Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Investigator

Back. Back to this strange “boundary city.”

Not long ago, this place had felt vast and eerie, unsettling in its wrongness. But now, seeing the familiar streetlights and buildings, the streets and sky washed in weak morning light, Yu Sheng was hit by a wave of nostalgia so sharp he almost didn’t recognize it as his own.

A night trapped in that valley had made returning to the “boundary city” feel like coming home.

Then the haze of blood loss chopped the feeling clean in half.

Yu Sheng lowered his head and saw bright red blood spreading beneath him. His body had been pierced through. The wound was lethal in minutes. Even with whatever strange toughness his body had now, he knew he was about to die again—and he was getting disturbingly used to thinking in terms of “again.”

The culprit was right beside him.

The scaly tail severed from the monster had fallen out with him. It still seemed to have a residue of life, even thought. It wriggled slowly in the pool of blood, trying to crawl away from this place.

Yu Sheng had the unsettling sense it was trying to crawl away from him.

As if it was afraid of him.

He gritted his teeth and forced himself up. He glanced at the front door ahead, then reached down, grabbed the writhing tail, and staggered forward.

As he walked, he muttered through clenched teeth, “Isn’t it supposed to be that once the main character escapes a desperate situation, everything’s fine… why is the damage still here after clearing the map… what kind of trash setting is this… damn, it hurts…”

Blood loss blurred the edges of his vision. Every step felt heavier than the last. By the final few, he was moving on instinct alone.

He didn’t even know why he insisted on going home. Maybe to say something to Irene. Maybe to avoid being found as a “corpse” by someone out early in the morning.

The morning light dimmed into a dark red haze. In his mind rose Foxy’s golden-red eyes—at the end, flooded with hungry bloodlight, yet still holding a last shred of humanity fighting to stay.

How was that fox doing now? She’d said she wouldn’t die, but he didn’t know if that was true.

By the time he reached his front door, his hands were trembling. It wasn’t locked. He fumbled the handle, pushed, and stumbled inside.

The dining area sat angled across from the entryway. The painting was still propped against the wall. Irene lifted her head from within it, staring at the doorway in shock. Her eyes widened.

Yu Sheng forced a dying smile. “Irene… I’m back.”

His vision tilted. He slid down the doorframe as familiar, crushing darkness surged in from every side—along with Irene’s terrified scream.

This time, he died inside the house.

…

With a faint braking whine, two e-bikes stopped deep on Wu Tong Road. Two figures got off and looked down the old, quiet street.

One was a steady-looking middle-aged man in a brown long coat. He was tall and broad, his skin slightly dark, his hair cut short. A jagged scar ran near his neck, but his exhausted expression and heavy dark circles made him look more like someone who’d worked overtime for three straight months without a day off.

The other looked to be in his early twenties, much thinner, with the kind of plain face you’d forget the moment he turned away. He wore a black-and-blue jacket and pants, his posture stiff with the nervousness of someone who’d been on the job for days and already got dragged into the field by his boss.

They walked into the quiet old quarter and studied the ordinary buildings. Residents drifted by in the distance, hardly sparing them a glance.

“This place doesn’t look weird at all,” the younger man muttered. “Captain Song, are we sure it’s here?”

“There was a border alarm just now. The coordinates were definitely this spot,” Captain Song said, nodding. “The signal vanished in an instant, but we can confirm it was an otherworld reaction.”

“We rushed over and still missed it,” the young man said, glancing at the e-bikes beside them. He hesitated. “Should we have come by car…”

“All the bureau cars are out on runs. The only one left is Xu Jiali’s seventh-hand junk car,” Captain Song said flatly. “You want to drive it? With the pedal floored, it still might not be faster than your e-bike.”

The young man gave a dry laugh and hurriedly changed the subject. “Uh… that person from before—code name ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ right? From the Fairy Tale Organization. She didn’t find anything here either?”

“Yeah.” Captain Song’s expression tightened. “She found nothing, which is exactly why something’s wrong. ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ has done plenty of work with the Special Operations Bureau. I know what she can do. Her wolves can sniff out even the faintest abnormal scent in this city. She searched here all night and still found nothing.”

The young man blinked, slow to catch up.

“Nothing found, still not getting it?” Captain Song said, tired but sharp. “It’s too clean. Too normal. The borderland doesn’t have anything clean to this degree. Her wolves can smell something abnormal almost everywhere, even if it’s weak—but only here…”

He gestured along the street. “From an occult angle, this whole stretch is clean like a vacuum.”

The young man’s tense expression tightened further as the academy training finally clicked into place.

“Either this place really is that clean—there’s a pure zone in the borderland that lines up deep with the outside world,” Captain Song went on, waving a weary hand. “That isn’t impossible. This is the borderland. Anywhere in the world could link to it.”

He paused. “Or this place is hiding a big thing. Something that’s constantly altering the environment and creating a vacuum. That’s why Little Red Riding Hood’s pack hit a dead zone here.”

“I’m not approving you transferring to logistics,” Captain Song added without looking at him. “Not to another team either.”

“I never said I wanted to run!” the young man said quickly, hands up. “When I joined, I was prepared. I’ll definitely be loyal and do my duty and love my job and seriously fulfill—”

A phone ringtone cut him off: a cheerful melody, the classic opening from some explosively popular new anime.

The younger man froze and stared at his boss. “…You watch that too?”

Captain Song twitched, grumbling as he pulled out his phone. “My daughter changed it behind my back. She’s been watching this lately…”

The young man’s expression shifted like he was swallowing something he shouldn’t say.

Captain Song answered the call, listened a few seconds, then said, “Yes, Li Lin and I are already at the scene. Same as what Little Red Riding Hood found—this place is clean in a creepy way. Arrange it. We may need to set up a fixed monitoring point here. I’ll decide staffing when I get back.

“Also contact Fairy Tale and see if they can send someone else over. This might be a long-term task…”

He hung up and let out a long breath. When he looked back, Li Lin was still staring at him.

After a beat, Captain Song said, defensive, “It really was my daughter who changed it. I don’t normally watch cartoons.”

Li Lin coughed. “Uh. I believe you. Totally.”

They stood in awkward silence for a moment, then silently agreed to drop it.

Then Li Lin frowned and hurried toward a nearby corner.

“Captain Song, come look at this!” He bent down and pointed.

Captain Song stepped over.

A dark red stain marked the corner, like dried blood. It was small—easy to miss from far away—and it was shrinking, visibly.

It wasn’t soaking into the cement.

It was disappearing.

“Blood?” Captain Song’s brow snapped down. Then he reacted and yanked a plastic tube and portable scraper from his coat pocket. “No. It’s not blood. Sample it!”

“Okay.” Li Lin took the tools and crouched to scrape up the remaining dark red patch. But before the scraper touched the wall, the last smear hissed and vanished into thin air.