Chapter 261

Chapter 262: The Unusual Event

The Phantom Wolf Pack slipped through the seams of light and shadow, crossing block after block, passing misaligned high rises and roads that seemed to cut straight through the air. In the city’s reflected world, everything turned into a tangled map of overlapping images, yet the wolves knew how to find a path through that twisted place. Then they reached their destination.

Yu Sheng felt the scene blur, and the wolf he rode leapt from the black and white reflection world into the bright colors of reality. The roar of traffic on the far road rushed into his ears like someone had just turned on a machine.

Foxy appeared right behind him. She jumped off the wolf’s back, rubbed the Shadow Wolf’s head with interest, and said to Yu Sheng: “Benefactor, the Spirit Beast Little Red Riding Hood keeps is impressive. It may not be very smart, but this shadow-crossing footwork would be useful even back in my hometown.”

The pitch black Shadow Wolf let out a muffled grumble and wagged its tail at Foxy.

Little Red Riding Hood smacked the wolf on the head and scolded it: “Still wagging? She just said you’re not very smart, and you’re happy about it? When I tell you to deal with strangers you never act this fawning.”

Irene lay on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, glanced around the empty alley, and muttered: “Makes sense. They’re all canines. Easier to communicate.”

Foxy did not react to the Doll’s words, maybe she did not understand. She just kept scrubbing the wolf’s head.

Soon, Little Red Riding Hood put away her Wolf Pack. After a quick check of direction, she led Yu Sheng and Foxy forward: “The Myriad Plaza Mall is just ahead, a few minutes on foot,” she said as they walked. “I had the Wolf Pack go invisible and spread out to scout. My big nephew said he ‘fell’ while he was at the Myriad Plaza, but an Otherworld opening can mess with a person’s senses. He might have been pulled in from a nearby entrance and only saw a shadow of the mall at the moment he was sucked inside.”

They reached the main avenue. Yu Sheng quickly spotted the biggest landmark in view, the mall itself, and also several black Special Affairs Bureau vehicles parked at the intersection.

Agents were still organizing the evacuation of customers and staff. Groups of people streamed out through different exits in a fairly orderly way.

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood soon found the Special Affairs Bureau officer in charge. He looked a bit over thirty, tall and powerfully built, with close-cropped hair. His frame was only a notch smaller than Xu Jiali’s.

Little Red Riding Hood stepped up and talked with him: “Hello, we are Spirit Realm Detectives hired by the person involved. We cooperate with the Special Affairs Bureau. I’m Little Red Riding Hood from ‘Fairy Tale’.”

As a “newbie,” Yu Sheng hung back and watched. A girl in a high school uniform, serious as a pro, stood talking to a fully geared man who was about 1.9 meters tall. The scene looked like a middle schooler who got lost and was asking a police officer for directions. [So much for her usual cool, dashing image.]

The Bureau officer blinked, thrown off. He had received Li Lin’s message, but he did not expect the person to be a girl in a school uniform. He blurted out: “So you’re in high school?”

Little Red Riding Hood said: “We’ve worked together this long and you didn’t know I’m in high school?”

The big man rubbed the bridge of his nose and said: “I knew. I just didn’t realize.”

Little Red Riding Hood turned to Yu Sheng and grumbled: “I’m not wearing my uniform when I go out anymore.”

“I’m Liu Bing, the officer in charge of this area,” the tall Special Affairs Bureau agent said as he shifted the topic. Checking his gear, he led them toward the mall’s main Door while he talked: “I’ve heard the basics from Li Lin. A call for help, right? The caller used to be one of your clients. But this case is a bit strange, so the Spirit Realm Detectives will need to coordinate with the Special Affairs Bureau. By the way, you two are…?”

Halfway there he seemed to remember he had not asked Yu Sheng and Foxy their names. Irene, still flopped on Yu Sheng’s shoulder and not moving, had probably been mistaken for a decorative trinket.

Yu Sheng spoke first: “I’m Yu Sheng, from ‘Hotel’.”

Then the Fox Maiden said: “I’m Foxy, from ‘Hotel’.”

The Doll suddenly lifted her head and said: “Irene, from ‘Hotel’.”

Liu Bing stopped dead.

He stiffly looked the three of them up and down. The muscles in his face twitched. He took a slow breath and said: “This case is strange. We’ll fully coordinate with you.”

Little Red Riding Hood widened her eyes and said: “That’s not what you said a minute ago.”

Yu Sheng waved, half laughing: “Honestly, let us coordinate with you. I don’t know how rumors about me spread in your Bureau, but I’m really new at this. Fighting Dark Angels and handling an Otherworld incident are two different tracks. I don’t have much experience with the latter. Treat the three of us like a set of heavy hitters you can deploy.”

Irene muttered under her breath: “Heavy hitters are hard to handle.”

Liu Bing thought it over. Yu Sheng looked serious. Liu Bing nodded and said: “All right.”

Little Red Riding Hood asked with interest: “You said this case is strange. What exactly is strange about it?”

“The Otherworld unfolded extremely fast, but the area was tiny. After the entrance appeared, it lasted for only a moment before it ‘closed.’ It didn’t have the usual expansion period you see in a normal Otherworld leak.”

Once he spoke about business, the Bureau officer’s face turned focused.

“Specifically, when the Otherworld appeared, our border alarms across the city detected a single tremor that lasted one second. The strength of the tremor wasn’t even enough to trigger the System’s automatic alert. One vigilant watch officer noticed it and flagged it. That one second was the entrance’s entire lifespan. Which means the person calling you for help was just unlucky. He happened to be standing in the ‘right’ spot at the exact second it opened.”

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood exchanged a glance.

They spoke at the same time: “High sensitivity, low stability fits this.”

“And there’s more,” Liu Bing continued. “When we reviewed the data, we found hundreds of even smaller tremors around the mall in the few minutes before and after that one-second tremor. Each tiny tremor lasted less than a second.”

Yu Sheng stared and said: “Wait, hundreds of entrances? That’s like a sieve.”

Liu Bing shook his head and said: “No. Each tremor was far too weak to open an Otherworld. In theory, only that one-second ‘stronger tremor’ opened the sole entrance. Under normal conditions, the System filters out signals that weak. The only reason they were kept is because they appeared so densely in a short time that the System’s fuzzy rules held those records.”

Irene sighed, looked up, and said: “So the one and only entrance is the one the big nephew hit.”

“Maybe ‘high sensitivity, low stability’ isn’t enough to explain this,” Yu Sheng whispered to Little Red Riding Hood. “Once we get him out, we should convince him to go pray somewhere. Is there an Ancient Holy Spirit who handles luck?”

“There’s one who handles a good mindset,” Little Red Riding Hood whispered back. “The Progenitor of Dolls, Alice, governs keeping a healthy attitude. Or he can pray to the Lady Youth Form Thrower. She and her hound govern being hard to kill and staying on your feet.”

Yu Sheng fell silent: “…”

[Are the Ancient Holy Spirits kind of crazy?] He suddenly felt curious about the belief system that treated the Ancient Holy Spirits as the “real gods.” He wanted to study what those primeval beings, said to have joined in creation, actually did and how they shaped the world. Not now though. This was not the time.

Little Red Riding Hood asked: “Is the tremor still going?”

“It already stopped,” Liu Bing said, shaking his head. “It ended before we arrived.”

“This has never happened before?” Yu Sheng asked.

“First time on record,” Liu Bing said, face grim. “A normal Otherworld entrance produces one strong energy surge that lasts from minutes to hours, and it keeps spreading after it opens. That’s why we have to evacuate immediately whenever an entrance appears, to stop the damage from growing. So if you insist on a judgment, this incident is weird, but the danger is small. At least for now.”

Yu Sheng’s brow slowly furrowed. Even though Liu Bing said the impact was small, he felt something was off.

The way the Otherworld entrance opened felt suspicious.

The Special Affairs Bureau had clearly noticed that “suspicious” part, too. Even though the entrance seemed gone, they still set up high-level defenses and called in support.

By the mall’s main Doors, Yu Sheng saw a Node device mounted on a special vehicle, plus lots of monitoring and protection gear that had just arrived.

Fully equipped agents sealed the main Doors and several side exits.

There were other Doors elsewhere, and those were probably locked down too.

“This is where the entrance opened,” Liu Bing said, bringing Yu Sheng to a wall near the main Doors and pointing to a huge tempered glass window. “If we’re right, the victim ‘walked into’ the mall he described through this pane.”

Yu Sheng drew a steadying breath, stepped up to the glass, and looked inside.

The glass only reflected the normal street scene.