Chapter 74

Chapter 74: Departure

Hearing Yu Sheng muttering to himself, Bai Li Qing’s expression turned strange for a moment. She didn’t comment. She only continued observing the man across from her with mild curiosity.

Whether she answered questions or helped with small troubles, those were secondary. The most important thing today was the contact itself.

She had dealt with countless entities. She had killed them and exiled them. She had spoken with intelligent anomalies, even cooperated with them. She had deceived them—and been deceived by them.

But never had any entity, no matter how human it looked, talked to her like this, in a situation like this.

The person sitting in front of her even seemed genuinely interested in becoming a spirit realm detective or an investigator.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Bai Li Qing broke the silence. “So, you want…”

“Can I register a group?” Yu Sheng asked, a note of hope in his voice. “I’m not alone. I’ve got two others.”

“You mean the doll named Irene, and the demon fox you brought out of Otherworld?” Bai Li Qing frowned. “But they don’t have legal identities in Borderland yet.”

“Then we’ll get them identification cards first,” Yu Sheng said, thinking fast. Then he paused, suddenly suspicious of his own logic. “Wait—getting them identification cards won’t require having a job first, right? And to register a job you need an identification card, and then you get stuck in a loop?”

Bai Li Qing actually froze. “Of course not. Why would you worry about that?”

“Oh, good.” Yu Sheng laughed awkwardly. “I overthought it.”

“I’ll arrange it,” Bai Li Qing said, apparently taking it at face value. In her mind, she quietly added another line to her observation report on Yu Sheng: possesses a certain sense of humor.

Then she lifted her wrist and glanced at the time. “It’s about time.”

“Ah, you’re leaving?” Yu Sheng stood without thinking. “Then I—”

“Someone will find you soon to handle the necessary registration procedures for you and your two friends,” Bai Li Qing said as she rose. “You only need to fill out a few forms. Keep your phone reachable over the next couple of days.”

Yu Sheng blinked. “Oh… okay.”

Bai Li Qing nodded, but before she left, she seemed to remember something. “Right. One more thing.”

“What?”

“About Nightfall Valley—the Otherworld you dealt with before. Did you go back afterward to check its condition?”

Yu Sheng looked confused. “That valley? I haven’t gone back… did something happen?”

“That’s the problem,” Bai Li Qing said, shaking her head. “The situation is unclear. So if your door can still reach it, go take a look.”

Yu Sheng couldn’t read anything useful in her expression, but he could feel it: this wasn’t as casual as she made it sound.

She’d brought it up at the very end, like an emphasis.

He didn’t want to go back to that eerie valley. He had no interest in dealing with Hunger again. But Bai Li Qing’s tone made him suspect the valley had become something worse than a single entity.

After a moment, he nodded. “All right.”

In the next blink, the cafe stretching endlessly forward and backward collapsed in his sight.

Bai Li Qing vanished into the chain of collapsing scenery. Then, in an instant, the cafe returned to normal. Sound rushed back into Yu Sheng’s ears. The ordinary world snapped into place like a door clicking shut.

It felt like a bizarre dream—except for the faint trace of perfume in the air, proof someone had truly been there.

Yu Sheng exhaled and looked around. No one seemed to have noticed anything strange. Little Red Riding Hood’s thick stack of papers still lay on the table, waiting for him to keep working.

“So she really just shows up and leaves like that…”

Yu Sheng shook his head, muttered under his breath, and sat down again to keep doing homework for a high schooler.

But this time, he couldn’t calm down.

Everything he’d discussed with the director churned in his head like an uncontrolled vortex. A flood of new knowledge about this world roiled restlessly, tangled with expectation and imagination about the future and faraway places.

He realized he hadn’t felt this kind of eager anticipation—and the faint nervousness of tomorrow—in many years.

And there was also what Bai Li Qing had mentioned right before leaving.

Nightfall Valley.

What had happened there?

Just then, a voice called from nearby, cutting through his thoughts.

“We’re back!” Little Red Riding Hood sounded pleased. “Yu Sheng, how much have you written?”

Yu Sheng looked up at once—and the first thing he saw was the black-haired young woman standing beside Little Red Riding Hood.

Foxy, dressed in new clothes.

The weather had turned colder. Little Red Riding Hood had bought her a warm white coat and a padded skirt. Simple, but unexpectedly flattering. The furry trim around the collar was both decorative and practical, and it made Yu Sheng think of Foxy’s fluffy ears and tail—the same silver-white, soft and gentle, with a hint of charm.

Foxy stood a little stiffly, eyes blank, as if she still wasn’t used to fitted clothes—or as if the crowded mall full of strangers had overwhelmed her. Only when Yu Sheng waved did she blink like she was waking up, then hurried over carrying several large shopping bags.

“Um… Yu Sheng,” Foxy said nervously, remembering to use his name around strangers. “New clothes. They fit well.”

“You look great,” Yu Sheng said with a smile. Then his gaze dropped to the skirt. “It’s getting colder. Aren’t you cold in that?”

“I made her wear thermal leggings underneath,” Little Red Riding Hood said as she sat beside Yu Sheng and leaned over the papers. “Let me see how much you’ve done… uh. Not that much, huh?”

“Something unexpected happened earlier,” Yu Sheng said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It delayed me for a long time.”

Then he looked between them. “Wait—where’s Irene?”

“Oh, she’s here!” Foxy reacted instantly. She lifted a big shopping bag from the floor and held it out. “We bought too much stuff in the middle. I couldn’t carry her, so I put her in the bag.”

Yu Sheng leaned in and saw Irene inside—lying on a pile of clothes with dull, lifeless eyes.

The entire bag was full of a doll’s resentment.

The resentment was so strong the shopping bag almost felt like a cursed object.

“You okay?” Yu Sheng asked quietly, leaning closer.

Irene’s voice exploded in his head. “Okay my ass! Get me out! I stared at the mall ceiling the whole way, and now I’m staring at the ceiling again! Little Red Riding Hood put her half-finished drink in the bag! She put snacks in the bag too! I fell to the bottom and nobody noticed! I protested the whole way, and this silly fox got dizzy from shopping and ignored me!”

Yu Sheng quickly reached in, lifted the furious doll out, and set her on the chair beside him. He soothed her in his mind for a good while, until the temperature of her anger dropped from boiling to merely scalding.

Little Red Riding Hood flipped through her homework casually. Then she looked up, curiosity sharpening her voice. “What unexpected thing happened?”

Yu Sheng didn’t hide it, only lowered his voice. “A woman suddenly showed up. She said her name is Bai Li Qing, and she’s the director of the Special Operations Bureau.”

Little Red Riding Hood froze mid-page. After two or three seconds, she turned her head stiffly. “…Huh?”

Yu Sheng glanced around and muttered, “Is that really that rare?”

“Director Bai Li Qing! That big shot!” Little Red Riding Hood’s voice pitched upward, but she didn’t dare speak loudly enough to draw attention. “No—why would she come herself? And come to find you in person?! She…”

She stopped, then suddenly looked nervous. “She didn’t think you were dangerous and come to deal with you personally, did she?”

Maybe because she’d spent half the day shopping with Foxy, she sounded far more familiar with Yu Sheng now than she had at first, when her caution had been obvious.

Yu Sheng didn’t comment on the shift. He just recalled his conversation with Bai Li Qing and shook his head. “No. She just came to understand the situation. She asked me a few questions, and I asked her a ton. I feel like she was pretty easy to talk to.”

Little Red Riding Hood looked dazed, like she didn’t trust her own hearing.

Bai Li Qing?

Easy to talk to?

That combination was new.

…

At Special Operations Bureau headquarters, inside an office, a collapse and distortion of light and shadow rippled behind a desk. A pale humanoid outline appeared. Then it solidified, gained faint color, and became Bai Li Qing.

She sat quietly, unmoving for a long time, as if lost in thought.

No one knew how much time passed before she finally lifted her head, reached out, and pressed a button on the desk.

“Notify Song Cheng from Second Unit, and Luo Zheng from the Confidential Management Division,” she said. “Come to my office immediately.”