Chapter 155 – A Land of Nowhere?

By now, Baili Qing had also come to understand just how seductive Yu Sheng’s “let’s give it a try” could be.

This Bureau Chief, who always presented herself as rational and composed, found herself accepting Yu Sheng’s “plan” — which could hardly even be called a plan — after just a few seconds of thought. After all, there was no other approach to take.

“I hope things really can proceed according to your ‘plan,'” Baili Qing adjusted her posture in the chair, regarding the “person” before her with a slightly more relaxed demeanor. “Even if we can’t truly eliminate that Otherworld, at least make it stable and controllable like most of the Otherworlds in Boundary City — Fairy Tale has already caused far too much destruction in the Borderland.”

Then her gaze fell on Hu Li beside him.

“We’ll leave the Fairy Tale matter as settled for now. Next… I’d like to discuss her situation.”

The moment Yu Sheng heard this, his mind went to the hair samples he had previously given Song Cheng, and his expression immediately turned serious. “Did you find anything? Did you find Hu Li’s homeland?”

The fox-spirit girl beside him, who hadn’t really participated in the conversation until now, also perked her ears up at once and instinctively leaned forward.

“No, we didn’t find it,” Baili Qing shook her head, bluntly throwing cold water on them first. “Although we’ve conducted thorough searches among virtually all known clans and factions with official ties to the Borderland, we were unable to find any ‘homeland’ matching her description, and the biological sample search also returned no results — I’m sorry, but that’s the bad news I’ve brought.”

The room fell quiet for a moment. Yu Sheng’s brow furrowed, and he turned to look beside him.

Hu Li’s ears visibly drooped.

Clearly, even though the fox-spirit girl usually said she could barely remember what her homeland looked like and didn’t much care about going back, when the bad news actually arrived, she was still quite dejected.

Yu Sheng reached out and placed his hand on Hu Li’s. She turned her palm over and gripped his fingers with both hands.

“I’m guessing that’s not all you came to tell us?” Yu Sheng let the fox-spirit girl hold onto his fingers as he turned to look Baili Qing in the eyes. “Besides this ‘bad news,’ what else is there?”

“…There are also some questions,” Baili Qing said calmly. “Hu Li, can you describe your homeland in more detail for me? Especially… what your people called the ground beneath your feet, and what you called the prominent celestial bodies in the sky, along with any legends or stories about them.”

“She might not remember much,” Yu Sheng couldn’t help but point out. “She hadn’t even finished elementary school when the incident happened, and there was a long stretch of time after that where she was in a daze.”

“I know,” Baili Qing nodded. “Whatever she remembers, that’s enough.”

Hu Li instinctively glanced at Yu Sheng, and only after he nodded did she organize her thoughts and begin describing to Baili Qing the homeland in her memory.

Many of the things she mentioned were things Yu Sheng had heard before, and had also relayed to the Special Operations Bureau through Li Lin and Xu Jiali’s channels. Baili Qing was more or less already aware of them.

But Baili Qing still listened with great attentiveness, clearly trying her best to extract more details and reference points from Hu Li’s description.

“…We called the planet beneath our feet ‘Hengyu.’ Before the interstellar era, it was also called ‘The Thirteen Continents of Hengyu,’ or just ‘The Thirteen Continents,’ because there were thirteen landmasses in total, including two that had broken free from the planet during the ancient ‘Great Upheaval of Heaven and Earth’ and floated above the equator — those used to be home to monsters called ‘nightmare fiends.’ The textbooks said they were ancient species that were flung into the sky during the Great Upheaval and mutated generation after generation into monsters that attacked the mortal world…

“The immortals said that throughout history, those nightmare fiends had come down from above to harm people many times, and some cultivators who fought them were even written into the history books with their own biographies.

“After the interstellar era arrived, the two floating continents were converted into Immortal Shuttle launch bases, and most of the nightmare fiends were wiped out along the way. The remaining ones became endangered species, and the immortals locked them up in facilities called the ‘Demon-Sealing Palace’ and the ‘Evil-Suppressing Palace’ in Hengyu’s synchronous orbit — you had to buy tickets to go see them.

“After the Celestials came, they built something called a ‘route beacon’ near Hengyu. We went to see it during an organized field trip. It was a very, very large orb of light, and around it were many ‘palaces’ even bigger than the Evil-Suppressing Palace. The immortals said the beacon could help Hengyu keep up with the Celestials’ ‘Star River,’ and that without the beacon, Hengyu would drift off course and eventually fall out of the Star River’s route, ending up stranded in the vacuum of space…

“The route beacon was the brightest thing near us — well, aside from the sun. The sun was also something the Celestials helped tow away for us…”

Hu Li recalled carefully as she described her homeland to Baili Qing in her own understanding. Gradually, new details emerged in her description — things she might have only recently remembered. But these new details were just as jumbled as everything else, so much so that even with Yu Sheng’s imagination and comprehension, he had to think hard just to barely keep up with her account.

Eileen had given up halfway through. Seeing that both Yu Sheng and Baili Qing were listening intently, she couldn’t help but poke Yu Sheng’s arm. “Hey, you can actually understand this? Is the dumb fox even speaking a human language?”

“I’m just pretending to understand,” Yu Sheng swatted away Little Doll’s hand. “You interrupted me and now I’ve lost my train of thought.”

By this point, Hu Li’s account had finally come to a pause. Baili Qing blinked, and it was clear that even this Bureau Chief had been considerably shaken — she sat there stunned for a good six or seven seconds before asking with a slight frown, “You just said… your home planet ‘Hengyu’ has to keep up with the Celestials’ ‘Star River’? And if it can’t keep up, it would end up stranded in the vacuum of space… I’m not sure if I’m understanding correctly, but are you saying your home planet is in some kind of ‘navigating’ state?”

Hu Li nodded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Yes!”

“Even your sun is ‘navigating’? Not orbiting normally through the cosmos, but in some kind of artificial, controlled state of ‘navigation’?”

“Yes!”

Baili Qing fell silent, her head slightly lowered as though lost in deep thought.

Anyone who knew her well would have recognized at a glance that the Bureau Chief had entered an exceedingly rare state of mental blankness.

She stayed like that for quite a while before suddenly looking up again. “Do you remember the specific circumstances of when you crashed into Night-shrouded Valley? What happened at the time, and what did you see or hear?”

She paused briefly, then added, “I know recalling this isn’t pleasant for you, but this information is truly important.”

“Actually… it’s alright. It’s been a long time, after all,” Hu Li said, tilting her head to think for a moment before continuing with some uncertainty. “I was still young at the time, and when the incident happened, the adults were all shielding me, so I didn’t really understand exactly what was going on… I just remember one of the immortals shouted something like, ‘I think we’ve hit a rift,’ and then the Immortal Shuttle started spinning, alarms went off, and also…”

She paused, trying hard to recall, then continued, “Oh right, there was also — later I overheard the adults talking, mentioning that ‘we must have entered a danger zone at some point,’ and ‘there were travel warnings issued recently,’ and ‘the navigation should have been serviced a long time ago.’ It seemed like the Immortal Shuttle’s navigation system had malfunctioned during operation, sending them off in a dangerous direction, and they hit some kind of rift along the way…”

Hu Li scratched her hair at this point. “That’s all I can remember. Anything else… I have no impression of.”

Baili Qing sank into deep thought once more.

Neither Yu Sheng nor Eileen spoke, both curious about the attitude of the Special Operations Bureau Chief before them — from Baili Qing’s last few questions, Yu Sheng had keenly sensed that she very likely already had some kind of hypothesis. Those questions of hers… were clearly highly targeted.

After another long pause, Baili Qing suddenly broke the silence. “The crashed ‘Immortal Shuttle’ you mentioned — is it still in that valley?”

“Yes,” Hu Li nodded. “It’s on the mountainside, wedged into a ravine, half buried in dirt and rocks. Later, when my benefactor intervened, the whole mountain got plowed over again, so the Shuttle’s wreckage is probably buried even deeper now — but that thing is very sturdy. It wouldn’t get crushed.”

“Mm, the main structure is quite intact,” Yu Sheng chimed in. “I checked it from a distance once before, but the terrain in that area is very complicated. When The Hunger consumed itself, it caused severe collapses throughout the whole region. I haven’t had time to clear it out, so I never got around to investigating it closely.”

At this point, he had already caught on. He looked Baili Qing in the eyes. “You want to…”

“Remember what I told you before? If the opportunity arises, the Special Operations Bureau would like to investigate that Night-shrouded Valley,” Baili Qing said earnestly. “I’m making this request to you again now, and if possible, we’d like… to take a look at that vehicle called an ‘Immortal Shuttle.'”

Yu Sheng didn’t respond right away. After a brief pause, Baili Qing continued, “Of course, I know that valley is currently under your control. In a sense, it’s your ‘territory,’ so we’ll offer an appropriate price — whatever demands you have, you can put them forward, as long as they’re within reason.”

Yu Sheng thought it over carefully.

He looked at Hu Li, sitting quietly beside him.

He looked at Baili Qing, whose gaze held a faint trace of expectation.

He looked at Eileen, whose mind was currently wandering off into space… oh, that last one didn’t need looking at.

He let out a soft breath.

“I do have a few requests — there really are some things I need your help with. But first, let me confirm something: does the Special Operations Bureau… have anyone who knows about land reclamation, farming, and livestock raising?”

Baili Qing: “…Huh?”

(End of Chapter)