so I know a bit about what's happened in the Feather Star Domain. You're asking because of that doll named Ailin, aren't you?"

"Alright, saves me from explaining the whole backstory," Yu Sheng sighed and leaned back in his chair. "It's not just about Ailin anymore. That house of mine seems to have something off about it too..."

Before he could finish, he suddenly looked up at the enormous floor-to-ceiling window behind Baili Qing, his mouth twitching. "Is it really necessary to roll your eyes that big?"

Baili Xue's voice reached both of them: "I think your house is a bit more than just 'something off.'"

"Alright, I admit 66 Sycamore Road is a little special," Yu Sheng said, his lips twitching as he turned away, feeling somewhat guilty under the gaze of those eyes—each at least two or three square meters—on the window. "But things have been getting more and more ridiculous lately. You know about that strange room at the end of the hallway on the second floor, right? A couple days ago, I fell into a mirror. There was a temple of the Goddess of Ill Omen down there..."

In front of Baili Qing, who had worked with him long enough and knew the ins and outs of the Inn quite well, Yu Sheng didn't hold back. He laid out everything he had experienced in that "mirror darkness."

After he finished, even Baili Qing—whose face rarely showed much expression—appeared visibly solemn. After careful consideration, she looked into Yu Sheng's eyes. "Do you mind if I 'see' it?"

Yu Sheng paused, quickly recalling their first meeting and her special ability, and hesitated. "...I don't mind, but that scene was pretty creepy. I'm worried there might be contamination or something. Are you sure you want to?"

"We've seen stranger things," Baili Xue said calmly. "You can trust our professionalism."

Yu Sheng was curious about what kind of "stranger things" she meant, but decided not to ask. He stood up and leaned his head forward. "Alright, go ahead. Just mentally prepare yourself."

Baili Qing rose from behind the desk and reached out toward Yu Sheng.

But she couldn't reach.

The two of them, separated by the wide desk, each leaned over the surface and stared at each other for two or three seconds. Finally, Yu Sheng couldn't hold it in. "...Isn't this desk maybe a bit too wide?"

To be fair, being the Director, Baili Qing didn't even look embarrassed. Without changing her expression, she walked around the desk and came to stand in front of Yu Sheng, pressing her fingers against his temples.

The touch was faintly cool, accompanied by a faint scent of perfume.

Yu Sheng felt a brief dizziness as a "gaze" swept across the surface memories he had deliberately opened up. Then the cool touch was gone.

Baili Qing turned her gaze to the floor-to-ceiling window not far away. The huge, faded eyes floating on the window quickly receded. The dense fog outside churned as if boiling, rapidly taking on a pitch-black, muddy texture—within moments, orderly rows of massive stone pillars appeared in the black mist, along with an ancient temple of bizarre, somber architecture, twisted black figures crawling on a stone plaza, and... deep inside the temple, a colossal half-human, half-spider phantom.

As the image shifted, Yu Sheng instantly noticed the half-human, half-spider apparition in the temple. His eyes widened in shock. "Wait! I didn't see that back then!"

"You did see it," Baili Qing said calmly from beside him. "But you overlooked it. That figure was lurking at the edge of your subconscious—imperceptible, yet still within your field of vision."

Yu Sheng opened his mouth but ultimately said nothing. He slowly walked to the window, looking at the phantom reflected in the fog—the image drawn from his own memory.

The scene of the temple enlarged and zoomed in. His gaze passed through the wide gate supported by four magnificent pillars, examining the figure he had unconsciously ignored.

A massive female torso, a terrifying spider-like lower body, and behind it, what seemed to be an enormous web stretching infinitely into the darkness, seeming to exceed the physical structure of the temple itself, spreading in a way that defied the laws of geometric space.

A pair of faded eyes silently emerged in the black mist—Baili Xue's eyes.

She cautiously "entered" the temple, slowly approaching the colossal half-human, half-spider phantom, as if intending to observe it up close.

But the moment she passed through the temple's gate, that massive figure—only an extract from Yu Sheng's surface memories, theoretically just a shadow, merely an "impression"—suddenly raised its head. A blood-red glare shot toward the gate. The faded eyes that had been sneaking inside were instantly struck as if by an invisible force and rapidly receded.

In the next second, those faded eyes reappeared in a coffee cup on the desk. Baili Xue's voice came from within, sounding shaken: "That scared me to death."

Yu Sheng turned to glance at the cup, then looked back at the temple. The "phantom" had resumed its original posture, as if nothing had happened.

Baili Qing raised her hand and gently clenched her fist toward the window. The dense fog outside churned and boiled again, darkness receding as gray-white mist quickly devoured the temple's illusion.

"Are you alright?" she glanced at her sister.

"I'm fine," Baili Xue's voice rang out, her eyes once again appearing on the window. "Just got a fright."

Baili Qing nodded slightly, then looked at Yu Sheng after a moment's thought. "...Has that doll named Ailin been acting strangely lately?"

"Does being even more talkative after getting the 'Ill Omen Wandering Star' count as strange?" Yu Sheng spread his hands. "Other than that, she's still the same. Just picked up a new hobby of taking her ball out for a walk every day."

"I'll contact the 'Academy' in Terra to see if they have any information about the 'Goddess of Ill Omen,' but don't get your hopes up. Also..." Baili Qing started, then suddenly stopped and shook her head. "No, nothing."

Yu Sheng naturally noticed her momentary hesitation, but knowing the female Director well enough, he didn't press. Instead, he brought up another matter. "Also, there's a strange celestial body called 'Black Star'—or maybe an astronomical phenomenon. I'd like you all to keep an eye out."

"Black Star?"

"Yeah, an abnormal celestial body that's entirely black but surrounded by a large, faintly glowing background. Yuan Hao encountered it. It seems there's an alternate space deep inside that thing, possibly connected to that strange empty room in my house... Yuan Hao came up with the name 'Black Star' as well."

Yu Sheng told Baili Qing and her sister many things.

About the Black Star, about the Stellar Embryo, about the current state of the Feather Star Domain and "Silence," and even the bizarre experience of being a living planet.

At first, it was just to exchange intelligence with the Bureau, but later, he got completely immersed in the telling—after all, chances to make a steel-faced stoic stare blankly didn't come often.

Some time later, Yu Sheng finally left.

The spacious office grew quiet again. Baili Qing stood in front of the window, lost in thought for a while, then returned to her desk, rubbing her temples and letting out a soft sigh.

"...Opened my eyes to a whole new world." Baili Xue's voice echoed in her mind.

Baili Qing lifted her eyelids and glanced at the eyes floating around the room.

"You've had a little too much 'eye-opening' today," she said, a hint of reproach in her tone. "Could you please not do something so reckless in the future? Even phantoms extracted from memory can be dangerous sometimes."

The eyes drooped. "Oh."

Baili Qing exhaled. Then she looked at the phone on her desk.

"Maybe it's time to contact that 'Lady Malin.'"

"The 'messenger' sent by Alice's Cottage?"

"Mm... In the end, professional matters should be left to professionals."

...

At the entrance of 66 Sycamore Road, within the "Keep Away" zone, Ailin was squatting on the ground, using both hands to rub the Ill Omen Wandering Star against the pavement, working hard to polish it.

Halfway through, the little doll suddenly raised her head and shrank her neck.

Hu Li, who was sitting nearby eating from a lunchbox, looked over in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"Someone's talking behind my back," Ailin muttered, then continued polishing her stone ball on the ground. "Whoever it is, they're dead meat when I find out."

"Oh," Hu Li kept shoveling food into her mouth but then turned again. "Hey, why are you polishing it anyway?"

"It's all rough and bumpy—hurts my hands," Ailin said seriously. "I want to make it smooth."

"...I don't get it, but I respect it."

Ailin thought for a moment, then stared at Hu Li with her crimson eyes. "Dumb fox, I suspect you're talking bad about me in your head too!"

"I'm not," Hu Li shook her head, then waved her lunchbox. "The braised pork rice is really good."

"Is... is that so?"

(The chapter ends)