Chapter 36: The Sleepless Person (Not Yu Sheng)

Regardless of whether they got along, Li Lin had to admit that Xu Jiali was indeed the most outstanding Deep Diver he had ever met—the fact that someone so capable had come to support him at this time at least showed that the Bureau was still taking care of him, a newcomer.

Provided he could put up with this burly man's big mouth and boastful personality, especially after every mission he completed.

"Let me tell you, this mission really ran into some weird stuff," the burly man on the sofa casually grabbed a bottle of water from the coffee table beside him, unscrewed the cap while speaking offhandedly, "I caught that Angel Cultist who snuck into Aimein. I finally cornered him in the no-man's-land, and just as we were fighting, I looked up—guess what?"

Li Lin rolled his eyes: "You big mouth, is this something you can say outside?"

"Sure, I've already reported to the Bureau, and this part of the intelligence is rated as open to you," Xu Jiali waved his hand and continued talking regardless of whether Li Lin wanted to listen, "I looked up, damn! A person was just standing right there! Do you know what he looked like? Wearing a shirt and single trousers, standing in the toxic hot winds of Aimein-IX, oh, and there was a doorframe sticking out nearby—I was freaking out then—normally I would have killed that Angel Cultist in the next second, but the shock let him catch his breath. Fortunately, in the end I was one step ahead..."

Li Lin impatiently waved his hand, walking towards the monitoring equipment he had placed by the window while speaking casually: "Alright, alright, every story ends with 'fortunately I was one step ahead,' can't you think of a more novel twist?"

"But I really was one step ahead," the burly man widened his eyes, watching Li Lin's actions, "Hey, wait, aren't you surprised? I saw a person in the toxic hot winds of Aimein-IX! Not even wearing a power armor! Even the Captain isn't that tough!"

"Last time you saw someone suddenly appear in the acid rain of Tatar-V without wearing protective gear too—it was a professor from the 'Academy' out to gather materials," Li Lin didn't turn around, "This world isn't short of strange folks, let alone you Deep Divers who start having all kinds of hallucinations after diving deep; I've heard similar thriller stories from you eight hundred times, now I don't believe a single punctuation mark of them. Wait until you see someone standing outside the porthole flying with you when you take off from Xinggang orbit in a shuttle, then come tell me, at least that sounds a bit innovative."

"I've seen that," the burly man grinned, directly sitting down heavily on Li Lin's bed, "It was a Taoist from Qianfeng Ling Mountain, damn it, I was just about to accelerate and he held up a mirror, flashing it at my monitor, saying he wanted to overtake... Over what? If he's so capable, let him enter the jump with his bare body..."

Li Lin finally couldn't help but stop his hand movements, he turned his head, looking at the Xu (burly) Jia (man) Li sitting beside him, and only after a long while sighed: "Your daily life as special field agents is truly colorful."

"Why don't you take the Deep Diver exam too? Maybe next time you can run special field missions with me," the burly man urged, "What's so good about the Borderlands? It's dangerous, troublesome, and whatever you do carries heavy responsibility."

Li Lin thought for a moment, then shook his head: "The Borderlands are always short of manpower; someone has to guard this biggest 'Hub'. And honestly, I don't think risking your life against Angel Cultists on a wasteland planet wearing power armor is any safer than staying in the Borderlands to handle Otherworld security. Besides... you still have to deal with the 'Otherworld' when you run special field missions anyway."

"That's different, the Otherworld density out there isn't this high. Unlike the Borderlands, damn, out of twenty bus stops on one trip, seven are Otherworlds..."

Li Lin glanced back at Xu Jiali, wanting to say that ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of people under normal circumstances could only see those thirteen normal stops, but thinking of the file in front of him stating that this burly man had accidentally entered an Otherworld 'platform' at the age of twelve, survived alone on the 'platform' for a full six years, and only became a Deep Diver after psychological correction because he couldn't shake off the Otherworld's pursuit, he ultimately didn't speak the words in his heart.

The Special Operations Bureau's frontline combat personnel come in two types: one type comes up through the normal training and assessment process, the other type is fished out from the Otherworld.

Don't show off your extensive knowledge in front of people with traumatic experiences—even if they don't care about it at all.

Li Lin lowered his head, focusing on checking the various parameters recorded by the equipment.

The burly man beside him seemed a bit bored; he was a pure combatant, coming here mainly as a combat reinforcement, and had little interest in work like 'stakeouts'.

"The Bureau is in a mess right now," he suddenly said after being bored for a while, "The captains of several action battalions were called in for overtime, and I heard even the Director went."

"I know," Li Lin didn't look up, "This is the Borderlands after all."

"Is this kind of thing common in the Borderlands?" the burly man scratched his head, "Have there been similar 'anomalies' before? I'm always out on special field missions, so I don't know much..."

"If you're talking about the spatial displacement phenomenon tonight, it hasn't appeared before, but if you're talking about the 'anomaly' itself, then the Borderlands never lack them; this place... is the Borderlands after all."

"Alright, charming Borderlands, I love this place to death," the burly man stretched his arms and shoulders, lay back on Li Lin's bed, and the heavy body made the poor single bed creak, "Both those who want to destroy this world and those who want to protect it love this place to death—luckily I don't have to be on duty at the Bureau; I heard the captains are working overtime every day."

Li Lin didn't answer him, just focused on carrying out the task of monitoring and recording.

And just then, the sudden ring of a mobile phone broke the silence in the room.

Li Lin glanced at the phone screen, immediately picked it up to answer: "This is Li Lin... Hmm, hmm? Ah, okay, I understand."

The burly man sat up from the bed, looking curiously at Li Lin whose expression had changed: "What's going on?"

Li Lin had a strange expression, looking up at the calm night outside the window.

"The Bureau just called; the rift phenomenon... has stopped."

The burly man was stunned by the words. "Stopped?" He widened his eyes, "Just stopped? No follow-up attacks, no Angel Cultists, not even an Otherworld appeared?"

"No, it just stopped; now all the monitoring nodes across the entire Borderlands have gone quiet."

"So I worked this extra night shift for nothing?"

"Not for nothing—and we have to keep adding shifts; the Bureau hasn't rested either," Li Lin shook his phone, "Everyone continues to maintain monitoring to see if the force that created the rift phenomenon has any follow-up moves. Go sleep in the next room now; I'll wake you up in six hours to take over for me."

"Okay," the burly man immediately stood up, not saying a single word of nonsense this time, "Wake me up directly if there's a situation."

Li Lin nodded, his gaze turning back to the night outside the window.

"Another sleepless night..." he murmured softly.

Yu Sheng slept very soundly in the second half of the night.

After successfully replicating a 'Great Gate' leading to a distant time and space, he firmly remembered that feeling, knowing how to control the so-called 'Spiritual Guidance', and how to endow the gate with a specific 'frequency' when opening it, thereby allowing the gate to stably lead to the designated location.

He felt that most things in this world could be categorized as 'first time a stranger, second time a friend'.

!.

And after that, he kept practicing and strengthening this process of opening the gate, successfully replicating various kinds of passages until he was exhausted.

Sleep after exhaustion is always particularly sound; he felt he hadn't slept this soundly in many years.

But he was a bit regretful; in this good night's sleep, he didn't dream of that fox—not even a single dream.

It seems that the dream with the Hu Li was not stably generated.

This made Yu Sheng feel a bit uneasy in his heart, and a little urgent.

After waking up in the morning, he told the situation to Erin.

"It's fine, don't think too much; that fox has been surviving in the Otherworld for so many years, it's not going to happen in just a day or two," Erin didn't spout trash talk this time, but comforted Yu Sheng very seriously, "Dreams are inherently unstable; maybe you'll see her again in the next dream?"

"Let's hope so," Yu Sheng said casually, picking up a slice of meat from the table and putting it into his bowl.

This was meat cut from that 'local specialty'; he had eaten three meals in a row, hadn't finished it, and hadn't gotten tired of it.

However, he could no longer feel any physical strengthening from this 'eating'; it seemed the effect of this thing on him had reached its limit.

But regardless, its taste was still good.

"What are your plans after eating?" Erin's voice came from the side, "Continue practicing 'opening the gate'? Or try to replicate the passage leading to the 'Valley'?"

"I need to go out and buy some things first; after coming back, I'll start trying to construct the path to the Valley. This might take a long time to try; I can't remember the 'feeling' from back then very clearly," Yu Sheng said, suddenly noticing the expression on Erin's face where she wanted to speak but held back, "Hmm? Do you have an idea?"

Erin stared straight at him; the Young Lady doll seemed to be hesitating, and only spoke after several seconds: "... Set aside half a day, for me."

Yu Sheng was stunned; he rarely saw such a solemn look on the doll's face.

"Set aside half a day for you... what for?"

"Make me a body," Erin said calmly and firmly.

(End of this chapter)