Chapter 249

Chapter 249: Clues

The torn strip seemed to drift between two worlds. Yu Sheng was not sure why he thought so, but the way it shivered half real, half not in the corner had planted that idea in his mind.

The other end did not seem firmly fixed. When he pulled just now, there had been almost no resistance. Once on this side, the fabric firmed up at once. The blurry edges turned clear. At that same moment, the wind in the room had grown a bit, then settled again.

[Did pulling it over briefly tighten the link? Or did the wind on the far side just happen to gust?] The questions circled as he studied the cloth.

It looked torn from something larger. The edges were uneven. The cloth was light and soft yet very strong. Tearing it must have taken real force. The make showed skilled weaving.

He flipped it and looked again. Pale gold motifs ran like a chain of stylized letters along the deep blue edge. They gave off a mysterious air.

He took out his phone, brought up his old photos of the iron lump, zoomed in on the carved symbols, and compared them with the cloth’s patterning.

The styles felt similar, though he would not claim it for sure. He was not an expert.

Footsteps rushed up the hall along with a doll’s loud complaint: “He just walked off through a Door, and we had to run all the way to the platform to open a portal… your tail is blocking my face… why is it so cold, is the heat off or a window… what the heck?”

Foxy appeared at the door, and Irene shot out from the fox’s tails and skirt like a little rocket. Without even looking, she slid forward on the snow and crashed into the wall with a crisp smack.

A moment later she stood, drew a huge breath, and then the whole house filled with the music of very colorful language. Yu Sheng hooked her by the collar with one hand and she quieted.

“What is this even, how did this happen, how did you do this… hiss!” Irene hugged her arms at last and shivered. She peeked at the mirror: “Cold cold cold. Yu Sheng, you need to buy me two down jackets.”

“Where am I supposed to find down jackets for a 66 centimeter doll? Also, are you even cold?” Yu Sheng said.

“Why can I not be?” Irene wiggled: “I just do not freeze to death easily. It does not mean I cannot feel it… ah, thanks, silly fox.”

Blue foxfire drifted to warm her. More blue fire hung about Foxy as she looked around. “I am not silly. You are the silly one,” she said.

“This is what I picked up in the corner,” Yu Sheng said, lifting the strip before they could fight: “It felt like it was between two worlds. I compared it with the photos of the iron lump. The patterns look somewhat alike.”

Irene instantly focused, grabbed the strip, and studied it, then gave up. “We have not even heard back about the iron lump we gave the Special Affairs Bureau, and now there is a cloth strip,” she grumbled: “What now? Hand this to them too? They do not feel very reliable…”

“Who else is better? We cannot go find two fake antique ‘experts’,” Yu Sheng said. “Things like this take time. No reply yet is normal. We should let them see it anyway. Maybe together with the iron lump they can figure something out.”

Irene drew out a long “oh.” Foxy drifted to the mirror, face turning serious.

“What are you looking at, silly fox?” Irene asked: “Is there something odd in the mirror?”

Foxy pointed: “Benefactor, these look like footprints.”

“Footprints?” Yu Sheng hurried over: “Where?”

“Here,” Foxy said, grave: “A big rock. In the snow beside it, prints. And here, a cleared patch. Someone has been there.”

With her help, Yu Sheng finally noticed the details he had ignored.

Faint prints and melt trails scattered near the cave mouth. Time had blurred them, but they were human marks, and not old.

“So there are people on the other side, and someone came by recently,” Irene said, glancing from the mirror to the strip. “There was the iron lump last time, and now this. What is that cave? Do people drop things into it from time to time?”

Yu Sheng had no answer.

He did notice the wind and snow inside the room fading quickly.

The cold thinned. The flakes that had touched his face turned into a hint of cool, almost imaginary. The mirror’s cave view went hazy, then cleared to plain glass as the scene vanished. The wind died.

“Benefactor, the wind and snow on the far side have stopped,” Foxy murmured.

Yu Sheng looked to the corner. The piled snow disappeared as if it had never been there. The strip in his hand stayed, just like the metal component last time. “The link cut off,” he said, thinking back to the earlier visit. [Maybe the passage opens only when there is a blizzard over there?]

No one could answer.

Yu Sheng left the room with Foxy and the doll and locked the door again, double careful.

“We should buy a camera and point it at the mirror,” he said: “Cloud storage and playback.”

“Buy a few. Cover every corner,” Irene said, flipping onto Yu Sheng’s shoulder. “I bet the link changes more than the mirror. The snow blew in from the walls and the ceiling corners too. Still, even with cameras, we might catch nothing.”

“We will install them anyway.”

He went back, laid the strip on the bed with the patterned side up, and took a bunch of photos.

“What about calling Bai Li Qing now…” he started.

Irene poked his head: “She is sleeping. It is four in the morning. Pick someone else to pester.”

“You are right. Her resentment did seem strong,” Yu Sheng said. He opened the Border forum on his phone, found the oddities board, and posted like before: “Found another strange thing in the same snowy room, a torn cloth, size… patterns on the surface… see my last post for more.”

He figured no one knew what this was anyway. The Bureau would take time. Casting a wide net was free. Maybe an expert would bite.

As it turned out, experts also sleep at four in the morning.

Almost half an hour passed with zero clicks.

Sleep rose up again. He flopped onto the bed, ready to nap. Right then his phone buzzed.

Foxy, who had turned to go, spun back at once. Eyes wide, she read off the screen and nodded: “Benefactor, someone replied. The user is ‘Wicked Disciple 3000.’”

“Right on time,” Yu Sheng said, reaching for the phone. He stopped, staring at the fox maiden. “Hold on. You can read this?”

“Yes,” Foxy said: “I can read most daily words.”

“When did you learn?”

Foxy pulled out the old phone he had given her: “While playing with this. And by watching Irene fight with people online. I learned a lot.”

Yu Sheng was floored. “I was going to teach you after the Fairy Tale mess calmed down. Your learning speed is scary.”

Foxy only scratched her hair and grinned.

Yu Sheng looked at Irene, the house’s little intelligence sinkhole, who had no idea what had happened. She turned to him with bright, clear eyes: “What?”

With a gentle hand, Yu Sheng patted the little doll’s head: “Nothing. Go play.”

“Oh.”

Yu Sheng opened the message from Wicked Disciple 3000. Since that person’s last reply in his old thread, this was the first time they had contacted him again.

There was only one picture.

It showed another torn piece of cloth. The edge pattern matched the strip in his hand exactly.