Chapter 57: Making Contact

Chapter 57: Making Contact

“I don’t really understand those supernatural matters,” Yu Sheng said frankly to the puzzled-looking Li Lin and the other two. “Especially things like Other Domains and entities. In fact, I don’t know much about things beyond Boundary City either. That’s why I’ve been looking for ‘professionals’ like you, hoping you can answer a lot of my questions.”

Li Lin and Xu Jiali exchanged glances. Both looked extremely astonished after hearing Yu Sheng’s words. Little Red Riding Hood could not help looking him up and down several times. “You... are you saying you’ve never had any contact with Other Domains or entities before?! You’ve only started dealing with this stuff recently?!”

“I spent the past twenty-some years living a peaceful and ordinary life,” Yu Sheng replied honestly, spreading his hands. “It’s only recently that I’ve started encountering all this weird stuff. I’m a complete beginner in this area.”

The moment he finished speaking, Xu Jiali’s expression beside him almost fell apart.

So he had only recently come into contact with Other Domains, had he? And yet he could pin down and beat up Hunger entities with a Danger Level above Level Three. He could casually open a door to a wasteland planet millions of light-years away. He moved in and out of Other Domains as if returning home.

What kind of “beginner” was that?

Was he even human?!

He exchanged looks with Li Lin. Their thoughts raced. In an instant, they had already considered countless possibilities.

First, they were now almost certain that the spacetime displacement phenomenon that had thrown the entire Special Operations Bureau into chaos was absolutely connected to the man named Yu Sheng standing before them.

The evidence was the door he had casually opened.

Yes, casually.

Second, they absolutely could not be fooled by Yu Sheng’s claim of being a “beginner.” Whether or not he had only recently come into contact with Other Domains and entities, the power he wielded was nothing like that of an ordinary human who had only just been affected by an Other Domain.

Either the word “beginner” was false, or the identity of “ordinary human” was false.

Or perhaps both were false.

Besides, an ordinary human could never live in a house that was so obviously wrong.

“I’d like to confirm something first,” Li Lin said after a moment’s hesitation. “You’ve always lived here, right?”

“That’s right.” Yu Sheng nodded. He had no intention of telling outsiders that he had come from another Boundary City, so he simply admitted that he had always lived in this house. After all, he even had an identity card. “I’ve always lived here.”

Li Lin said, “Then do you know that this house...”

“Yes, it’s an Other Domain,” Yu Sheng interrupted before the other man could finish. His face was full of sincerity and innocence. “I only found out recently. Nothing ever went wrong when I lived here before.”

Li Lin was instantly speechless again.

What did he mean by only finding out recently? What did he mean by nothing ever went wrong before?

Could an ordinary person be like this?

Then again, after all these years, how had the Special Operations Bureau never discovered that such a suspicious place existed in this old district?

“Um... could I take a look at your identification?” Li Lin finally asked cautiously after holding it in for a long time.

Then he quickly rummaged through his pocket and produced a small black booklet, opening it in front of Yu Sheng.

“This is my duty credential.”

Yu Sheng glanced at the booklet. It contained Li Lin’s photo, name, and position, along with various numbers and identification codes he could not understand.

In any case, he could not tell whether it was genuine. He had never seen a Special Operations Bureau credential before.

Still, it at least looked like a proper official procedure.

So he readily took out his identity card and handed it over.

Li Lin accepted the card, and he and Xu Jiali quickly examined the information on it.

At the same time, both of their gazes stopped at the address field.

They stared blankly at the black characters on the white background.

Wutong Road 66.

“Is there a problem?” Yu Sheng asked curiously when he saw both of them freeze.

Li Lin snapped back to attention and slowly returned the identity card.

He seemed hesitant about something. After pausing several times, he finally spoke.

“Do you know something? There is no Number 66 on Wutong Road.”

Yu Sheng: “...?”

Now he finally knew why none of the locksmiths he had contacted had ever managed to arrive.

“We need to return to headquarters first,” Xu Jiali broke the silence. “Your situation... is rather unusual. We need to report it to our superiors and coordinate with the archives department so we can figure out what’s going on.”

Yu Sheng was startled. “You’re leaving already? But I still have a pile of questions...”

“We’ll leave our contact information, and we’ll be coming back soon for an official ‘contact session,’” Xu Jiali said. “The Special Operations Bureau has a formal process for contacting and registering humans who have recently come into contact with Other Domains and undergone changes. Don’t worry. All of your questions will be answered during the official contact process.”

As he spoke, he took out a small card and handed it to Yu Sheng.

“My phone number is on here.”

“...All right.”

Yu Sheng thought it over.

His main goal had always been to establish contact with the professionals in the Boundary Zone who specialized in dealing with Other Domain incidents. As for his countless questions, they clearly were not things that could be sorted out in a brief conversation.

Those matters would require gradual contact and understanding later on.

So he nodded readily and accepted the business card.

Afterward, he also left them his own phone number.

The number had existed ever since he had “arrived” here, but almost nobody ever contacted him, and he had no one he could contact.

Then Yu Sheng turned his attention to Little Red Riding Hood, who had been standing quietly nearby.

The girl, who looked like a high school student, did not seem to be in very good condition. Her exposed right arm appeared to be recovering, but numerous tiny black patterns were still visible across the skin, giving it a rather eerie appearance.

“Are you okay?” Yu Sheng asked with some concern.

“The side effects of dealing with the Wolf. It’s not the first time,” Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. “I’ll recover after some adjustment. I need to go see a doctor later. By the way, I’ll leave my phone number too... hold on, I don’t have my phone with me. Let me find a pen.”

As she spoke, she reached toward the small pouch at her waist.

Then her movement suddenly froze.

The expression on the girl’s face visibly stiffened, as if she had only just realized something terrible.

Yu Sheng jumped in alarm when he saw her reaction.

“What’s wrong?”

Xu Jiali sighed beside her.

“An entity tore up her homework.”

Little Red Riding Hood slowly turned her neck.

She saw sympathetic expressions on both Xu Jiali’s and Li Lin’s faces.

“We noticed it from the start,” Li Lin said quietly. “But you didn’t realize it at the time. We didn’t want to bring it up. We thought you could stay happy a little longer...”

“When was I ever happy? Huh?! When I was being chased through the forest by monsters like a stray dog?!”

The girl in red completely lost it. The composure and maturity she had maintained all along instantly vanished, leaving behind only hysteria.

“I spent three days making up for it! Three whole days making up those math worksheets! Aaaahhh!!”

Yu Sheng watched in complete bewilderment.

He was increasingly beginning to feel that the mentality and daily lives of these “professionals” were not quite what he had imagined.

Still, under the circumstances, he did not feel comfortable saying anything.

Mainly because the girl really did seem heartbroken.

In the end, however, Little Red Riding Hood still left him her phone number.

When she wrote the digits on a slip of paper, every stroke was pressed down with tremendous force.

The hatred in her expression made it seem as though she were using the pen as a knife, carving the numbers into the long-vanished Hunger entities themselves.

The sight left Yu Sheng genuinely uneasy.

After that, Li Lin and the other two prepared to take their leave.

Yu Sheng escorted them to the front door.

After opening it, he stood beside the doorway.

“Then I won’t see you out any farther. I’ve still got a lot of things to deal with here.”

Hearing this, Li Lin looked back into the living room.

The fox girl with a whole bundle of tails was still sitting on the floor guarding a pile of food.

Meanwhile, the little doll with both arms missing sat on the sofa, carefree as ever, watching television.

A strange Wutong Road 66.

A strange Yu Sheng.

And two equally strange “friends.”

All of it right under the nose of the Special Operations Bureau.

Li Lin knew he had come into contact with a massive vortex.

Everything would appear in the reports he and Xu Jiali submitted.

And in the overtime work that awaited them.

The young Special Operations Bureau agent let out a deep sigh and tiredly stepped through the door.

A cool night breeze blew toward him.

The quiet nightscape of the old district entered his view, and warm streetlights illuminated the road ahead.

He and Xu Jiali turned back at the same time.

Behind them stood only a bare wall covered in chaotic, abstract graffiti.

Xu Jiali stepped forward and touched the wall, then knocked on it twice.

“...It seems it isn’t here,” the veteran Deep Diver said softly. “This is only an entrance, and it opens only when an invitation has been granted.”

“Should we return to headquarters first?” Li Lin asked. “Or leave someone here to continue watching the area?”

Xu Jiali looked up at Little Red Riding Hood.

The girl immediately turned her head away, indicating that the destruction of her homework had left her in such a terrible mood that she had absolutely no interest in working overtime.

“I need to see Doctor Lin first and deal with the aftereffects,” she said, offering a perfectly reasonable excuse. “Do whatever you want. Personally, I think it doesn’t matter whether anyone stays here or not. That person’s abilities are too strange. Under current conditions, there’s no way to monitor him.”

“...Let’s go back to headquarters first,” Xu Jiali sighed and started walking forward. “There are still other personnel maintaining the outer perimeter anyway. We’ll report today’s situation first. This involves the Dim Angels. As for this matter... even Captain Song probably won’t have the authority to make the decision.”