Chapter 239: Something's Off

To be honest, taking that first bite was quite difficult for Yu Sheng—not because he wasn't hungry; he hadn't eaten in a long time and was already growling with starvation. Nor was it because he dared not challenge the "food" before him; after all, he had already eaten Hu Li's stew once and knew that while the Miss's creations looked absurd, the taste was actually passable. Plus, the fox Miss was sitting right beside him, propping her head up with two big eyes staring at him expectantly, so he had to try whatever was in the bowl.

The main difficulty lay in this pile of "stew" in the bowl... it was dodging the spoon.

Yes, this chaotic stew, who knows what cyber-cultivation arts had been cast upon it, was dodging the spoon! And while wriggling, it even bulged a lump in the middle, looking as if it were flipping the middle finger—this was quite beyond Yu Sheng's understanding of food.

After staring at the bowl on the table and struggling internally for a long time, Yu Sheng finally lifted his head with some hesitation: "Is this normal?"

"Ah, sorry, I forgot there's one more step!" Hu Li suddenly realized, raised her hand, and traced several glowing symbols in the air, then muttered something at the dining table. It was a series of operations that looked in no way related to "cooking," after which she let out a long sigh, a smile on her face. "Alright, Benefactor, it understands now."

Yu Sheng was completely stunned—Huh? Understood? Understood what? Who understood? Wait, this is cooking! Why is the final step of cooking communicating with the food to make it "understand"? The Borderland has machine souls, so Hu Li's pot can refine a rice soul, right?

He looked down at the bowl, saw that the mass of constantly changing colors had indeed quieted down, thought seriously for a few seconds, and then confirmed with Hu Li again: "Let me ask clearly first—this thing doesn't have sentience, does it?"

"Of course not," Hu Li quickly waved her hands. "It's just that heaven and earth possess their own spirituality. A stew with a soul is merely temporarily stewing the spirituality of heaven and earth into the dish, but if there are too many souls, the dish tends to move around... That's what Mother said."

Yu Sheng felt that just these few sentences from Hu Li would require a sanity check in the ears of ordinary people—the combination of language and text was truly too damn magical.

Then he took a deep breath, imagined the shimmering thing in the bowl as ordinary ingredients like solid tentacles or a Big Bad Wolf's heart, closed his eyes, and took a bite.

A slight warmth, followed by a fairly good taste—no strange flavor at all, and nothing suddenly came alive and wriggled in his mouth. Yu Sheng couldn't distinguish the texture of this bite, but it was obviously very normal food.

Even better than the stew Hu Li made last time.

"This... is actually okay," Yu Sheng opened his eyes, looking at the fox stew in the bowl with some surprise. "The taste is indeed better than last time."

The fox Miss, who had been waiting expectantly for praise for a long time, immediately squinted her eyes, her body swaying slightly back and forth, a pile of tails wagging back and forth: "I'm glad the Benefactor likes it."

Yu Sheng lowered his head and took a second bite.

He felt all his fatigue vanish within a few breaths, and his originally drowsy and somewhat groggy mind quickly cleared up. It wasn't a temporary clarity from strong stimulation, but rather a full-state clarity as if he had undergone sufficient rest and replenishment.

And the "food" he had eaten was even continuing to nourish his body, bit by bit, soaking into his limbs and bones.

He frowned in confusion, then saw Hu Li pull two small chicks out of her tail again, making a small bowl of "stew" for them as well: "Bai Qie, Yan Ju, time to eat~ You two are benefiting from the Benefactor again today~"

The two small chicks happily rushed over.

They looked much grown, obviously well-cared for by the fox Miss. A tuft of pale golden down had already started growing on Bai Qie's head, while a patch of translucent faint light was clearly floating behind Yan Ju's tail.

Yu Sheng: "..."

Something seems off, let me look again.

Yu Sheng rubbed his eyes again, then looked up at Hu Li.

"What's wrong, Benefactor?"

"Let me confirm," Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment, then pointed at the stew on the table. "Is this really the 'home-cooked meal' you eat every day in your hometown?"

"No, it's only for special occasions, like when you score a hundred on a test, or during festivals and such," Hu Li answered very honestly. "Making this is very troublesome and consumes a lot of energy, especially when infusing the spirit. I'm not skilled, so I can only make it occasionally."

Yu Sheng: "..."

This silly fox absolutely confused cooking with something else! What exactly is the situation in her hometown?

Seeing the fox Miss's nodding, half-dazed appearance, Yu Sheng stopped asking, lowered his head, and ate the food before him clean. Then, looking at the two chicks whose feathers were noticeably shinier than before as they paced contentedly on the table, he fell into thought.

Hu Li happily went to wash the pot and dishes.

Yu Sheng stared eye-to-eye with the two chicks walking on the table to digest.

Bai Qie and Yan Ju stopped, tilted their heads, and faced Yu Sheng's gaze without fear at all, their small eyes flashing with an inexplicable light.

Yu Sheng even suspected these two flat-feathered beasts were about to awaken sentience.

But he had no evidence....

At the same time, outside the city district.

The Borderland is not an infinite space, and the Border City—despite being so huge, even giving people the illusion of an "endless metropolis"—obviously has boundaries.

At the end of this massive city lies a "belt" composed of various heavy factories and vertical farms. Beyond the belt is the city wall established by the Council. Crossing the wall leads to the vast wilderness. Having already left the most stable and safe "prosperous city district" of the Borderland, this area is called the "suburbs."

In the suburbs, only a few stable settlements are distributed across the boundless wilderness, along with some observation stations and outposts established by the Council around the settlements and in other areas requiring key control. Under normal circumstances, the Special Operations Bureau does not send people deep into this desolate area.

But today, the situation was obviously special.

Several "meteors" flying from above the Border City had fallen in the "suburbs"—they had to be recovered and contained within the shortest possible time.

Song Cheng jumped out of the car, tightened his coat against the cold wind blowing across the wilderness, and stepped forward.

The terrain here was gentle, with endless wild grass. The distant city appeared as a jagged silhouette on the horizon, while in the other direction, one could see vague light curtains rising from the ground, piercing the chaotic sky far away. Those light curtains were the "boundary markers" set by the Council at the edge of the Borderland, and theoretically, the farthest place an ordinary person living in the Borderland could ever reach in their lifetime.

"This landing spot is really remote; any further and it would be outside the 'border'," muttered a Special Operations Bureau agent wearing heavy protective gear nearby. "Really hard to find."

No mistake, one sentence, one release, one content, one look!

"Be grateful it's off to the side rather than near the city district. If it had fallen near the city, the trouble would be huge," another agent spoke up. "Of course, the ones who would end up working overtime would probably be that unlucky bunch from the Third Squad..."

Song Cheng coughed twice: "What are the current equipment readings?"

"Depth zero, slightly offset toward L-1, but within safe values," the subordinate reported immediately. "No contamination detected."

Song Cheng nodded.

Just then, a shout suddenly came from ahead: "Found it! The landing spot is here!"

An impact crater ten-plus meters in diameter, like a scorched black scar burned into the ground, was "stamped" into this wilderness overgrown with wild grass.

A small drone buzzed and arrived above the impact crater, monitoring the surrounding environmental parameters. Then, legged robots moved forward to set up basic monitoring equipment and protective devices on the edge and inner walls of the crater. Only after quite a while did the Special Operations Bureau agents, wearing heavy protective suits, step forward to observe the situation inside the crater.

A faint light entered Song Cheng's eyes.

The Special Operations Bureau commander, rich in frontline experience, looked seriously at the thing at the bottom of the pit. It was an irregularly shaped, semi-transparent white crystal, its surface still bearing traces of melting and re-solidification. The soil around the crystal still held residual heat, emitting faint white smoke. Tiny, star-like fragments of crystal were distributed around the large crystal, as if echoing the large one, slowly flickering and changing.

He heard an agent whispering behind him, his voice carrying a hint of caution and tension: "So this is the 'corpse' of the Dark Angel..."

"Just some small fragments; its main structure has 'evaporated' during the fall," Song Cheng said casually, then beckoned to those behind him. "Prepare the recovery procedure—send a drone for contact testing first."

After a while, Song Cheng retreated from near the impact crater and came to the vicinity of the command vehicle.

"How are the other recovery teams doing?"

"Teams Two and Three are still searching within the scope given by the Director and haven't found the wreckage landing spots yet. Team Four just sent a message; they have discovered a small fragment and are conducting the first-stage contact test," reported a Special Operations Bureau agent wearing headphones. "There is an unexpected situation: the landing spot of that small fragment is near a settlement, only two or three hundred meters from the isolation wall. Although the settlement itself is undamaged, because the landing spot was so close and local residents witnessed the flash during the Angel's fall at close range, there might be some risk. An evaluation team has already departed from headquarters."

"Mm," Song Cheng nodded, then looked up at the sky. "... The wind is about to pick up around here. The forecast says there will be temporal turbulence. Once the containers are loaded onto the vehicle, withdraw immediately. It's hard enough to get a weekend; don't let us wake up and find ourselves fast-forwarded to Monday."

"Received!"

Song Cheng hummed, and just as he was about to go over again to personally supervise the recovery progress, the messenger suddenly changed expression, then quickly exchanged a few words with a certain communication channel.

"Leader, something might have gone wrong," the messenger raised his head, his tone even altered, "Squad Three just contacted us; they found an impact crater—but the crater is empty."

Song Cheng: "... What?!"

(End of this chapter)