Chapter 250: People from Outside

To be honest, before clicking open the message sent by "Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins," Yu Sheng had considered every possibility, even including the chance that the "online friend" he had only chatted with a few times might instantly reveal the origin of the cloth strip in his hand, but he never imagined the other party would pull out another fragment of fabric in return...

The color of that fabric fragment was actually slightly different from the one he found in the room, but the pattern along its edge was absolutely identical!

Yu Sheng instantly perked up, jumped to his feet, and quickly typed out a message on his phone: "You have one too?! Where did you get it?!"

"It is an item kept by a fellow disciple of my sect; I do not know its origin," the reply from Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins came quite quickly, "I saw it once many years ago. Just now, seeing the picture you sent, it felt vaguely familiar, and after thinking for a long time, I remembered it."

Then, after a while, the phone vibrated again, and a new message from Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins popped up on the window: "After our last discussion about that object, I was delayed by some trivial matters and never had time to think it through in detail. Only recently did I get some free time. Looking back now, the 'characters' on the object you discovered earlier and the patterns on this fabric fragment are actually four or five parts similar; they seem to share the same source."

"I think so too," Yu Sheng immediately typed a reply, "This is the second time in a row I've found such an 'alien object' in that strange room. I sent the metal part I got earlier to the Special Bureau, but they still haven't analyzed any results."

This time, Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins's message was delayed by two minutes: "Special Bureau? Oh, you are in the Borderlands?"

Seeing this reply, Yu Sheng unconsciously paused for a moment: "You are not in the Borderlands?"

The phone buzzed, and Yu Sheng saw a new reply appear in the Borderlands Communication window: "I am at Thousand Peaks Lingshan."

A strange name appeared before his eyes. Yu Sheng unconsciously searched his memory but found no corresponding information, so he quickly swiped the screen to open the built-in search engine of Borderlands Communication, directly typed in the place name Thousand Peaks Lingshan, and tried to find some information.

To be honest, at the moment he clicked search, he felt a bit excited and agitated in his heart. For no other reason than that the person named "Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins" on the other end said he was from OUTSIDE THE BORDERLANDS!!

He never imagined he could contact someone living "outside" on "Borderlands Communication," and "Thousand Peaks Lingshan" was the very first "foreign place name" he had ever known.

Of course, he already knew the world outside the Borderlands was vast, and he himself had once personally opened the great door leading to the outside world. In theory, none of this should have made him so excited, but how to put it... knowing is one thing, feeling is another; the feeling of really connecting with someone far away in an unknown place through a communication tool is just different.

While these thoughts flashed through his mind, the search page on the phone screen refreshed, and the first thing Yu Sheng saw was a title in red:

"Warmly Celebrating the Successful Conclusion of the 337th Peak Beast Competition at Thousand Peaks Lingshan; Immortal Master Yuan He of the Beast Peak Delivers an Important Speech"

Below the title was a news thumbnail: a tall, thin middle-aged man with an immortal air stood on a disc floating in mid-air, holding a fly-whisk. The background was a fairyland of misty mountains and waters, while in front was a huge crowd of disciples from various sects dressed in white robes and appearing as cultivators, stretching so far one couldn't even see the end...

Even further away, pavilions and towers could be vaguely seen, nestled among green mountains, clear waters, and auspicious clouds and rosy light.

Yu Sheng frowned, looked at the news title again, then looked down at the thumbnail below, processed the amount of information on the page, and began to ponder.

He didn't even know what he was pondering; he just unconsciously started pondering.

Hu Li leaned his head over, looked at the picture on the phone screen for a long time, and sighed: "Oh—very retro!"

Yu Sheng stopped pondering, looked down at Erin who had also leaned her head over, and said: "Do you think there's a possibility..."

Before he could finish, Erin muttered too: "The architectural style looks quite familiar."

"It can't be that coincidental, right?"

"It's just... I mean, the universe is so big; there are many places with similar styles. Besides, you only took a quick glance at that place when you opened the door last time; you didn't see the details clearly. How could it be that coincidental?" Probably sensing Yu Sheng's lack of confidence, Erin's tone strangely became a bit nervous. "Besides, even if we take a step back and it really is that coincidental, so what? Look, there's a huge crowd on there. Thousand Peaks Lingshan looks like a very large area..."

As she spoke, she fell silent and started seriously pulling at a loose thread on Yu Sheng's clothes.

Hu Li looked at Erin and then at Yu Sheng, confused, because she hadn't experienced the grand spectacle of Yu Sheng staying up all night testing the door and setting the entire Borderlands to oscillation mode back then, so at this moment she felt quite fox-like and confused.

Yu Sheng remained silent for a moment, silently recalling the senior brother hanging from the beam spinning around, and the old man diligently waving a copper-headed belt among the auspicious clouds of the immortal peak. When he switched back to the page and saw the ID "Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins" on the communication interface, he felt something was increasingly wrong; his ability to make associations started drifting uncontrollably—Is it really that coincidental? Could it get any more coincidental?

However, he finally managed to control his wild thoughts, put aside the question of coincidence for now, and replied to the other party: "Sorry, I was checking some data just now—this is my first time dealing with someone from outside the Borderlands. Thousand Peaks Lingshan is a good place."

Actually, he wanted to subtly inquire about the other party's further identity information, such as their surname and given name, and exactly what they did in the place called "Thousand Peaks Lingshan," but after a brief weighing, he suppressed this thought. After all, he wasn't that close to this "Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins"; asking too much after only chatting a few times would be suspiciously obvious.

The other party replied quite quickly: "That's normal. Most people using 'Borderlands Communication' are from your Borderlands; outsiders don't use it much, and this is especially true here at Thousand Peaks Lingshan—especially my few fellow disciples, who are busy with their own affairs all day and neglect their horizons..."

Seeing that the other party was chatting as usual, although Yu Sheng knew there was nothing to be nervous about originally, he still inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief, then quickly steered the topic back to the two fabric fragments: "You just said the 'fabric fragment' in your hand belongs to a fellow disciple, but you don't know its origin? Then your fellow disciple himself must know, right? Why not ask him?"

"My senior brother..." Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins's reply this time seemed a bit hesitant, the "typing" indicator flashing several times before the message was sent, "Sigh, he went wandering many years ago. If I could find him, this matter would be simple."

Then, after a while, the other party sent a new message: "My senior brother loves wandering; in his early years, he even traveled all four seas, often bringing back many strange and bizarre objects, even causing quite a few troubles in the sect. Compared to most of the strange objects he brought back, this piece of fabric was one of the few relatively 'well-behaved' items. It usually lay quietly in the Treasure Pavilion, not making noise, not fighting with other strange objects, and never deceiving or oppressing the disciples of the sect. Because of this, I managed his Treasure Pavilion for many years on his behalf, and I almost forgot about this piece of fabric pressed in a box."

"I was once curious and asked my senior brother why he specifically kept such an ordinary 'mundane object' in the Treasure Pavilion, and asked him what magical properties it had, but at that time my senior brother was extremely drunk and didn't wake up for three years. I asked several times but got no answer, so I forgot about it. Thinking of it now, it is truly regrettable."

Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins sent a very long message in one go, talking about the origin of that "ragged fabric fragment." Yu Sheng read the message carefully, and his first reaction was—what exactly did that senior brother of his who wandered the four seas usually collect?!

What kind of normal phenomenon is fights breaking out between the collections in the Treasure Pavilion?!

As for "didn't wake up for three years," he actually didn't react much—they are cultivators, cultivators! Can the affairs of immortals be measured by common sense? There's a fox immortal next to him who can eat over twenty steamed buns in one meal...

Yu Sheng complained in his heart for a long time, but finally realized this might just be their "regional characteristic," so he didn't dare to ask too much, and just sent a message: "Then if your senior brother returns, or if you learn more about this fabric through other channels, could you tell me?"

The reply came quickly: "Of course. Although I am not like my senior brother who loves wandering the four seas to collect strange objects, I am now interested in this item too. We are far apart, and the Borderlands is the most strange and bizarre place in the universe. Yet now, similar objects are in both your and my hands. This matter is rare, very rare."

No mistake, one sentence, one content, all inside, read it all at once!

Afterwards, Yu Sheng chatted a few more idle words with "Disciple of Ten Thousand Sins" on the other end of the phone before they bid each other farewell.

Looking up again, it was already bright outside.

"Good heavens... it's already dawn," Yu Sheng got straight out of bed, took a deep breath, and shook his head helplessly, "In the end, I found out nothing... but I did come into contact with a huge amount of information in other directions that I hadn't thought of before."

As he spoke, he stretched, but found he wasn't actually that tired—even though he had only slept about three or four hours in total last night, his spirits were quite good at this moment.

Yu Sheng thought carefully and felt this was mostly thanks to those two bowls of "Fox Stew." Putting aside the appearance and texture, the aftereffect of that stuff was truly potent...

He casually rubbed the down behind Hu Li's ear, then stepped to the window, looking at the street bathed in sunlight outside.

Erin ran over with a pitter-patter, climbed onto the windowsill to look outside with him, and after two seconds, looked up and asked: "Do you want to go see that Thousand Peaks Lingshan?"

Yu Sheng looked completely bewildered: "How did you jump to that conclusion?"

"You haven't been outside, but you are interested in the outside. You have never known anyone from the outside, but now you know one. You have never known what places are on the other side of your doors, but now you know a specific location," Erin counted on her fingers, "In summary, you want to go see Thousand Peaks Lingshan."

Yu Sheng stared with wide eyes, face-to-face with the little doll, eye to eye.

This little thing's thought jumps are really huge.

... But her intuition is really outrageous.

(End of Chapter)