Chapter 200 – Materials

Chapter 200 – Materials

Only after Baili Qing had dispatched her arrangements did Yu Sheng begin to relay the details of his investigation to the female Bureau Chief before him.

This included how Old Zheng had likely obtained that “Angel’s Umbilical Cord,” the “unsuccessful descent” that had occurred long ago, the fairy tale book that had been given away, and An-Ka-Ai-La’s probable current state.

Even Baili Qing’s steel-plated expressionless face found it difficult to maintain its composure from start to finish in the face of this barrage of intelligence.

She furrowed her brow tightly, and when she heard Yu Sheng recount Squirrel’s memories, she finally couldn’t help but interrupt: “You’re saying that a child living in an orphanage, who had never received any spiritual aptitude development, directly heard the voice of a Twilight Angel, even established communication with it — and remained mentally sound throughout the entire process?”

“At least Squirrel believes so,” Yu Sheng nodded. “We can’t rule out the possibility that it was actually experiencing auditory hallucinations induced by the angel’s influence, but the fairy tale book it passed along is definitely connected to the current Fairy Tale Otherworld. That book’s influence on An-Ka-Ai-La genuinely exists.”

“A single fairy tale book influenced the process of an angel’s descent — even hearing it from your own mouth, I still find it hard to believe,” Baili Qing said slowly. “But if it’s true, then perhaps it demonstrates that the Twilight Angels aren’t actually as ‘invulnerable’ as we imagined. Or at the very least, during the early stages of a first descent, their ‘operation’ is actually quite fragile — susceptible to influence through certain methods…”

She paused for a moment, then spoke again as if lost in thought: “What’s even more astonishing is another point. If the intelligence provided by that Squirrel is accurate, then that An-Ka-Ai-La actually possesses rationality. This overturns everything we thought we knew about Twilight Angels.”

In this world, a rational, communicable Twilight Angel had never appeared before. So much so that many scholars had even treated them as a kind of “natural disaster.” Without Baili Qing needing to remind him, Yu Sheng already knew just how massive a shock the intelligence he’d brought would deliver to those who studied the phenomenon of angel descents.

After a while, the topic circled back to the Fairy Tale Otherworld itself.

“According to Squirrel, this ‘stage’ known as the Black Forest has been in a constant state of growth and change. Each generation of Little Red Riding Hood brought new ‘things’ and even ‘rules’ to the forest. The overall pattern strongly resembles the process of a ‘story’ being gradually built and refined from an outline,” Yu Sheng said, thinking as he spoke. “First came the most fundamental worldview and ‘world map,’ then the introduction of characters and items, followed by connections between story elements… I think this reflects the dynamic nature of the Fairy Tale.

“On the other hand, based on the situation with Snow White and the seven… er, Thunder Titans, as well as the ‘Grandmother Wolf’ situation that Xiaoxiao faced earlier, we can also confirm that the Fairy Tale’s subsets possess another aspect of dynamic nature — namely, each ‘main character’ causes the ‘subset’ to generate a corresponding ‘distorted copy.’ When two Little Red Riding Hoods of clearly different strengths appear simultaneously, the Black Forest even generates two different ‘versions’ of Grandmother Wolf.

“All of this is just as the first-generation Little Red Riding Hood said in her final words: ‘This forest is alive.’ And in truth, it’s not just the Black Forest that’s alive — the entire Fairy Tale is alive, and it exhibits an extremely high degree of ‘interactivity’ with the individual ‘characters’ trapped within it.

“This point may help us understand An-Ka-Ai-La’s current state.”

Baili Qing listened thoughtfully, then suddenly murmured as if talking to herself: “It’s still ‘reading’ that book.”

“Yes, it’s still ‘reading’ that book, and attempting to ‘understand’ it. But clearly, the Twilight Angel’s process of ‘understanding’ is entirely different from human reason and cognitive patterns,” Yu Sheng nodded gently. “On the other hand, the Fairy Tale as an Otherworld — its form of existence, its manner of birth, and its ‘connected state’ with An-Ka-Ai-La — is also completely different from what we previously understood.

“As a ‘cage,’ it was actually ‘woven’ by An-Ka-Ai-La itself. The entire Fairy Tale was most likely constructed upon that Twilight Angel’s ‘body,’ as if it were some kind of…”

Yu Sheng frowned slightly, searching for a more fitting word. After a moment, he continued: “As if it were some kind of ‘shell.'”

“So the Deep-Dive Squad that met with disaster back then most likely accidentally made contact with An-Ka-Ai-La’s true form while boring through the Fairy Tale’s outer shell,” Baili Qing immediately made the connection. “Then those ‘corpses’ mentioned in the operation records — the ones that suddenly staggered to their feet after the facility was sealed…”

“Were probably An-Ka-Ai-La ‘leaking’ into the Real World,” Yu Sheng tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Count yourself fortunate. Looking at it now, that ‘leak’ back then was apparently unconscious — An-Ka-Ai-La never truly awakened.”

Baili Qing didn’t speak for a moment. Her faded-looking eyes merely flickered faintly, and beyond the broad floor-to-ceiling window behind her, that pair of hazy, blurred eyes quietly materialized.

A mechanical, detached voice sounded in her mind: “Who would have thought — after seventy years, the operation records from back then could still be updated.”

Yu Sheng had already noticed those eyes a moment ago, but since he already knew this was Baili Qing’s sister, he showed no surprise. He simply smiled and waved at her as a greeting.

Those eyes blinked, seemingly a bit flustered — probably still not used to being casually discovered by an “outsider.” She had momentarily forgotten that she wasn’t actually invisible in front of Yu Sheng…

Just then, the phone on the oval office desk suddenly rang.

Baili Qing picked up the phone and listened for a few moments, then nodded: “Good. Send them up directly.”

She hung up, her expression finally relaxing slightly, and looked up at Yu Sheng: “They found the orphanage records from back then.”

Yu Sheng was somewhat surprised: “That fast?”

A faint smile appeared on Baili Qing’s face: “Smoother than expected. Although the records are from nearly a century ago, they were indeed filed in the Council’s archives — the Special Operations Bureau and the Council’s archive systems have a coordinated access mechanism.”

Moments later, the duty secretary knocked on the office door and delivered several freshly printed and organized documents to Baili Qing’s desk.

Yu Sheng immediately leaned in, poring over the files alongside Baili Qing.

A photograph quickly caught his eye.

It was a child who appeared to be seven or eight years old, wearing a dress that looked slightly ill-fitting, standing somewhat nervously in front of a blackboard.

Very thin, a little dark-skinned, with unfashionable braids. Ordinary in every respect — not particularly cute by any measure. Her expression in the photograph was almost wooden — as if a teacher had suddenly told her to stand up on the platform for a photo, and before she could even figure out what was happening, this picture had been taken. Deep in her eyes, there was even a trace of helplessness and fear.

“Went missing before the first Fairy Tale outbreak, at an age where she could independently read a fairy tale book. She’s the only one who matches,” Baili Qing’s voice came from beside him. “That was eighty-six years ago.”

Yu Sheng’s expression was as still as water. He gazed at that photograph for a long time, then saw her name — Zhao Lele.

Even the name was utterly ordinary.

So ordinary that it seemed like it shouldn’t belong in a twisting story — but on a certain night eighty-six years ago, just like the beginning of every story, “that moment” found her.

“She went missing at night. The orphanage filed a police report afterward, but of course nothing came of it. The incident itself left very few records. The only materials remaining about this child are this photograph, along with her age and name at the time of disappearance. As for why she became an orphan, where she came from — nothing at all,” Baili Qing said slowly. “If not for the Council’s regulation that all cases of missing children must be reported and that unsolved cases are never closed, even this photograph probably wouldn’t have survived.”

Yu Sheng silently tucked the file away. Baili Qing saw this but made no move to stop him.

“Additionally, we’re still verifying the situation regarding that ‘fairy tale book’ from back then,” Baili Qing continued. “We have a rough scope now. If we’re lucky, we might even find a surviving copy of the same edition…”

“You can really track that down?” Yu Sheng asked curiously. “Nearly a hundred years ago, a book went missing — would there really be a record of that?”

“There might not be a record of its loss, but it’s possible to find out what books that orphanage had back then,” Baili Qing nodded, then paused briefly. “How many books do you think the children in that orphanage could have had in total?”

Yu Sheng: “…”

“In theory, even if that orphanage’s management was rather lax, it should have had basic asset registration and records of civilian donations. During the brief period when the Special Operations Bureau temporarily took over the orphanage, we also took full custody of these materials and organized them into archives. It’s just that back then, this kind of material typically wouldn’t have had any further indexing system established, so the detailed accounts are hard to look up now. It’ll take manual searching, one record at a time.”

Yu Sheng nodded gently.

“Then I appreciate your efforts.”

“Just doing our job,” Baili Qing said flatly. Then she pointed to the documents on the desk. “Also, these are the various monitoring records that the Special Operations Bureau documented for that orphanage and its surrounding area. Judging from the records alone, there were no abnormal energy eruptions or anything of the sort, nor were there any eyewitness reports of the ‘luminous object falling silently’ that you mentioned.”

“Ah,” Yu Sheng sighed. “That’s about what I expected, though.”

“From an optimistic perspective, the fact that no ‘phenomena’ were recorded is actually the greatest stroke of luck for the Borderland on that night eighty-six years ago,” Baili Qing said with feeling. “A Twilight Angel silently pierced through our world — if the descent had truly occurred, then every single ‘data point’ we would have recorded would probably have been written in the lives of tens of thousands of people.”

(End of Chapter)