Chapter 036

Chapter 36: The Sleepless One (Not Yu Sheng)

No matter how well they got along, Li Lin had to admit that Xu Jiali was the best Deep Diver he had ever met; having such a heavy hitter come help him at a time like this at least showed that the Bureau was looking out for a newcomer like him.

The catch was putting up with the big guy’s loud mouth and bragging, especially every time he came back from a mission.

On the couch, the burly man twisted open a bottle of water and started talking like he always did: “Listen, this mission was some real cursed The Door stuff. I tracked down an Angel Cultist who had slipped into Aimein, chased him into a dead zone, cornered him, and we were trading blows when I looked up, and guess what I saw?”

Li Lin rolled his eyes, then said, “Big mouth, is this something you can talk about out here?”

Xu Jiali waved it off, then continued as if Li Lin had asked him to go on: “I already reported to the Bureau, and they cleared this part for you. Anyway, I look up, and bam! A person standing right there. Wearing just a shirt and pants, standing in Aimein-IX’s toxic hot wind. Oh, and there was a Door frame right beside him. I was stunned. I would’ve finished off that Angel Cultist in the next second, but I got spooked and gave him room to breathe. Lucky for me, I was the better fighter in the end.”

Li Lin shooed him with one hand as he walked to the monitoring rig by the window and said, “Yeah, yeah, every story ends with you being the better fighter. Can you think of a fresher twist for once?”

The burly man stared and said, “But I really was the better fighter. Hey, hold up, you’re not even surprised? I saw a person in Aimein-IX’s toxic hot wind with no Powered Armor on. Even the Captain isn’t that tough.”

Li Lin kept his back to him and said, “Last time in Tata V’s acid rain you also said you saw someone pop up without protective gear. That was a professor from the Academy doing fieldwork. This world is full of weirdos. Besides, after too many Deep Dives you get all kinds of hallucinations. I’ve heard like eight hundred of your creepy stories. I don’t buy a single comma anymore. If you’re sitting in a shuttle at Youth Formport during orbital liftoff and you see someone standing outside the porthole flying alongside you, then come tell me. At least that would be new.”

Xu Jiali grinned and plopped down on Li Lin’s narrow bed, making the poor single frame creak: “Seen it. A Daoist Master from Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain. I was about to accelerate and he flashed a mirror at my camera, waving like he was going to pass me. Pass what? If he has what it takes, let him enter warp with just his body.”

Li Lin’s hands finally paused. He turned to look at the big guy and said after a long beat, “Your special field work life is really colorful.”

Xu Jiali nudged him: “You should test for a Deep Dive license. Maybe next time you can run special field work with me. What’s so good about the Borderland anyway? It’s dangerous, it’s picky, and every little thing becomes a huge responsibility.”

Li Lin thought about it, then shook his head: “The Borderland always lacks people. Someone has to guard the biggest hub. And to be honest, charging around on a Wasteland Planet in Powered Armor fighting Angel Cultists isn’t safer than staying here handling the Otherworld. Also, you do special field work, but you still have to deal with the Otherworld.”

“That’s different. Outside, the Otherworld density isn’t like this. Here it’s like riding a bus with twenty stops and seven of them are Otherworld.”

Li Lin glanced at him and almost said that ninety-nine point nine nine percent of people only see the thirteen normal stops. But he remembered that this man had wandered onto an Otherworld “platform” at age twelve, survived alone there for six years, and only joined as a Deep Diver after psychological correction because he could not shake off the Otherworld’s pursuit, so he kept the words to himself.

There were two kinds of front-line fighters in the Special Affairs Bureau: those who came up through training and exams, and those dragged back from the Otherworld.

[Don’t show off knowledge in front of someone with trauma, even if they don’t seem to care.]

Lowering his head, Li Lin focused on checking the parameters recorded by his equipment.

The big man beside him looked bored. He was a pure combat type, brought here as extra muscle. Stakeouts were not his thing.

After a while he spoke again: “The Bureau is a mess right now. Several action team Captains got called in for overtime. I heard even the Director went.”

“I know,” Li Lin said without looking up, “this is the Borderland after all.”

“Is that normal in the Borderland?” Xu Jiali scratched his head. “Do ‘abnormal events’ like this happen here a lot? I’m usually out on special field work. I don’t keep up.”

“If you mean the spatial misalignment tonight, that hasn’t happened before. If you mean abnormal events in general, the Borderland never lacks them. This place is the Borderland.”

“Fine, the charming Borderland. I love this place,” the big man said as he stretched and lay back on Li Lin’s bed again; the heavy body made it groan. “People who want to destroy the world and people who want to protect it both love this place. Good thing I’m not on duty at the Bureau. I hear Captains pull overtime every day.”

Li Lin answered with silence, focused on monitoring and logging.

Then a phone rang and broke the quiet.

Li Lin checked the screen and picked up fast: “Li Lin speaking… mm-hmm… all right, got it.”

Xu Jiali sat up, eyeing Li Lin’s changed face: “What happened?”

Looking out at the calm night, Li Lin said, “The Bureau called. The Rift phenomenon… stopped.”

“Stopped?” The big man blinked. “Just stopped? No follow-up attack? No Angel Cultists? Not even an Otherworld?”

“No. It just stopped. All the monitoring Nodes across the Borderland went quiet.”

“So I stayed up for nothing?”

“Not for nothing, and you’re not done. The Bureau isn’t resting either,” Li Lin said as he waggled the phone. “Everyone keeps watching to see if the force that made the Rifts moves again. You go sleep in the next room. I’ll wake you in six hours to take over.”

“Okay,” the big man stood at once, for once without a single extra word. “Wake me the moment something happens.”

Li Lin nodded and looked back out at the night.

“Another sleepless night,” he murmured.

Yu Sheng, though, slept like a rock in the second half of the night.

After he managed to recreate a Door that led to some faraway time and place, he locked in that feeling. He learned how to guide his spirit, how to give a Door a certain frequency so it would open to a set location.

He felt that most things in this world were a matter of first time and second time.

After that, he kept practicing. He strengthened the process of opening Doors and recreated all kinds of passages until he was spent.

Sleep after exhaustion hits deepest. He realized he had not slept this well in years.

He was a bit disappointed, though. He did not dream of the Fox this time; in fact he did not dream at all.

[So the dream with Foxy isn’t stable.]

That thought made him uneasy, and a little impatient.

By late morning, after he woke up, he told Irene about it.

Irene did not throw out any trash talk today; instead she spoke calmly: “It’s okay. Don’t overthink it. That Fox has survived in the Otherworld for years. She won’t run into trouble in one or two days. Dreams are unstable by nature. Maybe the next time you sleep, you’ll see her again.”

“I hope so,” Yu Sheng said as he picked a slice of meat from the plate and put it into his bowl.

It was still meat cut from that “souvenir.” He had eaten three meals of it and still wasn’t done, and he wasn’t sick of it.

He couldn’t feel any more strengthening from it, though. [Looks like I’ve hit the limit of what this food can do for my body.]

Even so, it tasted good.

Irene asked from the side, “What’s the plan after lunch? Keep practicing Door Opening, or try to recreate that passage to the Valley?”

“I’m going out to buy some things first. When I’m back, I’ll try to build a route to the Valley. That may take a while. I don’t fully remember the feeling,” Yu Sheng said. Then he noticed the look on Irene’s face, as if she wanted to say something. He asked, “What is it?”

Staring straight at him, the Miss Doll hesitated a few seconds, then said, serious and soft: “Give me half a day.”

Yu Sheng blinked. He rarely saw her this solemn.

“Half a day for you to do what?”

“Make me a body,” Irene said, steady and firm.