Chapter 151

Chapter 151: Sample Testing and Archive Records

Yu Sheng felt slightly dazed. The lab staff’s seriousness and caution far exceeded what he’d expected. Taking the scrap of paper had seemed normal enough, but the way they handled the iron lump was something else entirely.

So the things brought out of Wu Tong Road 66 really made the Special Operations Bureau treat them like an imminent threat.

A dozen thoughts tried to crowd into Yu Sheng’s head at once, but he knew better than to push Xu Jiali for answers. The man in front of him was a combat veteran, not a keeper of the Bureau’s deepest secrets—and even if he did know more, he wouldn’t be able to say it.

So Yu Sheng didn’t press. He watched the lab staff carry everything inside, let out a slow breath, and turned back. “So I can just leave it to them, right? I thought I could watch the process…”

“You can,” Xu Jiali said with a laugh. “From the observation room next door. This lab’s safety specs are high. Going inside is a huge hassle—changing, anti-static procedures, getting injected with a sanity-blocking agent. The whole process takes at least half an hour, and only trained personnel can enter the operating area. Not worth it.”

He pointed to another door along the corridor. “Come with me. From there, you’ll be able to see what’s happening. The information you wanted has already been sent over, and… our director is waiting for you.”

“Your director?” Yu Sheng blinked. “She came in person again?”

Even as he followed—with Foxy padding close and Irene trotting along—embarrassment crept up his neck. “That’s… awkward. I keep bothering her.”

Xu Jiali only smiled. At the observation room door, he knocked, reported in, then stepped back. “I won’t go in. The director doesn’t like being disturbed when she’s receiving guests.”

Yu Sheng thanked him, then took a second to arrange his expression before pushing the door open.

Inside was a rectangular room, not very large. Light brown floors, pale blue walls, bright lighting, comfortable temperature. It was clearly just an observation room attached to the lab, so the furnishings were minimal: wall-mounted consoles and monitors, a table, and several chairs that looked like they’d been brought in temporarily.

A woman in a white dress stood inside, her presence strangely lacking in color. Behind her, a giant window covered almost the entire wall. The material of the glass glowed faintly blue. Through it, Yu Sheng could see a spacious lab where staff in protective suits moved with brisk precision, focused on the “samples” he’d just delivered.

“Welcome to the Special Operations Bureau,” Bai Li Qing said, cutting off Yu Sheng’s stare. The cold-tempered director offered the faintest trace of a smile. “I’m sorry your first reception is in such a bare room. Compared to a comfortable lounge, I imagine you care more about the analysis results.”

“That’s true.” Yu Sheng stepped up to the window. “I’m a practical person. And I am curious about professionals at work.”

On the other side, technicians placed the scrap of paper left behind by the entity “Hunter” under an instrument and sprayed it with a liquid—basic initial processing, careful and methodical.

Bai Li Qing’s gaze shifted to Foxy and Irene. In her colorless eyes, there was faint curiosity—almost scrutiny.

Irene climbed onto the nearest chair without a trace of fear, hands on her hips, meeting the director’s stare head-on with her usual swagger.

Foxy, more reserved, moved closer to Yu Sheng and gave Bai Li Qing a small nod. “You… hello.”

“Hello,” Bai Li Qing replied, returning the nod.

Yu Sheng turned back to her. “What about the other sample? The iron lump nobody knows what it’s for.”

“The two samples require different handling zones,” Bai Li Qing said. “It was sent to another operating compartment.”

As she spoke, she tapped a terminal on the table. The “window” flickered, and half of it shifted to display another operating area.

In that feed, technicians in protective suits placed the iron lump into a transparent, tube-shaped container and set it on a workbench, as if preparing to irradiate it or run it through a powerful scanner.

Yu Sheng stared, then frowned. He glanced at Bai Li Qing. “…Is that lab really ‘over there’?”

“Not entirely,” she said, amusement briefly warming her eyes. “Looks like you learned a few of this building’s features on the way here.”

Yu Sheng hesitated, then asked what had been bothering him. “Is that iron lump really that special? You’re treating it like a disaster. I even posted on Border Comms to ask about it before, and nobody knew what it was.”

“After you mentioned it yesterday, I found the consultation post you made earlier,” Bai Li Qing said, very straightforward. “To be honest, we don’t know what it is either.”

Yu Sheng froze. “You don’t know either? Then why the huge operation?”

“Precisely because we can’t confirm what it is through any channel,” Bai Li Qing said seriously. “Even after using some unusual methods, we still couldn’t find any matching clues or records. In a stable otherworld, the appearance of a foreign item is rare. It’s worth close attention.”

It sounded reasonable… until a thought hit Yu Sheng and he spotted the hole in it. “If that’s what you mean, then Wu Tong Road 66 has foreign items all the time.”

For the first time, Bai Li Qing’s composure cracked. Her eyes widened, and her gaze sharpened. “What did you say?”

“There have been other foreign objects there?”

Yu Sheng flinched at her intensity, then hurried to explain. “I mean, I have to go out and buy things, right? Groceries, the market… That plastic bag on the bench—that’s from the supermarket last time.”

Bai Li Qing went silent.

Yu Sheng went silent right back.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other.

Foxy’s fur rose behind her ears. After arriving at the Bureau, she’d returned to her most familiar demon fox form, and the tension put her on edge. Irene climbed down from the chair and muttered under her breath, “She’s definitely cursing again…”

“I didn’t explain clearly,” Bai Li Qing said at last, drawing a slow, steady breath. Her voice returned to calm. “I mean the phenomenon of unknown matter spontaneously generating or appearing inside Wu Tong Road 66. Your shopping doesn’t count.”

Yu Sheng sat down, forcing his face into a neutral expression. “Okay. Let’s talk about the Black Forest first.”

“Fine,” Bai Li Qing said. She took a seat opposite him and pushed several neatly organized documents across the table. “These are copies pulled from the archives. They include the action record from back then, and basic information on the personnel. You can take a look.”

She added, flatly, “You can’t take the documents with you. Once you leave this room, they’ll be destroyed. If there’s anything you don’t understand, ask me now.”

Yu Sheng cleared his head, pushed aside all the stray thoughts, and opened the archive stack. The covers were stamped with destruction deadlines, as if the paper itself was on borrowed time.

He opened the first file. The first thing that caught his eye was a set of bold, oversized words:

Operation codename: Adulthood.

Yu Sheng’s eyes narrowed.

Bai Li Qing’s voice reached him, quiet but heavy. “That operation was named ‘Adulthood.’ From the name alone, you should understand what it implies. From the perspective of later generations, it had many immature, reckless—even arrogant—elements. You’ll probably notice mistakes in these materials. Mistakes that, today, could have been avoided.”

She paused, then continued, steady and unflinching. “But I have to say this: every so-called correct path we know now was tested piece by piece, paid for with the lives of pioneers who made those mistakes.”

“I understand,” Yu Sheng said.

He let out a slow breath, the weight in his chest settling deeper.

Bai Li Qing nodded slightly. “When ‘Fairy Tale’ was first discovered, we knew very little about it. The traits it displayed were extremely deceptive.”

“At the time, the Bureau believed its power functioned like a mental confinement cage—an ‘awareness trap’ that targeted minors. We believed its strength was limited, and its activation slow. And in the early stage of the outbreak, the destructiveness shown by the affected children… wasn’t very strong. Many only had nightmares.”

She looked at the papers, not at him. “So we made our first misjudgment. Later, it was proven to be the most serious one.”

“We thought it wasn’t that strong,” she said quietly. “Based on surface cases alone, even children around ten years old could resist its mental contamination for a long time…”