Chapter 519: Bai Liqing Was Also at a Loss

Everything happened in a very short span of time—from the moment the crack opened, to both sides staring at each other in confusion, to the other side opening fire proactively, to the passage collapsing, Luna blinking across the entire battlefield and snatching someone back from the opposite side—the whole sequence actually took only a few dozen seconds. By the time Luna dropped the “prisoner” onto the ground, Zheng Zhi beside her was still somewhat dumbfounded.

Then the entire alley fell silent.

The only thing left was that strange silver-white device still humming at the intersection, and a considerable portion of the spider silk that had originally covered the surrounding area was torn and dissolved during the turbulence of the crack. What remained of the silk hung messily near the intersection, apparently not regenerating anytime soon.

Yu Sheng looked down at the unconscious armed personnel member in front of him, twitched the corner of his mouth, and looked up at Luna. “...Nice work.”

Luna gracefully lifted the hem of her nun habit, bowed slightly, and retreated to the side.

Hu Li cautiously crept over, crouched in front of the prisoner, reached out and poked him, then looked up at Yu Sheng. “Benefactor, still alive.”

Eileen waved her arms, which were already cracked and on the verge of snapping off again. “Silly fox, your phrasing really has issues, you know.”

“Stop waving them, they’ll fall off soon,” Yu Sheng said, reaching up to steady the little puppet on his shoulder, then sighed. “I’ll fix you up when we get back... Ah, and you even managed to bring the wrong body...”

King suddenly jumped onto Zheng Zhi’s shoulder, stretched his neck to observe the situation at each fork of the intersection, his cat face serious. “Can you still see anything wrong around here?”

“I should... not be able to see anything,” Zheng Zhi hesitated, mumbling as he scanned the surroundings. “Mainly because most of the time I can’t be sure whether what I’m seeing is right or not—I don’t even know what a normal person should be seeing right now. Anyway, right now I only see the intersection, the spider silk, the side roads that look like the same alley on the other side—and a cat hanging in the air.”

“Then it’s fine—we’re seeing the same thing too,” Little Red Riding Hood said with relief upon hearing that, then turned to look at Yu Sheng. “So what now? There were too many surprises today...”

“Withdraw. We’ve gained enough for today,” Yu Sheng said immediately. “You all go back to 66 Wutong Road. Luna and I will take this... prisoner directly to the Special Services Bureau.”

As he spoke, he had already opened a door, and on the other side was the living room of 66 Wutong Road.

“Hey hey, what about me?” Eileen immediately yelled. “My arms are broken again!”

“You and Hu Li go home and wait,” Yu Sheng said, grabbing the little puppet off his shoulder and tossing her directly into Hu Li’s arms. “I’ll fix you when I’m done—if you don’t have enough people for gaming, summon a mass-produced sister from the valley to use.”

Eileen rolled over in Hu Li’s arms, poking her head out. “Oh! Then come back soon! I have feelings for this body...”

Yu Sheng waved his hand, watching the others file through the door to 66 Wutong Road. After everyone had left, he let out a breath, then opened another door while nodding slightly to Luna, who was still beside him.

At the same time, in the director’s office of the Special Services Bureau headquarters, Bai Liqing had just called Song Cheng over to arrange an investigation of the strange device in the dark alley. Suddenly, as if sensing something, she looked up at the empty space in front of her desk.

A phantom door had already materialized there. Yu Sheng’s head poked through, glancing around with a smile on his face. “I ran into a situation and grabbed someone... Oh, Captain Song is here too?”

As he spoke, Luna, dressed in her nun habit, walked out of the door, dragging a prisoner in combat gear who had already been disarmed, and dumped him on the office floor with a “thump.”

Song Cheng had been briefing the director just a moment ago, and now he was completely stunned. He turned to look at the unidentified armed personnel on the floor, then looked up at Luna’s perpetually smiling face, a look of total bewilderment on his face.

Bai Liqing stood up from behind her desk. Even the iron-faced director was a bit confused at this point. She looked at the person on the floor, then at Yu Sheng, who had just stepped through the door. After less than two seconds of hesitation: “What’s going on?”

“We got into a fight at the cross intersection at the end of the ‘Dark Alley,’” Yu Sheng explained. “Remember the photos I sent you? Opposite the silver-white device in the photo, a passage suddenly opened out of nowhere... I suspect it’s people from Black Dot Group...”

He quickly gave Bai Liqing and Song Cheng a rough account of what had just happened in the dark alley, then pointed at the prisoner on the floor. “This is the one Luna snatched directly by jumping to the other side before the passage collapsed. Consider it a local specialty.”

Song Cheng, standing by the desk, heard Yu Sheng’s account and his expression immediately changed. For a moment, he didn’t even care whether the term “local specialty” was appropriate here; he quickly exchanged a glance with Bai Liqing, then moved like the wind to Yu Sheng’s side, crouching down to examine the prisoner’s condition.

After quickly checking the gear and insignia on the man, he looked up at Bai Liqing with a grave expression. “...He’s a soldier from Black Dot Group. From the equipment and badges, it looks like he was deployed on home soil for security missions.”

Yu Sheng immediately caught the keyword in his words. “...Deployed on home soil?”

He looked at Bai Liqing, but saw the female director’s expression was rather subtle. She opened her mouth, but after holding it for a long time, nothing came out. Then she took a light breath and turned to Song Cheng. “Immediately dispatch a team of Deep Divers into the ‘Dark Alley’ and find out what that ‘device’ is. If you can bring it back, do so; if it can’t be moved, set up observation facilities on site... Also, considering that Black Dot armed personnel appeared at the scene, remind the operators to prepare for combat.”

“Yes, Director.” Song Cheng nodded crisply and quickly left the office.

Then Bai Liqing picked up the phone on her desk and gave a few more instructions. Moments later, several fully armed Special Services operatives and a few medical staff hurried in.

“Take him to the medical center first,” Bai Liqing ordered, pointing at the unconscious Black Dot soldier on the floor. “Don’t let him die. Once stable, move him to Sector 1 holding. I’ll interrogate him personally afterward. Be careful—he might be very aggressive when he wakes up.”

After arranging and handling all that, Bai Liqing let out a light sigh and looked up at Yu Sheng.

“...Tell me carefully about that ‘passage’ and the ‘laboratory’ on the other side. What exactly did it look like?”

Yu Sheng nodded, then casually pulled a chair from the side and sat opposite Bai Liqing. But just as he was about to speak, Luna suddenly interjected, “I, have, a recording.”

With that, she raised both hands in front of Yu Sheng, placed them together in the air, palms up. After a brief delay, a shimmering light screen appeared about a dozen centimeters above her palms, rapidly resolving into a clear holographic projection.

Yu Sheng was taken aback. “...You have that trick?”

“Always, had,” Luna nodded haltingly. “But, never, used it before.”

“Hey, this is great,” Yu Sheng said, beaming. “From now on, you can be our combat recorder...”

Luna looked at Yu Sheng, seemed about to say something, but ultimately said nothing.

The young lady saint always recorded a lot of things secretly...

Bai Liqing’s attention quickly focused on the images Luna had recorded. Her brow furrowed slightly.

“Pause,” she said suddenly.

The holographic projection froze at the moment when the passage had just opened, the researchers and armed personnel on the other side staring dumbfounded at this side.

Bai Liqing exchanged a look with Yu Sheng.

A pair of huge eyes then appeared in the air beside them, and Bai Li Xue’s ethereal voice came through. “Looks like the people on the other side were more shocked than you all.”

“Good evening,” Yu Sheng greeted Bai Li Xue, then nodded. “Yeah, I noticed that too. The people on the other side seemed completely unprepared for the passage to open. Both sides were stunned for a second or two.”

“Were they unprepared for the passage to open, or unprepared for what they saw after it opened?” Bai Li Xue said slowly. “Those are two very different questions.”

Yu Sheng frowned. “What are you getting at?”

“The other side indeed looks like some kind of research facility. With so many technical personnel active on site, what you saw was very likely a laboratory scene,” Bai Liqing spoke this time. The female director obviously had some guesses already. “The passage that appeared in the ‘Dark Alley’ might have been some kind of test, a... teleportation device, or something similar.”

Yu Sheng thought it over. “A teleportation device straight into a domain? A wild advanced version of the ‘umbilical cord’ technology?”

“...Hard to say, but in theory, such a thing shouldn’t exist. The rules for entering and leaving domains are very strict,” Bai Liqing said that and couldn’t help but glance at Yu Sheng—it seemed that everyone who knew Yu Sheng had that subtle, slightly annoyed reaction when talking about the “strict entry rules” of domains—before she continued reluctantly, “Even the ‘umbilical cord’ technology actually works within the domain’s rules; it just uses safer technical means to simulate the conditions for explorers to enter and exit a domain. But that ‘passage’ you saw... a crack of that scale that could exist stably is already a product of technology on an entirely different level.”

She shook her head, then let Luna continue playing the footage. After a few seconds, she paused it again and pointed at the center of the image.

“The key is this: the black object floating on the central platform in the laboratory. It seems to be the ‘core’ of the entire facility. You can clearly see that all the surrounding equipment is centered around this platform.”

Yu Sheng rubbed his chin. Of course, he had noticed that too.

He had noticed it the moment the passage opened.

His brow furrowed deeper. “So... what the hell is that thing?”