Chapter 251

Chapter 251: Information on Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain

To be fair, Irene hadn’t guessed wrong.

Yu Sheng really was deeply interested in Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain now—a place outside the Borderland, a faraway he knew by name and could actually reach. And there was even an online friend over there.

Unfortunately, Yu Sheng also had a strong suspicion that if he went to meet that online friend, he’d get beaten to death.

It was even possible he’d be beaten to death by the online friend himself.

Of course, dying wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was that the whole thing had started as a delicate misunderstanding—one Yu Sheng had created back when he didn’t know anything. Dying once or twice was fine, but coming back afterward and having to face the awkwardness of it all made his stomach tighten.

He needed to find out what kind of background Three Thousand Wayward Disciples had. He needed to learn more about Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain before he decided anything. The misunderstanding had to be explained sooner or later, but Yu Sheng knew his own door-opening quirks all too well. The next time he pushed a door open, he’d probably still land inside Senior Brother’s pill refining furnace—and if he didn’t prepare, a door-opening death was practically guaranteed.

With all that spinning in his head, Yu Sheng stared out at the street and sighed. “I still need to think this through…”

Irene, perched on the windowsill, looked up at him. “You’re just scared you’ll go over there and get chased and beaten.”

Yu Sheng poked her with a finger, nearly tipping her over. “Oh, so you know everything, huh?!”

“Benefactor,” Foxy said, padding over from behind. Curiosity gleamed in her eyes. “What were you talking about? It sounds like… you have some history with Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain?”

“That’s a long story,” Yu Sheng sighed. “It started before you came. Back then, to find a way to reach the Nightfall Valley, I tried opening a bunch of teleportation doors. But my skill wasn’t practiced yet, and I didn’t think things through…”

He gave Foxy the short version—the night his door opening drilled straight into someone’s pill refining furnace. When he finished, he added, “Of course, we still can’t be sure it’s the same place. I can only say the odds are high. Those buildings in the news photo really do look similar.”

As Foxy listened, her expression grew stranger by the second. Her ears drooped halfway. Then her eyes reddened.

That startled Yu Sheng. “Hey, we were talking just fine—why are you…”

Before he could finish, Foxy pounced on him. “Benefactor… so you had it that hard back then…”

She hugged him with all her strength. Her fluffy tails wrapped around him too, as if she was afraid he might slip away.

“Benefactor, you’re so good.”

Warm. Soft. Those two sensations lasted less than half a second. Then came the sound of bones being pried apart by a hydraulic clamp.

Yu Sheng fought for his life. “You’re… going to crush me…”

“Ah!” Foxy yelped. Her tails snapped open with a loud bang, like a peacock fanning out, and she blurted, “Sorry, Benefactor!”

It took Yu Sheng nearly half a minute to catch his breath again. While he was at it, he mended tiny cracks in his ribs and patched up the mess of internal bruising. Only then did he look helplessly at the flustered fox young lady. “I’m touched that you want to show gratitude, but next time remember I’m a fragile human.”

Then he sighed. “Also, back then it wasn’t really that hard. I just opened a bunch of doors. At most it took effort. If anyone had it hard, it was the Special Operations Bureau. I still feel kind of guilty about that… huh?”

He cut off mid-sentence, as if something had just clicked, and glanced at the time on his phone.

“Speaking of the Special Operations Bureau…” he muttered, opening Border Comms and scrolling through his messages. “Bai Li Qing should be awake by now. I’ll message her.”

Irene, watching from the windowsill, stared. Even with her composure, she almost cracked. “Damn, you’re way too kind. It’s early morning—breakfast time—and you’re sending her an urgent ticket…”

Yu Sheng had already sent it. A photo of the cloth scrap he’d just taken, with a single line beneath it: “Guess what I found in my own house again?”

“You don’t understand how varied humans are,” Yu Sheng said cheerfully, finally looking up at Irene. “For someone like her, the moment she opens her eyes, she wants to clear every piece of work she can. If I wait until office hours, it messes up her schedule. Her real workday planning probably starts the second she wakes up.”

The Little Doll blinked, completely thrown off. It took her a few seconds to recover. “I-is that so?”

“Definitely. Trust my eye for people,” Yu Sheng said casually, already turning to head out. “You reminded me—it’s mealtime. I’ll go find something to eat.”

Foxy brightened and followed at once.

They hadn’t made it far when Yu Sheng stopped again and lifted his phone.

Bai Li Qing was calling him directly.

He raised it to his ear. Before he could speak, Director Bai Li Qing’s usual cool, concise voice came through. “The room where you found the snow before?”

“Yeah,” Yu Sheng exhaled. “This time it wasn’t even snow. A blizzard rolled straight into the house, and I found this in the corner. Did you notice the pattern on it?”

“I noticed,” Bai Li Qing said flatly. “Do you have time right now? Come to the Special Operations Bureau and bring it.”

Yu Sheng went still. “Uh, now?” he asked carefully. “I haven’t even eaten.”

“The Special Operations Bureau has a morning cafeteria.”

“It’s not urgent, though,” Yu Sheng said. “I can just step through a door and I’m there. I can wait until you get to work…”

“I’m already here. I stayed in my office last night to handle the aftermath of the angel fall.”

Yu Sheng said, “…Right.”

Beside him, Irene tilted her head to listen shamelessly, then swung her arms and clapped. “Oooh~”

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched. He forced his expression steady and said into the phone, “…All right. I’ll be there.”

When he lowered the phone, Irene looked delighted. “Oh wow, your eye for people really is sharp. Workaholics don’t mess around. She opens her eyes and she’s at full power. And you have to keep up~”

Yu Sheng grabbed the doll and plopped her onto his shoulder in one smooth motion. “Oooh, huh? ~ huh? You’re coming with me.”

“Whatever,” Irene said smugly. “I can leave two bodies here watching TV and playing games anyway.”

Yu Sheng was already pulling open a door that led to the Special Operations Bureau. He ignored Irene and looked back at Foxy.

“Come on. Follow benefactor to the Special Operations Bureau to mooch a meal!”

…

A few minutes later, Foxy was sitting in the cafeteria of the Special Operations Bureau headquarters building, shoveling food like a fox possessed.

Yu Sheng and Irene were led by Bai Li Qing to the same high-risk laboratory as last time, and they handed over the cloth strip immediately.

It was the same strict transfer procedure. The same people in heavy protective gear. Even though Yu Sheng had simply stuffed the cloth into his pocket and brought it over, no one relaxed for a second.

“Do you really need to be this careful?” Yu Sheng couldn’t help asking as he watched the handoff team disappear behind the lab airlock with the “sample.” “The metal component I brought last time was already confirmed to have no contamination hazard. I thought the alert level for this cloth strip could be lower.”

“A new sample must follow the highest-level first contact protocol. That’s the rule,” Bai Li Qing said. “Lowering a danger rating comes only after a full series of tests.”

“All right. Fair,” Yu Sheng said, then his expression turned serious. “There’s something else. Like last time, I posted it on Border Comms. Someone called Three Thousand Wayward Disciples has something very similar.”

Bai Li Qing turned sharply. “What?!”

Yu Sheng didn’t hide anything. He told her what had happened that morning.

It was hard to see change on Bai Li Qing’s face, but her brief silence was enough. She’d gone fully alert.

“That Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain,” Yu Sheng asked after a moment, “what kind of place is it? Does the Special Operations Bureau deal with them normally?”

“One of the most influential forces in featherwing-13b,” Bai Li Qing said as if she were reciting something mundane. “Their headquarters is located at FY13b-17c-1426-3—planetary identification code. They call the planet beneath their feet the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, and Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain is near its North Pole. Centered on Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain, the Grand Void Spiritual Axis controls more than a dozen resource and colony worlds. They don’t often step outside their territory, and they don’t pay much attention to places beyond featherwing-13b, but their contact with the Special Operations Bureau is fairly close. Some of our outside stations even trade with them.”

She paused, then added, “Last time, when we mobilized many friends to search for Foxy’s hometown, Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain helped a lot.”

Yu Sheng just stared.

It felt like being yanked out of bed and thrown face-first into the stars.

He’d assumed Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain was a mountain, a sect, and maybe a city nearby.

Now he understood.

That was the name of an interstellar civilization’s capital.