Chapter 155

Chapter 155: Utopia?

Bai Li Qing finally understood how seductive Yu Sheng’s “just try it” really was.

After only a few seconds of thought, the director—usually rational to a fault—had to accept Yu Sheng’s “plan,” if it could even be called that. There simply wasn’t another road.

“I hope things really can go according to your ‘plan,’” Bai Li Qing said as she shifted in her chair. She looked at the “person” across from her, visibly more at ease. “Even if we can’t truly get rid of that Otherworld, at least make it like most Otherworlds in this border city—stable and controllable. ‘Fairy Tale’ has already caused too much destruction in the Borderland.”

Then her gaze drifted to Foxy at her side.

“Let’s set ‘Fairy Tale’ aside for now. Next… I want to talk about her.”

The moment Yu Sheng heard that, he thought of the hair samples he’d given Song Cheng. His expression sharpened. “What did you find? Did you locate Foxy’s hometown?”

The demon fox girl, who had barely spoken until now, perked her ears up and leaned forward without thinking.

“No,” Bai Li Qing said, shaking her head. She didn’t soften it. “We checked with nearly every known group and every organization with official ties in the Borderland. We still couldn’t find any ‘hometown’ that matched her description. The biological sample search also came back empty. Unfortunately, that’s the bad news.”

The room fell silent.

Yu Sheng frowned and glanced at the person beside him. Foxy’s ears drooped so fast it was almost dramatic.

For all her usual bravado—claiming she couldn’t remember what home looked like and didn’t care about going back—bad news still hit her.

Yu Sheng reached over and covered her hand with his. Foxy flipped her palm up and clung to his fingers with both hands.

“I’m guessing you didn’t bring us here just to tell us that,” Yu Sheng said. He let her hold on and met Bai Li Qing’s eyes. “What else is there?”

“…A few questions,” Bai Li Qing said evenly. “Foxy, can you describe your hometown again? Especially what you called the land under your feet, and what you called the iconic things in the sky. Any legends or stories about them, too.”

“She might not remember much,” Yu Sheng warned. “She hadn’t even finished elementary school when the accident happened. After that, she spent a long time in a haze.”

“I know,” Bai Li Qing said, nodding once. “Just tell me whatever you can.”

Foxy instinctively looked at Yu Sheng. After he nodded, she organized her thoughts and began.

A lot of it was familiar. Yu Sheng had heard most of these fragments before, and he’d passed them along through Li Lin and Xu Jiali, so Bai Li Qing already knew the broad strokes.

But Bai Li Qing still listened like she was mining for ore, as if there were details hidden between Foxy’s messy words—anchors she could use.

“…We called the planet under our feet Hengyu,” Foxy said, speaking carefully, brow furrowed. “Before the interstellar age, we also called it the Yu Heng Thirteen Continents, or just the Thirteen Continents, because there were thirteen landmasses in total.

“Two of them broke away during an ancient ‘Great Upheaval of Heaven and Earth’ and floated above the equator. Monsters called ‘Nightmares’ originally lived up there. The textbooks said they were ancient species that got thrown into the sky during that upheaval, and they mutated generation after generation into monsters that attacked the human world.

“The immortals said the Nightmares came down from the sky many times throughout history to hurt people. Some cultivators who fought and killed them were even written into biographies and recorded in the history books.

“After the interstellar age arrived, the two floating continents got turned into launch bases for the Celestial Shuttle. The Nightmares were mostly wiped out, too. The few that remained became endangered species. The immortals locked them up in the ‘Demon Sealing Palace’ and the ‘Evil Quelling Palace’ in Hengyu’s geosynchronous orbit. You even had to buy a ticket if you wanted to go in and look.

“Then, after the skyfolk arrived, they built something near Hengyu called the ‘Navigation Beacon.’ Our organization went to see it on a field trip. It was a huge, huge ball of light, and there were a lot of ‘palaces’ around it that were even bigger than the Evil Quelling Palace.

“The immortals said the Beacon could help Hengyu keep up with the skyfolk’s ‘Star River.’ If Hengyu didn’t have the Beacon, it would drift off course and eventually fall out of the Star River’s shipping lane, dropping into the universe’s real open ground belt…

“And the Navigation Beacon was the brightest thing around us, yeah—except the sun. And the sun was also… pulled away for us by the skyfolk…”

Foxy’s voice stayed serious the whole time, like she was reciting something important she didn’t want to get wrong. As she talked, new details surfaced—things she might have remembered only recently—but they were as chaotic as the rest. Even with Yu Sheng’s imagination and his growing ability to “translate” her logic, he still had to work to keep up.

Irene gave up halfway through.

Watching Yu Sheng and Bai Li Qing listen so intently, she couldn’t resist poking Yu Sheng in the arm. “Hey. You can actually understand this? Is what Silly Fox is saying even human language?”

“I’m pretending,” Yu Sheng muttered, swatting her hand away. “If you interrupt, I’ll lose the thread completely.”

At last, Foxy finished. Bai Li Qing blinked—and for the first time, her composure wavered. She stared into space for a full six or seven seconds before she finally frowned and asked, “You just said your homeworld has to keep up with the skyfolk’s ‘Star River.’ And if it can’t, it falls into the universe’s open ground belt… Am I understanding this right? Are you saying your homeworld is in some kind of ‘voyaging’ state?”

Foxy nodded like it was obvious. “Yeah.”

“Even your sun is ‘voyaging’?” Bai Li Qing pressed. “Not moving normally through space, but in a man-made, controllable ‘voyaging’ state?”

“Yeah.”

Bai Li Qing went quiet again. She lowered her head slightly, as if her thoughts had stalled and she needed to reboot.

Anyone who knew her well would have recognized it at once: the director of the Special Operations Bureau had entered an extremely rare state of complete mental blankness.

After a long pause, she looked up. “Do you remember exactly what it was like when you fell into Nightfall Valley? What happened then? What did you see or hear?”

She hesitated, then added, “I know those memories aren’t pleasant. But this information is important.”

“Honestly, it’s… fine,” Foxy said after a moment. “It was a long time ago.”

She tilted her head, searching through a fog.

“I was little. When it happened, the lords were protecting me, so I didn’t really understand. I just remember an immortal shouting something like, ‘Seems we hit a crack,’ and then the Celestial Shuttle started spinning. Alarms went off, and there was…”

She paused, then snapped her fingers. “Oh—right. Later, when I heard the lords talking, they said things like, ‘We don’t know when we entered a danger zone,’ and ‘There were travel warnings recently,’ and ‘The navigation should’ve been maintained a long time ago.’ It sounded like the shuttle’s navigation messed up, so it went in a dangerous direction—and in that direction, it hit a crack…”

Foxy scratched her head. “That’s all I remember. Anything else… I don’t have an impression.”

Bai Li Qing sank into thought again.

Yu Sheng and Irene didn’t speak. They watched her, curious. From Bai Li Qing’s questions, Yu Sheng could tell she already had a hypothesis. And those questions had been pointed—too pointed to be idle.

After a while, Bai Li Qing broke the silence. “That crashed Celestial Shuttle you mentioned… is it still in the valley?”

“It is,” Foxy said, nodding. “Halfway up the mountain, crashed into a ravine. Half of it’s buried in dirt and rock. And later, when Benefactor stepped in, the whole mountain got plowed over again. The wreckage should be buried even deeper now, but it’s really sturdy. It won’t get crushed.”

“Yeah. The main structure’s still pretty intact,” Yu Sheng added. “I checked it from a distance once, but the terrain over there is complicated. When ‘Hunger’ devoured itself earlier, that whole region collapsed badly. I haven’t cleared it out yet, so I haven’t had a chance to investigate properly.”

As he spoke, he realized where this was going. He looked straight at Bai Li Qing. “You want to…”

“Do you remember what I told you before?” Bai Li Qing asked, tone grave. “If we get the chance, the Special Operations Bureau hopes to investigate Nightfall Valley. I’m asking again now. If possible, we want to inspect the vehicle you call the ‘Celestial Shuttle.’”

Yu Sheng didn’t answer immediately.

Bai Li Qing continued, calm but unmistakably serious. “I know the valley is under your control now. In a sense, it’s your territory. We’ll offer an appropriate price. You can make a request—within reasonable bounds.”

Yu Sheng thought it through.

He looked at Foxy, sitting quietly, hands folded, eyes lowered.

He looked at Bai Li Qing, whose gaze carried a faint, almost hidden expectation.

He glanced at Irene, whose attention was floating somewhere far beyond the clouds… and decided that didn’t count.

He let out a slow breath.

“I definitely have at least one request,” Yu Sheng said. “There are things I need you to help with. But let me confirm something first—does your Special Operations Bureau have anyone who understands land reclamation, farming, and raising cattle and sheep?”

Bai Li Qing stared at him.

“…Huh?”