Chapter 339

Chapter 340: Not Leaving The Door

Xuan Yun led Yu Sheng and the others to a spot behind the mountain, pointed at the wide high terrace ahead, and said: “Immortal Elder, this is the Cloud Viewing Terrace.”

Yu Sheng looked up and saw a stone path winding out of the mountain, climbing with the slope to the top. Ahead, the cliff face looked as if a giant blade had chopped it straight across. A high platform had been built on the cut, pure white like jade with carved railings all around. Beyond the terrace, almost right under their feet, lay a vast sea of clouds. Mist curled and drifted as if it blended with the platform itself.

On the railings, they could see rows of jade tokens with words carved on them, things like: “The railing is dangerous. Do not lean,” “Watch your step while cloud viewing,” and “Graffiti will be fined one hundred spirit stones.”

Yu Sheng thought it over and felt this was perfectly reasonable.

Irene clearly did not feel it was reasonable enough. She pointed at the warning tags on the railings and asked: “Hey, aren’t you immortals all able to fly? Why are you afraid someone will fall off the mountain?”

The young acolyte Xuan Yun froze for a second. He probably did not talk to clueless outsiders very often. After a beat, he answered: “Ah, only senior brothers and sisters with deep cultivation use Sword Flight or Wind Riding. I haven’t learned that yet.”

Irene blinked, curious as she looked at Xuan Yun. She was naturally friendly toward smaller humans, like the Dollheads from Fairy Tale: “Oh? Then how far have you learned?”

“Just learned Sword Gliding,” Xuan Yun answered honestly, “I can glide down the slope from here with the wind and not get hurt, but if my master catches me I’ll get beaten half to death.”

Foxy rubbed her chin and gave a verdict from the side: “Your learning pace is slow. Back home, kids your age already know Sword Flight. If you start cram classes early, you learn even faster. By the second half of preschool, they begin a children’s Flying Sword course.”

“Don’t compare your uncanny homeland with this place,” Irene shot Miss Fox a look and said, “your home planet still drives around the galaxy.”

Listening to them, Xuan Yun was stunned and stared blankly: “Immortal Elder, what are you talking about?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Yu Sheng laughed, then waved the boy away: “Alright, you got us here. Go report back to your master.”

“Okay!”

Xuan Yun answered and sprinted down the stone steps, vanishing in a flash.

Yu Sheng turned to the endless sea of clouds and the faint mountain peaks that rose within it, and he could not help sighing: “This view is awesome.”

Irene poked him in the back of the head and complained: “You’re a writer, and after holding it in for so long, that’s all you got?”

“I call it returning to simplicity,” Yu Sheng said lightly. He set Irene on the ground, then walked to the side of the Cloud Viewing Terrace closest to the mountain wall. He paced a few steps, found the best spot to place the house entrance, and reached into the air.

“I’m going to open the house. You wait here,” he said, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

In an instant, Yu Sheng was back in the living room of Wutong Road 66.

He blinked in the familiar room. Even though this was his own ability, he still felt a bit unreal.

It hit harder when he looked out the living-room window and saw the familiar street, the low old houses nearby, the skyscrapers in the city skyline behind them, and the Special Affairs Bureau Outpost disguised as a courier pickup spot at the corner down the road.

“Ah, I forgot to say hi to the on-duty staff again!”

Yu Sheng slapped his forehead, finally remembering what he had missed when he left earlier. He turned and called to Irene, who was watching TV in the living room: “I’ll go tell the Special Affairs Bureau folks at the courier spot that we’re moving for a while. Tell Foxy and Luna to wait for me.”

The little doll guarding the laptop in the dining room waved impatiently without looking back: “Got it, got it. I guessed you forgot to report.”

There was always more than one Irene. Take one outside and there were still several at home. Talk to one and another would answer from the side. If you were not careful, those little things would pop up everywhere. It made life feel like a bug had slipped into reality.

Yu Sheng usually coped with the strangeness that came with more and more Irenes by keeping a broad mind.

He warned the Irene in the house not to wander, then pushed the Door and headed to the courier station Outpost set up by the Special Affairs Bureau.

Two familiar faces were just stepping out with cleaning tools.

One was Li Lin. The other, to Yu Sheng’s surprise, was Zheng Zhi.

Yu Sheng could guess why the first might be here, but the second was completely unexpected. He stared and asked: “Why is it you two?”

“Hey, Brother Yu,” Li Lin smiled as soon as he saw Yu Sheng and explained quickly, “the two people here before were only temporary. They’ve gone back. I’m officially taking over this liaison station. Captain Song said I know you and know the old district well, so he gave me the job.”

Yu Sheng blinked, then looked straight at Zheng Zhi: “And you?”

“I joined the Special Affairs Bureau,” Zheng Zhi rubbed his nose and smiled with some embarrassment.

Yu Sheng froze, then gaped at the high-sensitivity, low-stability vanguard in front of him: “You? Joined the Special Affairs Bureau? With your constitution?”

Zheng Zhi kept rubbing his nose and nodded: “Yeah.”

“What position then?” Yu Sheng was stunned. “A walking detector? You know you’re high-sensitivity, low-stability, right?”

“That’s exactly why,” Zheng Zhi sighed and explained, “after the Mistbound City thing, and even earlier the Dark Angels incident, the Bureau noticed my situation. Two experts took me for formal testing, and the result was…”

He paused, and Li Lin picked up: “Sensitivity too high.”

Yu Sheng: “…”

“Even in normal cases, a regular person dragged into an Otherworld incident rarely goes back to completely ordinary life,” Li Lin said. “One path is medication plus training to keep daily life stable. The other is a career change into a Spirit Realm Detective, an Investigator, or just joining the Bureau. In general, the more sensitive you are, the more you fit the second path. Zheng Zhi is the second kind. For example, if this were a horror movie and the opening scene still looked normal, he would already be seeing the hidden ghost that doesn’t show up until the sequel, plus the post-credit stinger.”

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched as he understood. He turned to his poor nephew with sympathy in his eyes.

“Being a normal person again is basically impossible. The experts said spiritual sensitivity cannot be lowered, and it only goes up with more contact with anomalies. So the other path is to build the ability to face them. When you meet the weird, either you can dodge or you can fight,” Zheng Zhi sighed. “But I have zero experience and I’m pretty bad at fighting. The Bureau said if I switched to Spirit Realm Detective or Investigator right now, I’d become a classic year-end cautionary case. So they told me to follow Brother Li and learn while I work.”

He added: “Before coming, I did basic training and had a few minor surgeries. They implanted some standard equipment for Bureau agents in my brain to boost a bit of resistance, so I can handle basic self-protection. They also posted the two of us here because of my case. They said your place is safer.”

As he listened, Yu Sheng’s expression grew more and more odd. When Zheng Zhi finished, Yu Sheng spoke carefully: “Well, about that. I was just coming to tell you. I’ll be away for a bit.”

Li Lin blinked: “Huh? You’re leaving the Door?”

“Not leaving the Door,” Yu Sheng tugged at the corner of his mouth, “but Wutong Road 66 will be gone for a while.”

Both men: “…?”

Two sane humans stood there and took a moment to process that. Li Lin was the first to recover when he remembered the briefing notes: “Ah, you mean the whole Wutong Road 66 ‘transfer’ thing. I’ve heard. Where to this time? Back to Mistbound City?”

Yu Sheng said: “To Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain.”

Li Lin froze on the spot.

In that moment, he gained a brand-new understanding of both “not leaving the Door” and “leaving the Door.”

Yu Sheng did not explain much more. He said he was going to meet someone and also look into a case touching on cultists. With that reason, Li Lin could only trade a look with Zheng Zhi and sigh together.

“Then there’s nothing to be done. Timing is timing,” Li Lin shook his head. “I’ll tell the Bureau. But we still have to hold this spot. Even if Wutong Road 66 leaves, this area is a key point to guard.”

“When will you be back?” Zheng Zhi asked curiously.

“Hard to say,” Yu Sheng waved. “But I can come back anytime. If anything happens in Boundary City, just call me.”

“That’s true,” Li Lin let out a light breath and smiled again. “Alright then, you do your thing. Safe travels.”

Yu Sheng said goodbye to them and headed back to Wutong Road 66.

Irene was lying on the arm of the sofa. When she heard the door, she lifted her head and asked: “All set?”

“All set,” Yu Sheng nodded. He steadied himself, then grabbed the handle of the Door to Wutong Road 66 and said, “Let’s go meet up with Foxy and Luna.”

“And me, and me. Why didn’t you say you’re coming to meet me?” Irene called out.

“Stop exploiting the bug,” he said.