Chapter 71 – Learning More

Chapter 71 – Learning More

Yu Sheng had no idea why the woman across from him—the self-proclaimed Bureau Chief of the Special Operations Bureau—had suddenly frozen. He simply studied her with some curiosity, and when she didn’t speak, he took the initiative to start the conversation: “You know, your Bureau really rolls out the red carpet when ‘contacting’ people of interest. I figured Li Lin and his team would be the ones meeting me—didn’t expect to be seeing the Bureau Chief directly. Is it always like this?”

Baili Qing quickly recovered her usual composure upon hearing this. “No. Only when the situation is special.”

“When the situation is special?”

“For instance, when someone who has been living long-term in the Otherworld has somehow been living in the Borderland as an ‘ordinary person’ for over twenty years… a ‘peculiar individual,'” Baili Qing said, looking into Yu Sheng’s eyes. “My apologies—I hope you don’t mind me using that term to describe you.”

“Uh, I don’t really mind, but am I really that strange in your eyes?” Yu Sheng felt a bit awkward. “Judging from Li Lin and Xu Jiali’s reactions earlier too, my living situation really seemed to surprise them. Though I suppose it’s not hard to understand why.”

“Perhaps you haven’t noticed it yourself,” Baili Qing sighed, “but a great many people in the Special Operations Bureau have been monitoring your movements. Just in the past few days alone… a large number of operatives have been busy because of you.”

Yu Sheng opened his mouth: “…Huh?”

Baili Qing looked at him. “You have the ability to open ‘Doors,’ correct?”

“Ah, yeah,” Yu Sheng nodded, reaching out and grabbing at the empty air beside him. A door materialized out of thin air next to him. “Li Lin and I used this thing to get back—”

Before he could finish, the woman across from him suddenly raised her hand. “No need for a demonstration!”

It was rare for the perpetually calm and detached Baili Qing to be this agitated.

Yu Sheng sheepishly released his grip on the door handle. Seeing her reaction, he vaguely understood: “So, uh… judging by that reaction, me opening doors affects you guys?”

“When you open a door, the entire Borderland detects spacetime tremors of unknown origin,” Baili Qing said bluntly. “The staff responsible for monitoring have had a lot of complaints recently—you really didn’t notice at all?”

Yu Sheng’s expression went blank, and his eyes gradually took on a peculiar look. After a long pause, he shook his head with an odd expression: “I didn’t feel a thing… So opening a door actually affects the entire Borderland? Does that mean I shouldn’t use this ability anymore?”

He was clearly reluctant as he said this. After all, Door Opening was genuinely useful. He had only recently grown familiar with the ability and tasted its convenience, and now people from the Special Operations Bureau were suddenly showing up to tell him it was a public nuisance… that was a bit hard to swallow.

But judging by the Bureau Chief’s attitude, the degree to which his door-opening “disturbed the peace” seemed… actually quite significant. That was a little embarrassing.

Baili Qing naturally picked up on Yu Sheng’s feelings. After a moment of thought, she shook her head. “I’m only making a suggestion. I hope you can try to control the frequency of your Door Opening in the future. At the very least… don’t open over a hundred rifts in a single night like you did before, or at least give us advance notice. After all, this is your ability, and it doesn’t actually cause any substantive damage to the Borderland. In principle, we cannot directly prohibit such behavior—provided, of course, that you’re willing to cooperate with us on some registration under a legitimate identity. On our end, we’ll also make some technical adjustments to our monitoring systems to accommodate your ability.”

Yu Sheng was somewhat surprised.

The Bureau Chief before him looked cold and stern, giving off the impression that she’d be very difficult to deal with. He hadn’t expected her to actually be so… reasonable.

The “opening over a hundred rifts in a single night” she mentioned—Yu Sheng immediately knew what she was referring to. At the time, he truly hadn’t felt anything, but even just imagining it now, he could picture just how much of a commotion he’d actually caused that night. And despite all that, this “Bureau Chief Baili Qing” was still willing to negotiate with him in a calm and amicable manner, even coming in person to discuss it…

Yu Sheng was no naive teenager. He understood perfectly well what an enormous gesture of goodwill this was from an “official” standpoint.

This willingness to talk things out even caught him off guard—he’d already been mentally preparing to lock horns with the Special Operations Bureau the moment Baili Qing brought up the “public disturbance” issue, but before he could even throw a punch, the cotton had already been pressed against his face.

He actually felt a little embarrassed. “Well, that’s easy enough. Registration is no problem at all… But I have a few questions. Could you answer them first?”

Baili Qing nodded. “Of course. What would you like to know?”

“First—what exactly is your ‘Special Operations Bureau’?” Yu Sheng immediately organized the questions he’d long been keeping to himself and spoke with a serious expression. “What’s its nature? How broad is its jurisdiction?”

“Is that all you’re curious about?” Baili Qing seemed somewhat surprised by Yu Sheng’s focus, but quickly began to explain. “The Special Operations Bureau—its full name is the ‘Bureau of Special Security and Operational Support’—is a department directly managed by the Borderland’s highest governing body, the Council. It is also the highest-level official department in the Borderland responsible for handling ‘extraordinary events’ involving the Otherworld, entities, anomalies, and the like. If you divided the Borderland into ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ sides, you could think of us as the highest authority on the ‘unnatural’ side.

“However, our scope of operations—or jurisdiction—is not limited to the Borderland. I’m not sure whether you’re already aware of the Borderland’s special nature…”

Baili Qing paused, watching Yu Sheng’s eyes.

“The Borderland’s special nature…” Yu Sheng furrowed his brow, immediately recalling the various pieces of intelligence he’d learned from Eileen, as well as something he’d realized when opening those Doors that led to distant places—

This world had far more than just one Borderland. Beyond this peculiar “City,” there existed countless “distant places.”

“I know a bit about it,” Yu Sheng said while thinking. “Judging by its name, it seems to be connected to many places? They say all sorts of strange things exist here, just hidden beneath the surface of ‘normalcy’…”

“Concealing those things that exceed common sense and exceed the Borderland’s ‘baseline,’ ensuring this city operates and develops according to ‘standard parameters’—that is one of the Special Operations Bureau’s responsibilities,” Baili Qing nodded lightly. “Just as you understand it, this place is connected to many locations, and the number and breadth of those connections… exceeds anyone’s imagination. You can picture the entire world as a vast ‘web’ woven from countless transit lines. These ‘transit routes’ don’t exist in the physical dimension, and ordinary people cannot perceive them. But on the ‘unnatural’ side, they intertwine with each other, influencing one another, and there is one place where all routes converge…

“That is the Borderland.”

Baili Qing paused briefly, confirming that Yu Sheng could fully comprehend all of this before continuing.

“The Special Operations Bureau’s work has two aspects. First, within the Borderland, we maintain the boundary between the ‘natural’ and the ‘unnatural,’ ensuring order on the ‘unnatural’ side. Second, we deal with threats that spread through the ‘transit network’—everything directed at this ‘nexus point’—regardless of whether they come from right next door or from deep space thirty-six billion light-years away.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes went wide. Several seconds passed before he managed to utter: “…Isn’t the gap between those two distances a bit extreme?”

“Given the Borderland’s special properties, those distances are the same,” Baili Qing said with a perfectly calm expression, raising her hand to point at Yu Sheng. “Isn’t it the same for you?”

Yu Sheng startled, then quickly grasped what she meant.

“Among those hundred-plus rifts, the ones pointing to locations tens of billions of light-years away numbered no fewer than double digits,” Baili Qing said flatly.

Yu Sheng said nothing.

His expression was composed, but his thoughts churned inside.

In truth, he wasn’t surprised. When those Doors had opened, he’d already suspected as much—just how far away were those distant landscapes? He had no definitive answer, but while excitedly discussing them with Eileen, he’d felt that… some of them were probably as far as his imagination could reach.

The number he’d just heard from Baili Qing merely felt like a sudden “footnote” appended to what he’d imagined in that moment.

What truly astonished Yu Sheng was the Special Operations Bureau’s “coverage area.” He’d met Li Lin—an “operative” who’d stocked up on instant noodles alongside him at the supermarket, and who’d disguised himself as some young guy squatting on the roadside scrolling through short videos while conducting surveillance (he’d finally put two and two together by now). Even being generous, the guy gave off the vibe of a neighborhood beat cop at best. To suddenly learn that the organization behind someone like that had a backdrop involving the stars and the sea… that was genuinely hard to picture.

But after hesitating for a long while, Yu Sheng couldn’t bring himself to share this particular sentiment with the “Bureau Chief” in front of him.

Mainly because he was worried it might hurt Li Lin’s career prospects…

With Yu Sheng staying silent, Baili Qing didn’t speak either, and the two of them fell into a brief silence.

It wasn’t until half a minute had passed that Baili Qing took the initiative to break the quiet. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask?”

“Yes,” Yu Sheng immediately swept away the scattered thoughts in his mind and organized his words before speaking. “Next question—is the Boundary City… the only one?”

(End of Chapter)