Chapter 212
Chapter 212: A Very Big Door
To be honest, Yu Sheng wanted to point out that after this period of practice and getting used to it, he had made real progress at molding houses in the Valley: the two rows of grand, old looking pillars on both sides of the Portal were the best proof. He would not claim he could mold a luxury hotel for the Orphanage’s Cursed Children, but making two rows of resettlement houses was no problem. After thinking it through, he felt it was better to just prepare the foundations.
The main reason was that the Special Affairs Bureau had already prepared all the materials, and there was no reason not to use them.
Still, to prove his craft, he split off some focus while leveling the foundations and raised a building at the far end of the planned camp.
Soil and rock reorganized deep underground and rose with a low rumble; like living limbs, they wove and stacked on the surface, thickening layer by layer into a gray white base, walls, pillars, and a roof. Then the walls split further into doors, windows, and simple trim. Drawn by the noise, Irene ran over and stared, curious, at the large building that had sprung up from the wasteland at the far end, then turned her head and asked: “What is this?”
“In a camp, only having a pile of prefab rooms is a bit dull, and even if they are comfy it still feels like we’re evacuees, so I put up a ‘castle’ for Little Red Riding Hood and the others,” Yu Sheng said with a grin as he explained to the little doll, “It can also serve as the Fairy Tale Organization’s office. If that does not work, it can be a warehouse. When the Special Affairs Bureau’s construction crew arrives, we will have them hook up the power.”
Irene listened in a daze, climbed onto Yu Sheng’s shoulder, shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked at the big gray white stone like building for a long time, then muttered: “If you had not told me, I would have thought it was a scenic public restroom with three courtyards and two little barbican towers.”
Yu Sheng reached up as if to toss the doll off his shoulder: “So we are never getting past that joke, huh?”
Irene burst out laughing, jumped from his shoulder, and ran in circles while dodging as she said: “Okay, okay, I’ll stop. To be fair, this one really looks like the real deal. It’s rough, but pretty grand, kind of like a mysterious alien ruin from a game cutscene.”
[Is this doll insulting my hard molded building as abstract? I think she is… but I have no proof.]
He did not mind. Foxy beside him was already so impressed her tail was wagging fast enough to leave afterimages, sweeping up dust and pebbles.
The basic part of the camp was finished soon.
“Next we coordinate with the Special Affairs Bureau,” Yu Sheng said, watching the last slab of foundation harden and take on a rocky texture. He let out a small breath, eased his tense mind, and pulled out his phone to check the time, then added: “Not bad. A bit faster than I expected.”
Curious, Irene climbed up his arm to peek at the screen and asked: “It’s this late. The Special Affairs Bureau people do not rest?”
“They said all staff and supplies are on standby twenty four seven. The building of resettlement points and transfers will run in shifts. People rest, work does not,” Yu Sheng replied as he casually dialed Bai Li Qing. “On things like this, they are reliable. Hello? This is Yu Sheng. We are ready.”
On the other end came Bai Li Qing’s calm line: “Good. Come straight to my office.”
“To be honest, she is really cold,” Yu Sheng blinked, hung up, and muttered to Irene and Foxy, “No wonder everyone calls her an iron faced deadpan.”
A second later, his phone floated another line out: “I am not an iron faced deadpan.”
Yu Sheng: “…”
He hung up in silence and tugged at the corner of his mouth: “This touchscreen is acting up.”
A Phantom Door opened out of thin air. A temporary passage connected the Otherworld Valley to the Director’s office at the Special Affairs Bureau headquarters. Yu Sheng walked out of The Door with a straight face and saw the equally straight faced Bai Li Qing, as well as Song Cheng beside her, who was already close to failing to keep a straight face.
He realized more than one listener had heard him call a certain lady iron faced. Captain Song’s expression clearly read: I am doomed, I just overheard something I should not have while standing next to my boss, and now this shift is going to be full of trouble.
All of them tacitly avoided mentioning the phone call. Then Bai Li Qing personally led the way and brought Yu Sheng’s group into another elevator along the corridor.
In this strange headquarters building, almost all special floors were linked by these odd elevators, and they did not always move in a normal direction. At first Yu Sheng felt the car was going up. After more than ten stories, the arrow above the car flipped and pointed straight down. Before he could think about it, the arrow turned ninety degrees in place to show the car moving horizontally to the left. A moment later, the whole elevator jolted and a gentle synthetic female voice sounded: “Transfer level, Port arrived.”
The elevator door opened, and a startlingly vast space appeared before Yu Sheng.
He stepped out with Irene and Foxy onto a metal platform and found himself looking over a gigantic artificial island. On the open ground, a dozen large buildings stood in neat, warehouse like rows. Many seemingly unmanned transport vehicles ran between the warehouses and distant port facilities. Outside this very wide area lay a boundless expanse of ocean.
Yu Sheng looked instinctively toward the shimmering sea and saw many large cargo ships painted with the Special Affairs Bureau emblem docked at the human made coastline. He saw one ship leave port and slowly speed up toward the endless ocean. The next second, a chaotic curtain of light rippled up on the sea, and the ship pierced through an invisible Rift and vanished into that chaotic light.
A soft mechanical whir came from behind. Yu Sheng looked back and saw the “elevator car” door already closed. The car itself was set on a series of sturdy rails attached to the platform’s edge. As the rail machinery kicked on, the entire car shot backward, then disappeared into another chaotic curtain of light.
After holding it in for a long time, Yu Sheng could not help asking: “Where have you brought me? Is this still the Borderland?”
“This is the Border. What you see here is both a storage facility and an external transport hub,” Song Cheng said with a smile. “You know the whole Borderland is a closed space, different from normal cosmic space. People in the Borderland-well, except you-can only exit through fixed natural passages. Those passages vary in size. A small one might be a drawer in an office in our headquarters. A big one might be a train station, the end of a tunnel, or, like you’re seeing, a port,” he added, pointing at the glittering sea.
“You can only reach this place by a ‘shortcut.’ It’s part of the shortcut network, depth 1, danger 0. This sea overlaps a sea on a planet ‘outside.’ Cross the light curtain you saw and you arrive beyond the Borderland. Of course, we cannot go now. To exit from here, we have to get a permit from the council first.”
Song Cheng suddenly stopped and stared at Yu Sheng.
“You are not about to open a Door here and go outside, are you?” he asked, looking nervous.
Yu Sheng had to laugh: “I am not that idle.”
“Oh.”
Two seconds later, Song Cheng nervously confirmed again: “You really will not go out from here, right?”
“To open a Door I need exact coordinates, and the coordinates only affect where I arrive, not where I open from,” Yu Sheng said, spreading his hands. “If I wanted to go out, I could just open from home. No need to make trouble for you here.”
“Right, that is fine,” Song Cheng nodded, then smiled awkwardly. “Do not mind me. This place is sensitive.”
[So this is the difference between slipping across an unguarded border in the wilderness and blasting my way through a customs checkpoint. They are both smuggling, but the second one is way more blatant.]
Soon, Bai Li Qing and Song Cheng led Yu Sheng’s group off the metal platform to the entrance of a large warehouse.
A reception team was waiting there already-along with a construction crew in Special Affairs Bureau Engineering Department uniforms, a dozen large transport trucks, and all kinds of supplies loaded on the trucks.
Moving enough materials and a whole construction team from the real world into the Otherworld Valley through a single basement door was obviously not realistic.
Of course, Bai Li Qing had thought of that. It was why she brought Yu Sheng here.
“You said you needed a door big enough to let semis drive straight through,” Bai Li Qing said, pointing at the warehouse beside them. “Using a door that has a real world entity saves your energy when you open a Door. Will this door work?”
Yu Sheng looked up at the warehouse entrance wide enough for two container trucks to drive in side by side.
“To be honest, this is my first time opening a Door at this scale. I am curious if it will work,” he said, rubbing his chin as excitement crept onto his face. “Let’s try.”
Hearing that even Yu Sheng was not fully sure and would have to try, Song Cheng frowned on instinct: “Uh… what if it does not work?”
“If it fails, we will unload, break everything down, and stuff it into the fox’s tail to carry bit by bit,” Yu Sheng said, turning to look at Foxy. “Will it fit?”
Foxy looked up at the dozen heavy trucks and thought hard: “The whole truck definitely will not fit. Even with the Object Shrinking Method, each item has to be under four meters.”
“Pretty tight limit,” Yu Sheng said, then turned back to Song Cheng. “Let’s hope the Door opening goes smoothly.”
Song Cheng looked a little stunned, mostly because he was not used to how fast Yu Sheng’s thoughts jumped. As a very busy middle aged office worker, he clearly did not yet understand the stranger details of The Door around Yu Sheng.
Yu Sheng ignored Song Cheng’s reaction. By then he had already reached the giant entrance and set his hand on the frame.
[As long as it is a door… it should open, right?]