Chapter 207 – Preparations for Speaking with the Dead

Deep within the long-sealed and abandoned underground tunnels, silhouettes of the Black Forest—which should have existed only in nightmares—were reflected on the walls. The moment this situation presented itself, Yu Sheng knew that the wobbling of his Spiritual Intuition hadn’t been an illusion.

Moments later, he had already brought Ailin and Hu Li to the underground tunnel that Little Red Riding Hood had mentioned.

This location was slightly west of the Orphanage’s center, directly beneath the outdoor activity area. The entire tunnel section had been abandoned for many years, and the air carried an obvious smell of mildew.

The lights on the tunnel ceiling appeared somewhat dim, partially obscured by various pipes running along the ceiling that cast uneven shadows. The walls on both sides of the tunnel were mottled and filthy, with large patches of peeling paint. In some places, messy graffiti could be seen—clearly the masterwork of children who occasionally snuck down here to “explore.”

By the time Yu Sheng and his group arrived, the suspicious tree shadows were no longer visible on the walls.

“The photo was taken here,” Little Red Riding Hood pointed at the wall to her left. “The lights in the tunnel suddenly dimmed a little at the time. The quality of the light felt just like the ‘dusk’ in the Black Forest. My instincts told me something was wrong, so I reflexively opened my phone camera—and happened to capture the suspicious tree shadows appearing on the wall. The whole thing only lasted a few seconds before the shadows vanished.”

Yu Sheng frowned and carefully inspected the wall surface, then looked up at the light fixtures between the drainage pipes and the empty spider webs in the corners of the ceiling.

“What’s above here?” he asked casually.

“A corner of the outdoor activity area—according to the original planning documents, before the renovations, this area above was indeed part of the courtyard,” Little Red Riding Hood nodded. “Although we haven’t found any clear ‘traces’ yet, since we’ve already observed anomalous phenomena, this should be the spot where the glowing object that Squirrel saw back then fell.”

Yu Sheng grunted in acknowledgment and looked down at the ground beneath his feet.

“…You’re not thinking of digging downward, are you?” Ailin could tell what he was thinking the moment she saw this gesture, and hurriedly warned from the side, “Let me tell you, this is no joke. Below this is the building’s foundation. Those TV shows where someone digs around in a basement and unearths an evil spirit—that’s just for watching. In reality, if you dig down, you’ll collapse the building first. The Council’s Building Safety Department would get here faster than any evil spirit…”

“I know, I know,” Yu Sheng waved his hand to cut off Little Doll’s nattering. “I do have that much common sense.”

At this, he paused, then added thoughtfully, “And setting aside the foundation issue, digging downward probably wouldn’t accomplish anything anyway… According to Squirrel, the thing that fell ‘merged’ into the earth on the spot. So An-Ka-Ai-La very likely has no physical form at all, or it fell into another dimension. There’d be nothing to dig up.”

“What do you think about what I captured in the photo?” Little Red Riding Hood asked with a frown. “Even though it only lasted a few seconds, for some reason, I felt very… uneasy.”

Yu Sheng didn’t speak for a moment, pondering for a long time before breaking the silence as if talking to himself: “Some kind of ‘leakage’?”

“That doesn’t sound like anything good,” Ailin muttered.

Little Red Riding Hood’s expression was grave. After a moment of contemplation, she suddenly looked down at the Tabby Cat, who was diligently grooming its fur. “King, keep a closer eye on the underground tunnels for a while. If possible, it would be best to station an ‘adventurer squad’ down here—not the tank-healer-DPS composition, the one with three rogues.”

The Tabby Cat immediately let out a sigh, its voice deep and magnetic: “Ahh, life is so cruel to this little kitty…”

“I’ll buy you cat treats.”

“Deal.”

Yu Sheng watched with considerable amazement, gaining a new understanding of how members within the Fairy Tale organization interacted with each other. Just as he was about to take the opportunity to ask this “King Cat” whether it normally needed to go out on missions and how it would communicate and settle accounts with outsiders, a phone ringtone from his pocket suddenly interrupted his train of thought.

He pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen—the caller was none other than Song Cheng.

“I need to take a call,” Yu Sheng quickly waved at the others, took his phone, and walked to one side. “Hello? Yeah, it’s Yu Sheng… What?!”

Every pair of ears in the tunnel instantly perked up—Hu Li’s ears perked up the highest.

A moment later, Yu Sheng hung up the phone and turned around with an odd expression, glancing at the several people who were craning their necks to eavesdrop. “I need to make a trip to the Special Operations Bureau—Ailin, Hu Li, you two come with me.”

Little Red Riding Hood instinctively stepped forward. “What happened?”

“They found the accomplices of those two Angel Cultists from before—but they were all already dead when they were discovered.”

Moments later, Yu Sheng had already led the fox and the doll into Song Cheng’s office.

Song Cheng, for his part, had long grown accustomed to Yu Sheng’s habit of “hanging up and immediately spawning at your doorstep.” He just looked up at the Lodge trio being escorted in by a staff member, then calmly put away the documents on his desk, stood up, and said, “Follow me. I’ll take you directly to see the Angel Cultists’ bodies. I’ll explain the details on the way.”

Yu Sheng led his two followers behind Song Cheng as they began weaving through the Special Operations Bureau headquarters—a building that felt like a space-time labyrinth—once again. He recorded coordinates as they went while listening to Song Cheng explain the current situation.

“After your last ‘interrogation’ of that Angel Cultist, we arranged for specialized personnel to conduct a second surprise interrogation. This time we employed more powerful psychic intervention and hypnosis techniques, and finally managed to pry open that guy’s ‘mouth’…

“From his subconscious, we dug out some leads and finally discovered the hiding place of other Angel Cultists lurking in the city—limited to the ‘An-Ka-Ai-La’ faction, of course. They were hiding near an old factory district, right under the Council’s nose the entire time.

“The arrest operation began this morning. The intelligence was accurate, the location was precise, and everything went according to plan—except that all those cultists were already dead…”

Song Cheng stopped in front of a large white door and gestured for Yu Sheng to enter with him.

Inside was a morgue. Apart from the numerous surveillance devices visible on the ceiling and some strange symbols embedded in the walls, it looked no different from an ordinary morgue.

Of course, there were also several fully armed and heavily armed Special Operations Bureau agents both inside and outside the room—which was rather uncommon for an ordinary morgue.

Yu Sheng walked in curiously, then glanced back at the entrance. Near the door was a posted notice listing precautions for the morgue, such as trying to avoid physical altercations with the deceased and prohibiting the deceased from leaving the room without authorization.

These were all perfectly normal precautions within the Special Operations Bureau. Yu Sheng no longer felt surprised seeing notices like these in this building—after all, this was a place where if you spent more than thirty minutes in the bathroom, a fully armed security team would come to fish you out of the stall…

The Angel Cultists that the arrest team had brought back now lay quietly on several tables in the center of the room—six corpses in total, arranged in neat rows.

“No wounds anywhere on the bodies, and preliminary examination shows no signs of internal injuries or poison ingestion,” Song Cheng continued explaining from beside him. “They were found collapsed in a living room, arranged roughly in a circle. The floor was inscribed with a séance ritual pattern for communicating with ‘An-Ka-Ai-La.’ It was clearly a sacrificial ritual, but the offerings were themselves—without any internal or external injuries, they simply ‘offered’ their lives to their Lord.”

Yu Sheng muttered while examining the pale corpses, “…Self-sacrifice, huh. Really fits the cultist aesthetic.”

Song Cheng shook his head. “No, in fact it’s quite the opposite. Among the Angel Cultists we’ve encountered, ‘self-sacrifice’ is actually a very rare occurrence—most of the time they’re far more inclined to sacrifice others rather than themselves.”

Yu Sheng was taken aback. “Is that so?”

“Because they truly do have a ‘Lord,’ and this ‘Lord’ directly influences their rational thinking,” Song Cheng explained. “Most Angel Cultists have clear ‘objectives.’ Even if those objectives are driven by madness, it still means they have things they must accomplish. Therefore, most Angel Cultists won’t easily give up their lives, unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless they believe their Lord desperately needs them to die right now.”

Listening to Song Cheng’s account delivered in his low voice, Yu Sheng’s frown gradually deepened. He then surveyed the six corpses around him and drew a slow breath.

“I need to have a ‘chat’ with them.”

He said quietly.

Song Cheng of course knew about Yu Sheng’s ability of Speaking with the Dead, so he immediately waved at the armed guards by the morgue door, signaling non-essential personnel to clear the room. He then turned to Yu Sheng with a stern expression: “What ritual materials do you need? The Bureau can provide you with the best conditions. As long as you can make these cultists ‘talk after death,’ just name it.”

Yu Sheng instinctively started to wave it off, about to say that his Speaking with the Dead was purely instinctual and didn’t require any materials at all—but before the words reached his lips, he caught a glimpse of Ailin beside him out of the corner of his eye, and an idea immediately struck him: “Alright then, take this down—”

Song Cheng promptly pulled out his phone and opened his notes app.

“Ritual-grade rose oil, the extra-large bottle. Séance and Alchemy-grade tea powder, the four-jin bulk container kind. And purified incense and crystal dust—prepare plenty of that… Oh, and ritual candles. Since there are six bodies, prepare six bundles…” Yu Sheng spoke while thinking, then glanced at Hu Li out of the corner of his eye and continued, “Also, two roast chickens, eight grilled sausages, twenty lamb skewers, twenty chicken skewers, thirty chicken skin skewers, and two bags of steamed buns…”

Hu Li raised her hand: “A-and grilled mushrooms!”

Yu Sheng nodded. “Right, and twenty skewers of grilled mushrooms.”

Song Cheng silently looked up: “…Nothing to drink?”

“Alcohol is inadvisable during the ritual,” Yu Sheng waved his hand with the air of an otherworldly master. “But you could bring a few cans of cola.”

(End of Chapter)