Chapter 260: The Second Door

And so it was settled.

Afterward, the on-site staff quickly found the "carrier" Yu Sheng had requested—a door pulled from the orphanage ruins. An iron door, double-leafed, one and a half inches thick, with a frame three and a half meters wide. It was deathly heavy; an ordinary adult couldn't push it open easily. It had to be hoisted over by a crane, and when it stood upright, it looked like a wall…

Yu Sheng stared at it, dumbfounded. He hurriedly explained to Li Lin that what he wanted was the most ordinary door imaginable—literally ordinary, the kind a primary school student could push open—not this heavy security door that looked like the entrance to some big boss's secret base. Sure, it had a cool vibe standing there, but without a power-assisted structure, the kids would never be able to open it…

"Ah, I misunderstood. When I heard it was a teleportation door connecting the valley and reality, I automatically thought of the customs gates back at the bureau," Li Lin said, rubbing his nose awkwardly. "I was even thinking that if this door wasn't big enough, I'd call the leader and have Engineer Sun come over…"

Yu Sheng and Ai Lin said in unison, "Just leave Engineer Sun alone!"

Li Lin smiled awkwardly and waved his hand. The crane then tossed the heavy tri-proof door—originally from the orphanage's basement—back into the ruins. Before long, a door that was at least somewhat normal was delivered to the empty lot.

An iron door, old and black-red, with decorative wrought iron that clearly reflected an aesthetic from at least twenty years ago, along with some colorful stickers. It came with its frame and was temporarily propped up against the surviving brick wall.

"Hey, this is the door from the old east building's main office!" Rapunzel recognized it immediately. "I put that sticker on!"

Yu Sheng nodded in satisfaction. "This one will do. Next up is setting up the alchemy. Ai Lin, keep an eye on me. I'll try to draw the kind of array with amplification nodes you taught me last time…"

As he spoke, he took a piece of chalk, placed Ai Lin on the ground nearby, and began sketching an alchemy array with complex amplification nodes in front of the door.

Incidentally, the chalk came from Hu Li—that girl really had everything in her tail. Who knew why she had a box of chalk stuffed in there… Could it be that she kept it for eating?

Li Lin stood not far away, watching with wide-eyed curiosity. After getting permission, he even pulled out his phone and started recording. He knew that what he was recording now might even end up on the director's desk. Though Yu Sheng himself might not realize it, this footage… would give the tech department colleagues a week of overtime.

This was the first time the Special Operations Bureau had closely and directly recorded the process of "Personified Entity Yu Sheng" opening and fixing a teleportation door onto a real-world carrier.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the agents who had been patrolling the perimeter had voluntarily gathered nearby. The various detection devices should have been turned on by now, recording every minute change happening on the empty lot.

Actually, Li Lin was a bit uneasy. Even though Yu Sheng said he didn't mind people watching or even filming, having a large group of Special Operations Bureau agents gathered with all kinds of detection equipment doing on-site scans was somewhat intrusive. He was afraid Yu Sheng might take offense—but after watching for a while, he understood why Yu Sheng didn't care.

Because he realized that the array Yu Sheng was drawing on the ground was just the most standard alchemy enchantment array—even a simplified version.

He could do it too; the basic courses covered it during training. Not just field agents, even Ren Wenwen in the office knew it.

By then, the "auxiliary materials" sent by the Special Operations Bureau had also arrived. Li Lin watched as Yu Sheng selected a few items from the pile and used them on the alchemy array, then tossed the rest into the fox's tail.

Then, candles were lit at several basic nodes of the rune array. The flames flickered in the outdoor environment, but as various materials like crystal dust, essential oils, and tea powder were added, the fires quickly stabilized.

Hu Li crouched outside the alchemy array, munching on a skewer of grilled mushrooms while watching her benefactor draw the array. Beside her, Rapunzel watched, looking envious. She walked over and said, "Let me have a taste…"

Hu Li instantly hugged the grilled mushrooms to her chest, turned to Rapunzel, bared her teeth, and let out a threatening "woo-woo-woo" growl from her throat.

Rapunzel wasn't upset—she had teased Hu Li the same way at the barbecue party before. She just grinned and walked away. "Tch, fine, keep it."

"You all step back, especially you, silly fox. Don't drip oil on the lines," Ai Lin said as she walked around inside the alchemy array, checking things and occasionally giving Yu Sheng pointers. "Hey hey, Yu Sheng, you missed a line here… Come on, add it. I'm telling you, normally you can't add this part afterward, but since you never follow the rules with alchemy anyway, it's okay to supplement…"

The scene wasn't the slightest bit "professional."

Li Lin couldn't hold it in any longer. Although theoretically, during such a large-scale alchemy ritual, no one should interrupt, seeing these people—not only interrupting but already having downed a skewer of grilled mushrooms—he decided to throw out everything he had learned. "Is… is this it? Is this how you fix the teleportation door into reality?"

Yu Sheng looked up. "This is just the first step."

Li Lin immediately felt relieved. "I knew it. When I learned it back then…"

"The second step is to add one last auxiliary material," Yu Sheng continued.

Then he pulled out his treasured blade from his pocket and started sawing at his own hand…

Li Lin: "…?"

"Hu Li, come bite me," Yu Sheng said helplessly, putting down the knife and looking at the fox girl who had finished her grilled mushrooms. "This knife really needs replacing."

"Oh!" Hu Li happily walked over, opened her mouth wide, and bit down on Yu Sheng's wrist. Her sharp teeth pierced through…

She had finally gotten used to Yu Sheng's strange "characteristics" and now had no hesitation biting her benefactor's hand.

Yu Sheng quickly channeled his blood into the door, carrying out the truly important final step of the "ritual"—

Thinking.

Thinking hard.

Imagining the corresponding door slowly taking shape in the valley.

He could have built the matching door in the valley beforehand and then opened it here, connecting the two sides, but he was lazy. Since he could control the valley remotely, saving a trip was naturally better.

A faint grinding sound came from both sides of the plain iron door. The candle flames on the ground were suddenly pulled by an invisible force, leaping high.

Li Lin, who had been staring blankly a moment ago, snapped to attention. He saw the door growing and deforming.

Structures that looked like biological tissue extended from both sides of the door, quickly merging with the brick wall. The brick wall's surface writhed and pulsed, and as the door was fully fixed and embedded, it also generated an extremely tough, rock-like outer layer.

Suddenly, a thought—or rather, a "cognition"—directly entered his mind:

This door was alive.

Those messy alchemy arrays and auxiliary materials were essentially useless. All the images and detection data recorded just now were meaningless. The only thing that mattered was that last step, but it was also something that couldn't be recorded or analyzed by any instrument—all the changes happened in those few seconds when Yu Sheng infused the door with his blood, held the handle, and closed his eyes in thought.

Yu Sheng turned the door handle.

The newborn door let out a silent cheer in the real world, celebrating its own life. The biological-tissue-like structures fused with the wall pulsed strongly in a dimension humans couldn't perceive, swelled, and emitted their first heartbeat.

Then, the door presented a distant landscape to its creator.

Snow White and her seven Thunder Titans stood on the other side of the door, along with a curious young girl with long flowing hair and a light blue dress—that was "Mermaid." On her head crouched the imperious King.

"Sister Hong! And Brother Yu!" Mermaid happily greeted the people on this side of the door. "Hey, the door really opened!"

"Human, you're amazing," King said, nodding at Yu Sheng across the door with dignity, then stretched his head forward. "Come, pet my head quickly."

Yu Sheng smiled and reached out, picking King up from the other side, holding him in his arms and petting him thoroughly. The cat didn't mind, and after being petted properly, he gracefully jumped down and looked around this place.

"Ah, what a scene of devastation," the tabby cat sighed very humanly, then raised a paw and beckoned. A bard in a short robe appeared beside him. "In this scene, I want to recite a poem—but I can't, so you do it."

The bard took out a quill and parchment from his bosom and began writing a poem.

Yu Sheng, after confirming that the newborn door could continue operating normally without his maintenance, breathed a sigh of relief. He turned and walked over to Li Lin, who was still dazed, and said cheerfully, "Alright, I'm done. Did you understand?"

"…Not even I, and probably not even the director, could 'understand' by just watching," Li Lin said with a wry smile, spreading his hands. He was quite candid. "No wonder you didn't mind us watching on the sidelines."

He paused, then looked curiously at the door. "So from now on, you can go directly into that valley through this door? Do we need to set up a guard post here? Besides the nodes, station some extra guards to prevent any ill-intentioned people from bypassing the nodes and breaking in—given your and 'Fairy Tale's' special nature, the director probably wouldn't mind allocating some personnel."

"A guard post isn't necessary. I'll have Little Red Riding Hood arrange a rotating gatekeeper duty here to watch the door. Mainly to prevent kids from sneaking out," Yu Sheng said. "Don't worry about anyone breaking in—this door requires authorization. Without authorization, even if the door is open, you can't walk through the passage."

Li Lin seemed to understand. "Like 66 Wutong Road?"

Yu Sheng smiled. "Exactly, just like 66 Wutong Road."

(End of this chapter)