Chapter 57

Chapter 57: Making Contact

“I don’t really understand the supernatural side of things,” Yu Sheng said frankly to the trio’s stunned faces. “Otherworlds, entities, all of it. I don’t even know much about anything beyond Boundary City. So I’ve been looking for professionals like you. I want answers.”

Li Lin and Xu Jiali stared at each other, speechless.

Little Red Riding Hood looked Yu Sheng up and down several times. “You mean… you’ve never dealt with otherworlds and entities before?”

“And you only started recently?” she added, disbelief sharpening her tone.

“For the past twenty-something years, I lived a calm, ordinary life,” Yu Sheng said, spreading his hands. “It’s only recently that I started running into this messy stuff. In this area, I’m a complete rookie.”

Xu Jiali’s expression cracked.

Recently? And yet Yu Sheng could pin down and beat up a hunger entity above level three, casually open a door to a wasteland planet millions of light-years away, and come and go from otherworlds like he was stepping through his own front door.

What kind of “rookie” was that?

Was he even human?

He exchanged looks with Li Lin. In a split second, countless thoughts ran through both their minds.

First, they could almost confirm that the spacetime displacement that had thrown the Special Operations Bureau into chaos had to be tied to the man in front of them. The evidence was that door—opened with a casual hand.

Casual.

Second, they absolutely could not be fooled by Yu Sheng calling himself a “rookie.” Whether he truly only recently began dealing with otherworld and entity matters or not, the power he wielded didn’t resemble that of an ordinary person newly touched by the abnormal.

Either the “rookie” claim was fake, or the “ordinary person” identity was fake—or both.

And an ordinary person couldn’t possibly live in a house that was this clearly not normal.

“I want to confirm something,” Li Lin said after hesitating. “Have you always lived here?”

“Yeah,” Yu Sheng said, nodding.

He had no intention of telling outsiders he’d come here from another Boundary City. He simply claimed he’d always lived in this house. After all, he even had an ID card.

“I’ve always lived here.”

Li Lin’s mouth went dry. “Then do you know about this house—”

“I do,” Yu Sheng cut him off, looking innocent and straightforward. “It’s an otherworld. I only found out recently. Before that, I lived here and nothing ever went wrong.”

Li Lin went silent again.

What did he mean, he only found out recently?

What did he mean, nothing ever went wrong before?

What kind of ordinary person was this?

And for all these years, how had the Special Operations Bureau never discovered something was wrong with this spot in the Old Quarter?

“Could I… see your identification card?” Li Lin asked at last, carefully.

He hurriedly fished out a small black booklet and flipped it open. “This is my duty ID.”

Yu Sheng glanced at it. He saw Li Lin’s photo, name, position, and a dense series of numbers and codes he couldn’t make heads or tails of. Still, it looked official.

So he pulled out his own identification card and handed it over.

Li Lin took it. He and Xu Jiali scanned the information quickly.

Their eyes landed on the address field and stayed there, fixed on the black text against white.

Wu Tong Road 66.

“Is something wrong?” Yu Sheng asked, watching the way they both froze.

Li Lin snapped back to himself and handed the card back slowly. He hesitated, then said, “Do you know Wu Tong Road doesn’t have a 66?”

Yu Sheng stared.

Now he finally understood why none of the locksmiths he’d contacted earlier could ever make it to his door.

“We need to go back to the bureau first,” Xu Jiali said, breaking the silence. “Your situation… is special. We need to report to our superiors and coordinate with Archives. Figure out what’s going on.”

“You’re leaving now?” Yu Sheng blinked. “But I still have a ton of questions.”

“We’ll leave contact information,” Xu Jiali said. “And we’ll come back soon for an official ‘contact.’ For someone who has recently come into contact with an otherworld and undergone ‘changes,’ the bureau has formal procedures for contact and registration. Don’t worry—your questions will be answered during that process.”

He pulled out a small card and handed it to Yu Sheng. “My phone number.”

“…Alright,” Yu Sheng said after a moment’s thought.

His main goal had been to connect with professionals in the Borderland who handled otherworld matters. He couldn’t possibly solve everything with a casual chat in the living room. Official contact would take time, but it was still progress.

So he accepted the card and gave them his own number.

He’d had the number as soon as he “arrived” here, but almost no one ever called him—and he had no one he could call, either.

Then his gaze shifted to the girl in the red cloak, who had been standing nearby without speaking.

She didn’t look well. Her exposed right arm seemed to be healing, but fine black lines still crawled across her skin in a way that made Yu Sheng’s stomach tighten.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“It’s a side effect of dealing with wolves,” she said, shaking her head. “Not the first time. I’ll adjust and recover. I need to see a doctor later.” She paused, then looked vaguely annoyed. “Right. I’ll leave my number too… wait. I didn’t bring my phone. I’ll find a pen.”

As she spoke, she patted the small pouch at her waist.

Then her hands froze.

Her expression stiffened, like she’d just realized something horrifying.

Yu Sheng jolted. “What’s wrong?”

Xu Jiali sighed beside him. “An entity tore up her homework.”

The girl turned her head stiffly. Xu Jiali and Li Lin both wore sympathetic expressions.

“We saw it at the start,” Li Lin murmured, “but you didn’t notice. We didn’t want to bring it up. We thought you could be happy a little longer…”

“When have you ever seen me happy?” Little Red Riding Hood snapped. The calm maturity she’d worn like armor on the way here shattered completely, leaving only frantic rage. “When I was being chased through the woods like a dog?! I spent three days—three days—making up those math worksheets!”

Yu Sheng watched, dazed.

More and more, he was realizing these “professionals” had absolutely nothing to do with the image he’d built in his head.

But he didn’t dare say anything. Mainly because she genuinely looked heartbroken.

In the end, she still left him her number.

When she wrote the digits on a scrap of paper, each stroke was so forceful it looked like she wanted to use the pen as a knife—carve the numbers into the corpse of the hunger entity itself.

Yu Sheng watched and felt a chill crawl up his spine.

After that, the trio said goodbye and prepared to leave.

Yu Sheng walked them to the front door. When he opened it, he stood by the frame. “I won’t walk you farther. I still have a lot to deal with here.”

Li Lin looked back into the living room.

He saw the fox girl with her pile of tails sitting on the floor, guarding a heap of food like it was treasure. The Little Doll with broken arms sat on the sofa, watching TV with careless focus.

A strange Wu Tong Road 66. A strange Yu Sheng. And two equally strange “friends.”

Right under the bureau’s nose.

Li Lin knew he’d touched something like a whirlpool. All of this would go into his report with Xu Jiali…

And show up again in all the overtime to come.

He let out a long, weary sigh and stepped through the door.

Cool night air hit his face. The quiet Old Quarter came into view, streetlights glowing warm along the road.

He and Xu Jiali turned back together.

Behind them was only a bare wall covered in chaotic, abstract graffiti.

Xu Jiali stepped forward and touched the wall, then knocked twice.

“…Looks like it’s not here,” the veteran deep diver said softly. “This is just an entrance. It only opens when you’re invited.”

“Do we go back to the bureau first?” Li Lin asked. “Or leave someone here to keep watching?”

Xu Jiali looked at Little Red Riding Hood.

She immediately turned her head away. With her homework destroyed, she clearly wanted no part of overtime.

“I need to find Dr. Lin to handle the aftereffects,” she said, producing the excuse with crisp efficiency. “You two do whatever you want. Leaving someone here or not won’t matter. His abilities are too weird. With what we have right now, we can’t monitor him.”

“…We’ll go back to the bureau first,” Xu Jiali sighed, starting down the street. “There are still people guarding the outer district. We’ll report what happened today. This involves Dark Angels. Even Captain Song won’t be able to decide this alone.”