Chapter 329

Chapter 330: Breakthrough in Progress

Now Luna had an Identification Card too.

But for now it only helped with things like registering as a Hotel member and making online accounts; otherwise it was not very useful. After all, this Artificial Saintess looked too eye catching. Going through The Door was even harder for her than for Irene. At least Irene could be carried in Foxy’s arms or packed into a tote bag. With Luna being over two meters tall, if she wanted to go through The Door, she would have to wrap up completely and cosplay an Astartes.

Of course, Luna herself had no interest in going through The Door. Her favorite thing was to find an out of the way spot at home, stand there, and go into a daze like she had crashed, then only “reboot” for a bit when someone walked up.

[To be honest, Yu Sheng wanted to change this.] It was not meddling or trying to plan someone else’s hobbies. He felt that this habit of spacing out anywhere was bad for her “rehab,” and more important, [he worried that if she kept this up, she would feel less and less like a person.]

After Ren Wen Wen finished the paperwork for Luna and left, Yu Sheng gave this super shipper no chance to talk about “creative work.” He called Luna over and seriously brought up the topic of personal hobbies.

Yu Sheng said earnestly: “You need to find something to do every day. It will help your ‘rehab.’ You were trapped under the ‘Artificial Saintess’ restrictions for too long. Now you need to find back the part of you that is human. Think carefully, is there really nothing you want to do?”

Luna began to think very seriously. She thought so long that people started to wonder if she had crashed again.

Just as Irene picked up a screwdriver to tap Luna’s shell, Luna suddenly broke the silence. She stammered: “I want… a piece of land.”

“A piece of land?” Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows in surprise.

She nodded slowly, then, worried he would misunderstand, added: “To plant wheat. The Vegetable Patch that belongs to the Cursed Children can’t be touched.”

Yu Sheng finally understood.

Luna did have something she wanted to do, but she was afraid she was asking for too much. A piece of land was very precious in the heart of this village Saintess who had come from a small rural place.

She still remembered the wheat fields of her home, and the memories of working in The Field.

Yu Sheng smiled. [No wonder when Luna left the Holy Sarcophagus Chamber she drifted to the small town’s Vegetable Patch and even “stole” the Cursed Children’s homework from their work class.]

He said with a smile: “Of course. Between the town and the Transit Hub there is a big stretch of cleared land that I kept for myself. I planted many things there. One plot is still empty. You can have it.”

He clearly felt the Artificial Saintess in front of him brighten with joy, and he even heard a light humming from inside her.

“Thank you,” she lowered her head, graceful and solemn.

Yu Sheng waved his hand, and just then his phone rang again.

This time it was Bai Li Qing calling.

Ignoring Irene’s mutter from the coffee table, “Busy day for you,” he answered. Before he could speak, Bai Li Qing’s calm voice came through: “Is the registration finished?”

He said casually: “Yeah, all done. Ren Wen Wen just left.” Then he thought she would not call only for that and asked, “What is it?”

Sure enough, Bai Li Qing’s next sentence made him jump to his feet.

She said: “Come to the Special Affairs Bureau when you can. We made a breakthrough in the interrogation of the cultists. A Hermitage Member talked. He mentioned the Anka Aila crystal in his statement.”

“What? The Anka Aila crystal?!” Yu Sheng blurted out, then agreed without hesitation: “Okay, I’ll come right now, straight to your office.”

As soon as he spoke, Irene on the coffee table and the Fox dozing on the floor mat both sat up at once. The words “Anka Aila” had clearly shocked them too. Foxy’s hearing was sharp, and she had caught Bai Li Qing’s words through the phone. She twitched her ears and said: “How is the Hermitage Order linked to the Anka Aila crystal?”

“I don’t know. We have to go,” Yu Sheng said quickly. He glanced at Luna standing to the side, hesitated a moment, then nodded: “You come too. But if we run into people from the Hermitage Order, you have to hold back. We are squeezing intel out of them right now.”

Luna nodded. Yu Sheng then pulled open the Door that led to Bai Li Qing’s office.

The next second, the whole Hotel team walked into the office of the Director of the Special Affairs Bureau. Bai Li Qing was standing in front of a huge oval desk, waiting for them.

She was already used to Yu Sheng’s style of “I arrive at your place in the very next second.” She just gave the familiar faces a small nod, and then her gaze fell on the Hotel’s new member.

Her faded pale gray eyes fixed on Luna for a few seconds. Then she calmly looked away and gave a light nod.

“We go straight to the Containment Zone,” she said.

The place where they held and interrogated the Hermitage Members was the same “dangerous individuals Containment Zone” that had once held those Angel Cultists. Yu Sheng knew the place well.

They followed Bai Li Qing deep into the Containment Facility and were brought into a special room.

The room was simple: a few tables and chairs, and metal walls on all four sides. When Yu Sheng’s group entered, a faint blue glow rippled across one metal wall, and then it turned almost transparent, showing the Interrogation Chamber next door.

In the center chair sat a Hermitage Order cultist with a chalk white face. He wore a heavy Restraint Device and had electrodes stuck into his head. Two beams of light shone on him, and an interrogator sat not far away in the shadows.

Yu Sheng glanced back at Luna.

Luna stood still and silent, her eyes locked on the figure in the middle of the Interrogation Chamber.

From the room’s speaker came the voice from next door as the cultist spoke weakly: “I… I already answered a lot like you asked. I am only a tech worker. I don’t have many secrets.”

The calm voice from the shadows said: “You know very well how many secrets you can access. Betrayal only needs a first step. Now full cooperation is your only way out.”

“…Okay. I understand.”

Listening to the voices, Yu Sheng sat down in a chair by the observation window.

He heard Bai Li Qing give a few instructions over the intercom. Then the speaker carried the interrogator’s next question: “Tell us again about the ‘Anka Aila crystal,’ the thing you call the ‘Angel Catalyst.’ What does it do?”

The man in the chair lifted his head and glanced toward the observation window. Even though he could not see through the wall, he had guessed that some Lord might be watching the session. But this man’s will was already broken by many “technical measures.” He only looked up for a moment, then lowered his head and answered honestly: “The ‘Angel Catalyst’ is the key to repairing the world. The Supreme Saint saw it in the afterglow of truth and was enlightened. This substance can pierce the ‘lesions’ in our flawed universe, like the Dark Angels pierce the ‘shell’ of the world. After the Angel Fall, the ‘Angel Catalyst’ left behind has a similar power. The power is strong and dangerous, but like a scalpel, it can also heal.”

Yu Sheng frowned and turned to Bai Li Qing: “This mystical rambling… can he speak human?”

Always cool, Bai Li Qing looked a bit helpless for once: “Bear with it. This is them trying to ‘speak human.’”

Yu Sheng’s eye twitched. Then the voice from next door continued:

The interrogator asked: “What do you mean by ‘lesion’?”

The cultist answered at once, and talking about what was close to his “doctrine” even seemed to steady him: “Flaws, errors, the roots of the world’s disease. People get sick; the world does too. The Otherworld is a lesion. The spacetime collapse points caused by an Angel invasion are lesions. Heretic nests are lesions. The Borderland is also a lesion.”

“The Borderland is also a lesion?”

“Yes. The Borderland is a lesion, and it is the biggest one,” the cultist said without hesitation. “And just as ‘Entities’ are the pus that flows out of the lesion called the ‘Otherworld,’ you ‘Boundary City people’ are the pus flowing out of the lesion called the ‘Borderland,’ poisoning the whole universe and pushing our world into sickness.”

The Interrogation Chamber and the observation room both went quiet for two seconds.

“That… that is what the doctrine says,” the cultist added quickly. “I am reporting truthfully.”

“It does not matter. I have heard many extreme doctrines. No one cares about a madman’s rambling,” the interrogator said in the same calm tone. “You just said the spacetime collapse points caused by Angel invasions are lesions. So you believe the Dark Angels are also a cause of the world’s ‘illness’?”

“Of course. The Dark Angels are a great enemy, foreign bacteria that eat into the healthy parts of the universe’s body, create new lesions, and make the old lesions worse. This is obvious.”

“But at the same time you seek the power of the ‘Angel Catalyst.’ You look to your great enemy for a cure. Does that not contradict what you just said?”

The Hermitage Order cultist was silent for a few seconds.

Then he lifted his head, and there was a kind of faith like steel in his eyes as he said: “Fighting poison with poison is the last resort when the illness is already terminal.”