Chapter 506: Ripples of Unease
"What do you mean, you went back inside to grab a can of Coke, and by the time you came back, Zheng Zhi was already gone?"
At the entrance of 66 Wutong Road, Yu Sheng stared wide-eyed at Li Lin before him, completely dumbfounded.
Li Lin, on the other hand, looked just as bewildered: "I have no idea either! He was just here a moment ago! And we were chatting normally—but now his phone is dead, and the tracker has no signal..."
Yu Sheng sucked on his teeth in frustration, then turned to look at the curb beside him. After a long pause, he finally blurted out, "No way, I haven't even had a chance to take him out on a job yet, and he's already gone on his own... What were you two talking about earlier? Did he say he was going to do something?"
Li Lin: "We were talking about the weather, then he asked me to get him a can of Coke—ice cold..."
Yu Sheng's brow furrowed even deeper upon hearing that.
At that moment, Hu Li also ran out of the house. After hearing that Zheng Zhi had disappeared, she joined Little Red Riding Hood in searching the area. The two of them led seven or eight wolves and nearly sniffed out the entire perimeter around 66 Wutong Road. Finally, Little Red Riding Hood returned with a frown: "The last scent trail ends at the intersection—and hey, this area is within the 'influence range' of your house, right? In theory, external forces shouldn't be able to affect this zone."
Yu Sheng was still racking his brain over what could have caused his nephew to suddenly disappear yet again, but when he heard Little Red Riding Hood's muttering, his mind stirred.
"That's right... This open space is also an extension of 66 Wutong Road. So what could take effect within this range..."
Muttering to himself, he slowly scanned the area, and then several pairs of eyes almost simultaneously landed on the same spot as his.
Not far away, on the concrete ground, there was a small depression.
Mostly because near where Zheng Zhi had last been, this was the only noticeable "trace."
"Wha—what?" The small puppet sitting on Yu Sheng's shoulder suddenly shrank back involuntarily. Though she didn't know why she felt guilty, she still did. "Th-this is my ball-polishing spot."
"...You actually gave this pit a name?!" Yu Sheng was startled. Then, carrying Erin on his shoulder, he walked over to the depression, crouched down, and touched the rough concrete surface. He muttered thoughtfully, "From an occult perspective, when something creepy happens, the creepiest thing closest to the scene has the highest suspicion..."
Erin was stunned by Yu Sheng's profound demeanor. "Y-yeah... Wait, no! Since when did you become such an expert in the occult?!"
Yu Sheng didn't answer. He just furrowed his brow. As his fingers once again brushed over the rough concrete surface, a somewhat familiar chill suddenly entered his perception.
Touching that chill, after a moment of thought, he slightly closed his eyes and focused all his attention on where the chill was coming from.
After a moment of concentration, he suddenly felt as if he had grasped something, and with a motion, he lifted his hand.
When he opened his eyes again, a pitch-black thread was coiled around his fingertip.
Erin stared dumbfounded at this scene. After a few seconds, the small puppet suddenly yelled, "Hey hey hey! Yu Sheng, how come you can pull threads too! You stole my technique..."
"Stole my ass! This is your spider silk. You've been polishing that stone ball here every day, and some residue was left behind!" Yu Sheng turned and glared at the puppet. "Zheng Zhi probably touched this, and combined with his constitution, it 'took' him away—come over here quick and trace it, see where this thing leads to."
Erin finally responded with an "oh oh," quickly jumped to the ground, grabbed the spider silk floating in midair, and began swaying her head as if taking a pulse via a suspended thread. Though it was uncertain whether she'd get a result, she at least looked professional.
Li Lin, standing nearby, watched this scene with obvious bewilderment. After roughly grasping what Yu Sheng's words meant, he only grew more confused. He looked around but found no one else seemed to have any questions, so he had to whisper to Little Red Riding Hood, who was closest: "What does that mean? What's the principle?"
"Don't ask me, I don't know how to explain it either," Little Red Riding Hood sighed. "Anyway, Zheng Zhi's constitution is hard to describe. The boundary between reality and the surreal is especially blurry for him. Even the barrier between realms is as fragile as if it doesn't exist for him."
Hearing Little Red Riding Hood's exclamation, Yu Sheng couldn't help but nod in agreement. He had truly witnessed his nephew's constitution in the Taixu Lingshu—able to appear and disappear right under the nose of Yuanhao Zhenren, who was at the Taishang Hedao realm.
How to put it? Sometimes he even suspected his nephew was a relic of Ank Aila—inheriting the "penetration" trait of the Dim Angel...
Just then, the small puppet, who was crouching next to the "ball-polishing spot" swaying her head as if taking a pulse, suddenly let out an "eh?" that interrupted everyone.
"I think I sense something," Erin's eyes lit up. She quickly stood up, grabbed the black spider silk floating in midair, and yanked hard. The first two pulls didn't budge, so she grabbed Yu Sheng's clothes with her other hand and pulled even harder. "Got it, got it! This thread leads to a very far place..."
The small puppet was shouting halfway when she suddenly paused.
She stared fixedly in a certain direction, as if she had suddenly forgotten what she was doing.
Yu Sheng immediately noticed the abnormality (mainly because Erin stopping mid-babble was really unusual): "What's wrong?"
"Ah, this direction!" The small puppet blinked and pointed in a certain direction. "I got a bit dizzy just now, almost lost it... Hold on, this thread isn't strong enough. I need to weave a few more to reinforce it, or it'll snap if I pull too hard..."
As she spoke, the small puppet began rapidly sketching black threads in the air. Lines like a spider's web quickly wove and constructed around the floating spider silk as the center...
***
Deep within the Special Services Bureau building, inside the Director's office.
Countless holographic projections floated in the spacious office, each screen displaying various situations from around —from "focus incidents" in certain areas of the city, to changes in a spatial rift near a distant border; from a "transgression" phenomenon on a certain floor of the Special Services Bureau building, to real-time footage sent back by deep-dive teams conducting exploration missions in the "Fog-Bound "—enough to make an ordinary person dizzy and overwhelmed.
But to Bai Liqing, this was just the most routine "work scene."
She held a cup of coffee, leaning against her large desk, while simultaneously monitoring each rapidly refreshing projection around her. Directly in front of her was a communication interface.
In the image was a tall figure wearing a white coat. At the head position, a large spherical fish tank was secured, with a goldfish swimming slowly inside. Its translucent fins seemed to tremble slightly.
"...I understand the situation. This is indeed your liability incident, but what's more important now is to find out the cause," Bai Liqing said calmly, looking at the "Director" in the communication interface. "Find out exactly who or what sneaked into the sanatorium—don't mess it up this time."
"Yes, I understand."
The tall figure in the communication interface slowly stepped back, and the holographic projection gradually dissipated in the air, soon replaced by a set of surveillance images from Fog-Bound .
In the images, a team of deep-divers was setting up communication relay devices on a fog-shrouded street. In the distance, faint flashes of weapons could be seen, as if the forward explorers were engaging with entities born from the mist.
Bai Liqing waved her hand lightly, and the nearby holographic projections reorganized. The surveillance focus then shifted to a certain border of the Borderlands—beyond the light curtain formed by a continuous line of boundary monuments, alert drones were monitoring a spatial rift leading to a million light-years away. Distant starlight leaked out from the rift, appearing somewhat distorted.
A pair of faint eyes quietly appeared among the layers of holographic projections. Bai Lixue's voice rang out from nowhere: "Feeling uneasy?"
"It's been a bit unsettled lately," Bai Liqing said indifferently. "Several spatial rifts at the border have experienced abnormal 'fluctuations' in recent days, suspected to be the result of human interference... This doesn't seem like something ordinary 'stowaways' could pull off."
"...The Borderlands is the most heavily guarded place in this world, and also the easiest place to be invaded in this world. Frankly, considering the impact of the 'Angel Fall' incident and the truth behind it gradually spreading across the universe, it's not surprising that anyone might want to sneak in and do something," Bai Lixue said. "This place is already like a sieve in the literal sense—didn't we intercept a smuggling ship from the Black Spot Group at the port the other day?"
Bai Liqing frowned but didn't say anything. She casually dismissed the array of holographic projections in the office.
"I need to visit the 'Archive' again soon," she broke the silence after a moment of thought.
"Still investigating the 'Descent' incident from 3,700 years ago?" Bai Lixue asked curiously. "Do you think there might be other materials in the Archive that we've overlooked?"
"3,700 years ago, the alien god known as the 'Omen of Calamity' was actively 'invited' into this world by the Borderlanders of that time. Although that descent was ultimately not completed, the entire operation, from preliminary planning to specific execution, was undoubtedly a grand scheme. Even the 'Boundary Bridge' left behind at that time reappeared three years ago, and moreover, an investigator died from the knowledge contamination caused by witnessing the 'Boundary Bridge'...
"Various signs indicate that the 'information' related to the 'Goddess of Calamity' has not been completely erased by the 'temporal stratification' of the Borderlands. This information still remains in the Borderlands, only hidden away. Regardless, it's necessary for us to go to the Archive again and examine those fragments from the 'Classical Era.'"
"What if we can't find it in the Archive either?"
Bai Liqing frowned slightly at this.
"Then we'll have to rely on Yu Sheng and his amazing troublemaking team, and see if they can punch a breakthrough through that fog-shrouded history."
(End of chapter)