Chapter 213

Chapter 213: Celestial Shuttle Crash Site

He sank his mind, linked to the distant coordinates, spread his senses, and turned the door before him into a mapped target. Very quickly he settled into the right state. Then, following the usual feel for opening The Door, he tried to convert the huge warehouse entrance into a passage to the Otherworld Valley.

Bai Li Qing and Song Cheng held their breath without thinking, watching with full attention. Behind Bai Li Qing, a pair of eyes quietly opened in the air, observing with deep curiosity what normal sight could not see.

“Can you see anything?” Bai Li Qing asked in her mind.

“I do not understand it, but I can observe two spatial coordinates overlapping. It is… unbelievable,” the slightly mechanical voice replied in her head. “Normally, you would need an enormous amount of energy to curl spacetime, but look, there is not even a trace of wind here. It is as if the structure of space was always meant to overlap like this.”

Just then, a soft hum cut across the voice in Bai Li Qing’s mind.

The next second, the center of that huge warehouse entrance gave a sudden tremble. A distant “view” appeared within The Door.

The passage had formed. The scenery of the Valley showed itself to everyone-or rather, in that moment, the faraway Valley in the Otherworld had come here.

Yu Sheng still had one hand on the frame while he stared up at the astonishing “passage,” even more surprised than he expected to be.

“It really works?” he murmured. “So what is the exact principle…”

“Huh? You are opening The Door and asking us?” Irene shouted from by his feet.

Yu Sheng ignored the doll and kept thinking as he looked at the frame under his hand.

[It does feel easier. So as long as it is a door, it works… Then what is The Door’s essence, exactly? How is a ‘door’ judged? If a warehouse entrance counts, do city gates count? Valves? Bigger doors? More abstract ‘doors’?]

Engine rumbling cut off his thoughts. He looked up and saw the fully loaded trucks at the warehouse entrance start their engines. Song Cheng was personally directing the convoy through the passage.

Bai Li Qing walked over. The Director still wore an ice cold face, but there was something different in the way she looked at the passage.

“How long can you hold it?” she asked.

“A few hours,” Yu Sheng said after thinking, then pointed at the hand he still had on the frame. “Mainly, my arm gets tired. I have to keep holding here. If I take my hand away, it closes.”

“So aside from a sore arm, there is no cost?” Bai Li Qing asked.

“Maybe I get a little sleepy,” Yu Sheng said, not fully sure. “I have never kept one open this long. Usually I just push The Door and it is a few seconds. And once a channel is set, it does not need extra upkeep. I even set up a Fixed Gate in my basement. That one stays open all the time.”

Her eyes grew more complex, though her ice block face hid it well.

She thought for a moment, then pointed at the passage: “Mind if I go take a look?”

“Of course not,” Yu Sheng said with an easy smile, not surprised at all. “Once the convoy is through, we will go in. I have to be the last one out.”

With a large passage, the convoy entered the Valley quickly. Soon, Bai Li Qing and Yu Sheng’s group also stepped through The Door and arrived in the forever daylit, pleasantly mild Valley.

Song Cheng stared, stunned.

“I heard about what happened here, but if I had not seen it myself, I would never believe the ‘Night Valley’ from the files could become this,” Captain Song said as he looked over the open valley floor and the surrounding mountains that looked quite imposing under the blue sky. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette. “Incredible. It is really…”

“No smoking here,” Irene ran up in front of Song Cheng and held out a hand. “Fine 50.”

Song Cheng blinked at the cigarette in his fingers: “I have not even lit it.”

“Then light it and pay me 50,” Irene said, full of confidence.

“Do not mind her,” Yu Sheng said with a helpless wave. “But there is no smoking here. The greening was not easy. You have no idea how much work it took me to restore this Valley’s environment.”

Bai Li Qing still had not spoken. She kept looking everywhere. Her pale gray eyes, as if color had been washed out, seemed to scan all the “information” of the Valley and print it straight into her mind. After a long while, she finally broke the silence: “Indeed. Compared to a Containment Facility we could arrange, this place is better in every way.”

Yu Sheng chuckled and accepted the praise, then led the way as he introduced the area and explained how the camp had been prepared.

The Engineering Team leader who came with the convoy was a stocky, reliable looking middle aged man. He followed Yu Sheng, clicked his tongue in wonder when he saw the large platform in the center of the Valley and the ready foundations, and looked very happy.

Yu Sheng kept introducing things. This is the Portal Platform, though right now it only has one Door on it. That over there is the vegetable patch, though we still need to build a greenhouse. The edge of the platform is where we keep the chickens. A fox is taking care of the chicks at the moment. The camp area already has drainage ditches and bases for generators. The big building at the far end of the camp can be used as a warehouse. The ring of hard to explain walls in front of the building is a barbican. Do not ask why there is a barbican. I said it already-it is hard to explain.

“This is way better than I first expected,” the construction lead said happily. “When I first heard we were going to build a temporary resettlement point in a Valley, I was ready to dig foundations in the wild. I did not expect the construction conditions to be this good. Do not worry. Within twelve hours we will get the basic prefab rooms and the power done. The Cursed Children can move in first, and the rest we will handle after.”

“Good,” Bai Li Qing nodded, then turned to Yu Sheng. “I already contacted the council. Most of the staff assigned to the Orphanage will move along, especially the teachers who directly care for the toddlers. Before the Dark Angels problem is solved, they will live here in the Valley with the Cursed Children. Supplies will still be gathered and moved through that warehouse we just used, so we will have to trouble you to open a Door when needed.”

“All small matters,” Yu Sheng said with an easy nod. “My phone stays on. If you need me to open a Door, just call.”

After the needed handoff, survey, and plan confirmation, the engineers from the Special Affairs Bureau threw themselves into busy work.

Prefab rooms that could be set up quickly were unloaded and unfolded into place on the prepared foundations. Generator sets were unloaded into the designated area and moved into installation and testing. Yu Sheng was a total layman at this and could not understand much even after watching for a long time. Irene, on the other hand, was fascinated. She found a big rock by the site, sat down, and watched with the air of someone ready to sit there until the end of time.

[Maybe she likes construction sites because her body right now is mostly stone and rebar.]

Just then, Bai Li Qing walked over.

“Can you take me to the crash site?”

Yu Sheng was not surprised. Half the reason the Director had come today was for the secrets hidden in this Valley. That was something they had already discussed, and today just happened to be the right time.

“No problem. These last two days the structure there has stabilized a lot. It should not keep collapsing,” Yu Sheng said right away, then looked at Foxy. “Come with us. You know that place best.”

“I am not going!” Irene waved from not far away without even turning her head. “I am going to watch them build houses.”

“Got it,” Yu Sheng answered casually, then added a reminder before leaving: “Do not get too close. Be careful not to get hit by a machine. With your size, you are in a blind spot no matter where you stand on a work site.”

Irene bared her teeth and hissed, and Yu Sheng ignored her.

The so called crash site lay a few hundred meters past the small woods and into a recessed slope deep on the valley floor.

It was the spot where, many years ago, Foxy and her family had crashed their ship into this “Night Valley.”

The feast that destroyed Entity-Hunger had almost remade the whole Valley and chewed up and tore apart large parts of the mountain, but even that feast had not destroyed the main body of the ship known as the “Celestial Shuttle.” It had only buried it deeper into the mountain and damaged the support structure beneath the crash site, leaving the whole area unstable.

After he took over the “control” of the Valley, Yu Sheng had been slowly repairing the mountains here and reinforcing the geology around the Celestial Shuttle wreck. In recent days, he had also moved it outward as much as possible. Now, most of the wreck had been pulled free of the rock layers and lay solidly on the slope.

Yu Sheng led Bai Li Qing and Song Cheng to the crash site and stopped on a firm stone ledge, looking at the slightly curved craft structure.

A streamlined metal wreck over a hundred meters long lay still in the melted, broken rock. Deep inside the wreck, faint lights sometimes flickered. The twisted frame looked like a bony skeleton staring blankly at the sky, still telling its silent story of that violent impact years ago.

“This is the Celestial Shuttle Foxy rode,” Yu Sheng said, pointing at the huge wreck. “There is a little residual energy deep inside, but according to Foxy, that is just cooling afterglow and not dangerous. Even so, I do not suggest you climb in there. It is not safe.”