Chapter 605 A Disturbing Discovery
The snowfall was much heavier than predicted.
When Yu Sheng and the others started cooking hot pot, the snow outside the window had already turned into a light blizzard. By the time Hu Li put her beloved chicken meatballs in, the light snow had turned into a heavy snowfall. When the streetlights came on, the wind picked up, and the howling wind swept through the old town's alleys. The swirling snowflakes flew between the streetlights, adding a hazy and dreamlike atmosphere to the street scene outside the window.
A group of people were crammed into the "Secret Service outpost" disguised as a parcel collection point, enjoying hot pot while watching the heavy snowfall outside through the window.
Halfway through the meal, Li Lin realized something was missing, so he braved the wind and snow to bring back a case of beer from the small supermarket at the intersection. Yu Sheng, on the other hand, went to Qianfeng Lingshan and brought back a lot of rare local ingredients from the Xianzhuan Hall, which he then threw into the pot to cook.
In the steaming hot pot, fairy grass was wrapped around meatballs, and tofu skin wrapped around spirit fruits. Sometimes it would sparkle with spiritual light, and sometimes it would rise with steam. Zheng Zhi held chopsticks in his hand and stared at it for a long time, still a little worried: "...Is it okay to eat this?"
“No problem, no problem. I asked Xuan Che, these are all export-grade, ordinary people can eat them freely,” Yu Sheng said casually while helping Hu Li mix the sesame paste in her bowl. “I also went to the alchemy room and got a box of digestive pills, we might need them later.”
"But this thing is glowing..."
"Special effects added – it increases the price by more than 20 yuan per kilogram when sold to people from other places."
"...Those immortals aren't exactly honest either."
As they were talking, the raccoon next to her used its tail to scoop up a can of beer from a cardboard box on the table. She opened the can and took a few big gulps, but then smacked her lips and looked at the words on the can with a puzzled expression: "It doesn't taste like anything, it's as bland as water... It's not as good as the one I had with Little Red Riding Hood last time."
"It's different. The one you drank last time had a higher alcohol content."
As Yu Sheng was speaking casually, he suddenly felt a cold draft blowing from the side. Looking up, he saw Eileen squatting on the windowsill. The little doll had secretly opened a crack in the window, then put its head in and opened its mouth to catch the snow blowing in through the crack. Occasionally, it would catch one or two snowflakes and then start laughing foolishly, having a great time.
"Close it, close it. It's finally gotten a little warm—I really want to go out and play by myself."
"whispering sound……"
The meal lasted almost two hours. By the end, Yu Sheng could hardly remember what was cooked in the pot. In any case, Li Lin and Zheng Zhi couldn't eat anymore halfway through. The second half of the hot pot meal became Hu Li's own happy time. She cooked whatever came to mind, and in the end, she even used her foxfire because she felt the heat wasn't enough. Only when she had turned the pile of stuff into a pot of bubbling, undulating, and wriggling porridge did everything finally stop.
Whatever this pot of stuff was before, it's now a pot of fox stew.
Yu Sheng felt that the fox girl had some culinary genius, which was reflected in the fact that no matter what the ingredients, recipe, or process were, she could always turn them into a pot of fox stew—as if in her hands, cooking was just a mushy mess.
When it was time to go home, Hu Li took all the pots with her—she wanted to keep that pot of stew for a late-night snack.
"I'll wash the pot and return it to you later," Yu Sheng said, still a little embarrassed, as he left the "express delivery collection point."
Zheng Zhi stood at the door, one hand on his stomach and the other holding a digestive pill, and waved his hand magnanimously: "No problem, no problem."
A thick layer of snow had accumulated on the open space between the "express delivery collection point" and No. 66 Wutong Road.
For Eileen, the snow was already up to her calves.
The little doll happily skipped and hopped through the snow. The freshly fallen snow was fluffy and soft, unlike snow that had fallen two or three days earlier, which could easily trap or trip her. But she would still deliberately lunge forward in areas with more snow, then run over covered in snow and burrow into Yu Sheng's coat, or climb onto his neck—even if she was always caught and shaken off in mid-air, she would still laugh and giggle, enjoying herself immensely.
Hu Li carefully held her pot of still steaming stew, a satisfied smile on her face, her eyes sparkling in the night.
The fox spirit girl's large tail swung back and forth unconsciously, even sweeping a path through the snow.
Yu Sheng and Luna walked along the path swept out by the fox's tail, heading towards the warm lights at No. 66 Wutong Road.
...
Inside the Secret Service Director's office, Bai Liqing stood in front of the large floor-to-ceiling window, silently gazing at the scenery outside.
At this moment, there was no undulating mist outside the window, but rather a direct view of the real world—the boundless night of the border city and the lights of thousands of homes under the falling snow.
With no one around, Baili Qing let out a big yawn.
A pair of enormous eyes quietly appeared outside the French windows, swaying left and right before finally settling on Baili Qing.
"It's too cold?"
"It's just that seeing snow makes me sleepy," Baili Qing said casually, waving her hand to cover the snow scene outside the French windows with its usual gray-white mist. Then she turned back to her desk. "Have you gone to check on the dark alley yourself? What's the situation?"
“I took a look and didn’t find any trace of the ‘Knight,’ but the spacetime structure is indeed changing,” Baili Xue’s voice came out of nowhere, and her eyes had somehow moved to the computer screen in front of Baili Qing. “I also went to Fog City and the ‘Museum’ to check the places where ‘spacetime rifts’ had appeared in the previous Boundary Bridge incident… I checked a total of five locations, and four of them had more or less spacetime distortions.”
Baili Qing frowned slightly: "Are they all newly appeared?"
“Yes,” Baili Xue’s eyes flickered up and down, “but the degree of distortion is actually very small. Basically, only I can observe it, except for the dark alley—it’s probably because it was the original rift connection point and was once eroded by the power of the Goddess of Omens. The spacetime structure there is obviously much more fragile than other places, and many places are not very stable. However… there is also good news.”
"Good news?" Baili Qing raised her eyebrows almost imperceptibly.
“Yu Sheng’s mark is everywhere in the dark alley, and those cats are practically pickled. When I went there, the ‘cats’ were patrolling the alley like a patrol team. If the Chong Sheng Hermitage really plans to do something there... they’ll be in big trouble.”
Baili Qing nodded thoughtfully, her expression seemingly unchanged, but those who knew her well (such as Baili Xue) could tell that she was just short of bursting into laughter.
Just then, the sound of footsteps coming from outside the door suddenly interrupted the two sisters' conversation.
A knock sounded on the door, and after Baili Qing responded, a slightly thin, bespectacled middle-aged man wearing a plaid shirt pushed the door open and walked in.
He is the on-duty manager in the technical department.
"What's going on?"
Bai Liqing sat behind her desk, trying to suppress the urge to yawn, and asked with a focused expression.
“Director,” the middle-aged man greeted him, placing the tablet he was holding on the table, “we just sent the data Zheng Zhi sent back to the technical department for analysis. In the environmental parameters that he automatically recorded on his phone, we found something unusual.”
Bai Liqing's eyes immediately turned serious, and her gaze fell on the tablet screen.
She knew that Zheng Zhi had encountered "abnormal phenomena" in the old city area. Yu Sheng had previously told her about this, and after that, Zheng Zhi also transmitted the environmental parameters he recorded when he encountered the anomaly back to headquarters through the Secret Service's internal system.
The Secret Service has a well-established procedure for handling similar incidents: each agent is equipped with various recording devices, and when they encounter supernatural events, all environmental parameters around them are transmitted back to the technical department, where a team of experts on standby 24 hours a day conducts rapid analysis to provide solutions or accumulate reference data for future operations.
However, under normal circumstances, ordinary analysis reports would not be delivered to her, the "director's," desk.
However, Zheng Zhi, this special "super trainee operator," is clearly an exception—she personally oversees any events he encounters and the corresponding technical analysis.
Bai Liqing's fingers quickly swiped across the screen, and the report content was displayed before her eyes without missing a single word.
"...some key readings are consistent with the characteristics of the opening of the spatial rift in the Boundary Bridge event?"
She raised her eyes and looked at the head of the technical department across from her.
“Yes,” the middle-aged man nodded, his expression somewhat grave, “but the key is this part—the waveform is consistent, but the intensity is very weak, so much so that only a small portion of the crucial features can be identified…”
"Let's get straight to the point," Baili Qing said calmly. "I'm already very familiar with these waveforms."
“Yes. According to the data transmitted back from the monitoring equipment in various parts of the city, no spacetime rifts were generated within the boundary area when the incident occurred. Therefore, the ‘weak signals’ recorded by Zheng Zhi’s work phone probably did not come from the boundary city, but rather… from ‘afar’,” the middle-aged man across the desk said slowly with a serious expression and tone. “Based on my speculation, what he observed at the time was a scene where a distant spacetime partially overlapped with the boundary area. Due to the special ‘physical condition’ of the person involved, the equipment he carried was also affected by the ‘overlap’. What his phone recorded was actually the environmental parameters from ‘the other side’.”
Bai Liqing leaned back in her chair.
"'The other side'...you mean some secret hideout of the Secret Order of the Holy See?"
"Based on the available intelligence, that should be the case."
"In other words, a phenomenon similar to the 'rift opening' in the Boundary Bridge incident has occurred in the lair of the Cult of Saints," Baili Qing said thoughtfully, "and what they are doing is having an impact on the border region..."
She paused, then suddenly changed the subject: "How much analysis work is left?"
“We’ve only analyzed less than a third of the records so far,” the middle-aged man said. “Zhengzhi’s data transmission is extensive, and there are many parts that are interfered with or obviously abnormal. Screening and repairing it is a huge task.”
Baili Qing nodded: "I understand, but we still need to get it done as soon as possible. I have a bad feeling—those lunatics from the Chong Sheng Hermitage are doing something very dangerous."
"Yes, Chief!"
(End of this chapter)
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