Chapter 262: Abnormal Incident

The phantom wolf pack crossed block after block through the gaps of light and shadow, leaping over misaligned, stacked skyscrapers and roads that seemed to pass directly through the air; the entire city in this reflected world had been transformed into some extremely complex structure of misaligned mappings, yet the wolves knew how to find their way out of such a distorted world—and then, they arrived at their destination.

Yu Sheng felt only a flash before his eyes, and the wolf he was riding leaped from that black-and-white reflected world into the colorful real space; the sounds of heavy traffic on the distant road suddenly blared into his ears as if the system had just powered on.

Hu Li appeared right behind them; she jumped off the wolf's back, then, finding it quite amusing, patted the shadow wolf's head and happily said to Yu Sheng, "Benefactor, the spiritual beast raised by Little Red Riding Hood does have some merit. Although its spiritual intelligence is insufficient, this ability to shuttle through shadows would be useful even in my hometown..."

Then that all-black shadow wolf emitted a muffled grumbling sound, wagging its tail and shaking its head before Hu Li...

"Still wagging!" Little Red Riding Hood came over and slapped the wolf's head, "She said your spiritual intelligence is insufficient, and you're actually happy about that! I've never seen you act so servile when dealing with others before!"

Irene, perched on Yu Sheng's shoulder, looked around at the empty alley, then raised her head and muttered, "Normal. Both are canines; easy to communicate."

Hu Li didn't react much to the little doll's words, probably not understanding them, and just continued rubbing the wolf's head.

However, Little Red Riding Hood soon recalled her wolf pack, then simply judged the direction and led Yu Sheng and Hu Li forward.

"That Wanxiang Collection Mall is just ahead, a few minutes' walk," she said as they walked, "I've made the wolf pack invisible; they've scattered to the surroundings to check the situation. When my nephew 'fell through,' he said he was at Wanxiang Collection, but when a Foreign Realm opens, it can likely interfere with human judgment. He might have been sucked in through some entrance nearby, only seeing the mall's shadow at the exact moment he was pulled in..."

As she spoke, the group had already reached the main road outside; Yu Sheng quickly spotted the most prominent large mall in his field of vision—and several black Special Operations Bureau vehicles parked at the intersection.

People were still organizing the evacuation of customers and staff inside the mall; groups of people could still be seen exiting through various passages, and the order was actually quite maintained.

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood soon found the Special Operations Bureau person in charge at the scene—a man in his thirties, tall, with neat, short hair; his build looked only slightly smaller than Xu Jiali's.

Little Red Riding Hood stepped forward to negotiate with him: "Hello, we are Spirit World Detectives commissioned by the involved party, and we cooperate with the Special Operations Bureau—I am Little Red Riding Hood from 'Fairy Tale'..."

Yu Sheng, as a "newbie," stood behind watching this scene, watching Little Red Riding Hood in her high school uniform converse with a fully armed, one-meter-ninety giant; the sight was like a middle schooler who was lost outside asking a police officer for directions—her usual cool and handsome image had completely vanished...

The Special Operations Bureau agent on the other side was also momentarily stunned; he had indeed received news from Li Lin, but he hadn't expected the person coming to speak with him to be a girl still wearing a school uniform. In his confusion, he blurted out, "... So you're a Gao Zhongsheng?"

Little Red Riding Hood: "... I've been cooperating with your bureau for so long, and you don't know I'm a Gao Zhongsheng?!"

The giant awkwardly rubbed his nose: "... I know, but I hadn't realized it."

"I won't wear my school uniform out anymore," Little Red Riding Hood turned around and said to Yu Sheng with a gloomy expression.

"I'm in charge of this sector, Liu Bing," the tall Special Operations Bureau agent, seeing this, changed the subject. He checked his equipment, then led Little Red Riding Hood and others toward the mall entrance while saying, "I've already heard the general situation from Li Lin. There was a distress call, right? The person seeking help was previously one of your 'clients'—but this incident is a bit strange. Spirit World Detectives also need to cooperate with our Special Operations Bureau operations. Oh right, who are you two...?"

He seemed to suddenly remember halfway through that he had forgotten to ask Yu Sheng and Hu Li's names (since Irene had been lying motionless on Yu Sheng's shoulder playing dead, she was mostly treated as an accessory) and quickly turned back to ask.

"Oh, I'm Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng from 'The Inn'," Yu Sheng spoke first.

Immediately after, the fox-girl said, "I, I'm Hu Li, Hu Li from 'The Inn'!"

"Irene," the little doll suddenly raised her head from Yu Sheng's shoulder, "Irene from 'The Inn'."

Liu Bing's steps halted.

He looked the trio of Yu Sheng up and down with a stiff expression, his facial muscles twitched, and he took a light breath.

"This incident is a bit strange; we will fully cooperate with your operations later..."

Little Red Riding Hood widened her eyes: "You didn't say that just now!"

"To be honest, it's better if we cooperate with you," Yu Sheng also helplessly waved his hands, "I don't know how things are circulated in your bureau, but I am truly a newbie. Dealing with the Dark Angels and resolving Foreign Realm incidents are two different tracks; I have no experience with the latter. Just treat the three of us as super-soldiers."

"Super-soldiers are hard to fight..." Irene muttered quietly.

Liu Bing thought for a moment, saw that Yu Sheng's expression was serious, and could only nod: "Alright then." Little Red Riding Hood then curiously asked, "You just said this incident is a bit strange; in what way is it strange?"

"The Foreign Realm expanded extremely quickly, yet its range was extremely small. After the entrance appeared, it might have lasted only an instant before 'closing,' without the 'expansion period' that lasts for some time seen in normal Foreign Realm leakage incidents."

The moment they started discussing the actual matter, the Special Operations Bureau agent's expression immediately became serious.

"Specifically, when the Foreign Realm appeared, the boundary alarm equipment we set up in the urban area detected only one 'oscillation' lasting one second. The amplitude of the oscillation didn't even trigger the system's automatic alarm; it was only because the duty officer was alert that they noticed that signal, and this one-second oscillation was the only duration of the entrance... In other words, the person who sent you the distress call was truly unlucky; he just happened to be standing in the 'right' position during that one second..."

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood exchanged a glance.

The two spoke in unison this time: "High sensitivity, low stability is like this..."

"And then there's this," Liu Bing had more to say, "Afterwards, we re-examined the recorded data from that time and found that around the entire mall, in the minutes before and after that 'oscillation' appeared, there were hundreds of smaller oscillations of varying sizes and weaker intensities. The duration of each oscillation was even less than one second."

Hearing this, Yu Sheng was completely shocked: "What? Hundreds of entrances? Isn't that like a sieve?!"

Liu Bing shook his head: "No, because each oscillation was too weak, far from the intensity needed to open a Foreign Realm, so theoretically only that one-second 'stronger oscillation' opened the single entrance. In fact, under normal circumstances, such weak signals would be automatically filtered out by the backend system. It was only because they appeared densely in a short time that the system's fuzzy judgment took effect, intercepting and recording these signals."

Irene sighed, looking up at the sky: "And then my nephew just happened to catch that one entrance, right..."

!

"High sensitivity, low stability might not explain this situation anymore," Yu Sheng thought for a moment and muttered to Little Red Riding Hood, "I think after we rescue him, we should first advise him to find a place to pray... Is there an Ancient Saint Spirit who governs luck?"

"There is one who governs a good mindset," Little Red Riding Hood also muttered, "Alice, the Ancestor of Dolls, governs a good mindset. Or you could pray to Lady Star-Thrower; Star-Thrower and her hounds govern being lucky and being tough."

Yu Sheng: "..."

Do those Ancient Saint Spirits have some kind of serious illness?!

He suddenly felt a certain curiosity about this world's "belief system" that regards "Ancient Saint Spirits" as "true gods," wanting to research what those ancient beings, said to have participated in the Genesis, actually do, and how They influence this world—of course, now was obviously not the time.

"Are the oscillations still continuing?" Little Red Riding Hood suddenly asked.

"They have already stopped," Liu Bing shook his head, "They stopped before we arrived here."

"Has this never happened before?" Yu Sheng also asked out of curiosity.

"First time on record," Liu Bing's expression was serious, "Normal Foreign Realm entrances open with only one strong energy fluctuation, lasting from several minutes to several hours, and after opening, they continuously expand. That is why, once a Foreign Realm entrance appears, evacuation must be organized immediately to prevent the harm from expanding... So if we must say, this incident, although strange, actually has very little harm, at least it appears so now."

Yu Sheng's eyebrows slowly furrowed; for some reason, although Liu Bing said the impact range of this incident was small and the harm was not great, he felt something was wrong in his heart.

The way the Foreign Realm entrance opened... made him feel extremely suspicious.

The Special Operations Bureau personnel had obviously considered this "suspicion," so even though the Foreign Realm entrance seemed to have disappeared now, they still set up defenses here at a very high level and sent support forces.

In front of the mall entrance, Yu Sheng saw some "node" devices directly installed on special vehicles, along with many monitoring and defense equipment that had obviously just been delivered to the scene.

Fully armed Special Operations Bureau agents had already blocked the main entrance and several exits on both sides of the main entrance.

The mall had several other gates; those areas were probably also fully deployed.

"This is the location where we recorded the entrance opening," Liu Bing led Yu Sheng to a wall near the main entrance and pointed at that huge tempered glass window, "If I'm not mistaken, the involved party 'walked' through this piece of glass into the 'mall' he described."

Yu Sheng took a light breath, approached the glass, and took a look inside.

The glass only reflected the normal street scenery.

(End of this chapter)