Chapter 89: Highly Creative

Chapter 89: Highly Creative

“Academy?”

Seeing “Traitor Three Thousand’s” message, Yu Sheng was briefly confused. The word “Academy” felt somewhat familiar. Then he remembered something Baili Qing had mentioned in passing during their earlier conversation, as well as fragments he had seen while browsing the phone’s data. He finally matched the term to something concrete.

The documents described it as an organization outside the Boundary Zone, headquartered on a distant planet called Terra. The Academy specialized in knowledge inheritance, archaeological discovery, technological research and development, and combating ancient aberrations that threatened mortal sanity. In essence, it seemed to be a literal “academy,” a massive university-like institution. Most of its field operatives carried the title of “professor.”

If it was such a scholarly organization devoted to studying strange artifacts, then it made sense that they would be interested in the strange metal device Yu Sheng had found.

But there was one problem. The Academy was not as easy to contact as other external organizations. They mainly conducted official-level exchanges with other groups and were highly secretive in private. For someone like Yu Sheng, a newcomer who barely knew any colleagues, where could he even find an Academy “professor”?

Yu Sheng frowned. After some hesitation, he sent another message to Traitor Three Thousand.

“How do I contact the Academy? Do you have a channel?”

However, this time he waited a long while and received no reply. It seemed the other party had gone offline after sending the last message.

“At least I’ve got a lead,” Yu Sheng muttered. After waiting a bit longer, he finally put his phone away and picked up the pitch-black metal device again, turning it over and examining it carefully.

He found the strange inscriptions Traitor Three Thousand had mentioned. He had not even noticed them during his photos, yet this attentive “online stranger” had picked up on them.

They looked like some kind of writing. Though worn, they were deeply engraved and still visible. However, Yu Sheng could not understand them at all. He had never seen such curved, circular-script characters before.

At that moment, his phone suddenly vibrated again.

A reply?

He quickly pulled it out, only to find it was not Traitor Three Thousand. Instead, it was a private message from Little Red Riding Hood.

The message read: “I saw your photos and posts. Did you pick that thing up from your own ‘home’?”

“Yes,” Yu Sheng replied calmly. “I just didn’t want to scare people, so I didn’t say that part.”

“Good thing you didn’t. That would’ve broken normal people’s worldview. How did you even pick it up? Wutong Road 66 is your ‘territory’, and something you’ve never seen before appeared inside your house?”

“This place is full of weird stuff,” Yu Sheng typed with a sigh. “I even picked up Irene from a room. Things just show up randomly.”

The little doll immediately leaned over and headbutted his arm. “Hey! Why drag me into this? And what do you mean ‘random stuff’—am I random?”

Yu Sheng casually ruffled her head. “Just a figure of speech. Adds emphasis.”

He then described to Little Red Riding Hood how he had found the metal device. At the end, he asked, “Have you seen anything like this before?”

“Objects appearing inside an Other Domain is normal. But foreign objects appearing inside one is strange,” she replied. “Of course, we still can’t confirm whether it really came from outside. It might simply be part of Wutong Road 66 that you previously overlooked. I don’t know your situation or your house well enough.”

“As for the metal device, I’ve never seen it,” she continued. “But I suggest you don’t keep asking around on Border Communication. First, your information is too limited to get useful answers. Second, there are all kinds of people there. Don’t get scammed.”

After a short pause, she added: “You can keep it for now. If collectors interested in strange artifacts show up later, it might sell for a good price. You can also observe whether similar objects appear again. It looks like a component. There might be other parts.”

Yu Sheng froze when he saw that message, then quickly typed: “This junk can be sold for money?”

Little Red Riding Hood replied after a noticeable delay: “There are always collectors interested in strange and bizarre things, especially items taken from Other Domains that are not inherently dangerous. As long as you can prove it is an Other Domain retrieval item, it has value.”

“Oh. How do you prove that? Is there a dedicated appraisal system?”

“The Special Operations Bureau has appraisal authority. Large organizations like the Academy, the Bamosa Hermits, or various artifact and relic associations also have experts. Their certificates are highly credible.” She paused. “Do you need money?”

Yu Sheng hesitated, then glanced at the fox girl sitting nearby, who had just pulled another chicken drumstick out of her tail and started eating.

He typed somewhat awkwardly: “You know, I’m currently supporting two dependents, and Hu Li has a very large appetite. My own job has also hit a bit of a bottleneck.”

The bottleneck mainly came from discovering that his readers had developed extremely bizarre preferences from his writing, to the point that it was affecting his confidence in both direction and ability.

Little Red Riding Hood responded quickly without asking about his job: “Then you can try getting an appraisal certificate from the Special Operations Bureau. They will definitely believe you found it in an Other Domain. Unless they refuse to acknowledge Wutong Road 66 as an Other Domain.”

A faint smile appeared on Yu Sheng’s face. He was already thinking about how Hu Li’s food expenses and Irene’s new TV could be covered.

Then, suddenly, a thought struck him.

An extremely bold, highly creative, and dangerously attractive idea crashed into his mind.

It sparkled gold. Even his eyes lit up strangely.

“Wait, does that mean anything brought out of an Other Domain with no harmful properties can be appraised like this?”

Little Red Riding Hood took nearly half a minute to reply with a single: “Ah?”

Then, before Yu Sheng could type again, she quickly sent another message: “Wait, I think I know what you’re going to do!”

Yu Sheng glanced around the living room.

Everything looked valuable.

Even the moldy peeling wallpaper in the corner seemed coated in gold.

At that moment, his phone vibrated continuously again. Little Red Riding Hood fired off a barrage of messages:

“Collectors don’t just accept anything, okay! It has to at least look like a rare item with a story! At the very least, it shouldn’t be like something you pulled out of a pile of plastic slippers, old newspapers, or beverage bottles just to brag about it! How did you even think of this—”

Yu Sheng stared blankly at the flood of messages, sensing the sheer shock and disbelief coming through the text.

At the same time, in another part of Boundary City, Little Red Riding Hood lay in bed after sending the messages, still staring at her phone in silence.

Her expression was full of shock and disbelief.

“Not sleeping yet?” a young female voice came from above. A face appeared at the edge of the upper bunk. It was a girl with long black hair, looking slightly younger than Little Red Riding Hood. She glanced at the phone in her hand and recognized the interface. “Border Communication? New case? Something came up?”

“No. Just chatting. I’m deeply shaken,” Little Red Riding Hood said casually.

“Something can shake you?” the girl asked. “Did someone post something wild on the public board? Like running naked?”

Little Red Riding Hood did not even look up. “An entity is trying to sell off its assets to get rich.”

The girl on the upper bunk immediately slipped and nearly fell. Halfway down, her hair wrapped around the bed frame and held her like a hanging ghost swaying beside the bed.

“This sounds like a new horror discussion thread…”

“Can you not talk while hanging like that?” Little Red Riding Hood sighed. “And I’m serious. Hypothetically, if an Other Domain contains a human-like entity that can move freely into the human world and even has legal identity, then wouldn’t it be able to…”

The girl hanging from the bunk froze, then looked shocked.

“I know what this is. The guy you’ve been talking to recently… he’s found a bug in the system.”