Chapter 18: The Investigators
He was back—back to this bizarre and eerie Boundary City.
Not long ago, this place had been an immense, unsettling metropolis, teeming with strangeness that clawed at his sanity. Yet now, as Yu Sheng caught sight of those familiar streetlights and buildings under the pale morning glow, he felt a surge of nostalgia—an emotion he himself found almost too surreal to believe.
The harrowing ordeal in the depths of Night Valley had left him with an odd sense of coming home, even as his heart thudded with the thrill of survival.
But the next moment, dizziness seized him, dragging his thoughts back to the brutal reality of his injuries. Yu Sheng looked down with a slow, almost detached motion and saw crimson blood pooling beneath him, spreading like a grotesque blossom.
A vicious wound gaped through his body—deep enough to claim his life within moments. Despite his formidable vitality and remarkable recovery rate, he knew death was once again at his doorstep. He was getting disturbingly used to that realization.
The cause of the wound lay right beside him—the severed, scaled tail of a monstrous creature, still twitching with residual life. It throbbed like a living parasite, wriggling as if desperate to distance itself from him.
Yu Sheng felt a peculiar sense of satisfaction seeing the dismembered appendage recoil. [Is it… afraid of me?]
With a grimace, he forced himself upright, wincing as pain seared through his torso. He glanced at the nearby house door, took hold of the twitching, scaled tail, and dragged himself forward.
As he staggered, he mumbled under his breath, “Aren’t protagonists supposed to be fine after narrowly escaping death? What kind of crappy plot keeps the injuries after a damn map transition? Damn it, this hurts…”
Loss of blood clouded his vision, and each step felt like crossing an abyss on crumbling stones. His body screamed for rest, yet he moved forward out of sheer stubbornness. Was it the need to see Irene one last time? Or to avoid being found dead by morning pedestrians?
Before long, the edges of his vision darkened. In his mind’s eye, golden-red eyes flashed—Foxy’s eyes, flickering with primal hunger yet clinging to a thread of humanity amid the bloodlust. [Is she… still alive? She said she wouldn’t die… Hope she wasn’t lying.]
His thoughts scattered as he finally reached the door. Finding it unlocked, Yu Sheng pushed it open and stumbled inside. His gaze fell on the dining room across the entrance and the painting leaning against the wall. Irene was just lifting her head from it, her eyes widening in shock as she took in his ghastly appearance.
Yu Sheng forced a grin—one last, fleeting smile before the darkness closed in. “Irene, I’m back.”
The thought crossed his mind—if not for his enhanced body’s unnatural resilience, he would’ve already died outside. Just as that realization surfaced, his legs gave way, and he collapsed against the doorframe. The familiar weight of oblivion pressed down from all sides as Irene’s terrified scream echoed through his fading consciousness.
Now he was dead inside the house.
…
The sound of electric scooters braking softly marked the arrival of two figures at the quiet depths of Wutong Road. They dismounted, surveying the old, tranquil neighborhood with vigilant eyes.
One of them was a tall, robust middle-aged man wearing a long brown coat. His imposing physique and rugged demeanor were accentuated by a prominent scar near his neck. Though his presence was fierce, exhaustion etched deep lines into his face, and dark circles under his eyes betrayed weeks—if not months—of sleepless nights. He looked like a soldier forced into endless overtime.
The two figures rode into the quiet, aging district on their electric bikes, their presence barely drawing attention from the sparse residents passing by at distant intersections.
One of them was a middle-aged man, his sturdy frame and neat black hair giving off a sense of seasoned competence. Beside him was a much younger man, appearing just over twenty, with the same black hair but a leaner build and an unassuming face—so ordinary that he would be instantly lost in a crowd. Dressed in a black-and-blue jacket and pants, his expression was visibly tense, carrying the uneasy air of a rookie on his first few days of field duty, dragged out by his leader for some unexpected mission.
“Doesn’t look like there’s anything weird around here…” the young man muttered under his breath. “Captain Song, are you sure this is the place?”
Captain Song, the middle-aged man, nodded calmly. “The border alarm triggered just now. The coordinates match this area. Although the signal vanished in an instant, it definitely indicated an Otherworld reaction.”
“We rushed over as fast as we could, but still missed it,” the young man grumbled, glancing at their electric bikes. “Maybe we should’ve driven instead…”
Captain Song shot him a glance. “All the bureau’s cars are out on assignments. The only one left was Xu Jiali’s seven-times-repaired junker. You wanna drive that? That thing floors the gas and still might not beat your bike’s speed.”
The young man chuckled awkwardly, hurriedly changing the subject. “Oh, right… Wasn’t that agent from the Fairy Tale Organization here earlier—codename ‘Little Red Riding Hood’? Didn’t she also find nothing?”
Captain Song nodded slowly. “Yeah. Nothing at all, which makes it even stranger. ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ has done a lot of work for the Special Affairs Bureau. I know her abilities well. Her Wolf can sniff out even the faintest, most minute abnormality in the surroundings. Yet she searched here all night and came up with absolutely nothing.”
The young man blinked, not quite grasping the significance.
“Didn’t get it? No abnormalities detected,” Captain Song reiterated. “It’s too clean. Too normal. There’s no place in the Borderland that’s this clean! Little Red Riding Hood’s Wolf can detect oddities all over the city, no matter how faint, but only here… From a mystical perspective, this entire street is as clean as a vacuum!”
Realization dawned on the young man—finally connecting the dots between his training at the Academy and the eerie reality before him.
“Either this place is genuinely that clean—a pure, deep parallel to the ‘outside world,’ which isn’t impossible given the unpredictable nature of the Borderland,” Captain Song gestured tiredly. “Or there’s something big hidden here—something so powerful it continuously alters the environment, forcing Little Red Riding Hood’s Wolf into a boundary vacuum.”
The young man’s already tense expression grew visibly tighter.
“I’m not approving your transfer to logistics,” Captain Song remarked, raising his eyes. “And switching to another team is out of the question.”
The young man waved his hands hurriedly. “I never said I wanted to quit! I joined the team prepared to serve, stay dedicated, and fulfill my duties responsibly…”
Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by the sudden ringing of a phone—playing a catchy, upbeat tune from a popular new anime. The young man froze, giving his leader a strange look. “…You watch that show too?”
Captain Song’s expression twitched, reluctantly fishing his phone out of his pocket. “Must’ve been my daughter who changed it. She’s been watching it lately…”
The young man’s expression shifted awkwardly, resisting the urge to comment on whether a middle schooler watching a band of anime girls playing music was appropriate.
Captain Song answered the call, his voice steady. “Yes, I’m here with Li Lin. Same as before—too clean, unnaturally so. We might need to set up a fixed monitoring point here. Coordinate personnel when I get back, and check with Fairy Tale Organization for additional support. This could be a long-term operation…”
After hanging up, Captain Song let out a long sigh, turning to see Li Lin still giving him a curious look.
“It was my daughter. I don’t usually watch anime,” Captain Song clarified, to which Li Lin gave a polite, coughing laugh. “Right, I believe you.”
The awkward silence lingered for a moment, until suddenly, Li Lin’s gaze sharpened, and he briskly moved toward a nearby corner.
“Captain Song, come take a look at this!” Li Lin called out, pointing at a small, dark red stain at the base of the wall. It resembled dried blood, barely noticeable from a distance, and was visibly shrinking at an unnatural speed—not seeping into the cement, but vanishing into thin air.
“Blood?” Captain Song frowned, quickly realizing something was off. He pulled out a plastic tube and a portable scraper from his coat pocket. “No… not blood. Get a sample!”
“Got it,” Li Lin replied, taking the tools and preparing to scrape the remaining red residue from the wall. Just as the blade was about to touch the surface, the last trace of the stain sizzled faintly before disappearing completely.