Li Lin stared blankly at the empty corner of the wall, still holding the scraper for sampling in his hand, his mind as blank as if he had forgotten what he was doing.
The middle-aged man known as "Captain Song"—Song Cheng, the captain of the Second Squad of the Special Operations Bureau—frowned tightly the moment he saw the bloodstain disappear.
Something had disappeared from his memory and thoughts, but the residual impression was still there. This slight impression stimulated his "spirituality," making him aware of a trace of something wrong.
A chaotic brilliance appeared in the bottom of Song Cheng's eyes. He immediately controlled his mind, trying to "solidify" the last remaining impression in his heart to prevent it from dissipating along with some memories. Years of professional training played a role at this moment. Li Lin, holding the scraper, hesitated for a moment before looking up. "Leader, I feel like I've suddenly forgotten what I was going to do. Was there something in this place just now?"
"There's mental interference!" Song Cheng reacted instantly and quickly reminded him, "Check the 'depth' here immediately!"
Hearing this, Li Lin put down the sampling tool in his hand without a second thought. He quickly took out a palm-sized black box from his belt, pressed it a few times on the surface, and then pulled out a thin "soft tube" from its side, directly connecting the needle-like tip of the soft tube to his eyeball—after doing all this, he looked up and slowly scanned his surroundings with the eye connected to the soft tube.
A faint buzzing sound came from inside the black iron box, and liquid seemed to be slowly flowing in the thin tube. Li Lin's eyes gradually dyed a layer of black, and in his spiritual vision, everything on this old street began to be dyed a layer of black and white.
"Depth L-0, no Otherworld reaction," Li Lin reported while observing. "I also don't see anything or residue that came out of an 'Otherworld'."
Song Cheng frowned and glanced at the box in Li Lin's hand—this was a portable depth probe. Its sensing range and sensitivity were no match for the standard suitcase-sized equipment, but even the portable type should be able to detect "depth" changes within its range.
He was sure that his memory and thoughts had just been affected by something. The residual "impression" was now forcibly solidified in his heart. There must be something sinister here that was affecting him, but… the equipment couldn't sense it.
And just as he was about to ask Li Lin to adjust the sensing mode of the depth probe, the latter seemed to have suddenly discovered something.
Li Lin stared intently at a certain place at the end of the alley.
The eye connected to the soft tube was as black as ink, and in the deep black, another field of vision was reflected. He saw a faint touch of color between the black and white covered buildings on the street—the color was very blurry and pale, and he couldn't tell what it was, but its scale was very large. He tried hard to distinguish it for a long time before he could roughly determine the range of the pale, almost transparent contour, and judged its size to be about the size of a house.
"Captain Song, there's something in front of me, but it's very blurry. It looks like a house," he said as he carefully walked forward. "The depth reading is still 0, and there's no contamination reaction… I'm almost in front of it. Can you feel anything?"
Song Cheng followed behind Li Lin, pinching a badge in his pocket, ready to intervene if something went wrong. At the same time, he frowned and shook his head. "My spirituality isn't warning me."
Li Lin stopped at a certain place. He felt that he had already reached the hazy color. Then he hesitated for a moment and slowly stretched out his hand—
A sharp buzzing sound suddenly came from the black iron box, followed by a few crackling sounds. Along with a puff of green smoke, the depth probe stopped working.
The soft tube connected to his eyeball instantly fell off, and a black, sludge-like substance flowed out from it, quickly evaporating and dissipating upon contact with the air.
The sudden sourness and stinging pain in his eyes made Li Lin couldn't help but curse, "Damn it…" He threw away the black box that had started to get hot, and subconsciously wanted to rub the eye that had just established the connection. Seeing this, Song Cheng immediately took a step forward and pressed his hand on Li Lin's temple. "Don't rub it! It'll be fine in a moment!"
Li Lin instantly froze on the spot. He felt a burning sensation near his temple, and the discomfort in his eyeball quickly subsided. After a moment, he recovered and saw the wreckage of the depth probe still smoking on the ground.
"…Will the bureau reimburse this?"
"They will."
"That's good, you scared me," Li Lin was instantly relieved. Then he turned his head and looked at the direction where he had just stretched out his hand with suspicion.
However, there was only a small open space here, and at the end of the open space was a wall—the wall was covered with messy graffiti, with doors, windows, houses, trees, and stones drawn with colorful spray paint.
He waved his hand forward, but didn't touch anything.
"There's definitely something here. The instrument observed it just now, but I didn't have time to confirm it before the equipment broke," Li Lin muttered. "Before the equipment broke, the depth reading was still L-0."
"…Let's go back to the bureau first," Song Cheng pondered for two seconds and made a decision. "I'll report to the council when I get back. This place really needs to be monitored for a while. We can't rule out the possibility of it being some kind of unregistered 'Otherworld.' I estimate it will require large-scale equipment and specialized 'deep divers' to handle. Also, are your eyes okay?"
"…If there's something wrong, can I get half a day off?"
"No, the bureau is short on staff."
"Then I'm fine. I'll just use some eye drops when I get back."
Song Cheng nodded. Li Lin bent down and carefully picked up the wreckage of the depth probe, which was no longer smoking. The two returned to the place where they had parked their electric vehicles, one after the other.
Li Lin turned the key of the vehicle. The LCD screen of the electric vehicle flashed once and then went out.
He was stunned for a moment, then looked up and met Captain Song's same gaze.
"My vehicle is broken… yours too?"
Song Cheng nodded silently.
"…Do you think it's a coincidence?"
Song Cheng shook his head slightly and said in a deep voice, "The people from the 'Academy' have a special term to explain this phenomenon."
Li Lin was slightly stunned, and then recalled some of the information he had seen before—
"The machine spirit is not happy." / "The machine spirit is scared."
The two said in different voices.
Then they fell silent for a moment, this time saying in unison, "You remembered it wrong."
"We'll talk about it later," Song Cheng waved his hand, pushing the electric vehicle and slowly walking back. "Let's leave this place first."
Li Lin pushed his electric vehicle and followed behind Song Cheng. "…Leader, are we just going to push it all the way back?"
"What else? You don't want your vehicle anymore?"
"Doesn't the bureau have a small truck or something? If not, we can call the electric tricycle from the logistics department downstairs… pushing it back will kill me…"
"Stop talking nonsense. At your young age, your stamina is worse than mine?"
The two senior agents of the Special Operations Bureau pushed their electric vehicles further and further away, their figures gradually disappearing at the intersection of Wutong Road.
…
Yu Sheng was already very familiar with the boundless deep darkness around him. He had been coming here quite frequently lately. When he was floating in this chaotic darkness, he even felt like he was at home.
Irene's scream was still ringing in his ears.
He thought that the scene of him pushing open the door covered in blood with a hole in his stomach and dying inside had probably scared the doll in the painting—it seemed that even as a "cursed object," Irene's psychological endurance was only so-so.
And this made Yu Sheng even more curious about what would happen after his "return."
When he returned to the mortal world and appeared in front of Irene again… what would the doll's reaction be?
Would she… still remember the scene of him pushing open the door and dying in the house?
Yu Sheng floated in the darkness, Hu Li's figure appearing before his "eyes." Recalling his experience in that night-shrouded valley, he remembered that when Hu Li saw him in the ruined temple, she had completely forgotten how she had killed him with a single headbutt—although she had suddenly remembered it later for some reason, at the very beginning, Hu Li had indeed completely forgotten his "death."
Yu Sheng didn't know what was going on with this "forgetting," nor was he sure if it was his problem or Hu Li's problem—after all, the fox girl's mind seemed to be quite chaotic, and it was normal for her to suddenly forget some things.
But if Irene also didn't remember the scene of him pushing open the door and dying in the house later, then Yu Sheng could basically be sure… that the problem was with him.
The time he spent floating in the darkness was impossible to judge, so after briefly organizing his experiences so far, Yu Sheng emptied his mind, let his tense nerves rest a little, and patiently waited for the moment the darkness ended.
Then, he felt that familiar feeling of falling, felt himself rapidly "returning" to the mortal world.
Yu Sheng, who was already prepared, immediately focused his mind, trying to capture his perception at the moment he crossed the "boundary"—
Familiar scenes appeared before his "eyes," and a faint sense of guidance drove him to "fall" in a specific direction. He struggled to distinguish between the chaotic images that instantly emerged, but before he could grasp anything, he "saw" one of the images rapidly enlarge before his eyes—
66 Wutong Road, the living room after entering the door.
Yu Sheng suddenly opened his eyes.
The familiar furnishings of his home came into view. In the dining room next to the living room, the ancient and exquisite oil painting was quietly standing on the dining table.
Irene in the oil painting broke the silence.
"Yu Sheng! You're finally back!"