Chapter 70: Contact

In the Special Operations Bureau, Deep Divers are combat elites who have been rigorously selected, harshly trained, and passed through layer upon layer of trials to emerge from ordinary agents.

They are always dispatched to the most dangerous places, facing challenges that are extremely difficult, even beyond human sanity; they know how to survive in the lethal environments of alien worlds, how to pursue mad Angel cultists in lawless zones, and they can even breach into alien realms to confront the most dangerous entities, or delve into nightmares to rescue those fallen souls within the treacherous labyrinths woven from spirit and consciousness—Deep Diving, diving down from the tranquil present world into the dark dimensions beneath sanity, this is their work.

Yet there always exist things in this world that human intelligence cannot understand or oppose; even the most elite Deep Divers encounter failure, and often so.

But the current situation still exceeded Song Cheng's work experience—even it seemed to exceed the Director's expectations.

Six Deep Divers were immediately transferred from the "Water Tank" to the outside; their power armor had automatically executed emergency medical procedures the instant they returned to the reality dimension, the armor's built-in injection system injecting massive doses of sanity blockers and protective drugs into their bodies to rapidly bring them into a calm state, after which support personnel stepped forward to check everyone's contamination status, while simultaneously confirming whether their consciousness had returned to the material world along with their bodies—and confirming whether anything else had "returned" along with their consciousness.

Song Cheng and Bai Liqing stood aside, watching this scene with furrowed brows.

"A math problem?" After a long moment of solemnity, Song Cheng finally could not help but break the silence, "... Can a math problem entering the mind cause such an impact?"

Bai Liqing shook her head gently.

"The professors at the Terra 'Academy' can indeed attack opponents by instantly infusing ordinary people's brains with excessive knowledge, but it would not produce this effect, and our Deep Divers have undergone professional training and possess inherent adaptability to 'knowledge' type attacks; besides possessing considerable learning ability themselves, their brains can actively go dormant when facing 'knowledge infusion' that exceeds their processing capacity."

Song Cheng frowned: "What you mean is..."

"The 'math problem' mentioned by that Deep Divers before he fainted might only be some kind of concretized impression they saw during the dive; what truly formed the contamination... should be something else," Bai Liqing said with a solemn expression, "At the end of the passage... there was no Nightfall Valley... but why would it be a math problem?"

Song Cheng dared not speak, afraid of interrupting the Director's train of thought.

And after a moment of silence, Bai Liqing suddenly turned her head: "Xiao Song, you shouldn't have contacted that 'Yu Sheng' yet, right?"

"Mm, I originally planned to contact that person today, but I didn't expect to encounter so many accidents..."

"Don't go." Bai Liqing said lightly.

Yu Sheng heard some noise; he raised his head to look around, but could not find the source of the noise.

Business was light, with few people in the cafe; only a few scattered guests sat at tables in the distance, while two clerks boredly scrolled through their phones not far away, making the shop feel very desolate.

Occasionally someone would glance curiously in this direction—probably wondering why a young man in his twenties would be sitting in a cafe at this time, burying his head in copying a large volume of high school homework.

Yu Sheng sighed, looking at the remaining half of the test paper, feeling his hand vaguely ache.

He had written as carelessly as possible; many of the major problems looked like ghostly scribbles underneath, but ultimately, his hands were accustomed to keyboards, having not held a pen to write so many characters for years; this task turned out to be far more tiring than he had anticipated.

But it was hard to say whether it was more tiring to do homework for a Gao Zhongsheng here, or to drag a fox who understood nothing to a mall to buy clothes.

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, feeling it was better to copy test papers here—he truly lacked the courage to take Hu Li into an underwear store; that would make him feel like a pervert.

Especially when Hu Li displayed that kind of innocent ignorance, he was really likely to be reported to the police by the clerks as a pervert.

Just then, Irene's voice suddenly came into his mind: "Hi hi~ Yu Sheng, how much have you written over there?"

Yu Sheng's hands kept moving: "Halfway done; today's Gao Zhongsheng are really tired; why is there so much homework!"

"Do your best; I just heard Little Red Riding Hood mentioning it; she actually has another physics homework, but she forgot to bring it..."

"Let her go home and write it herself; I don't care about that," Yu Sheng replied irritably, "How about you over there? Is it going smoothly?"

"It's okay; Hu Li doesn't know how to use zippers very well; Little Red Riding Hood taught her for a long time; the two of them are now together in the changing room... I was left on a bench at the entrance of the changing room," Irene sounded in good spirits, "Little Red Riding Hood even bought me a hairpin! Bought it at the doll shop, red..."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment and realized: "That was spending my money!"

"I know, I know," Irene said quickly, "Just consider it a gift from you... I didn't ask for anything else, just a hairpin, it's not expensive..."

"Alright, alright, I didn't say don't buy," Yu Sheng was somewhat amused and helpless, "Just reminding you, don't shop too wildly, and don't forget to buy some toiletries and such for Hu Li, plus bed sheets and duvet covers; you didn't forget the sizes, right?"

"Oh, I remember, I remember, don't worry, my brain..." Irene suddenly paused here, her tone shifting, "Hu Li's brain..."

A strange and awkward silence fell in Yu Sheng's mind.

This is what happens when the team can't be led.

"How big was her bed again?" Irene's voice sounded particularly lacking in confidence.

"One point five meters by two meters," Yu Sheng sighed, "Tell that number to Little Red Riding Hood, let her remember it for both of you, and tell her whatever else needs to be bought too; she's a Gao Zhongsheng, her brain works better than yours."

"Yes, yes, oh..."

Yu Sheng helplessly ended the conversation in his mind and lowered his head, preparing to continue writing the test paper.

However, just then, he suddenly felt something was strange around him.

Quiet; somehow, it had become so quiet beside him, even the faint chatter of the few tables of guests could no longer be heard.

Yu Sheng suddenly raised his head and quickly scanned the surroundings.

He was still in the cafe.

Countless tables and chairs were arranged neatly, extending infinitely forward and infinitely backward.

In the boundless cafe, there was no one; until the end of his vision, there were only continuous rows of tables and chairs.

And on his left were the street-facing windows—those windows now also extended infinitely forward and backward, but outside the window, no street scene could be seen, only a vast expanse of white mist.

Some huge shadow moved slowly within the mist, occasionally approaching the nearby windows as if casting a gaze into the cafe, but no matter how one looked, those shadows only had vague, blurred outlines.

Yu Sheng watched all this in shock, slowly rising from his chair.

But just as he was about to open the door and leave, a voice suddenly came from opposite him: "Hello."

It sounded like a slightly hoarse female voice, very young.

Yu Sheng was surprised to see that someone had somehow sat down opposite the table—a lady who looked to be under thirty, wearing a fitted white suit, her gray-white long hair tied in a ponytail; she was very beautiful, but her temperament carried an indescribable aloofness and coldness.

And Yu Sheng's attention focused more on the other person's eyes; she had a pair of pale gray pupils, as if they had lost their color, even the boundary between the iris and the sclera appeared quite blurred, so that at first glance, it looked somewhat... not like something a normal human should have.

Immediately after, Yu Sheng noticed an incredible scene—he saw everything around this lady rapidly lose its color, from the nearest coffee tables and chairs to the nearby floor and other tables and chairs; everything was being dyed a pale gray-white, the fading range extending more than ten meters before finally gradually weakening.

Finally, only this lady herself and Yu Sheng retained their original colors.

Yu Sheng steadied himself; he remembered what Irene had told him—in alien realms, rational entities might appear, but even entities that looked very human would show extremely obvious strange non-human characteristics; although this lady looked a bit strange, she obviously had not reached the level of "strange non-human," which meant she should be a human.

Since she was human, and had even greeted him proactively, she was obviously someone he could talk to properly.

Yu Sheng temporarily abandoned his plan to push the door and leave, sat back down in his chair, and looked curiously at the opposite side: "You are...?"

"Bai Liqing, Director of the Special Operations Bureau under the Borderland Geography Council," the lady sitting opposite nodded gently, "I apologize for meeting you in this manner—this is for maximum confidentiality and some safety considerations."

Yu Sheng was instantly stunned.

The Special Operations Bureau had indeed come to find him—but was the level this high? The Director coming personally?!

While Yu Sheng was frozen in thought, Bai Li Qing casually swept her gaze across the table before her.

She saw the pile of exam papers Yu Sheng had placed on the table, and her expression momentarily froze.

Math problems—every single one was a past National College Entrance Exam question.

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(End of Chapter)