Chapter 153 – Two Sets of Notes, One Slip of Paper

Yu Sheng quickly found the two records.

The first thing he saw was a set of notes hastily scribbled by an on-site operator who had been left inside the laboratory. By the time these notes were written, the operation had already spiraled out of control and the laboratory was under lockdown. The notes were chaotic and hurried, with many sections inexplicably blacked out by the writer or deliberately left blank:

“The isolation doors have come down. Alarms are blaring everywhere. Hallucinations and noise are assaulting my mind. I cannot determine how much longer I can remain lucid. I am leaving this final record and will document as completely as possible everything I have seen and felt… but my senses are being compromised, so this record may contain distorted or tampered content. I hope subsequent investigators will exercise careful judgment and treat these words with caution.

“The two Deep-Dive Agents who returned from the deep-dive apparatus are gradually dying. Neither the equipment nor the on-site medical personnel can determine the cause. Their consciousness — or perhaps their ‘souls’ — seems to have been destroyed by something before they returned to reality. What remains are merely two bodies still undergoing biochemical reactions, maintaining activity through sheer inertia, attempting to relay their final intelligence to the outside…

“The one in better condition kept repeating several strange words before he completely lost his voice. He mentioned ‘the crying of an infant’ and ‘umbilical cord’ over and over, as well as ‘slumber’ and ‘distortion.’ He also mentioned another word — it seemed to be ‘ship’ or something similar, but it came out as nearly a scream and was impossible to make out clearly…

“I cannot imagine what they saw or experienced on ‘that side.’ It was clearly something beyond human comprehension. The monitoring systems connected to the deep-dive pool transmitted nothing but noise…

“The temperature around us is dropping, but I cannot confirm whether this is a hallucination. XX (redacted) suddenly lost consciousness, then woke from unconsciousness screaming and shouting, and quickly collapsed to the ground again.

“There are unfamiliar figures moving within my field of vision, conversing with the people around us, conversing with us… I cannot hear them clearly, nor can I make out their faces.

“…I suspect they are actually laboratory staff, but I am rapidly losing my memory of everyone here. Everyone around me looks like a stranger. My memory and judgment have been compromised.

“Noise — like screaming and wailing mixed together, coming from somewhere unknown. A voice is telling me to keep recording all of this, but I can barely hold the pen anymore. My vision is going dark. There is a sickeningly sweet smell in the air. The final rescue attempt may have failed. The ‘Mercy’ system is releasing anesthetic toxins throughout the entire area…

(From this point onward, the handwriting in the original notes rapidly becomes extremely chaotic and illegible, with extensive alterations. Please exercise careful judgment. — Internal Security Division)

“The wailing is growing more distinct. I feel as though my body and consciousness are both sinking… A lullaby has started playing. XX is trying to make us quiet down again… It’s not time yet…

“…Swaying, sinking, losing control. XX said we would awaken in a peaceful and stable new world, but… abandoned, it’s fake, I don’t know…

“Breathing, breathing, crying… We are connected to each other, we embrace one another… Breathing, breathing, we are together… Merging into one… Breathing…”

The first record ended there.

Yu Sheng stared blankly at the chaotic and eerie final lines of this record. Even though this was merely a text copy transcribed from the original notes, he could still feel it — that bone-chilling aura soaked into every word, seeping through paper and seventy years of time to reach him. He imagined that day, imagined the operation spiraling out of control, imagined that sealed laboratory and everything that had happened inside it during those final hours or less. Without realizing it, his breathing had grown heavy.

“This isn’t actually the only document left behind from inside the laboratory,” Baili Qing’s voice came from beside him, interrupting Yu Sheng’s thoughts. “Other staff members who were on-site and temporarily survived left behind other traces or ‘records,’ but those traces are even more insane and chaotic, completely indecipherable. If you’re interested, you can flip straight to the last page.”

Yu Sheng immediately turned to the end of the file. A series of on-site photographs and stark black-and-white rubbings filled his vision.

Eerie scratches carved into desks and walls. Abstract symbols on paper that had been scrawled over so many times they were reduced to little more than blobs of black ink. Strange lines written on clothing that were impossible to identify as either text or abstract shapes. It was all things of that nature.

Just as Baili Qing had said — completely indecipherable.

If even professional Special Operations Bureau investigators hadn’t been able to analyze any conclusions from these traces after so many years, then he, a layman giving them a cursory glance, certainly wouldn’t glean anything either.

Yu Sheng flipped the file back to where he had been reading and turned his attention to the second record.

It was a set of work notes hastily written by a monitoring officer stationed outside the laboratory. It was short, but its contents were clearly more coherent and comprehensible.

“Lockdown procedures have been initiated. Operation ‘Adulthood’ has failed. My colleagues are consolidating and transferring materials that require emergency preservation per standard procedures. I am leaving this final record of conditions inside the laboratory.

“Forty minutes after lockdown, life signs inside the laboratory began to drop rapidly. Our communications with interior personnel were severed. They may no longer be capable of rational communication with the outside world.

“Fifty minutes. The monitoring system recorded unusual noise. A sound resembling an infant’s wailing echoed through the laboratory, accompanied by other sharp and chaotic sounds that seemed like… roaring. Life signs within the monitored area approached zero. But terrifyingly, some interior personnel who had completely flatlined suddenly began to move under surveillance. Though they moved for only a very brief period, it was already a deeply horrifying sight.

“It was as if something had suddenly burrowed into their dead bodies, driving those empty shells to rise, to walk. They moved stiffly through the laboratory, as if… curiously observing the place.

“Then, those shells collapsed one after another.

“Sixty-five minutes after lockdown, the laboratory gradually fell silent. The eerie noise and roaring faded completely. All personnel life signs disappeared.

“Seventy-two minutes after lockdown, the facility remains sealed per standard safety procedures. The monitored area has fallen into complete silence. All noise and unidentified energy readings have vanished. The Internal Security Division has now assumed control of this area. They plan to open the doors in twenty-four hours — to bring my colleagues home…”

The record ended there.

Yu Sheng remained with his head lowered, still in his reading posture. Several seconds passed before he suddenly drew a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

This was the first time he had seen “operational records” like these. They were more… unsettling than he had imagined.

He raised his head and saw Baili Qing watching him quietly, as though she had been doing so for quite some time.

“This isn’t what I initially expected,” Yu Sheng said after a few seconds of silence, frowning and shaking his head. “I thought I’d be looking at exploration records about the Dark Forest or some other ‘subset’…”

As he spoke, he suddenly understood the advice that Teacher Su had given him earlier — understood why she had specifically urged him to come here and look at the operational records the Special Operations Bureau had left behind from that era.

These materials recorded by operatives seventy years ago… offered a perspective that was indeed entirely different from the intelligence the children at the orphanage had pieced together from experience about Fairy Tale. And the information they revealed far exceeded anything he could have imagined.

Baili Qing, for her part, was not surprised by Yu Sheng’s words.

“Fairy Tale reveals completely different faces to children and to adults. What we recorded here — this is its more dangerous and essential side.”

“Behind the stage…” Yu Sheng suddenly murmured.

Baili Qing’s brow furrowed slightly, as though she had quickly grasped and understood something from those words.

But just as she was about to speak again, an abrupt ringing sound interrupted everyone in the room.

Yu Sheng looked up in surprise, then followed Baili Qing’s gaze and turned to look beside him.

On the other side of that enormous window, a laboratory worker in protective gear was waving in their direction.

Baili Qing swiftly picked up the phone on the desk and held the receiver to her ear. She had barely heard two sentences before an unusual expression appeared on her typically impassive face.

“Confirmed?” she asked rapidly into the receiver.

The worker in the laboratory held the receiver in one hand and nodded emphatically.

Yu Sheng watched in bewilderment and instinctively leaned toward Baili Qing. “What’s going on?”

“…The analysis results for that ‘slip of paper’ are in. They’ve restored it to its original form.” Baili Qing set down the receiver and turned to Yu Sheng, her expression complicated. Then she quickly operated a few controls on the console atop the desk.

The center of the enormous window suddenly lit up, displaying an additional image. At the center of that image was the restored appearance of the “slip of paper.”

Yu Sheng’s mouth slowly fell open as he stared in astonishment at the familiar design on that paper, along with several lines of text.

“This is…”

“An old-format credential for Special Operations Bureau Deep-Dive Agents. But the name has been erased,” Baili Qing said softly. She lowered her gaze, glancing at the file in front of Yu Sheng, then gently turned the pages to the one bearing the roster. “…It belonged to them.”

Yu Sheng drew a sharp breath.

His voice was filled with disbelief: “So you’re saying… the ‘hunters’ in the Dark Forest were the Deep-Dive Agents who carried out Operation ‘Adulthood’?!”

(End of Chapter)