Chapter 35 – Team Two, a Place of Hidden Dragons and Crouching Tigers

Li Lin was jolted awake from deep sleep by the clamor of his phone’s ringtone, and along with it came a sudden flare of spiritual warning from the depths of his own instincts.

As a Special Operations Bureau agent with outstanding training scores, he was nearly instantaneously aware that something was happening. His whole body snapped to alertness at once, and he launched himself off the bed in his temporary rental like a sprung trap, grabbing his phone from the bedside table with one hand while charging toward the window that faced the street.

“This is Li Lin,” he said quickly after answering, settling in front of the window and training a device fitted with a complex lens assembly on the street below. “What’s happening?”

Song Cheng’s voice came through the receiver at once, unusually grave: “Have you observed anything on your end?”

Li Lin kept one eye on the play of light and shadow refracted through the lens device while sparing a glance at the laptop beside him, which was running automated surveillance. He pulled up the monitoring log and spoke rapidly: “All surveillance data is normal. There was only one minor energy fluctuation around one in the morning — a perfectly normal periodic ‘surge’ from the Borderland…”

“…Xu Jiali has already set out early; he should be reaching you soon,” Song Cheng said in a low voice. “Keep monitoring the block, but even if you observe something, don’t go outside on your own — report it immediately. Remember, do not leave the safehouse alone until Xu Jiali is in position!”

“Ah? Ah, understood, copy that!” Li Lin was momentarily stunned, then quickly agreed, before he couldn’t help but ask, “What exactly is going on?”

“…The Borderland is experiencing large-scale spacetime dislocations and restorations of unknown origin, once every five to ten minutes.”

Song Cheng paid no attention to the exclamation on Li Lin’s end. After hanging up the phone, he drew a deep breath and lifted his gaze toward the enormous screen at the far end of the command hall.

The screen displayed a flat map of the entire Boundary City, and beyond the map there was a three-dimensional structure composed of countless curves and symbols, along with a massive stream of surveillance data and remote monitoring signals refreshing at a frenzied pace.

The vast command hall was ablaze with light. Special Operations Bureau personnel in black uniforms stared intently at screens at various terminals, while people periodically entered and exited through the side doors, relaying updates from other departments or bringing more bad news.

“There were a few minor spacetime dislocation incidents over the past couple of days too, but nothing this large in scale or this frequent,” a female Bureau employee in a black professional skirt muttered behind Song Cheng. “The spacetime structure of the Borderland is unusual — this sort of thing has happened before, so the alert level on those reports was kept low…”

“Looking at it now, it seems more like a probe ahead of some large-scale operation,” another voice drifted over from nearby. “Damn, they’ve officially started… we were careless.”

Just then, a voice rang out from one of the terminals, cutting through the conversation behind Song Cheng: “Rift formation detected! Pointing toward Chawen-12b, still unable to confirm precise coordinates… attempting to trace the source!”

Song Cheng’s brow furrowed deeply. He said nothing, only silently counting numbers in his mind.

Roughly ten seconds later, he heard the follow-up report —

“Rift closed! Source trace failed! Spacetime structure restored!”

Reports like this had already repeated themselves many times in this hall — occurring every few minutes.

The intervals were not perfectly stable, but fell within roughly ten minutes. The duration of each event was similarly imprecise, but never exceeded thirty seconds. It felt deliberate, yet… what was the purpose? And more importantly — who could possibly be doing something this outrageous?!

“Rift formation detected! Pointing toward Bailong-4c, unable to confirm precise coordinates, attempting to trace source…”

“Rift closed! Source trace failed…”

Song Cheng’s brow kept creasing tighter, and at that moment, a faint hum suddenly broke through his thoughts. The next second, a screen beside him lit up.

A woman who appeared to be under thirty, with refined features and a cool, detached air, appeared on the screen.

She wore a white professional skirt, her greyish-white hair tied loosely in a single ponytail behind her head. Her eyes were an unusual greyish-white, almost colorless in their paleness, giving her entire person an impression of… somehow lacking in color.

The instant Song Cheng saw this woman, his back visibly straightened a notch, and the corner of his mouth curved into a somewhat stiff, rueful smile.

“Director,” Song Cheng greeted her. “We are still tracking…”

“What is the current situation?” The grey-haired, grey-eyed woman addressed as the Director cut Song Cheng off, her voice cool and calm.

“Rifts continue to form and disappear at intervals. We are still unable to trace their source, but it can now be basically confirmed that the phenomenon poses no harm to the Borderland itself — the spacetime structure has not been damaged.”

“Not damaged?”

“Correct. Although those rifts were provisionally classified as ‘spacetime dislocations,’ that’s only a surface-level resemblance. What exactly they are… is still hard to say,” Song Cheng said with a wry expression. “Each time one forms, it isn’t actually tearing through spacetime — rather…”

He struggled for a while before finally recalling the description a technical expert had given him earlier, and continued: “The impression it gives is as though it were part of spacetime’s original structure. At the moment a rift forms, it’s as if the Borderland has always had this stable passage leading off into the distance, and when the rift disappears, it’s as if it was never there at all — no impact, no catastrophic collapse, and not a single victim report received up to this point.”

The grey-haired woman listened silently, and a long time passed before she spoke. Song Cheng also said nothing, only patiently waiting.

“That ‘special location’ you had people monitoring earlier — has there been any change?”

“None. Right now it’s the most ‘quiet’ place in all of Boundary City — quiet like a black hole,” Song Cheng sighed. “That’s the most abnormal thing of all. Everyone now knows something is definitely wrong there, but the biggest problem is that no problem can be seen. I’ve already sent Team Two’s best deep-diver over, and on top of that arranged two additional surveillance teams to approach that street from other directions…”

“What do you think this person’s objective is?” the grey-haired woman asked suddenly.

“…Hard to say,” Song Cheng thought it over and spoke carefully. “At first I thought this was some kind of attack, but looking at it now, they’ve just been continuously opening and closing one rift after another. It’s almost been a whole night, and they haven’t even disturbed anyone…”

“Could this be some new form of ‘Twilight Angel’ phenomenon?”

“Probably not. When a Twilight Angel appears, it is invariably accompanied by large-scale loss of control in the Otherworld and widespread damage in the mortal realm — nothing so ‘harmless’ as this,” Song Cheng shook his head immediately. “And there haven’t been any recent reports regarding those angel cultists either. If a new Twilight Angel had truly appeared, that cult wouldn’t be this quiet.”

“If it’s not a Twilight Angel, then that’s a relief.”

“Yes, as long as it’s not a Twilight Angel, we’re fine,” Song Cheng sighed. “But then again, if this is something done by a ‘person,’ then… what kind of ‘person’ could do this? What on earth are they trying to accomplish with all this commotion…”

The second half of that sentence was entirely a murmur to himself. The grey-haired woman on the other side of the screen broke the silence after a few seconds of thought —

“This world is vast, with far too many peoples and ancient individuals we have yet to encounter,” she said softly. Despite her still-youthful face, her words carried an inadvertent undercurrent of weary experience. “And our universe is young — many ‘theorems’ and ‘laws’ have yet to take shape. Learn to adapt, little Song. Our work has never been about dealing with the ‘known.'”

“…I understand.”

The grey-haired woman gave a small nod, then seemed to sense something and suddenly looked up in a certain direction — those pale, almost colorless eyes froze for an instant, and then she quietly broke the silence: “It’s calmed down.”

Song Cheng raised his head and looked out across the hall.

No new rift formation reports came through.

……

A knock came at the door in a specific rhythm. Li Lin stood by the entrance and used his spiritual intuition to confirm the aura outside before stepping half a step to the side and opening the door.

A burly man nearly two meters tall ducked his head and squeezed through the doorway of the rental unit, dragging behind him a massive black case that looked perfectly suited to his height and build.

“This place of yours is really cramped,” the burly man glanced back at Li Lin standing beside the door. “Even smaller than the landing pod I rode in two days ago.”

Li Lin rolled his eyes: “It’s still more spacious than that wreck of a car you drive — you drove it all the way here from the Bureau, so don’t go complaining about my place.”

The burly man chuckled a couple of times, shoved his heavy case over to the wall, and plopped himself down on the living room sofa, letting out a long, contented sigh.

“Well, at least it’s a place fit for a person — this sofa is way more comfortable than the hard rocks and scorching sand on Aymein-IX.”

Li Lin stared at the burly man in front of him with something of a pained expression.

The most outstanding and most senior deep-diver of Special Operations Bureau Team Two — Mr. Xu Jiali.

He never quite got used to dealing with this man.

The main reason for his discomfort was that on his very first day in the team, Li Lin had seen the name “Xu Jiali” on the personnel roster and gone around asking everyone about this person. Then, at the welcoming gathering, a hulk of a man standing one meter ninety-eight walked over, clapped Li Lin on the shoulder, and introduced himself as Xu Jiali — that introduction had been deafeningly loud, and to this day, Li Lin still gave a little jolt every time he saw him.

But Mr. Xu Jiali himself was completely unaware of this. He had lived with this name for thirty years and was long since used to it…

How did that saying go again — Special Operations Bureau Team Two, now there’s a place of hidden dragons and crouching tigers…