Chapter 200: Archives

After Ba Li Qing had arranged matters on her end, Yu Sheng began to detail his investigation findings to the female director before him.

Including how Old Zheng might have acquired the "Angel's Umbilical Cord," the "unsuccessful descent" that occurred long ago, the fairy tale book that was sent out, and Ankaela's current possible state.

Even Ba Li Qing's steel-faced, expressionless visage struggled to remain unreadable through this cascade of information.

She furrowed her brow tightly, and when Yu Sheng described the "Squirrel's" memories, she finally couldn't help interrupting: "You're saying a child raised in an orphanage, with no cultivation of spiritual aptitude whatsoever, directly heard the voice of the Dark Angel—and even established communication with it—and remained fully lucid throughout?"

"At least the 'Squirrel' believed so," Yu Sheng nodded, "It's possible it was experiencing hallucinations induced by the Angel, but the fairy tale book it delivered is certainly connected to the current 'Fairy Tale' Expanse—the book's influence on Ankaela is real."

"A single fairy tale book influenced the process of an Angel's descent—even if you told me this yourself, I still find it hard to believe," Ba Li Qing said slowly, "But if true, it may suggest the Dark Angel isn't as 'flawless' as we imagined—or at least, during the early stages of its first descent, its 'operation' was extremely fragile, susceptible to interference by certain means…"

She paused, then spoke again with thoughtful gravity: "More astonishing is another point: if the 'Squirrel's' information is accurate, Ankaela possesses rationality—this shatters our understanding of Dark Angels."

In this world, no rational, communicable Dark Angel had ever appeared; many scholars even regarded them as mere "natural disasters." Without Ba Li Qing's reminder, Yu Sheng knew the intelligence he brought would deliver a massive shock to those studying Angel descent phenomena.

After a while, the topic returned to the "Fairy Tale" Expanse itself.

"According to the Squirrel, the Black Forest 'stage' has always been in a state of growth and change—each generation of Little Red Riding Hood introduced new 'elements' and even 'rules' to the forest, much like a 'story' gradually evolving from an outline," Yu Sheng mused aloud, "First came the most basic worldbuilding and 'master map,' then characters and objects, then interconnections between story elements… I believe this reflects the dynamic nature of the 'Fairy Tale.'"

"On the other hand, based on Bai Xue and the seven… uh, Lei Ting Titans' situation, and Xiao Xiao's prior encounter with the 'Wolf Grandmother,' we can confirm another dynamic aspect of the Fairy Tale's subsets: each 'main character' triggers a corresponding 'distorted replica' within the subset—when two Little Red Riding Hoods of markedly different strength appeared simultaneously, the Black Forest even generated two distinct 'versions' of the Wolf Grandmother."

"All of this, as the first Little Red Riding Hood said in her final words, 'This forest is alive'—and in truth, it's not just the Black Forest that is alive; the entire 'Fairy Tale' is alive, and exhibits extreme 'interactivity' with the individual 'characters' trapped within it."

"This point may help us understand Ankaela's current state."

Ba Li Qing listened thoughtfully, then softly murmured to herself: "It's still 'reading' that book."

"Yes, it's still 'reading' that book, and trying to 'understand' it—but clearly, the Dark Angel's 'understanding' process differs utterly from human reason and cognition," Yu Sheng nodded gently, "Meanwhile, as an Expanse, the 'Fairy Tale's' form of existence, origin, and its 'relationship state' with 'Ankaela' are entirely different from what we previously understood."

"As a 'cage,' it was actually woven by Ankaela itself—the entire 'Fairy Tale' likely rests upon the Dark Angel's very body, like some kind of…"

Yu Sheng frowned, searching for a better word, then continued: "Like some kind of 'shell.'"

"So the original deep-diving team likely accidentally contacted Ankaela's true form while drilling through the Fairy Tale's shell," Ba Li Qing immediately connected the dots, "Then those 'bodies' mentioned in the mission logs—suddenly staggering to their feet after the facility was sealed—"

"Were Ankaela leaking into the real world," Yu Sheng smirked slightly, "Be grateful—apparently, that leak back then was unconscious; Ankaela never truly woke up."

Ba Li Qing remained silent, her faded eyes flickering faintly; behind her, through the wide floor-to-ceiling window, a pair of hazy, blurred eyes quietly surfaced.

A mechanical, emotionless voice echoed in her mind: "Unexpected. Seventy years later, the mission logs are still being updated."

Yu Sheng had already seen those eyes, but since he knew they belonged to Ba Li Qing's sister, he showed no surprise—only smiled and waved at them in greeting.

The eyes blinked, looking slightly flustered—probably unaccustomed to being spotted so casually by an "outsider," and forgetting that she wasn't invisible in front of Yu Sheng…

At that moment, the elliptical desk's telephone suddenly rang.

Ba Li Qing picked up, listened for a few moments, then nodded: "Good. Send it over directly."

She hung up, her expression finally relaxing slightly, and looked up at Yu Sheng: "They found the orphanage's archival records from back then." Yu Sheng was surprised: "So fast?"

A faint smile appeared on Ba Li Qing's face: "More smoothly than expected. Though the records are nearly a century old, they were indeed archived by the Council—the Special Operations Bureau and the Council have a coordinated access mechanism."

Moments later, the duty secretary knocked and delivered several freshly printed and organized documents onto Ba Li Qing's desk.

Yu Sheng immediately leaned over, flipping through the files with Ba Li Qing.

A photograph quickly caught his eye.

It showed a child, about seven or eight years old, wearing a slightly ill-fitting dress, standing nervously in front of a blackboard.

Thin, slightly dark-skinned, with a plain braid, unremarkable in every way—not particularly cute, and in the photo, almost expressionless—as if suddenly ordered by a teacher to stand on stage for a picture, still confused about what was happening, with a hint of bewilderment and fear deep in its eyes.

"Went missing before the first Fairy Tale outbreak, age consistent with being able to independently read fairy tale books—this is the only match," Ba Li Qing's voice came from beside him, "It's been eighty-six years."

Yu Sheng's face remained grave; he stared at the photograph for a long time, then saw her name—Zhao Lele.

Even her name was utterly ordinary.

Ordinary enough to seem unfit for a twisted tale—but on a night eighty-six years ago, like the beginning of every story, "that moment" found her.

Please... collect me _(!)

"She vanished at night; the orphanage reported it to the police, of course with no follow-up. The records left behind are sparse—only this photo, her age at disappearance, and her name remain. Nothing about how she became an orphan or her origin exists," Ba Li Qing said slowly, "If the Council hadn't mandated that all missing-child cases be reported and never closed until found, this photo might never have been preserved."

Yu Sheng silently filed away the documents; Ba Li Qing made no move to stop him.

"Also, we're verifying the status of that 'fairy tale book'," Ba Li Qing continued, "We now have a rough range—if we're lucky, we might even locate a surviving copy of the same edition…"

"Really? Can you find it?" Yu Sheng asked curiously, "Nearly a hundred years ago, a book went missing—would there still be records?"

"Not necessarily a loss record, but we can check what books were in the orphanage at the time," Ba Li Qing nodded, then paused slightly, "How many books do you think the children in that orphanage had in total?"

Yu Sheng: "..."

"Theoretically, even if the orphanage's management was lax, basic asset registration and civilian donation records should exist. When the Special Operations Bureau temporarily took over the orphanage, we fully inherited and organized this data—but back then, such records rarely had advanced indexing systems, so now we must manually sift through the ledgers."

Yu Sheng nodded gently.

"Then thank you for your effort."

"Part of our duty," Ba Li Qing said coolly, then pointed to the documents on the desk, "Also, these are the surveillance records from the Special Operations Bureau's archives regarding the orphanage and surrounding areas at the time. From the logs alone, there were no abnormal energy bursts or any eyewitness reports of the 'silent luminous object falling' you mentioned."

"Ah," Yu Sheng sighed, "That's expected."

"From an optimistic perspective, the absence of any recorded 'phenomena' was the greatest fortune of the Borderland that night eighty-six years ago," Ba Li Qing mused, "A Dark Angel silently pierced through our world—if descent truly occurred, every single 'data point' we recorded would likely have been written in the blood of tens of thousands."

(End of Chapter)