Chapter 330

Chapter 330: A Breakthrough

At least now Luna had an ID card of her own.

For the moment, though, it didn’t seem to be good for much besides signing up for hotel memberships and registering online accounts. The artificial saintess was far too noticeable, and it was even harder for her to go out than Irene. At least Irene could be held in Foxy’s arms or stuffed into a tote bag. Luna stood well over two meters tall. If she wanted to step outside, she’d have to wrap herself up from head to toe and cosplay as an Astartes.

Of course, Luna wasn’t interested in going out anyway. Her biggest hobby was finding a spot at home where she wouldn’t be in the way, planting herself there, and crashing. She only rebooted for a moment when someone came over.

Yu Sheng wanted to change that. Not because he was nosy or trying to control someone else’s free time, but because Luna’s habit of shutting down in some random corner at any hour couldn’t be good for her “rehabilitation.” More than that, he couldn’t shake the feeling that if she stayed like this for too long… she’d become less and less like a person.

After Ren Wen Wen finished registering Luna, she left. Yu Sheng made sure that die-hard shipper didn’t get a chance to talk about “creation.” Then he called Luna over and had a serious discussion with her about hobbies.

“You need to find something to do every day,” Yu Sheng said, dead serious. “It’ll help with your rehabilitation. You were trapped inside the restraints of the artificial saintess for too long. Now you need to find the part of you that’s human again.”

He studied her face. “Think hard. Do you really have nothing you want to do?”

Luna thought in earnest. This time, she thought for so long that people started to suspect she’d crashed again.

Just as Irene picked up a screwdriver and was about to tap her shell, Luna suddenly broke the silence.

“I want… a plot of land,” she said, the words coming out in fits and starts.

“A plot of land?” Yu Sheng blinked.

“Yeah. Plant… wheat.” Luna nodded slowly. Then, as if worried he’d misunderstand, she added, “The vegetable patch—the kids’. Don’t touch.”

Yu Sheng finally got it.

It wasn’t that Luna had nothing she wanted. She was just afraid she was asking for too much. To someone who’d grown up in a village, a plot of land was precious.

She still remembered the wheat fields back home. She still remembered working them.

Yu Sheng laughed softly. No wonder, after Luna left the Holy Sarcophagus Chamber, she’d wandered to the vegetable patch near Little Town in a daze and even “stolen” the children’s labor-class homework.

“Of course,” he said, smiling. “Between Little Town and Transit Hub, there’s a huge stretch of cultivated land. I saved it for myself. I’ve planted a lot of things there, and one plot is still empty. You can have it.”

He could almost see the change in her. The artificial saintess in front of him seemed to brighten, and from somewhere deep inside her came a faint, cheerful humming.

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

Yu Sheng waved it off. Right then, his phone rang again.

This time, it was Bai Li Qing.

Ignoring Irene’s muttered, “You’re pretty busy today,” he answered. Before he could speak, Bai Li Qing’s calm voice came through the line. “Are you finished with the registration process?”

“Yeah. Smooth as it gets. Ren Wen Wen just left,” Yu Sheng said, casual on purpose. He didn’t believe she’d called just to check. “What’s up?”

Sure enough, her next sentence had him on his feet.

“Then come to the Special Operations Bureau when you have time. The interrogation made a breakthrough. One Hermitage Order member finally spoke up—and in his statement, he mentioned the Anka Aila crystal.”

“What?” Yu Sheng blurted. “The Anka Aila crystal?!”

He didn’t hesitate. “Okay. I’m coming now. I’ll go straight to your office.”

The moment he hung up, Irene on the coffee table and Foxy sprawled half-asleep on the cushion both sprang up. The name Anka Aila hit them hard, too. Foxy’s hearing was sharp enough that she’d caught Bai Li Qing’s words through the phone, and her ears twitched as she asked, “That Hermitage Order—what do they have to do with the Anka Aila crystal?”

“No idea. That’s why we’re going,” Yu Sheng said quickly. “You two are coming with me.”

Then he noticed Luna standing to the side. After a brief hesitation, he nodded. “You too. But if you see a Hermitage Order cultist, you have to hold back. We’re still squeezing intel out of them.”

Luna nodded.

Yu Sheng yanked open the door leading to Bai Li Qing’s office.

The next second, the entire hotel team stepped into the office of the Special Operations Bureau director. Bai Li Qing stood behind a huge oval desk, already waiting.

She was used to Yu Sheng’s particular style of “arriving at your place in the next second.” She gave the familiar faces a faint nod, then her gaze shifted to the team’s newest member.

Those washed-out, pale gray eyes rested on Luna for several seconds. Only then did Bai Li Qing calmly look away and give a slight nod.

“We’ll go straight to Containment Zone.”

The Hermitage Order members were being held in the Dangerous Suspects Containment Zone—the same place that had once housed the angel cultists. Yu Sheng knew it well.

They followed Bai Li Qing deep into the containment facility and into a special room.

It was simply furnished: a few tables, a few chairs, metal walls on all sides. As they entered, one wall rippled with a faint blue glow, then turned almost transparent, revealing the interrogation chamber next door.

A Hermitage Order cultist with a deathly pale face sat strapped into a heavy restraint device. Electrodes were embedded in his head. Two harsh beams of light pinned him in place, while an interrogation officer sat in the shadows a short distance away.

Yu Sheng glanced back.

Luna stood perfectly still, her eyes locked on the figure in the chair.

“I-I’ve answered a lot of what you asked…” the pale-faced cultist said weakly through the loudspeaker. “I’m just a technician. I don’t have access to many secrets.”

“You know exactly how many secrets you can access,” the interrogator in the shadows said. His voice was calm, but the cultist visibly shuddered. “Betrayal only needs a beginning. Now that you’ve started cooperating, doing it as much as you can is your only way out.”

“…O-okay. I understand…”

Yu Sheng sat in the chair by the observation window. Bai Li Qing gave a few instructions over her communicator, and then the loudspeaker carried the interrogator’s next question.

“Talk about the Anka Aila crystal again—what you call the angel catalyst. What does it do?”

The cultist raised his head and looked toward the observation window. He couldn’t see into this room, but he clearly knew someone was watching. After everything they’d done to him, his will was already broken. He held the stare for a heartbeat, then lowered his head obediently.

“The angel catalyst is the key to repairing the world,” he said. “The Supreme Saint saw it in the fading glow of truth and received enlightenment. This substance can pierce the lesions scattered throughout our flawed universe, just as dark angels pierce the world’s shell. The angel catalyst left behind after an angel falls carries similar power. It is strong and dangerous, but like a scalpel, it can also be used to heal.”

Yu Sheng frowned and turned to Bai Li Qing. “That’s… pretty mystical. Can you make him speak like a normal person?”

Bai Li Qing looked mildly helpless. “Just listen. This is already them trying their hardest to speak like normal people.”

Yu Sheng’s eye twitched. The loudspeaker carried the interrogator’s next question.

“What do you mean by ‘lesions’?”

“Flaws. Errors. The root of the world’s illness,” the cultist answered immediately. When he spoke about doctrine, he sounded almost livelier. “People get sick, and the world gets sick too. Otherworld is a lesion. The space-time collapse points caused by angel invasions are lesions. Heretic nests are lesions. The Borderland is also a lesion.”

“The Borderland is a lesion too?”

“Yes. The Borderland is a lesion too—and it’s the biggest one,” the cultist said without hesitation. “And just as entities are pus that flows out of the lesion called otherworld, you boundary-city people are pus that flows out of the lesion called the Borderland. You’re poisoning the whole universe and making our world sick…”

The interrogation chamber fell silent for two seconds—both rooms, as if the air itself had paused.

“Th-this is what the doctrine says,” the cultist added quickly, as if afraid he’d gone too far. “I’m just repeating it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the interrogator said, still calm. “I’ve heard plenty of extreme doctrines. No one cares about a madman’s muttering.”

He continued without a beat. “You said the space-time collapse points caused by angel invasions are lesions too. So you believe dark angels are also a factor that makes the world sick?”

“Of course,” the cultist said. “Dark angels are a mortal enemy—foreign germs that eat away at what was healthy, creating new lesions and worsening the old ones. That’s obvious.”

“But at the same time, you seek the power of the angel catalyst,” the interrogator pressed. “Seeking a cure from your greatest enemy—doesn’t that contradict what you just said?”

The cultist fell silent.

Then he slowly lifted his head. In his eyes was a firmness that looked almost like faith.

“Fighting poison with poison is also a method,” he said. “When the sickness has gone too far.”