Chapter 263: Crossing the Mirror

The shop window glass only reflected the normal street scene — the avenue after the emergency lockdown was completely empty, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Yu Sheng took out his phone and tried to call back the number he had received earlier — unsurprisingly, it was out of service area.

The communication isolation brought by the Other Domain does not weaken just because one approaches its "entrance." So far, there have been no exceptions, aside from special Other Domains like No. 66 Wutong Road and its attached space.

"Well? Can you make anything out?" Yu Sheng turned his head to look at Little Red Riding Hood beside him.

Little Red Riding Hood shook her head with a solemn expression.

"The entrance has already closed. The biggest problem now is that we can't determine which Other Domain it was, so we can't determine the conditions for entry," she said slowly. "It's really strange… how could it leave not a single trace? In theory, there should always be some lingering aura — my wolves should be able to detect it…"

"Under normal circumstances, how is an incident like this handled, where someone is swallowed by an unknown Other Domain? Is there a rescue procedure?" Yu Sheng asked.

"First, of course, you determine exactly which Other Domain the victim fell into, then based on that you determine the entry and exit conditions and the current location of the entrance," Little Red Riding Hood answered casually. "If it's a fixed entrance, like the museum we went to before, you can meet the conditions and go straight in. If it's the kind of entrance that keeps changing, you have to use some tracking methods — I have my wolf pack, but most Spirit Realm detectives and investigators don't have it that convenient; they really do need to use some 'detective' and 'investigation' methods. As for the Special Affairs Bureau…"

She hesitated at this point, and Liu Bing beside her smoothly took over: "The Special Affairs Bureau's method is actually pretty much the same. When we encounter an Other Domain with a constantly changing entrance, we also need to first track its entrance. However, we can use monitoring equipment spread throughout the entire Borderland to find those unstable rifts faster. We also have Deep Dive units that can use special techniques to forcibly enter Other Domains that temporarily don't meet the opening conditions."

Saying this, he frowned.

"But this time we've also run into trouble. Just as Little Red Riding Hood said, 'not a single trace left' — we've already applied to our superiors for a full-domain scan, but across the entire Borderland, none of the monitoring equipment found that entrance… It really only existed for that one second, and then evaporated from this world."

Yu Sheng said nothing, just looked at that shop window again with a solemn expression.

The next second, his gaze suddenly sharpened.

In the street reflected in the shop window, he saw a figure flash past — a young man, looking panicked and tense, running across the empty avenue, disappearing in an instant around a street corner the shop window couldn't reflect.

The puppet on his shoulder almost instantly cried out: "Hey hey hey Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, someone just ran past from inside here…"

"I saw it," Yu Sheng said in a low voice. "It's him."

Little Red Riding Hood instinctively glanced back at the street behind her, but she quickly caught herself, frowning at the glass reflecting the street scene: "…He's trapped inside the mirror?"

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, but before he could speak, he heard the phone in his pocket ring urgently!

Yu Sheng answered the call immediately and switched to speakerphone. From the speaker first came a burst of crackling static, then the young man's voice, panting with tension, came through in broken fragments: "Brother Yu… escaped from the mall… the fog outside is thick! Why is there not a single person on the street… my phone keeps not going through…"

"Come back! Come back to the mall entrance! The big shop window here!" Yu Sheng cut him off directly, speaking quickly while the signal hadn't dropped yet, "Don't run around over there!"

"Come back…? Okay, got it, I'll… ¥@#@ bzzz…"

The phone signal cut out again.

"He seems to be wandering around l-1 depth?" Little Red Riding Hood's brow furrowed. "Is that Other Domain in the mirror 'fluctuating'?"

Liu Bing, upon seeing this, quickly walked aside, took out his walkie-talkie, and rapidly exchanged words with support personnel somewhere, seemingly adjusting the scanning mode of the monitoring equipment based on the situation just now.

And Yu Sheng's gaze fell once more on that wide shop window glass.

A few minutes later, he saw that figure again.

The young man, looking slightly weary, panting from running headlong without thinking, his clothes somewhat disheveled, ran out from the other side of the street, jogged all the way to the shop window, while continuously glancing around nervously, as if some dangerous thing on "his side" could pop out of the air at any moment.

Hu Li stepped forward and slapped the shop window hard.

The young man in the mirror image didn't react, as if he hadn't heard.

Hu Li knocked hard again.

"Silly fox, take it easy, don't shatter it!" Eileen couldn't help but remind her.

And the moment Eileen's words fell, Yu Sheng saw the young man reflected in the shop window suddenly turn his head. He seemed to have heard the faint knocking on the glass, walked over slowly with a slightly nervous expression, and stopped half a meter in front of the shop window, raising his hand to carefully touch the glass before him.

Hu Li reached out and knocked again.

The vibration passed through the mirror, transmitted to the world on the other side.

The young man startled, fearfully pulling his hand back.

But immediately after, he seemed to understand that this was a signal transmitted from the "reality" side. With a mix of caution and anticipation, he also reached out and knocked a few times on the shop window. Yu Sheng heard the faint knocking — the sound was muffled, as if covered by something thick, but the vibration really did transmit to this side.

However, just as he was about to think about how to use this faint connection to rescue the other party from the "mirror," the young man in the mirror image suddenly turned his head in terror, then turned and ran!

Eileen immediately panicked: "Hey! Hey, I said don't run around blindly!!"

Hu Li immediately retorted with a serious face: "He's not running blindly, something over there is chasing him."

"Obviously, I can see that too!" Eileen said while grabbing Yu Sheng's hair, "Yu Sheng, think of something! The client's about to kick the bucket!"

"Don't rush me, I'm thinking." Yu Sheng said casually, while stepping forward, coming to the shop window and feeling around on the glass with his hand.

Little Red Riding Hood was stunned when she saw this: "…Huh? This thing can be opened too?!"

"There's nothing here and he can still open it." Eileen wasn't panicked anymore at this point, instantly saying smugly, although it was unclear what she had to be smug about.

Yu Sheng paid no attention to the little puppet's showing off on his body; he was trying hard to find the door leading to the other side of the mirror.

He needed a "coordinate," a guide, or at the very least… a thread of information that could point toward "the other side."

The only thing that could provide him with this kind of "direction" was the action of the young man trapped in the mirror world knocking on the shop window just now.

!

He placed his hand on the spot where the other party had knocked on the shop window, closed his eyes slightly, imagining the vibration of this thick glass just now, imagining that on the other side, in the world reflected by the mirror, there had once been a vibration — muffled, as if covered by something thick — he imagined that vibration transmitting to his hand, becoming an invisible handle.

There was a door there; when the handle turned, the door would open.

The handle turned.

Liu Bing stared wide-eyed at this scene, watching Yu Sheng open out of thin air on that glass shop window a door that seemed to be forged from mirrors. The door opened, yet the other side showed the appearance of the street behind everyone.

Only that street was shrouded in thick fog, with not a single person.

"Alright, the door is open," Yu Sheng said, maintaining his posture with his hand on the door handle, turning his head to smile at Little Red Riding Hood and Liu Bing. "I'll go over and check the situation."

Hu Li immediately stepped forward: "Benefactor! I'm coming too!"

"I'll go with you too," Little Red Riding Hood quickly followed up, then added, "The wolf pack's scouting ability is very useful in unfamiliar environments."

"Alright," Yu Sheng nodded. "Once we're over there, everyone be extra careful. Although the 'depth' over there doesn't seem very deep, the situation is a bit strange."

And just as Yu Sheng's group was preparing to step through that door, Liu Bing suddenly walked over as well.

This tall Special Affairs Bureau operative stuffed something into Yu Sheng's hand.

"Take this."

Yu Sheng took a curious look and found that what the other party had stuffed into his hand was just a palm-sized little "box" — a metal device with a black casing, no switches or buttons on the surface, a few blinking indicator lights on the side, nothing more.

"What the heck is this thing?"

"A locator," Liu Bing said. "The team I brought needs to guard this side of the district, so we can't go in with you directly. But time is tight; take the locator to 'that side' first. Once you arrive, the Special Operations Bureau's support units will follow the signal to find you."

Yu Sheng paused, somewhat puzzled: "Didn't you say there's no signal once the depth in the Otherworld exceeds L-1?"

"There is no communication signal, or rather, 'information' comprehensible to human rationality cannot be transmitted," Liu Bing said, a faint smile appearing on his face. "But what this locator transmits isn't a 'signal'; it's a subspace oscillation known as 'Deep Sea Echo.' It isn't meant for humans to hear; it's for certain machine spirits within the Special Operations Bureau to 'hear'."

"... Although I didn't understand a word, I'll take it," Yu Sheng said with utmost seriousness, then casually tucked the palm-sized "locator" into his coat pocket.

Then he took a gentle breath, nodded to Little Red Riding Hood and Hu Li, and said, "Let's go in."

Little Red Riding Hood and Hu Li stepped across the door opened within the mirror, after which Yu Sheng also crossed through with Erin.

The door closed silently and seamlessly; the display window regained its integrity, as if it had never been opened.

Before Yu Sheng's eyes, boundless thick fog rushed toward him—within the mist lay the streetscape of Mirror City.

(End of Chapter)