Chapter 226 Descent
The emergency evacuation of the nearby blocks is proceeding in an orderly manner and has basically been completed. A large number of node devices and protective equipment have been transported to the scene and are now being installed by engineers near the wall of the orphanage. An invisible barrier is rising in the entire area. If a spiritually gifted person were to look at the block at this moment, they would see that the barrier is emitting a faint glow in the night sky, covering large tracts of shadows inside that are constantly expanding, shrinking, and wriggling, like... a weird "cocoon".
The threat of the angel's arrival is above all else. The "Baseline Technology Restriction Act" has been temporarily frozen, and a large number of technical equipment that exceeds the permitted use have been transported to the scene. As various protective devices are turned on one after another, the stability of the regional boundaries has finally begun to gradually recover.
At least, standing outside the orphanage walls, one would no longer see those horrific sights.
But the situation inside the wall remains grim.
More than a dozen black vehicles arrived here one after another, and more Secret Service agents appeared in the blockade area. One of the vehicles went straight to the door of the orphanage. After the door opened, a figure with long gray hair and wearing a white suit walked out, looking solemnly at the sky above the orphanage.
Li Lin felt that even his breathing became tense - the indifferent figure was not looking at this side, but he could still clearly feel that someone was looking directly at him.
"How long have they been in there?" Baili Qing asked.
"Thirty-two minutes," Li Lin said immediately. "After they entered, the pollution readings inside the wall did not change significantly. The overall environmental depth is still rising steadily. The current internal depth is L-2. The danger level cannot be assessed."
He had just said half of his words when a surveillance officer walked over quickly and handed him a tablet computer for surveillance.
"...The depth has reached L-3 and is still rising," Li Lin said to Baili Qing, sweat visibly appearing on his forehead, "The conventional surveillance cameras have lost contact and can no longer capture video signals from inside the wall."
"Um."
Baili Qing just nodded calmly without saying anything else, and continued to stare at the sky above the orphanage.
A pair of huge hidden eyes slowly opened behind her and scanned the situation inside the wall.
Observing the orphanage from outside the wall with the naked human eye, one can only see that "everything is normal". However, in Baili Qing's mind, the real situation of it being gradually swallowed by the "nightmare" emerged simultaneously.
Two towers growing together like an umbilical cord, a surface covered by "silt" that expands and contracts and wriggles, and... three tiny spots of light moving inside the "umbilical cord".
Baili Qing stared at the three spots of light until an irresistible feeling of dizziness forced her to look away.
"Can it be locked?" she asked in her heart.
"It's too difficult. They are almost out of the real world. I guess we won't be able to track them in another ten minutes or so," the slightly mechanical female voice responded. "But what is certain is that the Dark Angel's 'corrosion' should really be ineffective on the three of them. They have been active in the wall for more than 30 minutes, and the 'gaze marks' I left on them are still pure and intact."
Baili Qing hummed softly, then withdrew her gaze from the orphanage and took out her cell phone.
"…It's me. Prepare for the 'shattering'. If no abort order is received within 24 hours or an angel is observed descending during this period, the dome will be shattered. I will take the responsibility. At least find a way to drive that thing out. Of course… the best case scenario is that we can spend the night peacefully."
…
Within the walls of the orphanage, the angels' dreams had merged with reality like flesh on flesh and mud on mud.
Everything is mixed up. The boundaries of reality become blurred and turbulent within this wall. Thoughts emit hollow echoes in the continuous collapse of the material world - this echo is reflected in the perception and is gradually turning into a spreading forest.
It was the first story in a fairy tale book.
A poor quality, old fairy tale book with many errors, omissions and gaps, but which once brought great joy to many children.
Yu Sheng entered a room.
This used to be the reading room at the end of the second floor of the orphanage, but now the original room structure and the illusion in the black forest have overlapped, making everything here look weird and chaotic. The big trees directly penetrated the roof and floor, and light tubes and the keel structure of the ceiling were hung on the treetops. The walls turned into broken soil and stones, which were buried in the rotten leaves and bushes between the giant trees. Yu Sheng also saw the bookshelves and tables, which were crookedly embedded in the tree trunks and had merged with the wood - and on the ground nearby, there were scattered books.
Yu Sheng walked cautiously into this "room" of dense forest, walking among the ever-changing and expanding forest scenery around him, his eyes swept over the scattered books, and then suddenly stopped.
He saw a pile of books - still tied with plastic tape and not yet opened, lying in a pile of weeds.
His eyes were so intensely attracted that even the burning bullet in his hand seemed to tremble slightly.
Yu Sheng walked over quickly, untied the straps, and scattered the books with bright covers that were specially made for children.
They are all normal books.
Most of them are brand new, at least printed in the past two years, the printing quality is above average, the paper quality is also very good, and none of them has anything to do with the book "Squirrel Knight."
But Yu Sheng still felt that inexplicable "connection", which came from the Black Forest, or perhaps even from Ankaela, a sense of "attention" to these books.
He frowned, then suddenly thought of something, turned his head and said to the puppet who was nervously paying attention to the surrounding forest environment: "Erin!"
The little puppet hurriedly responded: "Ah, ah?"
"Take a look at these books," Yu Sheng said seriously, "are they 'hiding' something? Just like the letter we found at Old Zheng's house—"
"Wait a moment, let me take a look!" Before Yu Sheng finished speaking, the little doll on his shoulder jumped down and moved the books that were a little too big for her with some effort. "This thing is so heavy... Wait! There is paper in it - can't you see it?"
As she spoke, Irene had already opened the cover of one of the books, and then, right in front of Yu Sheng, she naturally pulled out a yellowed, torn-edged old paper from the pages - as if the paper had been stuck in the book from the beginning.
Yu Sheng reached out and took the paper. The first line of words that caught his eye was the title of "Little Red Riding Hood"!
"Ah, there are some here too, and they're also stuffed inside this book. There are so many!"
Irene's voice came soon after, and then she flipped through several books quickly, pulling out the torn pages "stuck" in the books one by one and handing them to Yu Sheng.
Fairy tales, old yellowed papers, and the cover with crude colors and lines, printed with a forest and a reddish-brown squirrel.
"Squirrel Knight Reads Stories with You".
Yu Sheng finally understood why Snow White did not notice anything unusual when checking the books donated by the Sunshine Foundation.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
The cultists infiltrated the process here, and then used a similar "technique" as when they exchanged secret letters with Lao Zheng, to dismantle the entire old book and "stuff" it into the normal donated books! In this way, they sent an "old thing" with a highly symbolic connection and meaning to Ankaela into the orphanage! Even... this may be an important part of their "cultivation" of the entire orphanage into a qualified "container".
Many clues were instantly connected together, and Yu Sheng felt that the thread in his mind suddenly became clear. At this time, Irene, who was sitting among a pile of books and weeds, also raised the last two books and shook them in the air, then threw them aside: "That's all! That's all!"
Yu Sheng nodded slowly, and at the same time sorted out the collected book fragments, but his eyes involuntarily fell on the cover of the book.
The reddish-brown squirrel with a big furry tail stayed there, holding the pine needles in a silly posture and pointing at the title of the book on the cover.
It blinked and sat up from the cover.
She took two steps in a daze, jumped onto Yu Sheng's wrist, and looked up at her surroundings.
"Ah! It's you!" The squirrel shouted happily, turning back to hug Yu Sheng's fingers affectionately, "Great, you're okay! Those wolves are so scary... And you brought friends this time!?"
"...Wow," Irene watched the scene with wide eyes, "It's really worthy of...uh, it's really worthy of 'Dream'?"
Hu Li didn't seem surprised at all, and greeted the squirrel as if it was a matter of course: "Hello."
"Hello! Squirrel Knight, nice to see friends!" The squirrel shouted happily, and then finally noticed what Yu Sheng was holding.
She saw the book - on the old cover, there was still a squirrel sitting stupidly on a tree stump beside the forest path, holding a pine needle in its paw.
"You... you found it?!" The squirrel showed a very human expression of astonishment on his face, and even the pine needles in his claws fell to the ground, "Where did you find it?!"
"This is not the one you gave away," Yu Sheng explained. He put the squirrel on his arm and roughly flipped through the torn fairy tale collection so that the other party could see what was inside the pages. "This is another one that someone 'outside' has been collecting. But it is from the same batch and edition as the fairy tale book you gave away. Due to some very... complicated reasons, this book was recently sent to an orphanage."
The squirrel grabbed Yu Sheng's sleeve and watched him flipping through the old pages. He made a tiny sound, "Ah, it's definitely not that book... the one we had back then, it was full of writing."
Yu Sheng turned his head instantly: "Is it full?"
"Well," the squirrel nodded, as if smiling, "because there are many places in the book without words, the older brothers and sisters told us stories according to the illustrations, and the children who already knew how to write wrote stories in the blank spaces - some should have been in the book, some were our own ideas, and some were heard from other places.
"That book is everyone's treasure. It is... it is everyone's treasure..."
As the squirrel was talking, he suddenly started crying again.
"I'm sorry... I lost it... I can't find it again... oooo..."
Yes, she lost the "treasure" that many children worked together to create.
Those were stories written by all the children in the orphanage.
(End of this chapter)
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