Chapter 71: Learning More

Chapter 71: Learning More

Yu Sheng did not know why the woman across from him, who claimed to be the Director of the Special Operations Bureau, had suddenly frozen up. He merely studied her curiously. Seeing that she was not speaking, he took the initiative to start a conversation.

“By the way, your Special Operations Bureau really goes all out when making contact with someone. I thought Li Lin and the others would be the ones meeting me. I didn’t expect to meet the Director directly. Is this how you always do things?”

Baili Qing immediately returned to her usual calm demeanor.

“No. Only under special circumstances.”

“Special circumstances?”

“For example, a... ‘strange person’ who has lived inside an Other Domain for more than twenty years while living in the Boundary Zone as an ‘ordinary person,’” Baili Qing said, looking directly into Yu Sheng’s eyes. “My apologies. I hope you don’t mind me referring to you that way.”

“Uh, I don’t really mind, but am I really that strange from your perspective?” Yu Sheng asked awkwardly. “The reactions from Li Lin and Xu Jiali were similar. My lifestyle seems to surprise them quite a bit. I suppose that’s understandable.”

“Perhaps you don’t realize it yourself.” Baili Qing sighed softly. “Many people within the Special Operations Bureau have been paying close attention to your activities. Over the past few days alone... a large number of agents have been kept busy because of you.”

Yu Sheng opened his mouth.

“...Huh?”

Baili Qing looked at him.

“You possess an ability to open doors, correct?”

“Ah, yes.” Yu Sheng nodded and reached into the air beside him. A door instantly materialized next to him. “Li Lin and the others used this thing to get back...”

Before he could finish, the woman opposite him suddenly raised a hand.

“No demonstration necessary!”

It was rare for the usually calm and indifferent Baili Qing to become this agitated.

Yu Sheng awkwardly released the doorknob.

Seeing her reaction, he immediately began to understand.

“So... judging by that response, opening doors affects you people somehow?”

“When you open a door, the entire Boundary Zone detects an unexplained spacetime disturbance,” Baili Qing said bluntly. “The personnel responsible for related monitoring systems have developed very strong opinions lately. You... really haven’t noticed?”

Yu Sheng’s expression became somewhat blank, while his gaze gradually turned strange. After a long pause, he shook his head.

“No, I haven’t noticed. Wait, are you saying that opening a door has an impact on the entire Boundary Zone? Does that mean I should stop using this ability in the future?”

He was clearly unhappy as he spoke.

The door ability was genuinely useful. He had only recently become familiar with it and started enjoying its convenience. Having someone from the Special Operations Bureau suddenly show up and tell him that it was causing trouble for everyone...

That felt rather uncomfortable.

But judging from the attitude of the Director in front of him, the extent of the disturbance he was causing apparently was not small.

Which made things awkward.

Naturally, Baili Qing noticed Yu Sheng’s mood. After a moment of thought, she shook her head.

“I’m merely making a suggestion. I hope you’ll try to limit the frequency with which you open doors in the future. At the very least... avoid opening hundreds of rifts in a single night like before. Or at least notify us in advance.”

“After all, this is your ability. And in truth, it hasn’t caused any actual damage to the Boundary Zone. In principle, we cannot simply forbid this sort of behavior. Of course, that’s assuming you’re willing to cooperate with us by registering under a legal identity. We will also coordinate with your ability and make technical adjustments to our monitoring systems.”

Yu Sheng was somewhat surprised.

The female Director before him appeared cold and stern, giving the impression of someone difficult to approach.

Yet unexpectedly, she was actually rather... reasonable.

The moment she mentioned opening hundreds of rifts in a single night, Yu Sheng naturally knew exactly what she was referring to.

At the time, he had not felt anything unusual.

But now, merely imagining it was enough for him to realize how much of a disturbance he had caused that night.

And despite all that, Director Baili Qing was still willing to discuss the matter with him calmly, even coming personally to negotiate a solution.

Yu Sheng was not some reckless teenager.

He understood perfectly well that, from an official standpoint, this was already an enormous gesture of goodwill.

The fact that she was being so reasonable actually caught him off guard.

The moment she brought up the issue of causing disturbances, he had mentally prepared himself for a battle of wits with the Special Operations Bureau.

Instead, before he could throw a punch, he found himself buried in cotton.

He suddenly felt a little embarrassed.

“Then that’s easy enough. Registration definitely won’t be a problem... But I do have a few questions. Could you answer them first?”

Baili Qing nodded.

“Of course. What would you like to ask?”

“First, this Special Operations Bureau of yours... what exactly is it?” Yu Sheng immediately organized the questions he had been carrying around for a long time and spoke seriously. “What kind of organization is it? How large is its jurisdiction?”

“Is that all you’re curious about?” Baili Qing seemed somewhat surprised by the question, but quickly continued. “The Special Operations Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Special Security and Service Protection, is a department directly administered by the Council, the highest governing authority of the Boundary Zone. It is also the highest-level official organization responsible for handling Other Domains, entities, anomalies, and all other supernatural incidents.”

“If the Boundary Zone can be divided into a natural side and an unnatural side, then you may regard us as the highest authority responsible for the unnatural side.”

“However, our sphere of activity, or rather our jurisdiction, is not limited to the Boundary Zone.”

“I don’t know how much you’ve already learned about the special nature of the Boundary Zone...”

Baili Qing paused and looked directly into Yu Sheng’s eyes.

“The special nature of the Boundary Zone...” Yu Sheng frowned and immediately recalled various pieces of information he had heard from Irene, as well as something he had realized while opening those distant doors.

There was far more than a single Boundary Zone in this world.

Beyond this strange city existed countless distant places.

“I know a little,” Yu Sheng said thoughtfully. “Judging by the name, it seems connected to many places. I’ve heard that all sorts of strange things exist here, they’re just hidden beneath a normal appearance...”

“Concealing things that exceed common sense and exceed the Boundary Zone’s baseline parameters, allowing this city to operate and develop according to standard settings, is one of the Special Operations Bureau’s duties.” Baili Qing nodded lightly.

“As you understand it, this place is connected to many locations. The number and scope of those connections exceed anyone’s imagination.”

“You can imagine the entire universe as a vast network woven from countless transportation routes. These routes do not exist within physical reality, and ordinary people cannot perceive them. Yet on the unnatural side, they intertwine, influence one another, and ultimately converge at a single location.”

“That location is the Boundary Zone.”

Baili Qing paused, confirming that Yu Sheng fully understood, before continuing.

“The first duty of the Special Operations Bureau is to maintain the boundary between the natural and unnatural within the Boundary Zone, ensuring order on the unnatural side.”

“The second is to deal with every threat that spreads through this transportation network and points toward this convergence point.”

“Whether those threats come from just around the corner, or from deep space thirty-six billion light-years away.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes widened.

Several seconds passed before he finally managed to speak.

“...Isn’t that range of distances a little too extreme?”

“For the special nature of the Boundary Zone, those distances are identical,” Baili Qing replied calmly. Then she pointed at Yu Sheng.

“And for you, isn’t that true as well?”

Yu Sheng froze.

He immediately understood what she meant.

“Among those hundreds of rifts, the number leading to places tens of billions of light-years away was no less than double digits,” Baili Qing said casually.

Yu Sheng remained silent.

His expression stayed calm, but his thoughts surged wildly.

In truth, he was not surprised.

When those doors had opened, he had already suspected as much.

How far away were those distant landscapes?

He had never known the answer.

But when he and Irene had enthusiastically discussed the matter, he had felt that some of them might truly lie beyond the limits of his imagination.

The figure Baili Qing had just mentioned felt less like a revelation and more like a footnote attached to a suspicion he had already held.

What genuinely astonished Yu Sheng was the scope of the Special Operations Bureau’s responsibilities.

He had met Li Lin.

An agent who stocked up on instant noodles with him at supermarkets.

Someone who disguised himself as a random young man squatting by the roadside scrolling through short videos while conducting surveillance. At this point, Yu Sheng had already connected the dots.

At best, the man seemed like a neighborhood police officer.

And now he was being told that the organization behind him operated on a scale involving the stars and the cosmos.

That was difficult to picture.

Yu Sheng hesitated for a long time, but ultimately decided not to share that particular thought with the Director in front of him.

Mainly because he was worried it might damage Li Lin’s career prospects.

Since Yu Sheng did not speak, neither did Baili Qing.

The two sat in brief silence.

After half a minute, Baili Qing finally broke it herself.

“Do you have any other questions?”

“Yes.” Yu Sheng immediately cleared away the jumble of thoughts in his mind and organized his words. “My next question.”

“Is there only one Boundary City?”