Chapter 69

Chapter 69: Deep Dive

Yu Sheng had guessed several possibilities for what Little Red Riding Hood might want his help with. Most of them involved the supernatural. After all, even if she looked like a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl, she was still a professional spirit realm detective. Whatever she needed would probably be work-related.

To be honest, Yu Sheng had even been looking forward to it. He dealt with otherworlds too. Treating this as a chance to follow a “little senior” and gain experience didn’t sound bad.

He was only a little nervous. He didn’t know whether he could handle whatever she asked. If it was too hard, he’d have to find a way out without losing face.

Then he sat in a roadside cafe and stared blankly at what she placed in front of him.

A high school math exam packet.

A huge one.

Yu Sheng looked at the packet, then at the short-haired girl across from him. His eyes moved back and forth several times, fully expressing his confusion.

It really was hard. If the answers weren’t printed in the back, this thing would be harder than going into an otherworld to fight monsters. At least with monsters, if you couldn’t kill them, you could die a few more times and drag the corpse through by force.

Math wasn’t like that.

If you didn’t know it, you didn’t know it. Even if you died on the spot and came back to life, you still wouldn’t know it.

Foxy stood off to the side holding Irene, watching with a puzzled expression. She had no idea what was happening either.

“Stay here and copy this whole book for me,” Little Red Riding Hood said calmly. “The answers are in the back. Your handwriting can be messy—as long as it’s filled in.” She tapped the packet like it was a simple chore. “Then I’ll take Foxy to the mall next door to buy clothes. Oh, and you need to give me some cash first. I don’t have much on me. After we’re done shopping, I’ll bring the receipt and we’ll settle it. If there’s extra, I’ll return it. If it’s short, you pay the difference.”

Yu Sheng opened his mouth. After a moment, he managed, “So… the help you want is me doing your homework? Is that… okay?”

“It’s fine.” Little Red Riding Hood looked annoyed as she said it. “I already finished my homework, but it got torn up by an entity, and the teacher didn’t believe me.” When she looked at Yu Sheng again, relief softened her expression into something almost amused. “I came out today to buy a new packet. I was already prepared to stay up all night. I didn’t expect to run into you.”

Yu Sheng made a miserable face. “My handwriting doesn’t match yours. Even if I try to imitate it, it’ll probably be obvious.”

“It’s fine. They won’t look closely when they collect it.” She waved a hand. “At least I’m serious. The first time I did it, I really wrote it myself. Some of my classmates just find someone to do it for them…”

“All right.” Yu Sheng sighed, accepting that the world would never unfold the way he expected. He stood, took out his wallet, handed it to her, then turned to Foxy. “Follow her. If there’s anything you don’t understand, ask her. And take Irene with you. If anything happens, use Irene to contact me.”

Foxy looked uneasy, but after hearing Yu Sheng’s instructions, she nodded.

Little Red Riding Hood took the wallet and froze for a moment. Then she looked up and joked, “You’re just handing me the person and the money. You’re not afraid I’ll run?”

Yu Sheng was already staring down at the packet. He lifted his eyelids. “Are you going to spend your whole life never going near any door again?”

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression tightened. The corner of her mouth twitched. “…That’s kind of scary.”

“This packet is scarier,” Yu Sheng muttered. “I really didn’t expect I’d face high school homework again like this. And when I was in school, I didn’t have this much…”

Little Red Riding Hood immediately grabbed Foxy’s hand and backed away, waving as she retreated. “Then we’re going to buy clothes!”

Foxy froze, then awkwardly waved at Yu Sheng with the hand she could spare—she wanted to wave properly, but her other hand was being dragged along. Even from several meters away, Yu Sheng could see Irene secretly baring her teeth.

…

Passing through layer after layer of isolation doors and secure bulkheads, Song Cheng felt like he was crawling through the belly of a reinforced-concrete beast. After several checkpoints, he finally reached his destination.

At the end of a brightly lit underground corridor stood a heavy alloy gate. Fully armed guards flanked it on both sides. Dense, complex patterns were carved across its surface—stare at them too long, and your eyes started to swim.

Above the gate, a sign glowed a reassuring green:

Deep Dive Zone — D2 Dive Port.

Song Cheng took out his ID and swiped it at the reader labeled Customs Verification. The gate opened, and a slightly warped curtain of light filled the doorway. Through it, he could see a huge hall on the other side: bright, orderly, and packed with large devices arranged neatly like dive tanks.

Each “dive tank” was a three-meter-square container mounted on a complex black-metal base. The container itself was filled with pale blue liquid.

People in white uniforms moved between the tanks, checking equipment and readings.

Song Cheng stepped through the light curtain.

The moment he crossed, a brief wave of weightlessness hit him, followed by dizziness and a few seconds of ringing in his ears. When it faded, a gentle system prompt sounded in his headset:

“Entered the D2 Dive Port. The current deep dive zone is located overall at pa ning-III station. Current average depth in the hall: depth L-1. Environment: stable.”

Song Cheng shook his head to clear the last of the dizziness, then walked straight toward a row of tanks not far away.

A figure was already waiting there—Director Bai Li Qing, wearing a white dress, gray-white hair tied back in a ponytail like a washed-out Rapunzel.

“Director,” Song Cheng said, surprised. “You came in person?”

“It’s a situation we’ve never seen before,” Bai Li Qing replied, turning her colorless eyes toward him. “Your team is ready.”

Song Cheng nodded and looked at the six dive tanks lined up in front of him.

Six fully armed Deep Divers were being lowered into the tanks by mechanical arms. They wore black powered armor. Fully sealed helmets hid their faces, with only dark red displays flickering where a visor should be. Each also carried a miniature reactor backpack to power a mind shield, along with specialized observation and recording equipment.

One by one, the Divers were lowered into the pale blue liquid until they floated in it, suspended and still.

A moment later, a faint hum rose from the black-metal bases beneath the tanks. The sound climbed from low to high.

A broadcast echoed through the hall:

“Configuring the deep sea environment. Personnel, prepare for descent… ‘umbilical cord’ ready. Awaiting manual command.”

A technician monitoring the tanks stared at his readings. A few seconds later, he shouted, “Connect ‘umbilical cord’!”

Several staff in white uniforms stepped forward and began inputting commands into each unit.

The pale blue liquid rippled. At the same time, black metal tubes—like spines—rose from the bottom of the tanks. Dark red light flickered between their segmented plates. They looked almost alive as they extended through the fluid and connected precisely to the chest area of each Deep Diver’s armor.

The broadcast sounded again:

“‘Umbilical cord’ connected. The inducer injection… begin descent.”

Ripples spread. The pale blue liquid seemed to turn into seawater in the blink of an eye—or rather, each tank became a small slice cut from some vast ocean, surging at the same rhythm.

In the next second, all six Deep Divers vanished from view.

Only the “umbilical cords” remained, floating where they had been, bobbing gently in the liquid as if to prove the Divers were still there—just no longer observable from the outside.

Bai Li Qing looked toward Song Cheng. “Do you think this will work? What will they see?”

“The inducer will sink them into the spirit realm,” Song Cheng said, shaking his head. “That works well for certain types of otherworld, especially ones entered through the mind, dreams, or emotions. But Nightfall Valley is special. We still haven’t found a stable way in or out. Even with the inducer, observers only ever see its shadowspawn in hallucinations.”

His expression darkened. “And now that place has mutated. Even Passenger No. 22 doesn’t know the details. I suspect… the Deep Divers will come back empty-handed.”

Bai Li Qing nodded.

Song Cheng was about to say more when a sharp, piercing buzzing suddenly screamed through the air.

“Holy crap! Contamination!” A technician nearly leapt out of his skin and sprinted for the master emergency stop button. “Pull them back!”

The emergency stop slammed down.

A screeching noise erupted from the base of every dive tank. The pale blue liquid drained almost instantly. Bright sparks burst across each “umbilical cord.”

Then—suddenly—the six Deep Divers reappeared, tumbling back into the tanks in a mess, bodies curled inward.

Someone yanked their faceplate open and vomited violently onto the floor. Someone else staggered to the edge of a tank and slammed both fists into the reinforced polymer wall, as if trying to shout something through it.

Song Cheng and Bai Li Qing rushed forward.

“We reached the passage end!” the Deep Diver who’d forced himself upright yelled. Behind the tank’s safety barrier, his voice came out warped and distorted. “The passage end! A beam of light! No Nightfall Valley—none! At the passage end there was only… only… only math problems! It was damn full-length exam questions!”