Chapter 62

Chapter 62: The Ghost Living in the Borderland

Li Lin had never seen the steady, reliable Captain Song wear such a tightly furrowed, on-edge expression.

“So… in the end, that eyeball-shaped dark angel silently left the otherworld it was parasitizing—without trying to contaminate or control anyone, and without leaving any offspring?” Song Cheng listened to the reports from the two Special Operations Bureau agents across from him. After a long silence, he finally spoke. “And throughout the whole process, you didn’t hear anything like higher-dimensional whispers in your mind?”

“No,” Xu Jiali said, voice low. “But it definitely noticed us. For a moment, I could clearly feel that gaze. Its focus fell on where we were hiding. It was like…”

Song Cheng’s frown deepened. “Like what?”

Xu Jiali searched his memory, uncertain. “Like it was searching for something.”

Song Cheng tapped his desk, irritation contained but sharp, and went quiet again.

After another stretch of silence, he let out a long breath and turned to Li Lin. “When you interacted with the man who called himself Yu Sheng, did you sense any heteromorph aura on him? By instinct, did he feel more like a human, or more like… something else?”

“Human,” Li Lin answered at once. “At least in how he spoke, behaved, and dealt with people, he felt human. If he was an entity disguised as a human, then the disguise was too perfect—perfect enough that you could treat him as human.”

“But he’s been living at a wu tong road 66 that doesn’t exist in the real world. It’s an otherworld that never appears in any official record,” Song Cheng said, rubbing at his brow. “Otherworlds only generate entities. They don’t generate… humans.”

Xu Jiali hesitated, then spoke. “There are entities in this world that have reason and can communicate. Some especially friendly ones, or ones that want something from the real world, can even work with humans—like Storyteller and Passenger No. 22. They even look somewhat human…”

“But compared to the Yu Sheng you mentioned, that’s a completely different level of human-likeness.” Song Cheng shook his head and looked at Xu Jiali. “Can you confirm he’s the door opener you saw on aimein-IX?”

“I can confirm it, but he didn’t recognize me at all.” Xu Jiali nodded. “I was equipped with full powered armor and a mental shield. Looks like his perception can’t penetrate that equipment.”

“Limited perception, a strong personality, the ability to open any door at will. He could fight an entity that was drastically strengthened by dark angels, but the exact killing process was unclear… and he seemed to be deliberately hiding his combat method…” Song Cheng summarized, thinking aloud. “And there’s one more point…”

“He’s very friendly toward humans,” Li Lin said.

“Yes.” Song Cheng nodded. “Very friendly. Even willing to proactively approach Special Operations Bureau agents.”

He looked like he was about to continue, but footsteps in the hallway cut him off.

A knock. Then a short young woman with cropped hair pushed the door open, a folder in her arms. “Captain Song, the archives division sent the files over.”

Song Cheng’s eyes widened. “There really is a file on Yu Sheng?!”

“There is. But if you search directly in the system, it shows as canceled. The cancellation date is the day the current Borderland population registry system was established. In other words, this person was gone from the very beginning—even before the birth date in his record. And yet after the cancellation date, his identity record stayed active. The word canceled is like an insignificant watermark in the system display.” She set the folder on his desk, disbelief written all over her face. “You can even find recent shopping transactions, social registrations, and transit records under this identification card—all of it functioning normally, even though the system shows it as canceled.”

Song Cheng snatched up the folder, staring. “With a bug this serious, the system didn’t report it?”

“No. The information center already scheduled overtime tonight. When I passed by, I saw Director Wu letting out a sharp, piercing screech…”

“Let him screech,” Song Cheng muttered. “He screeches a few times every month anyway.”

He flipped through the file.

From start to finish, it looked like a completely ordinary resident profile with ordinary spending records—except for the bright red canceled watermark stamped across every page, and the address wu tong road 66, which should never appear in the system at all.

Song Cheng spun his chair, opened an internal Special Operations Bureau app, typed “wu tong road 66,” and hit Enter.

The screen returned an error.

“A ghost,” he murmured, face dark. “A ghost living in the Borderland, casting an unerasable shadowspawn in our population management system. And he didn’t just show up recently. By his own account, he’s lived in this city for more than twenty years—and the record matches.”

He exhaled hard. “No one noticed. Not even the director. Not until he stepped forward and contacted us himself.”

Li Lin and Xu Jiali exchanged a glance. The same weight sat in both their eyes.

Thank goodness this ghost had no interest in destruction—and had even believed he was an ordinary person all along.

Then Song Cheng’s gaze snagged on a line in the file.

“Writer?” He lifted a brow. “This ghost even has a job?”

“A freelance contributor,” the young woman said. “He submits to small magazines and media accounts. Horror stories or third-rate scripts. Not famous, and lately he’s barely written anything.”

Song Cheng considered. “…So he flopped?”

“He can feed himself,” she answered seriously. “That’s not a flop.”

“…What’s his writing like?”

“There’s a short piece at the end of the file. I pulled it from a magazine last year—I figured you might be interested.”

Song Cheng flipped to the last page and scanned it fast.

The young woman watched him, faint anticipation in her eyes. “How is it?”

Song Cheng went silent, expression pained. “I… don’t really understand young men’s tastes these days.”

He cleared his throat, closed the folder, and forced his face back into something official. “Either way, this is a very important lead. Arrange for people to collect everything Yu Sheng has written. Do a psychological profile and personality assessment, and keep an eye on his future… creative output.

“At the same time, a suspected entity who believes he is human doesn’t just think like a human—he can create like a human. His works will reveal his truer thinking and emotions. This has never happened before. We must take it seriously. But don’t let him notice.”

“Understood, Captain Song.”

The young woman left with the folder. Song Cheng’s gaze returned to Xu Jiali and Li Lin.

“About the space rifts in the Borderland—did you ask him what was going on?”

Li Lin stiffened, then shot a helpless glance at Xu Jiali. Xu Jiali didn’t move. Li Lin swallowed hard. “…I forgot to ask.”

“You forgot that too?!”

“At the time my nerves were overstretched,” Xu Jiali said smoothly, stepping in. “Might’ve been the aftereffects of seeing dark angels. But even though we didn’t ask directly, while we withdrew to the hideout with Yu Sheng’s two companions, we heard some information.”

“You mean that doll and that demon fox?”

“Yes. From what they mentioned, the so-called space rifts seemed to just be… Yu Sheng trying to open a door to rescue the demon fox trapped in the otherworld.”

Song Cheng stared. “…That’s all?”

“It should be all.”

“Just to find a route, opening and closing a few doors, and he shook the entire Borderland into chaos?!”

Xu Jiali’s mouth twitched. “To be fair, it mostly shook the bureau…”

He stopped when he noticed the captain’s expression.

Song Cheng sat behind his desk, glaring as he tried to swallow his anger. After a long while, exhausted in body and mind, he waved them off. “Enough. You two go. This is big. I need to talk it over with the higher-ups.”

Li Lin and Xu Jiali rose. Xu Jiali hesitated, then asked, “Then after this, for formal contact with Yu Sheng… do we still follow procedure?”

“Don’t worry about it for now. This will probably go through the director,” Song Cheng said, voice heavy. “If Yu Sheng really were an ordinary person, I’d just send you two over. But with this situation, it isn’t that simple.

“Go rest—and don’t forget to visit the treatment room first. Do the checkup, fill out the form, then leave. Starting tomorrow, you get three days off.”