Chapter 19: Going Home
Li Lin stood dazedly staring at the empty corner of the wall, still holding the sampling scraper in his hand. His mind felt so blank that he seemed to have forgotten what he was doing.
The middle-aged man known as “Captain Song”—Song Cheng, Captain of Team Two of the Special Affairs Bureau—frowned deeply as the bloodstain vanished before his eyes. Something had slipped from his memory and thoughts, but the lingering impression remained, stirring his spiritual intuition and hinting at something amiss.
A chaotic gleam flashed in Song Cheng’s eyes. He immediately steadied his mind, attempting to solidify that last, fragile trace of the impression within his consciousness to prevent it from vanishing alongside the lost memories. His years of professional training kicked in. Li Lin, still holding the scraper, hesitated before looking up. “Leader, I feel like I’ve suddenly forgotten what I was supposed to do. Was there something here just now?”
“There’s interference affecting our thoughts!” Song Cheng reacted instantly, giving a swift warning. “Quickly, check the ‘depth’ here!”
Without a word, Li Lin put down his sampling tool, swiftly pulling a small, palm-sized black box from his belt. He pressed a few spots on its surface before pulling a slender, needle-tipped tube from the side and directly connecting the tube to his eyeball. After securing the connection, he looked up, scanning the surroundings with the eye linked to the tube.
The black iron box emitted a faint buzzing sound, and it seemed as if liquid was slowly flowing through the thin tube. Li Lin’s eye gradually turned jet black, and in his spiritual vision, everything on the old street took on a monochrome tint.
“Depth L-0, no Otherworld reaction,” Li Lin reported while observing. “No sign of anything emerging from the Otherworld or leaving residues.”
Song Cheng frowned, glancing at the box in Li Lin’s hand—a portable depth probe. Its sensitivity and range were inferior to the larger, suitcase-sized standard models, but even the portable one should detect any change in depth.
He was sure that something had interfered with his thoughts and memories just now—the residual impression was still forcefully solidified within his mind. There had to be some sinister Door entity influencing them here, but… the device picked up nothing.
Just as he was about to instruct Li Lin to adjust the probe’s detection mode, he noticed that Li Lin seemed to have spotted something.
Li Lin stared intently at the end of the alleyway. The eye connected to the tube had turned as black as ink, reflecting another layer of vision within its deep darkness. Among the black-and-white street buildings, a faint and blurry patch of color vaguely appeared. Though indistinct, its outline was roughly the size of a house.
“Captain Song, there’s something ahead—faint and hazy, but it looks like a building,” Li Lin whispered, cautiously moving forward. “Depth reading is still L-0, and no contamination detected… I’m almost in front of it now. Can you sense anything?”
Following behind, Song Cheng kept his right hand in his pocket, gripping a badge tightly and ready to intervene at any moment. He frowned and shook his head. “No spiritual warning.”
Li Lin stopped at a spot where he felt he was right in front of the hazy patch. He hesitated briefly, then slowly reached out his hand.
Suddenly, the black iron box emitted a sharp whine, followed by a few popping sounds and wisps of blue smoke. The depth probe ceased functioning.
The tube disconnected from his eyeball, and viscous, mud-like black substance trickled out, evaporating rapidly upon contact with the air.
An instant, sharp pain surged through his eye, prompting Li Lin to blurt out, “Damn it…” He dropped the overheated box instinctively, wanting to rub his affected eye. Song Cheng immediately stepped forward and pressed his hand near Li Lin’s temple. “Don’t rub it! Hold still, it’ll pass!”
Li Lin froze, feeling a searing heat near his temple. The discomfort in his eye quickly subsided. Moments later, he recovered and glanced at the smoldering remnants of the probe on the ground.
“Should we report this to the Bureau?”
“Definitely.”
“Phew, scared me for a moment,” Li Lin sighed in relief, then turned to eye the spot where he had just reached out, suspicion clouding his gaze.
There was nothing there now—just a small patch of empty ground with a wall at the far end, its surface painted with crude graffiti: doors, houses, trees, and stones depicted in a riot of colors.
He waved his hand through the air—nothing obstructed his movement.
“There must be something here. The device detected it, but it broke before I could confirm,” Li Lin muttered. “Before it failed, the depth reading was still L-0.”
“Let’s head back to the Bureau,” Song Cheng mused after a brief pause. “I’ll report to the Council right away. This place definitely needs monitoring for a while. It might be an undocumented ‘Otherworld.’ We may need larger equipment and a specialized Deep Diver to handle it. Is your eye alright?”
“If I say it’s not, can I get a half-day off?”
“No, we’re short-staffed.”
“Then I’m fine. I’ll just use some eye drops when we get back.”
Song Cheng nodded, and Li Lin carefully picked up the now-smokeless remains of the depth probe. The two made their way back to the spot where they had parked their electric bikes.
Li Lin turned the key, and the electric bike’s LCD screen flickered before going dark.
He froze, looking up to see Captain Song meeting his gaze with the same bewildered expression.
“My bike’s broken… yours too?”
Song Cheng nodded wordlessly.
“…Do you think it’s just a coincidence?”
Song Cheng gently shook his head, speaking in a deep voice, “The people from the ‘Academy’ have a specific term to explain this phenomenon.”
Li Lin was momentarily stunned before recalling some information he had read in the past—
“The Machine Spirit is displeased.” / “The Machine Spirit is timid.”
The two of them spoke almost simultaneously, but not in unison.
After a brief silence, they spoke again, this time in perfect unison: “You’re mistaken.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Song Cheng waved his hand dismissively and started pushing the electric vehicle back, walking slowly. “Let’s leave this place first.”
Li Lin followed behind, also pushing his electric vehicle. “…Leader, are we really going to push it all the way back?”
“What else? Are you just going to leave your ride behind?”
“Doesn’t the Bureau have a small truck or something? If not, we could at least get the electric tricycle from the logistics department downstairs… This is going to kill us…”
“Stop whining. You’re young, yet your stamina’s worse than mine?”
The two seasoned Special Affairs Bureau operatives pushed their electric vehicles down the avenue, their silhouettes gradually fading at the end of Wutong Road.
…
Yu Sheng had become quite familiar with the boundless, profound darkness surrounding him. He had been here frequently enough that drifting through the chaotic void almost felt like returning home.
The echo of Irene’s scream still lingered in his ears.
He mused that the sight of his bloody, torn abdomen as he pushed through the Door and died inside the house must have terrified the Doll Lady—Irene. Despite being a ‘Cursed Object,’ her psychological endurance seemed to be just average.
This made Yu Sheng even more curious about what would happen when he ‘returned.’
When he came back to life and appeared before Irene again… what kind of reaction would the Doll Lady have?
Would she… remember how he had pushed the Door and died inside?
Floating in the darkness, the image of Foxy surfaced in his mind. Recalling that night in the Night Valley, he remembered how Foxy, in the ruined temple, had completely forgotten that she had headbutted him to death. Though later, for some inexplicable reason, she seemed to recall it, but at first, she had genuinely forgotten his ‘death.’
Yu Sheng wasn’t sure whether this ‘forgetting’ was a problem with him or with Foxy—after all, that Fox Girl’s mind was already a chaotic mess, and her memory lapses seemed almost normal.
But if Irene didn’t remember his demise in the house after he returned, it would pretty much confirm that… the problem lay within himself.
Time had no meaning while drifting in darkness, and after briefly sorting through his recent experiences, Yu Sheng let his thoughts empty, allowing his tense nerves to rest as he patiently awaited the end of the darkness.
Eventually, he felt the familiar sensation of falling, a rapid return to the mortal realm.
Prepared, Yu Sheng focused his mind, trying to grasp the perception at the exact moment he crossed the ‘boundary’—
Familiar scenes flashed before his ‘eyes,’ and an indistinct sense of guidance pulled him towards a specific direction. He struggled to discern the fleeting images, but before he could fully grasp anything, one particular scene magnified rapidly before him—
The living room of Wutong Road No. 66, just past the Door.
Yu Sheng abruptly opened his eyes.
The familiar arrangement of his home appeared before him, and in the dining area next to the living room, that ancient, exquisite painting quietly rested on the dining table.
The stillness broke as Irene spoke from within the painting.
“Yu Sheng! You’re finally back!”