Chapter 260
Chapter 260: The Second Door
So that was settled.
After that, the staff on-site quickly found the “carrier” Yu Sheng had asked for—a door dragged out of the orphanage ruins. It was an iron double door, an inch and a half thick, set in a frame three and a half meters wide. Absurdly heavy—so heavy that even a grown man would struggle to shove it open in one go. They had hauled it over with a crane and planted it upright like a wall.
Yu Sheng stared at it, speechless, then hurried to explain to Li Lin that he meant the most ordinary door imaginable. Ordinary in the literal sense—the kind even a little kid could push open. Not a security slab that looked like the entrance to a final boss’s underground lair. Sure, it looked impressive, but without some kind of assist mechanism, the kids wouldn’t be able to budge it at all.
“Ah, my bad. I misunderstood.” Li Lin rubbed his nose, embarrassed. “The moment you said it was a teleportation gate linking the valley to reality, I pictured the customs gates we use at the bureau. I was even thinking, if this one isn’t big enough, I’d call the boss and have Engineer Sun come over…”
Yu Sheng and Irene spoke at the same time. “Leave Engineer Sun alone!”
Li Lin laughed awkwardly and waved it off. He had the crane dump the heavy triple-sealed door—the one that used to sit under the orphanage—back into the rubble. Not long after, a door that was at least somewhat normal was delivered to the cleared ground.
It was an old iron door, blackish red, decorated with wrought-iron flourishes that screamed “at least twenty years out of date.” It even had a scattering of colorful stickers. They brought it over with the frame attached, set it in the open, and propped it temporarily against the remaining brick wall.
“Hey, that’s the door from the big office in the east building!” Princess Rapunzel recognized it instantly. “That sticker was put there by me!”
Yu Sheng nodded, satisfied. “This works. Next is setting up the alchemy.”
“Irene, keep an eye on me. I’m going to try drawing the formation you taught me last time—the one with the amplification nodes…”
As he spoke, he picked up a piece of chalk, set Irene down beside him, and began sketching a complex alchemical formation in front of the door.
The chalk, by the way, was borrowed from Foxy. This young lady kept everything in her tail. No one knew why she had an entire box of chalk tucked in there. Don’t tell him she thought it counted as food, too.
Li Lin stood a short distance away, watching with wide-eyed curiosity. After Yu Sheng gave permission, he even pulled out his phone and started recording. He knew perfectly well that whatever he captured would probably end up on the director’s desk later. Yu Sheng might not realize it, but this footage could make the technical department work overtime for a week.
It was the first time the Special Operations Bureau had recorded, up close and directly, the process of the entity Yu Sheng opening a teleportation gate and anchoring it to a real-world carrier.
Out of the corner of his eye, Li Lin noticed the agents patrolling the perimeter had drifted closer as well. All sorts of detection devices were probably already running, tracking every tiny change on the open ground.
To be honest, Li Lin felt a little guilty. Yu Sheng had said he didn’t mind people watching or filming, but having a whole crowd gathered around, sweeping the site with instruments, still felt rude. He worried Yu Sheng would get annoyed—until he watched for a bit and finally understood why Yu Sheng didn’t care.
Because what Yu Sheng was drawing on the ground was just a perfectly normal soul-imbuement rite. And it was the simplified version.
Li Lin could do it too. They taught it in the basic training course. Not only field agents—even Ren Wen Wen back in the office could pull it off.
Around then, the “auxiliary materials” the bureau had sent over arrived as well. Li Lin watched Yu Sheng pick out a small portion to place on the formation, then toss the rest straight into Foxy’s tail.
After that, several basic nodes in the array were lit with candles. The flames wavered in the open air, but as crystal dust, essential oils, tea powder, and other materials were added, they quickly steadied.
Foxy squatted outside the formation, happily eating a skewer of grilled mushrooms while she watched her benefactor work. Princess Rapunzel couldn’t stand how good it smelled and wandered over. “Let me try some…”
Foxy instantly clutched the mushrooms to her chest, turned her head, bared her teeth, and let out a low growl. “Wuu-ao-ao-ao…”
Princess Rapunzel didn’t get angry. She’d teased Foxy like this at the barbecue before. She only grinned and sauntered away. “Tch. Fine. Keep ’em, then.”
“Back up a little—especially you, Silly Fox. Don’t drip oil on the lines.” Irene walked the formation, checking it and occasionally pointing things out to Yu Sheng. “Hey, hey. You missed a stroke here… Add it, add it. Normally you can’t patch this part later, but whatever. You never do alchemy like a sane person anyway, so you’ll patch it…”
This scene had nothing to do with any “professional atmosphere.”
Li Lin held it in for a while, but he couldn’t stop himself. In theory, nobody was supposed to chat during a large-scale ritual. Yet these people weren’t just chatting—they’d already finished a whole round of skewers. In the end, he threw everything he’d learned out the window. “So… that’s it? Your teleportation gate gets anchored to reality like this?”
Yu Sheng glanced up. “This is only step one.”
Li Lin relaxed immediately. “See, that’s what I thought. Back when I learned this—”
“Step two is just adding the final ingredient,” Yu Sheng continued.
Then he pulled out his treasured knife and, with considerable effort, started sawing at his own hand.
Li Lin stared at him, expression blank. “…?”
“Foxy, come bite me.” Yu Sheng put the knife away with a helpless sigh and glanced at the demon fox girl, who had already finished her mushrooms. “This knife really needs replacing.”
“Oh!” Foxy trotted over without hesitation. She opened her mouth and bit down on Yu Sheng’s wrist. Sharp teeth sank in with a wet pop.
She had finally gotten used to Yu Sheng’s strange “traits.” These days, biting her benefactor didn’t even make her feel guilty.
Yu Sheng quickly guided his blood into the door and performed the truly important final step of the “ritual”—
Thinking.
Thinking hard.
Thinking that a matching door was slowly forming in the valley.
He could have built the matching door over there first, then come back and open this one, and it would have worked the same once both sides were connected. But he was lazy. Besides, he could control the valley remotely. If he could avoid an extra trip, he would.
A faint scraping sound rose from both sides of the plain iron door. The candle flames on the ground tugged toward something invisible, then shot upward in an instant.
Li Lin, who had been staring blankly a moment ago, jolted awake. He saw the door changing.
On both sides, structures extended like living tissue, rapidly fusing into the brick wall. The wall’s surface began to writhe and ripple. As the door locked itself into place, it also generated an incredibly tough, rock-like outer layer.
And then a thought—no, a realization—forced its way into his mind:
This door was alive.
All the messy alchemical patterns and auxiliary materials were basically meaningless. Everything he had recorded, every bit of data collected, had no value at all. The only thing that mattered was that last step—and it was also the one step no instrument could capture. The change happened in the few seconds when Yu Sheng gave his blood to the door and closed his eyes with his hand on the handle.
Yu Sheng turned the doorknob.
The newborn door greeted the real world in silence, celebrating its own life. Those structures—like living tissue fused to the wall—pulsed powerfully in a dimension no human could observe. They swelled and throbbed, taking their first breath, beating their first heartbeat.
Then the door offered a distant scene to its creator.
Princess Snow White and her seven Thunder Titans stood on the other side. A girl with silky Rapunzel hair and a pale blue dress leaned curiously into the doorway—“Mermaid,” with the cocky King perched on her head.
“Sister Red Hood! Brother Yu!” Mermaid called happily from the other side. “Hey, the door really opened!”
“Human, you are impressive.” King nodded at Yu Sheng with restrained dignity. Then it stretched its head forward. “Come. Quickly. Rub my head.”
Yu Sheng laughed and reached out, lifting King straight through and pulling it into his arms. He gave it an earnest, thorough rub. The kitty didn’t get mad. Once it had been properly petted, it leapt down with elegant grace, then lifted its head to survey the place.
“Sigh. Devastation as far as the eye can see.” The tabby cat sighed with startlingly human emotion. It lifted a paw and beckoned. A bard in a short robe appeared at its side. “This moment calls for a poem—but I can’t. So you do it.”
The bard produced a quill and parchment and began writing without a word.
After confirming the newborn door could keep running without his constant maintenance, Yu Sheng finally relaxed. He turned back to Li Lin, who was still frozen, and grinned. “All right, I’m done. Did you understand it?”
“…Forget me. I’m pretty sure even if the director came, they wouldn’t ‘understand’ it,” Li Lin said with a wry smile, spreading his hands. Somehow, he sounded almost calm. “No wonder you didn’t mind us watching.”
He paused, then looked at the door with renewed curiosity. “So from now on, we can enter the valley through this door? Do we need to set up a post here? Besides the node, do we assign extra guards to stop anyone who slips past from breaking in? Given you and the Fairy Tale organization, the director probably won’t mind allocating manpower.”
“A guard post isn’t necessary. Later I’ll have Little Red Riding Hood and the others arrange a rotating gate watch here—mostly to stop the little kids from sneaking out,” Yu Sheng said. “And don’t worry about anyone breaking in. This door requires permission. Without it, even if the door is open, you can’t enter the passage.”
Li Lin seemed to understand. “Like Wu Tong Road 66?”
Yu Sheng smiled. “Exactly like Wu Tong Road 66.”