Chapter 619: Abnormal Activity
At some point, clouds had appeared in the previously clear sky. The warm sunlight faded, and the surrounding temperature seemed to drop. The winter alley was cold, and the wind was cold too—but Li Lin and Zheng Zhi felt that their blood was colder than the wind at that moment.
The tall, elegant, seemingly flawless “iron puppet,” exuding a cold and dangerous aura like a tomb, stood there silently. No one knew when or from where she had appeared. Her pale female face calmly stared at Zheng Zhi and Li Lin, and for that instant, neither of them dared to breathe.
Li Lin clutched his roasted sweet potato, frozen in place like he’d been struck by lightning. His first instinct was to draw his gun, but in reality, he didn’t dare move a single finger. It was as if he feared that the slightest action would trigger some kind of switch, causing the killing machine before him to pounce.
At that moment, he even entertained a self-deceiving thought—hoping she was just passing through, or that her sensors had malfunctioned and she couldn’t see them. But her pale face stared directly at them, extinguishing that hope in the cold wind.
And then, Zheng Zhi’s voice suddenly rang out, stammering and very low: “Li, Li Ge, don’t panic. I, I, I have experience. She’s just an illusion. She can’t actually touch us…”
Li Lin found some faint comfort in his partner’s experience-based words, but the next second, he saw the tall, motionless figure move. She walked toward them, her heels clicking against the concrete, making a sharp, cold sound in the street.
Zheng Zhi swallowed hard but kept muttering to Li Lin: “Don’t panic, don’t panic. Last time was scarier than this. She charged right at me and slashed me, but it was actually fine. Don’t believe me? Watch—”
As he spoke, he waved his roasted sweet potato in the air, as if to prove that the figure approaching them really was just an intangible spatial projection.
Then the Artificial Saint snatched the roasted sweet potato right out of his hand.
Zheng Zhi was stunned. Li Lin was stunned too. Both of them stood there like fish out of water, mouths agape, eyes wide, watching as the cold killing machine grabbed a piece of roasted sweet potato. Zheng Zhi opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could speak, he saw the Artificial Saint bring the food to her mouth…
She seemed to want to eat.
But the Artificial Saint couldn’t eat. Aside from the bionic structure on her face, this steel body had no swallowing whatsoever.
So she simply pressed the food against her lips, futilely squeezed it a few times, then let it fall to the ground under the pressure.
The two of them watched this bizarre scene and finally took an instinctive half-step back. Li Lin seized the opportunity to sneak a hand into his pocket, not to grab his gun, but to send an alarm signal to the Special Services Bureau.
The situation was strange, but he’d already prepared to die here today. The Artificial Saint before them was in an abnormal state, but if a fight broke out, even an abnormal Artificial Saint could easily kill him and Zheng Zhi. They were just two Bureau operatives who hadn’t even completed two years on the job combined. Even if they risked their lives, they might not leave a dent in that starship armor plating. Sending a message back before dying would already be a merit.
A similar thought crossed Zheng Zhi’s mind.
But the next second, he saw the killing machine reach out a hand toward him. The steel palm didn’t carry that terrifying sharp blade—instead, it clutched a handful of shiny little discs.
Zheng Zhi stood there, baffled. The Artificial Saint stood silently as well.
After several seconds, Zheng Zhi finally snapped out of it and instinctively reached out his hand.
The Artificial Saint placed those shiny little discs into his palm.
They were a handful of arcade tokens, the kind common in many game centers in Boundary City. No one knew where she had picked them up.
Zheng Zhi looked up blankly, but only saw the tall figure take half a step back, then dissolve into a gust of cold wind like a shadow melting into the air.
The chill and deathly pressure, like a blade pressed against their necks, suddenly vanished. The cold wind blew through the quiet street. Neither Li Lin nor Zheng Zhi spoke for a while—mainly because they hadn’t processed what happened.
It took three or four seconds before Zheng Zhi squeezed a sound from his throat: “…Ah?”
He looked down, somewhat bewilderedly, at the handful of arcade tokens in his palm.
Beside him, Li Lin’s mouth was twitching—whether from the joy of surviving or simply from the cold wind, no one could tell. He then handed over the remaining half of his roasted sweet potato: “…Want my half?”
Zheng Zhi didn’t take it. His mind had finally snapped back to reality, and the first thing he did was frantically pull out his phone and dial. The first call was to Yu Sheng, but it said the other party was out of service. So he dialed Erin instead.
Anyone who frequently dealt with the Traveler Inn knew that the little doll now had a phone watch. Erin usually kept at least one body at 66 Wutong Road, one of its functions being available to answer calls at any time. That way, through the doll ’s property of ignoring interdimensional interference, she could relay messages instantly, even if Yu Sheng was active in some other dimension.
The little doll’s surprised voice came from the phone’s earpiece: “Huh? Big nephew?”
“I ran into the Artificial Saint again!” Zheng Zhi’s voice was a bit distorted. “Probably the same one as before—quick, tell Brother Yu! I’m on the street behind the old Runda Mall!”
…
Yu Sheng arrived quickly. Less than two minutes after Zheng Zhi hung up, he saw a door suddenly appear at the intersection not far away.
In the old district, Yu Sheng had left coordinates at almost every intersection, mostly recorded during his routine walks with Hu Li.
Yu Sheng first stepped out of the door, followed closely by the fox girl, who had transformed into her ordinary human form. Erin, as usual when going out, wore a dead-fish expression and pretended to be an ordinary doll lying in Hu Li’s arms. Finally, Luna came out of the door. She was still wearing her nun’s habit underneath but had added a hooded windproof cloak and a mask covering half her face, wrapping herself tightly from head to toe.
Of course, even wrapped up like that, Luna rarely left 66 Wutong Road. Her height of about two meters was conspicuous no matter what, making her stand out like a landmark wherever she went. Given her personality, she clearly didn’t like that kind of “attention.”
But today, there was no choice. She now had a “former colleague” active in Boundary City, and that colleague was likely already out of control.
As soon as Zheng Zhi saw Yu Sheng, he looked as if he’d seen a savior. He rushed over in big strides: “Hey, Brother Yu! You’re finally here! I was scared to death…”
“Your news scared me too!” Yu Sheng quickly replied, instinctively scanning the surroundings as he spoke. He saw no signs of a fight, nor did Li Lin and Zheng Zhi appear injured. He frowned subconsciously. “You’re both fine? Didn’t the Artificial Saint attack you?”
Zheng Zhi’s expression turned a bit strange. After a long pause, he managed to say: “Well… you could say she did attack me…”
Erin, who had been playing dead, couldn’t hold it in anymore. She raised her head from Hu Li’s arms when she saw no one around: “What do you mean by ‘you could say she attacked’?”
Zheng Zhi: “She stole half my roasted sweet potato…”
Yu Sheng and the others: “…?”
Zheng Zhi thought for a moment and added: “But actually, it doesn’t count as stealing. She knew to pay—she gave me a handful of arcade tokens.”
As he spoke, he reached into his pocket and showed the “coins” he’d received to Yu Sheng.
How to put it… For a moment, Yu Sheng even suspected that the last time he went to the valley for a meal, he might have accidentally eaten a psychic mushroom and was now deep in a powerful hallucination, its absurdity no less than seeing Little Red Riding Hood squatting on a roof howling at the sky—with a Rapunzel rolled into a ball hanging in the sky above.
But the expression on his big nephew’s face was clearly serious, and Li Lin’s expression was even more serious.
Yu Sheng withdrew his gaze from the arcade tokens and looked into Zheng Zhi’s eyes: “…First, tell me exactly what happened. Give me the whole story from beginning to end.”
Zheng Zhi then recounted everything that had just happened.
It wasn’t a complicated story. The whole incident took only a few minutes. Although the situation was extremely abnormal, explaining it didn’t take much effort.
After confirming the truth of the whole matter, the only thing left was to think about the reason behind it all.
Yu Sheng recalled what he had seen through the “cat’s” memory in the Dark Alley.
The Artificial Saint had suddenly fallen into a daze just as she was about to withdraw, attacked her own teammates, then “escaped” from the Dark Alley into the real world’s Boundary City. She had inexplicably grabbed food but seemed to know to “pay”…
And that strange act of “trying to eat.”
Actually, Yu Sheng could easily think of many answers—after all, he was a novelist.
“It sounds like she suddenly broke free from the mental shackles set by the Temple of the Departed Saint, but not completely,” Yu Sheng said, rubbing his chin and frowning in thought. “She might still think she’s human? Thought she was buying food from Zheng Zhi? But she clearly didn’t recognize currency, and she seemed unable to speak… When she fled from the Dark Alley, she looked panicked. Was she aware of the change in herself at that moment? Or did she see the ‘Knights’ in front of her as monsters?”
Naturally, no one at the scene could provide an answer. Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then suddenly looked up: “Did you report the situation to the Special Services Bureau?”
Zheng Zhi scratched his hair: “Not yet…”
“I just sent an alarm message,” Li Lin said, pulling out his phone and dialing. “I’ll call the Bureau now and explain the situation.”
Erin sneakily raised her head again, looked at Li Lin, then at the ultra-intern operative with his simple, honest expression.
“…Uh, do you remember that you work for the Special Services Bureau?” the little doll asked curiously.
Zheng Zhi thought for a moment, then kept scratching his head.