Chapter 280

Chapter 280: Origins

Yu Sheng always had endless clever ideas—and a lot of them were brilliant in the worst possible way.

And Foxy always carried out every one of his ridiculous plans without a shred of doubt.

So the demon fox didn’t see anything strange about her benefactor snapping a killing machine’s nails off to make a knife, then stabbing himself with it. The moment she heard Yu Sheng’s instructions, she happily hugged the arm—still terrifying to look at—pulled a big tail from behind her, rubbed the tip a couple of times, and released a blinding burst of blue foxfire. With a sizzling hiss, she began slicing into the iron doll’s palm.

She planned to cut off all five “nails” first, then split them further the way Yu Sheng wanted. As for taking the whole arm apart… that could wait.

Sparks and foxfire erupted across the living room.

The glare lit up Irene’s face and nearly blinded the Little Doll.

“Silly Fox, can you cut that somewhere else?!” Irene shouted. “There are sofas and electronics all around you! You’ll set the house on fire!”

Foxy froze. She thought it over, decided the other person had a point, and hugged the arm as she bolted for the basement. She was planning to take it down to the valley to cut it.

Irene watched Foxy race down the stairs, then turned back to Yu Sheng. “You’re really going to make a knife out of that thing’s ‘nails’?”

“It looks creepy as hell.”

“Then what else?” Yu Sheng pulled out his phone and started typing without even looking up. “After you beat a monster, using the dropped materials to craft gear is just the normal process.”

Irene had been obsessed with games lately, so her doubts evaporated instantly. She nodded like that explained everything.

Then she noticed what Yu Sheng was doing and leaned over, curious. “What are you doing?”

“Messaging Bai Li Qing.” Yu Sheng had already sent over the photo of the arm he’d taken earlier, then added a brief description of how he’d gone into the thick fog to investigate and got ambushed. “She’s probably asleep right now, but I’ll leave it for her. Maybe she knows what we fought today. Either way, I still have to go to the Special Operations Bureau tomorrow.”

Irene said, “Oh,” then ran back to the sofa and studied the black head veil.

It was the scarf Yu Sheng had yanked off the iron doll’s head earlier. Its overall shape looked like the “nun hat” worn by some kind of female clergy, and the fabric felt high-end. On the thicker section at the front, there was a strange golden emblem: two rings, one large and one small, nested together. The rings met at the bottom, and a golden fissure ran straight down through the entire symbol.

They hadn’t had time to look closely during the fight, but now Yu Sheng finally noticed the mark and immediately stepped over to photograph it.

Irene lifted the head veil and poked around at the lining, fascinated by its structure.

For someone who was only 66.6 centimeters tall, it was basically a cloak. Watching from the side, Yu Sheng almost couldn’t resist poking the Little Doll to see what would happen if she pulled her hands in and got wrapped up inside the whole scarf. In the end, he kept his fingers to himself.

“Do you think that thing might’ve been an entity?” Yu Sheng asked casually. “It wasn’t the doll from Alice’s little house, and it had that obvious creepy vibe. The style felt like something that formed inside the dense fog.”

The instant he finished, Irene’s voice came from under the scarf. “Ah—wherever that C Buckle came from, I’m sure she’s definitely not an entity anymore.”

Yu Sheng paused. “How can you tell?”

Irene struggled to flip the head veil over and pointed to a corner of the lining. “Because there’s a brand tag here. And there’s a label next to it saying it’s recommended to hand-wash.”

Yu Sheng nearly launched off the sofa. “What the hell?!”

He leaned in—and she wasn’t lying. The scarf yanked off that “iron doll’s” head actually had a brand label and washing instructions inside.

Yu Sheng immediately pulled out his phone and searched the brand. A flood of links popped up.

It wasn’t some mysterious label or rare custom piece. It was the kind of thing you could buy anywhere.

Of course, what he found online wasn’t exactly the same as the physical item in front of him. There were tiny differences in the cut, and none of the listing photos had that golden double-ring emblem.

“It looks like they bought it online and modified it themselves,” Irene said seriously, leaning on Yu Sheng’s arm as she stared at the search results. “They shortened both sides, then sewed a symbol onto the forehead area. Huh… it’s pretty expensive, too.”

Yu Sheng didn’t say anything. He looked like he’d fallen into thought.

Irene glanced up at him. “What are you thinking about?”

Yu Sheng’s expression turned solemn. “What this information means.”

“It means that C Buckle definitely isn’t an entity. An entity wouldn’t go shopping…”

“No.” Yu Sheng shook his head slowly. “It means she wasn’t alone. There were humans behind her—companions, maybe a handler, maybe a master.”

Irene blinked. “Why?”

“Because those claws can’t do needlework.” Yu Sheng shot her a look, like her brain had chosen the worst possible moment to jam. “And that symbol, too. One glance tells you it has meaning.”

He was only halfway through before the phone in his hand started ringing.

The caller was Bai Li Qing—Bai Li Qing, who apparently still wasn’t asleep at 11:30 at night.

Yu Sheng was surprised, but he reacted instantly and raised the phone to his ear. Before he could speak, a cool, slightly urgent voice came through.

“You were attacked by an enemy that looked like a black metal doll? Tall and thin? Female?”

“Yeah,” Yu Sheng said. The tone alone told him she knew something, so he didn’t even ask why she was awake. “About the same height as Xu Jiali. Full metal shell, pale face. When she fought, it was like she was dancing—so fast we couldn’t keep up. Her weapons were her nails. Each nail was a blade.”

“Oh, and she was wearing a head veil, kind of like—”

Before he could finish, Bai Li Qing cut in. “A nun?”

“…Yeah. A nun. But the vibe was straight-up evil cultivator.” Yu Sheng quickly sent over the photos he’d just taken. “I yanked off her head veil. It had this mark on it… from how you’re reacting, you know who she is?”

Bai Li Qing went silent for a few seconds, probably looking at the pictures. Then Yu Sheng heard a faint intake of breath.

“You encountered the Holy Revere Hermitage’s artificial saintess.”

Yu Sheng froze. He vaguely remembered hearing the name Holy Revere Hermitage somewhere—one of those lively folk groups that liked to pick fights with the rule of law, but he didn’t know the details.

“Sounds… pretty serious?” he asked cautiously. “Like something we shouldn’t run into under normal circumstances?”

“A very powerful killing machine,” Bai Li Qing said, her voice unusually grave. “It’s used to protect the hermitage order’s important assets or key personnel. Usually it takes a fully armed Deep Diver squad to handle one. For regular combat personnel, the survival rate is zero even if they encounter an artificial saintess as a squad—and you’re saying it appeared in the fog and launched a surprise attack on you?”

“Yes.” Yu Sheng’s expression sobered. He still didn’t know what Holy Revere Hermitage really did, but just from her tone, he could tell they weren’t on the same level as those sneaky angel cultists. “We reached an area where the fog was extremely thick. The surroundings were already visibly abnormal—then it came out of nowhere.”

“Did you turn on the border-comm environmental recording function?” Bai Li Qing asked suddenly. “The Special Operations Bureau’s custom phone has multiple special sensors. It can record a lot of environmental parameters.”

“Yeah. I turned it on the moment we left.”

“Good. I’ll have someone pull the environmental data from the backend.” Her voice tightened. “Where exactly did you get attacked?”

“Roughly north of Old Quarter, near Commercial Street,” Yu Sheng said after thinking, not entirely sure. “But the streets in the fog felt wrong. Especially after we entered the denser area—buildings seemed to change position, size, even orientation. Where we fought, the ground in the distance was even ‘rolled up.’ So what I remember is more of a reference point.”

He paused, then added, “Also, I’m sure the fog here in Old Quarter connects to the fog over by Wan Xiang Collection. We didn’t walk there directly, but I can… uh… feel it.”

“The range of this otherworld is probably huge,” Yu Sheng continued. “It might even be as big as Boundary City.”

“Mm,” Bai Li Qing replied, not sounding surprised, as if she’d already considered it.

Then, after less than two seconds of silence, she spoke in a low voice. “Can you come to the Special Operations Bureau right now? Bring the samples you collected from that artificial saintess.”

Yu Sheng reflexively looked up at the clock on the wall.

It was almost midnight.

“At this hour?”

“Sorry. It’s urgent.”

“No, it’s fine,” Yu Sheng said quickly, hearing how sincere she sounded. “I’ll come right now. By the way, are you still at the bureau?”

“Yes.”

“Uh… that’s rough…”

Her voice didn’t change. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”

Yu Sheng fell silent for a beat.