Chapter 340

Chapter 341: A Slip of the Hand

After Yu Sheng disappeared through a door that appeared out of thin air, Zheng Zhi stood staring at the open ground, looking very shocked.

Li Lin saw his face and chuckled: “Surprised? You’ll be more surprised later. After Wutong Road 66 transfers out, the spatial structure of this whole open ground will instantly smooth out. See those houses around us? They’ll connect together after. Wait, don’t tell me you can see Wutong Road 66?”

Zheng Zhi waved both hands fast: “Not that. I’m just curious how Brother Yu made that Door appear.”

“Oh, that’s fine. You scared me,” Li Lin let out a breath. “Even the Director can’t see that house. If you could, you’d have to ask Dr. Lin to cut your brain.”

“Who is Dr. Lin?” Zheng Zhi turned his head.

“An anomalous physician who works with the Bureau. He lives nearby. He’s great at autopsies and cutting brains. Cutting brains is the plain way to say it. It’s a small surgery that adds psychic resistance,” Li Lin said casually, then added, “but don’t think about it. That is the last resort. After that, you won’t see weird things anymore, but you’ll drool when doing addition and subtraction under ten.”

Zheng Zhi shivered at once and dared not say more. He could not help glancing again toward the open ground.

A huge, nearly transparent phantom stood there quietly, like a crouching behemoth facing him. Its transparency was so high the outline was hard to spot unless you looked carefully. Zheng Zhi felt that did not count as seeing it. [I definitely do not want brain-cutting.]

“Alright, go inside and study those operation manuals,” Li Lin patted his shoulder. “With Wutong Road 66 gone, things should be quiet around here. Don’t keep your nerves too tight. Being too tense makes it easier to run into uncanny things.”

Zheng Zhi nodded quickly: “Okay.”

Li Lin smiled and turned away toward the corner market, muttering as he went: “Finally, no more daily field duty.”

Zheng Zhi stood frozen a few seconds before heading to the little house of the station. But right before he went in, he could not help looking back at the huge shadow of Wutong Road 66.

Yu Sheng narrowed his eyes, recalling the “information” he had recorded earlier on the Cloud Viewing Terrace at Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain, then tried to convert those coordinates into a new “position” for Wutong Road 66.

This was his first time moving the house in the real world, and the first time over such a long distance. To be honest, he was a little nervous.

Mistbound City and Boundary City were like upstairs and downstairs. Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain and the Borderland were across the country.

He took a slow breath, focused his mind, let his spirit spread, and in an instant finished the assignment.

Outside the living-room window, the view changed.

Chaotic, brilliant lights rose like a storm and then settled in almost the same moment a human could blink. It was as if the world outside had been compressed and folded. The warp and piercing pull of space vanished at once. The next second, the familiar streets of Boundary City were gone. In their place stood the White Jade High Terrace, a rising sea of clouds, and the layered green of the Thousand Peaks.

Yu Sheng exhaled and let go of the Door handle. “All done,” he said happily to Irene, who was leaning on the windowsill, then pushed the door open and stepped out.

Foxy, Irene, and Luna were standing at the Door.

The mountain breeze was light, and the clean air woke the spirit. Grinning, Yu Sheng walked toward Foxy and said: “I brought our home over. From now on we can go home from here. You… huh? What are you looking at?”

He stopped mid-sentence. The three were not looking at him. They were staring, shocked, at something off to one side. Luna’s face stayed stiff as usual.

Yu Sheng followed their gaze and froze.

A small house stood quietly at one corner of the Cloud Viewing Terrace, facing Wutong Road 66 from afar. The little house looked very ordinary. A sign hung by the door. It read: “Stellar Express Wutong Road Pickup Point.”

Yu Sheng: “…?”

The next second, the door of the pickup point flew open. Zheng Zhi rushed out, just as stunned, and locked eyes with Yu Sheng and the others.

Irene let out a cry as soon as he appeared: “Big nephew!”

Zheng Zhi was even more shocked: “Where did you bring me?”

Every eye at the scene turned to Yu Sheng.

He looked left and right, the corner of his mouth twitching: “Why are you looking at me? I don’t know either.”

“You don’t know? Did you make the Door too big again?” Irene hopped over and head-butted his thigh. “Stop freestyling.”

Zheng Zhi walked over carefully, sweat beading as he stared at the immortal peaks, the clouds, the pavilions and towers. When he reached Yu Sheng, he could not hold back: “Brother Yu, this…”

“Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain,” Yu Sheng said, his face a little stiff. “I might have used too much strength when I moved.”

Zheng Zhi: “…”

“Where’s Li Lin?” Yu Sheng glanced toward the little house and asked.

“Brother Li went to the market. He had just walked out the door when I arrived with the station,” Zheng Zhi said.

Yu Sheng opened his mouth to speak again, but a streak of rosy light descended from the distance and cut him off.

The light landed, and Xuan Che and Immortal Yuan Ling shapeshifted into view.

Immortal Yuan Ling wore a broad smile: “From far away I saw spiritual light rising from the Cloud Viewing Terrace and thought you had moved your house here. I came to take a look…”

He stopped halfway through. His eyes turned odd as he stared at the Terrace.

The Cloud Viewing Terrace had grown to more than twice its old size. Certain spatial misalignments that normal people could not sense were very clear to him. The Terrace had “expanded” out a whole area, yet the center of that expansion was empty, nothing but open ground. Instead, a small, very ordinary-looking house sat in the corner, a courier pickup sign hanging on it.

No matter how you looked, that little house was not Wutong Road 66.

Immortal Yuan Ling drew back his gaze and noticed a stranger standing beside Yu Sheng. He looked him over once from head to toe and saw at a glance that the young man was truly a human being. He had flesh and blood, spirit and form, outside and in. He was, quite simply, a person.

The old man was surprised: “And this is?”

Cold sweat nearly sprayed from Zheng Zhi’s forehead. He was a temporary worker who had not even passed probation. He had never seen a scene like this. When he opened his mouth, even his back molars cramped: “I… I…”

He stammered on for several seconds. Irene got anxious for him and shouted: “Gate guard!”

Immortal Yuan Ling blinked, looked again at the courier pickup booth.

Irene was even faster: “Guard booth!”

“Actually, he’s from the Special Affairs Bureau. Uh, a sentry, and he’s also my friend,” Yu Sheng said awkwardly. He had no idea how to explain moving the Bureau’s Outpost along with his house, so he followed Irene’s lead and kept it vague. “That house is the Bureau’s Outpost, usually disguised as a pickup point.”

“Right,” Zheng Zhi finally caught up and nodded quickly: “Our captain assigned me to stand guard for Brother Yu.”

“I see,” Immortal Yuan Ling stroked his beard and did not dig further. He nodded to Yu Sheng and said: “If he is your friend, he is also a guest of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain. A welcome feast has been set in the Immortal Dining Hall. Please come with me.”

Foxy’s eyes lit up: “We’re eating?”

“Yes, eating,” Yu Sheng said at once, happy no one was chasing the Outpost problem. He turned the topic in a hurry: “Let’s go eat first. Moving really made me hungry.”

Zheng Zhi looked like he still had things to say, but before he could speak, Yu Sheng dragged him along. They stepped onto the stone path leaving the Cloud Viewing Terrace.

Deep in Wutong Road, beside the “original coordinates of Wutong Road 66,” which had become a narrow corner in the street’s The End Web, Li Lin stood in the alley with a grocery bag, stunned.

He looked at the corner before him, then at the small, out-of-place open patch behind him, and began to question his life.

[Where is my workstation.jpg?]

He had just gone to the market. How did his desk vanish the second he turned around?

He spun twice with the plastic bag, confirmed it was not his eyesight, and that the whole Outpost was truly gone. Only then did the corner of his mouth twitch. He pulled out his phone and called his boss.

“Captain, it’s Li Lin. Uh, no, nothing is wrong with Zheng Zhi. Or, I can’t say nothing is wrong. He’s gone. Wait, please don’t panic. The Outpost is gone too.”

A loud, piercing “What?” blasted from the other end of the line.

“I don’t know either,” Li Lin said, on the verge of tears. “I just went to buy something, and when I came back the Outpost was gone. Wutong Road 66 is gone too.”

In a short while, the burning hot Song Cheng reached Wutong Road by a shortcut.

The two men stared at each other.

After a moment, Song Cheng made a call.

When he finished, he looked up at Li Lin with a complicated gaze and said: “I got the answer. Yu Sheng packed it up and moved it.”

“Why?” Li Lin was blank.

“He said his hand slipped,” Song Cheng rubbed his teeth. “Same as last time when he pulled you into Night Valley. The difference is that you escaped this time. Only Zheng Zhi got dragged.”

Li Lin stared for a long time and finally asked: “So what do we do? My work report…”

“What else can we do? Force majeure,” Song Cheng sighed and patted his shoulder. “Come back to the Bureau with me. There’s a new assignment. Until Wutong Road 66 returns, you’re coming back on field duty with me.”

Li Lin: “…”