Chapter 340
Chapter 340: Not Going Out
Daoist Acolyte Xuan Yun led Yu Sheng and the others up the back mountain, then pointed toward the broad platform ahead. “Immortal Elder, this is Cloud Viewing Terrace.”
Yu Sheng looked up. A stone path ribboned along the ridgeline, climbing straight into the heights. The cliff face ahead looked as if a giant blade had sheared it clean through, and on the severed edge stood a terrace as white as jade, fenced by carved railings. Beyond it, a boundless sea of clouds rolled almost beneath their feet, mist curling so close it seemed to cling to the platform itself.
Along the railings, warning placards—slim jade tokens—had been hung everywhere. Each had neat carvings: “Railings are dangerous—do not approach.” “Watch your step when viewing clouds.” “No scribbling or graffiti—fine: 100 spirit stones.”
Yu Sheng considered it and decided it was entirely reasonable.
Irene, however, looked like she disagreed. She pointed at the signs and asked, “Hey, don’t you immortals all know how to fly? Then why are you still worried about falling off a mountain?”
Xuan Yun froze. He probably didn’t deal with clueless outsiders often, because it took him a moment to recover. “Ah… only Senior Brother and Senior Sister with deeper cultivation can do sword flight or ride the wind. Someone like me hasn’t reached that step yet.”
Irene blinked, then leaned in with bright, eager curiosity—she was always friendlier to smaller humans, like the dollheads from “Fairy Tale.” “Oh? Then how far have you gotten?”
“…I only just learned sword gliding,” Xuan Yun admitted honestly. “From here, I can ride the wind down the slope without getting hurt. But if my master catches me, I’ll get beaten half to death.”
Foxy rubbed her chin and added from the side, “That’s pretty slow. Back home, kids your age already know sword flight. If their parents sign them up early, they get there even faster. Some even start practicing children’s flying swords in the second half of preschool—”
“Don’t compare your hometown’s freaky situation to this place,” Irene shot her a look. “Your hometown has planets running around the world.”
Xuan Yun listened in growing disbelief, then finally stared at Yu Sheng in confusion. “Immortal Elder… what are you even talking about?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Yu Sheng said, laughing, and waved him off. “All right. You’ve done your part bringing us here. Go back and report to your master.”
“Oh! Okay!”
Xuan Yun turned and sprinted down the stone steps, disappearing in a flash.
Yu Sheng faced the endless clouds again. Peaks floated in and out of the mist like half-remembered paintings. “This view is incredible.”
Irene jabbed a finger into the back of his head. “You’re a writer, and after holding it in that long, that’s all you can say?”
“I’m going back to basics,” Yu Sheng said lightly.
He set Irene down, walked to the side of the terrace near the mountain wall, and paced as if he were measuring a room. After picking the best spot, he reached into empty air.
“I’m going to open the house. Just wait here.”
He pushed Door Opening—and stepped through.
In an instant, Yu Sheng was back in the living room of Wu Tong Road 66.
He stood there and blinked. Even though it was his own ability, the shift still felt unreal—especially with the familiar street framed in the window: low old houses nearby, a forest of high-rises on the far skyline, and the Special Operations Bureau “outpost” at the intersection, disguised as a courier station.
“Oh, crap. I forgot to warn the on-duty people again.”
Yu Sheng slapped a hand to his forehead, finally remembering what he’d left undone before. He turned toward the living room, where an Irene was lounging in front of the TV, and called out, “I’m going to tell the agent at the courier pickup point that we’re relocating for a while. Tell Foxy and Luna to wait for me!”
The answer didn’t come from the couch. It came from the dining room.
An Irene was camped behind a laptop, waging keyboard war against the world. Without looking up, she waved impatiently. “Got it, got it. I knew you definitely didn’t report it to them…”
That was what it was like when there were too many Irenes. Take one out, and there were still several at home. Speak to one, and an answer might come from the side; if you weren’t paying attention, the little things would wriggle into every corner. It always left Yu Sheng with the unsettling feeling that life had developed a bug.
He relied on sheer broad-mindedness to adapt to all the wrongness Irene’s multiplication brought.
After telling the Irene inside not to run around, Yu Sheng pushed the door open and headed toward the courier station the bureau had set up near his front door.
And there, stepping out as if they were about to start cleaning, were two familiar faces.
One was Li Lin. The other was Zheng Zhi.
Yu Sheng could guess why Li Lin was here. Zheng Zhi, though, was completely beyond his expectations.
“Why are you two here?!” Yu Sheng blurted, staring.
Li Lin grinned the moment he saw him and hurried to explain. “Hey, Brother Yu. The two people stationed here were temporary, right? They went back. From now on, I’m officially taking over this contact point. Captain Song said I’m familiar with you and I know the old quarter, so he handed it to me.”
Yu Sheng blinked, then turned his gaze to Zheng Zhi. “And you?”
Zheng Zhi rubbed his nose and smiled awkwardly. “…I joined the Special Operations Bureau.”
Yu Sheng froze, then stared harder, like he expected the sentence to fix itself if he waited. “You? You joined the Special Operations Bureau? With your constitution, you joined the Special Operations Bureau?”
Zheng Zhi kept rubbing his nose and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then what are you supposed to do?” Yu Sheng asked, still stunned. “Be a detector? Do you not know you’re high-sensitivity, low-stability?”
“It’s because of that,” Zheng Zhi said with a helpless sigh. “After the Mistbound City thing—and the Dark Angels incident before that—the bureau noticed my situation. Two experts came and ran an official test. The result was…”
He hesitated, and Li Lin smoothly picked it up for him. “Sensitivity was too high.”
Yu Sheng fell silent.
“Honestly, even under normal circumstances, once an ordinary person gets dragged into an otherworld incident, it’s hard to go back to being completely normal,” Li Lin continued. “One path is medication and training—enough to keep daily life stable. The other is switching careers: becoming a spirit realm detective, an investigator, or just joining the bureau outright. Generally speaking, the more sensitive your spirituality is, the more suited you are for the second path. Zheng Zhi is exactly that kind of person. How do I put it… if this were a horror movie, when the opening scene is still totally normal, he’d already be seeing the hidden evil spirit that won’t show up until the sequel. Plus the post-credits cameo.”
Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched as he took that in. He looked at Big Nephew with a sympathy that made Zheng Zhi’s smile turn even more strained.
“Being an ordinary person is basically impossible now,” Zheng Zhi said. “Like the experts said, spiritual sensitivity can’t be lowered. It only gets higher the more you come into contact with abnormal things. So there’s only one route left—build up the ability to fight the weird. Either you can hide, or you can fight. And I’ve got zero experience, and my combat talent is pretty trash. The bureau said if someone like me jumps in halfway and goes straight to being a detective or an investigator, it’s easy to become a year-end cautionary tale. So they assigned me to learn on the job with Brother Li.”
He paused, then added, “Before I came here, I went through basic training, and they did a few small surgeries. They said they implanted some things in my brain—standard bureau loadout—to boost resistance and stuff. Basic self-protection is fine. They also arranged for the two of us to be on duty here because of my situation. They said your side is relatively safe.”
Yu Sheng’s expression grew complicated as he listened. When Zheng Zhi finally finished, Yu Sheng hesitated, then admitted, “So… I was actually coming to tell you this. Something’s come up. I might not be here for a while.”
Li Lin froze. “Huh? You’re going out?”
“…I’m not going out,” Yu Sheng said, tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Wu Tong Road 66 has to leave for a while.”
Li Lin and Zheng Zhi stared at him.
Two normal, sane humans stood there trying to process that sentence. In the end, Li Lin recovered first, remembering the intel he’d gotten during the handover. “Oh. You mean that whole ‘transfer’ situation with Wu Tong Road 66, right? I heard about it. Where are you going? Back to Mistbound City?”
“To Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain,” Yu Sheng said.
Li Lin went completely still.
In that instant, he gained a brand-new understanding of “not going out” and “going out.”
Yu Sheng didn’t explain much. He only said he was going to meet someone—and to look into some cultist-related matters. Once that came out, Li Lin could only sigh and exchange a helpless look with Zheng Zhi.
“Then there’s nothing we can do. Timing is timing,” Li Lin said, shaking his head. “I’ll report to the bureau. But we still have to stay here. Even if Wu Tong Road 66 leaves, this area is still a key defense point.”
“About how long until you’re back?” Zheng Zhi asked, curiosity outweighing his nerves.
“No idea.” Yu Sheng waved it off. “But I can come back anytime. If anything really happens in Boundary City, call me.”
“That’s true.” Li Lin exhaled softly and smiled again. “All right, then. You do your thing. Have a safe trip.”
Yu Sheng said goodbye and headed back to Wu Tong Road 66.
An Irene was sprawled on the armrest of the living room sofa. When she heard the door, she lifted her head. “All settled?”
“All settled,” Yu Sheng said, nodding.
He steadied himself, casually grabbed the doorknob again, and said, “Come on. Let’s go meet up with Foxy and Luna.”
“And me, and me! Why don’t you say you’re coming to meet up with me?” Irene protested.
“…Don’t bug-exploit!”