Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Home

Li Lin stared at the now-empty corner, still holding the scraper, as if he’d forgotten what his hands were for.

Captain Song—Song Cheng, Second Team captain of the Special Operations Bureau—frowned hard the instant the stain vanished.

Something had just slipped out of his memory. Not the feeling of it—the impression remained, like a thumbprint on fog—but the details were gone. That lingering imprint made his spirit prickle with wrongness.

A murky glow rose in Song Cheng’s eyes. He gripped his mind and forced that last impression into place, pinning it there so it wouldn’t dissolve.

Li Lin hesitated and looked up. “Boss, I feel like I suddenly forgot what I was doing. Was there something here just now?”

“Mind interference,” Song Cheng snapped, voice low and urgent. “Check the depth here immediately!”

Li Lin didn’t hesitate. He set the sampling tools down and pulled a palm-sized black box from his belt. He tapped a few buttons, then drew a thin tube from the side and pressed its needle tip straight to his eyeball.

A faint buzzing rose from the box. Something like liquid slid through the tube. Li Lin’s eye turned ink-black, and the old street shifted into stark black-and-white in his altered vision.

“Depth L-0. No otherworld reaction,” Li Lin reported, scanning. “And I don’t see anything that came out of otherworld, or any leftover traces.”

Song Cheng frowned. He eyed the device in Li Lin’s hand—a portable depth probe. It couldn’t match the sensitivity of the standard suitcase-sized gear, but it should still detect a depth change in range.

He was sure something had just tampered with their memories. He could still feel that pinned impression inside his mind. Something was influencing this place—yet the probe read nothing.

He was about to tell Li Lin to adjust modes when Li Lin stiffened.

He stared hard toward the end of the street. In the black-and-white world, there was a faint trace of color between the buildings—pale, blurry, almost transparent. He couldn’t make it out at first, but as he stepped closer the outline sharpened into something roughly the size of a house.

“Captain Song,” he said quietly, moving forward, “there’s something ahead. It’s really blurry, but it looks like… a house. The depth readout is still zero and there’s no pollution reaction. I’m almost in front of it now. Can you sense anything?”

Song Cheng followed, right hand gripping the badge in his pocket, ready to intervene if Li Lin went sideways. “My spirit isn’t warning me,” he said, and the fact made his frown deepen.

Li Lin stopped. He hesitated, then slowly reached his hand forward—

A sharp buzz screamed from the probe. Crackling pops followed. A wisp of blue smoke rose. The box died.

The tube snapped loose from Li Lin’s eye. A sludge-black substance flowed out and steamed away in the air.

Pain stabbed through his eyeball. “Holy shit—” Li Lin blurted, tossing the now-heating box away and reflexively lifting a hand to rub his eye.

Song Cheng was on him in an instant, pressing a hand near Li Lin’s temple. “Don’t rub it. It’ll be fine in a moment.”

Li Lin froze. Warmth spread from his temple, and the discomfort in his eye faded almost immediately. When he blinked again, the depth probe wreckage was still smoking on the ground.

“…The bureau will reimburse this, right?” he asked weakly.

“They will.”

“Good. You scared me.” Li Lin exhaled, then turned uneasily toward the spot he’d reached for.

But it was just a small open space, and at the end of it, a wall covered in messy graffiti—spray-painted outlines of doors, windows, houses, trees, stones, and more.

Li Lin waved his hand into empty air. He touched nothing.

“There’s definitely something here,” he muttered. “The probe saw it, but it broke before I could confirm anything. And before it died, the depth still read L-0.”

“We’re going back to the bureau first,” Song Cheng decided after two seconds. “I’ll file a report to the Councilor. This place needs monitoring. We can’t rule out an unregistered otherworld. We’ll need larger equipment, and probably a dedicated Deep Diver to handle it.

“Your eye okay?”

“…If it’s not, can I get half a day off?”

“No. We’re short-staffed.”

“Then it’s fine,” Li Lin said quickly. “I’ll just use eye drops.”

Song Cheng nodded.

Li Lin bent down, picked up the probe’s remains once the smoke died down, and the two returned to where they’d left the e-bikes.

Li Lin twisted the key.

The display flickered. Then went dark.

He froze, looked up, and met Captain Song’s gaze—because Captain Song had the same expression.

“My bike’s dead,” Li Lin said slowly. “Yours too?”

Song Cheng nodded once.

“…Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

Song Cheng shook his head. “The academy has a special term for this phenomenon.”

Li Lin paused, and the phrase from some training material surfaced—

“Machine spirit isn’t happy.” “Machine spirit chickened out.”

They said it together, not quite in the same voice.

Then both fell silent.

This time, they spoke in sync: “You remembered it wrong.”

“We’ll talk later,” Song Cheng said, already pushing his e-bike. “Leave this place first.”

Li Lin pushed his behind him, miserable. “…Boss, we’re really pushing all the way back?”

“What else? You don’t want your bike?”

“Doesn’t the bureau have a small truck? If not, call that electric tricycle from the logistics office downstairs…” Li Lin groaned. “Pushing it back is going to kill me.”

“Stop whining. You’re young and your stamina’s worse than mine?”

Two Special Operations Bureau agents pushed their dead e-bikes farther and farther away, their figures shrinking until they disappeared at the entrance of Wu Tong Road.

…

Yu Sheng was already familiar with the bottomless darkness around him. He’d been here often lately. Floating in it almost felt like coming home.

Irene’s scream still rang in his ears.

The scene must have terrified her: him stumbling in covered in blood, a hole in his belly, forcing the door open—and dying right there. It looked like even as a “cursed item,” Irene’s mental endurance was only average.

Which only made Yu Sheng more curious about what would happen when he returned.

When he appeared in front of Irene again… would she still remember him pushing the door open and dying in the house?

He thought of Foxy.

Back in the broken temple, Foxy had completely forgotten headbutting him to death—until, for some reason, she suddenly remembered again later. Yu Sheng didn’t know how that forgetting worked, and he didn’t know if it was Foxy’s problem or his. Her mind was a mess; it wouldn’t be strange for her to forget things.

But if Irene also forgot his death, then he could basically confirm it.

The problem was him.

Time didn’t exist in the darkness. After sorting through everything he’d experienced so far, Yu Sheng let his mind go blank, giving his nerves a thin scrap of rest, and waited.

Then the familiar falling sensation returned, like he was being pulled back into the living world.

Yu Sheng focused, trying to catch whatever he always sensed at the instant he crossed the boundary—

Images flashed. A faint guiding tug drew him toward a specific direction. He fought through the rushing chaos, but before he could seize anything, one image swelled huge in front of him—

Wu Tong Road 66. The living room, just inside the door.

Yu Sheng snapped his eyes open.

The familiar furniture filled his view. In the dining area beside the living room, the old, delicate painting stood quietly on the table.

Irene’s voice came from inside it, breaking the silence.

“Yu Sheng! You’re finally back!”