Chapter 199 – Your Good Friend Yu Sheng Has Brought You a New Assignment

As the illusory door opened, Yu Sheng once again returned to the living room of No. 66 Wutong Road.

The faint sound of a baby’s crying that had been lingering in his ears faded into the distance. The warm, bright lamplight and the familiar sight of home instantly dispelled the oppressive chill brought by the dark forest. Yu Sheng instinctively took a deep breath, easing his somewhat taut nerves.

Hu Li couldn’t help but glance back toward where the door had vanished, looking a bit worried. “Is it really okay to just leave Squirrel there like that?”

“We can’t exactly bring it out,” Yu Sheng shook his head. “Squirrel entered the Black Forest many, many years ago. By now, it’s completely become a part of that forest. Pulling it out rashly—who knows what might happen. But there’s no need to worry either. It’s been living in the forest for all those years. It’ll be fine.”

Eileen also climbed down from Yu Sheng’s shoulder, talking as she went. “That’s true. And I feel like that squirrel seems a lot more relaxed now. Before, it always seemed completely unhinged. It’s still not exactly normal now, but it’s much better than before.”

Yu Sheng gave a soft “mm” and didn’t say anything more, instead lowering his gaze to the Angel’s Umbilical Cord (counterfeit) and the Hunter’s bullet he’d brought back.

After leaving the Black Forest, the umbilical cord—which had briefly shown signs of partial reanimation—had reverted to its original shriveled appearance. Now it lay quietly in its box, still and lifeless.

As for the Hunter’s bullet… Yu Sheng had never ended up seeing the Hunter at all.

It seemed like next time, he’d have to bring Little Red Riding Hood along into the Black Forest. Setting everything else aside, at the very least he needed to exploit the Black Forest’s operating mechanism to trigger “Grandmother Wolf” first—only then would he have a chance of encountering the Hunter.

But then a new question suddenly occurred to Yu Sheng—

If he entered the Black Forest together with Little Red Riding Hood while carrying the “Angel’s Umbilical Cord,” what would happen then?

Would Little Red Riding Hood also be “pulled along” to witness those “primordial memories”? Would she too see the phantom of the original Little Red Riding Hood and the early Black Forest’s appearance? Or were those “echoes of the past” a one-time occurrence? Could they perhaps see “Black Forest memories” from a different time period altogether?

Yu Sheng’s thoughts couldn’t help but wander far afield. He stood there for ages without moving. Seeing this, Eileen went over and headbutted his leg. “Hey, hey! What are you spacing out about now?”

Yu Sheng snapped back to attention with a jolt. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about bringing Little Red Riding Hood into the Black Forest next time. I want to try out whether the ‘Angel’s Umbilical Cord’ has any other effects.”

“Next time is next time. What about now?”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then fished his phone out of his pocket. “First I need to report our newly discovered intel to the Special Operations Bureau—and the Angel’s Umbilical Cord situation too.”

As he spoke, he scrolled through his contacts list, first spotting Li Lin and Xu Jiali. But after a moment’s thought—this matter was significant—he looked to Song Cheng’s name instead. After hesitating for a second or two, he frowned and tapped on a different name. “…No, something like this—I need to go to Baili Qing.”

“She’s a proper Bureau Chief, and all she does every day is take your phone calls,” Eileen couldn’t help but pipe up from the side. “Your harassment frequency is on par with an insurance salesman—honestly, it’s a credit to her composure that she hasn’t cussed you out to your face.”

“This is Twilight Angel-grade intelligence!” Yu Sheng immediately shot the Little Doll a glare. “Intel like this, she’d probably be begging for more—”

He hadn’t noticed the call had already connected. The words had barely left his mouth when Baili Qing’s unusually urgent voice suddenly came through his ear: “What intelligence?!”

“Uh, ahem,” Yu Sheng cleared his throat twice and hurriedly gathered his thoughts. “Twilight Angel—regarding An-Ka-Ai-La. It’s a long story, but basically, my investigation has made some new progress—and I also need to ask you to help me find some materials, which is why I’m calling.”

“…Give me a general overview first so I can make arrangements.”

“It starts from when I obtained an ‘Angel’s Umbilical Cord’…”

Yu Sheng had barely gotten through the opening when the sound of a sharp intake of breath came through the receiver.

“We’ll talk in person.” Baili Qing said, crisp and decisive.

The next second, Baili Qing looked up at Yu Sheng as he pushed open the door to her office, found himself a seat, and sat down of his own accord. She watched as he nodded toward her. “Sure. In person it is.”

Even the Bureau Chief—a woman renowned for her iron-clad poker face—had a somewhat stunned expression at that moment.

After holding it in for several seconds, she finally managed: “…Did you file a check-in?”

“Filed it,” Yu Sheng waved his phone. “Your phones work pretty well.”

“…Good that you filed it,” Baili Qing nodded with a peculiar expression, then glanced behind Yu Sheng. “Those two—Eileen and Hu Li—they didn’t come with you this time?”

“I’m just popping over for a quick chat. No need to drag everyone along every single time,” Yu Sheng waved dismissively. “Besides, your place is pretty close now.”

Baili Qing was silent for a moment, then slowly drew in a breath. “Fair enough. So tell me—what’s the story with the ‘Angel’s Umbilical Cord’? Did you bring it?”

“Got it right here. I know you people would definitely be interested,” Yu Sheng didn’t beat around the bush. He walked right over and placed the wooden box on Baili Qing’s desk. “You can do some basic research on it, take small samples if you need to, but you can’t damage its overall integrity. And I’m taking it with me when I leave—this thing still has important uses for me.”

Baili Qing watched Yu Sheng just “clunk” a wooden box containing an Angel’s Umbilical Cord onto her desk. Her eyebrow twitched with the faintest of movements. Then, carefully, she opened the lid of the box and examined the “contents” inside with her faded-looking eyes, observing with great caution.

Behind her, in the air, a pair of eyes also seemed to faintly materialize, peering at the object in the box alongside her with curiosity.

Hearing Yu Sheng say “still has important uses,” Baili Qing finally pulled her gaze away from the box. She looked up at Yu Sheng with a slightly odd expression. After a long pause, she herself didn’t know what possessed her to blurt out: “…Brew it in liquor?”

Yu Sheng: “…Hey, come on, what is it with all of you?!”

“All?”

Yu Sheng’s eyebrows were practically knotted together. “Eileen said the same thing!”

Baili Qing: “…”

The Bureau Chief said nothing for a moment, then in the next second swiftly readjusted her composure and expression.

“I’ll have the dispatch center send a retrieval team over right now,” she said with a perfectly serious face. “The lab will run a quick analysis on it. Don’t worry, we’ll follow your requirements—afterward, you can take it back anytime.”

Yu Sheng nodded in agreement.

The “retrieval team” Baili Qing mentioned arrived fast. It seemed there were many such action teams stationed throughout the building on standby, ready at a moment’s notice to head to various floors to contain and handle “hazardous objects” that popped up from who-knows-where. In just a few minutes, heavy, rapid footsteps echoed from the corridor, and then several tall figures wearing the same heavy-duty protective suits Yu Sheng had seen in the analysis lab last time appeared in the office.

These people—armored head to toe like Terminator exoskeletons, their faces completely hidden behind heavy visors—took the Angel’s Umbilical Cord away in a specialized container. Only after they had left did Baili Qing turn her attention back to Yu Sheng.

“Let me start with the materials I need—the search criteria are rather vague, so it may take a lot of time to find them,” Yu Sheng spoke up immediately. “First, regarding the ‘orphanage’ where Little Red Riding Hood was—around the time of the first ‘Fairy Tale’ Otherworld outbreak, or even earlier than that, I want to know if there are any reports of a ‘falling object,’ an ‘impact,’ or ‘visual and auditory hallucinations.’ The general description would be a glowing ellipsoidal object falling from the sky, the descent being silent, and the glowing object ultimately vanishing without a trace. I want to know if there are any eyewitness accounts matching that description.

“Additionally, during that same time period, was any abnormal… ‘signal’ detected at or near that orphanage? I’m not sure how to describe it exactly—basically, omens of an angel’s descent. What I mean is, An-Ka-Ai-La may have descended at that time—but its descent was interrupted partway through. So the Special Operations Bureau very likely recorded some trace evidence at the time without realizing what it was.”

Baili Qing listened with a grave expression. Every piece of information Yu Sheng laid out made her realize just how serious this matter was. Several times she wanted to interject but forcibly held back the impulse. Only now did she finally speak up: “Wait—you’re saying An-Ka-Ai-La had already descended back then—it’s just that the descent process was interrupted? Interrupted by what?”

“By a child, using a fairy tale book—I know that sounds a bit hard to believe, so I think the more significant factor was that ‘An-Ka-Ai-La’ itself was already in a very unusual state at the time, and the child who offered up the fairy tale book merely gave an inadvertent push at that critical tipping point.

“Which brings me to the other set of materials I need you to help investigate: the records of missing children at that orphanage.

“Also before the first ‘Fairy Tale’ Otherworld outbreak—there should have been a child who went missing from that orphanage, and a fairy tale book that vanished along with them.”

Baili Qing opened the computer on her desk, rapidly typing up directives to send to subordinate departments. But she also glanced up at Yu Sheng, offering a heads-up: “I should warn you in advance—these materials won’t be easy to find. Especially the missing child and fairy tale book you mentioned. Operation ‘Adulthood’ took place seventy years ago, the first ‘Fairy Tale’ outbreak was roughly eighty years ago, and the events you’re describing—those were even earlier than that.

“The technology and institutional systems back then were nowhere near as advanced or thorough as today’s. And that orphanage… its management was rather chaotic.”

Yu Sheng had expected this would be difficult, but hearing Baili Qing’s words still made him frown. “Chaotic to the point where even if a child went missing, there might not necessarily be a record of it?”

“In theory, it shouldn’t be that bad,” Baili Qing’s hands paused briefly, and then she let out a soft breath. “In any case—let’s hope everything goes smoothly.”

(End of Chapter)