Chapter 158

Chapter 158: Contact, Assessment, Judgment

The elevator descended smoothly and silently. The cabin was quiet.

Bai Li Qing broke the silence first. “About Foxy’s ‘hometown’ possibly being ‘outside’—it’s best no one says a word about it.”

Yu Sheng didn’t answer. He only looked at her, asking why without speaking.

“Because of Dark Angels, people in this world are extremely tense about ‘strangers,’” Bai Li Qing said plainly. “Official organizations like the Special Operations Bureau can treat it cautiously and rationally. But there are other organizations… that aren’t so calm.”

Yu Sheng nodded once. “Okay. I understand.”

When they returned to the small room, Irene and Foxy were still waiting.

The moment Yu Sheng stepped inside, Foxy rushed over with a plate of cake. The way she thrust it at him looked less like hospitality and more like an assassination attempt.

“Benefactor!” she chirped. “This is for you! It’s tasty!”

Yu Sheng nearly got knocked over by the plate. He steadied himself and looked down.

A palm-sized cream cake had been squeezed into a lopsided mess. Nuts were piled on top—so many that it looked like the cake had grown a whole extra layer. They’d been pressed in with such force it bordered on violence.

He looked back at Foxy and realized she had cream on her face and hands. There was even a smear on one ear. How did she get frosting on her ear? Did she shove her entire head into the cake?

Foxy grinned up at him, bright and expectant.

Irene, standing nearby, explained like this was perfectly normal. “Just eat it. Silly Fox saved it for you on purpose. She said you like nuts and raisins, so she dumped half a jar of toppings into it.”

Before he’d walked back in, Yu Sheng’s mind had been full of Dark Angels, distant homelands, grim roads home, and the cruel wreckage of Fairy Tale.

Now, under Foxy’s warm, happy smile, most of that gloom melted away.

Still, he stared at the “cake” in his hands and made a pained face. He was touched. He really was. But it looked like his blood sugar could spike just from eye contact.

And Bai Li Qing was right there—expressionless, but somehow very clearly watching for entertainment.

So Yu Sheng gritted his teeth, thanked Foxy, and dug in with a fork.

His teeth nearly shattered.

“What is this?!” Yu Sheng stared down in disbelief. He rummaged through the cake and pulled out something shiny and rock-hard. Then he lifted his head and looked at Foxy.

Foxy beamed. “It’s a raisin.”

Yu Sheng paused, blank. “…”

“At the end it wouldn’t fit anymore,” Foxy added proudly, “so I squeezed it a bit.”

Yu Sheng stared at the raisin-brick in his hand. Calling it a raisin was an insult to raisins everywhere. She might not have much common sense, but her grip strength was terrifying.

He managed to swallow two bites that were actually edible, then handed the rest back with a diplomatic smile. He said he’d already had snacks while he was out and wasn’t hungry, but he really appreciated the thought.

Foxy didn’t mind at all. She took it back happily and kept eating. When she crunched down on that “raisin,” it sounded like a shredder.

Yu Sheng was pretty sure he saw sparks.

“Let’s go home after you finish,” Yu Sheng said, pulling out a tissue to wipe the cream from her ear. “We still have a lot to do when we get back.”

“Done touring?” Irene asked from atop the table, peering up at him.

Yu Sheng patted her hair. “Done touring.”

“All right.” Irene shoved his arm aside like it was tradition, climbed onto his shoulder, and settled in. Then she asked, “Oh, right. That iron lump you brought—still no results? You’re leaving it here?”

Yu Sheng looked at Bai Li Qing.

“That will take time,” Bai Li Qing said calmly. “We need detailed scans of its interior and microstructure. It won’t be finished in a day or two. If you trust us, you can leave it here.”

“That works,” Yu Sheng said after only a moment. “It’s not doing anything at my place. Just tell me when you get conclusions and—Foxy! Don’t wipe your mouth with your tail!”

Bai Li Qing watched the scene.

Strange. Jarring. Absurd.

And somehow, on them, it all looked… natural.

A faint smile—so subtle it was almost invisible—touched the depth of her eyes.

“I’ll have someone send you home,” Bai Li Qing said suddenly.

“No need,” Yu Sheng replied, still wiping Foxy’s face, hands, and tail with tissues. He glanced at Bai Li Qing and added quickly, “And I won’t use the mobile phone to report in front of you, yeah.”

Bai Li Qing froze for a beat, then understood. She picked up her phone and sent a message to the monitoring division. When she looked up again, her expression was strange. “Now… it’s fine?”

Yu Sheng smiled.

Right in front of her, he reached into the air and pulled, as if drawing back a curtain. A faintly glowing, illusory door opened in empty space. On the other side was the living room of Wu Tong Road 66.

Yu Sheng stood in the doorway and, out of pure habit, made the polite offer. “Want to come in and sit for a bit? We’re basically at my front door anyway…”

Bai Li Qing seemed to find the line awkward no matter how she interpreted it. She shook her head stiffly. “No. I still have work.”

“All right.” Yu Sheng nodded. Still carrying Irene and holding Foxy’s hand, he stepped through the door. “Thanks for the hospitality. Contact me if you need anything. Bye.”

“Mm. Goodbye,” Bai Li Qing said.

The door vanished the instant she finished speaking. The guests were gone—sudden, yet perfectly natural, as if they’d never been there at all.

Bai Li Qing stood in the small room, staring at the spot where the door had disappeared. Only after a long moment did she take a steadying breath and let her eyes settle back into calm.

She picked up her phone and dialed.

When the call connected, she spoke evenly. “How’s the situation on the monitoring unit’s side?”

Song Cheng’s voice came through. “We’re tracking and recording manually. The displacement phenomenon just settled down.”

“…The spatial stabilizer has been running the whole time, right?”

“…Yes. Full power.”

“These two systems never shut down,” Bai Li Qing said. “You know that.”

“The warp interdictor…” Song Cheng sounded tired. “It’s on, too. Today we turned it to maximum power with blanket coverage. The customs office and transit station downstairs were affected and had to close temporarily.”

Bai Li Qing fell silent for two seconds.

“…He opened a door and left right in front of me. No hesitation. I don’t think he even noticed there was any ‘obstruction’ here.”

On the other end came a soft click—the sound of a lighter. Then the faint exhale of smoke.

“Director,” Song Cheng said, weary, “I have to remind you: him opening a door and leaving in front of you isn’t the scary part. What you need to be prepared for is that next time, he can open a door and come over, too.”

“I know,” Bai Li Qing replied. “It’s within expectations.”

“Isn’t the risk too high?” Song Cheng pressed. “We invited him directly to headquarters today. Now he knows the coordinates.”

“Trust my judgment, Little Song,” Bai Li Qing said calmly. “Letting him treat the Special Operations Bureau as a friend brings far more benefit than risk. Especially after today’s deeper contact, I’m even more convinced.”

“…Understood,” Song Cheng said at last. “I believe what your eyes have seen. I’ll keep watching the monitoring unit.”

“Good.”

Right before they hung up, Song Cheng remembered something. “Oh. Another update. Good news.”

“Say it.”

“The technical department made progress,” Song Cheng said, and there was laughter in his voice despite everything. “The researchers in the assault team successfully filtered and integrated the ‘door opening’ signal characteristics we’ve recorded so far. They should be able to add automatic filtering and automatic tagging to the space early warning system soon. If it runs properly, things will be much easier from then on.”

“Annual Outstanding Employee. Outstanding Team. Star-Level Breakthrough Specialist. Technical Star Medal. Public commendation,” Bai Li Qing said blandly. “If it works.”

“…Director, the year isn’t over yet.”

“Then it’s decided,” Bai Li Qing said. “Unless someone manages to rush in and save a world in the last month before year-end.”

“Fine…”

The call ended.

Bai Li Qing tossed her phone onto the table, exhaled, and leaned back in her chair. Then she turned her head slightly and looked at the wide window facing the lab across the way.

On the polymer barrier, glowing pale blue, a pair of indifferent, faded eyes had appeared at some point. They stared at her quietly.

“…He left?” the voice asked.

“He left.”

“Oh.”

Bai Li Qing’s expression didn’t change. “Are you going to keep staring at people in the future?”

“I will.”

She sighed. The voice in her mind stayed rigid, almost mechanical. “There’s nothing I can do. You know it’s instinct.”

“Do as you like,” Bai Li Qing said. Then, as if it didn’t matter, she asked, “Did you see anything useful? Even if you were reckless, you did get a close observation.”

“He has humanity,” the eyes said.

Bai Li Qing didn’t respond, clearly unsurprised.

“How can you tell?”

“His shadowspawn—what he projects in the Spirit Realm—is even larger than Wu Tong Road 66,” the eyes said. “Rather than Wu Tong Road 66 generating him, it’s more like… for him to ‘exist’ in our world in a way that makes sense, he generated Wu Tong Road 66 in the Borderland.”