Chapter 19: Going Home

Li Lin stared blankly at the empty corner, the sampling scraper still in his hand, his mind so lost that he felt as if he had forgotten what he was doing.

The middle-aged man addressed as "Captain Song"—Song Cheng, Captain of the Special Service Bureau's Second Team—knitted his brows tightly the moment he saw the bloodstain vanish.

Something had vanished from his memory and thought processes, yet a residual impression remained. These faint traces stimulated his "spirituality," alerting him to something being amiss.

A chaotic glow surfaced in the depths of Song Cheng's eyes. He immediately exerted mental control, attempting to "solidify" the last remaining traces of that impression to prevent them from dissipating along with certain memories. His years of professional training came into play at this moment. Li Lin, still holding the scraper, looked up after a moment of hesitation: "Boss, I feel like I suddenly forgot what I was supposed to do. Was there something here just now?"

"Cognitive interference!" Song Cheng reacted instantly, warning sharply, "Check the 'depth' here immediately!"

Hearing this, Li Lin put down his sampling tool without a word. He swiftly pulled a palm-sized black box from his belt, pressed a few buttons on its surface, and then drew a thin "soft tube" from its side. He connected the needle-like tip of the tube directly to his eyeball. Once finished, he raised his head and slowly scanned his surroundings with the eye connected to the tube.

A faint humming emanated from the pitch-black iron box, and a liquid seemed to be flowing slowly through the thin tube. Li Lin's eye gradually turned pitch black, and through his spiritual vision, everything in this old street began to take on a black-and-white hue.

"Depth L-0, no otherworldly reaction," Li Lin reported while observing. "I don't see anything that escaped from the 'Otherworld' or any residues."

Song Cheng frowned, glancing at the box in Li Lin's hand—it was a portable depth probe. Its sensing range and sensitivity were inferior to the suitcase-sized standard equipment, but even a portable model should have been able to detect changes in "depth" within its range.

He was certain that his memory and thoughts had just been influenced by something; that residual "impression" was still being forcibly solidified in his mind. There had to be something sinister here exerting influence, but... the equipment couldn't sense it.

Just as he was about to tell Li Lin to adjust the probe's sensing mode, the latter seemed to suddenly discover something.

Li Lin stared intently at a spot at the end of the alley.

The eye connected to the tube was as black as ink, reflecting a different field of vision within its deep darkness. He saw that amidst the black-and-white buildings of the street, there was a faint, shimmering trace of color—the color was extremely blurry and pale, making it impossible to tell what it was, but it was massive in scale. After struggling to discern it for a long time, he roughly determined the extent of the nearly transparent outline, judging its size to be roughly equivalent to a house.

"Captain Song, there's something up ahead, but it's very blurry. It looks like a house," he said, walking forward cautiously. "The depth reading is still 0, and there's no contamination reaction... I'm almost in front of it. Can you feel anything?"

Song Cheng followed behind Li Lin, his right hand gripping a badge in his pocket, ready to intervene if things went wrong. He shook his head with a frown: "My spirituality isn't giving any warnings."

Li Lin stopped at a certain point. He felt he had arrived before that hazy patch of color, then hesitated before slowly reaching his hand forward—

A sharp, piercing whine suddenly erupted from the pitch-black iron box, followed by several light cracking sounds. With a puff of blue smoke, the depth probe ceased functioning.

The tube connected to his eyeball instantly detached, and a substance as black as sludge flowed out, rapidly evaporating upon contact with the air.

The sudden, throbbing ache in his eye made Li Lin let out an involuntary, "Holy crap..." He tossed aside the black box, which was already becoming hot to the touch, and instinctively tried to rub the eye that had just been connected. Seeing this, Song Cheng immediately stepped forward and pressed his hand near Li Lin's temple: "Don't rub it! It'll be fine in a moment!"

Li Lin froze in place. He felt a searing heat near his temple, while the discomfort in his eyeball rapidly receded. A moment later, he recovered and saw the depth probe, still emitting blue smoke on the ground.

"...Should I report this to the Bureau?"

"Report it."

"Thank goodness, that gave me a scare," Li Lin breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to look toward where he had reached out, his expression filled with suspicion.

However, there was only a small patch of empty space here, ending in a wall—the wall was covered in random graffiti, with colorful spray paint outlining images of doors, windows, houses, trees, and stones.

He waved his hand forward; he touched nothing.

"There was definitely something here. The instrument observed it just now, but the device broke before I could confirm it," Li Lin muttered. "Before it broke, the depth reading was still L-0."

"...Let's head back to the Bureau first," Song Cheng pondered for two seconds before making a decision. "Once we're back, I'll file a report to the Council. This place definitely needs monitoring for a while; we can't rule out it being some kind of unregistered 'Otherworld.' It'll likely require large-scale equipment and specialized 'Deep Divers' to handle. Also, is your eye okay?"

"...If it's not okay, can I get half a day off?"

"No, the Bureau is short-staffed."

"Then it's fine. I'll just put some eye drops in when I get back."

Song Cheng nodded, and Li Lin bent down to carefully pick up the remains of the depth probe, which had stopped smoking. The two of them walked back to where they had parked their electric scooters.

Li Lin turned the key, and the scooter's LCD screen flickered once before going dark.

He froze, then looked up, meeting Captain Song's gaze, which was identical to his own.

"My scooter is broken... yours too?"

Song Cheng nodded silently.

"...Do you think it's a coincidence?"

Song Cheng shook his head slightly and spoke in a low voice: "The people at the 'Academy' have a specific way of explaining this phenomenon."

Li Lin was momentarily stunned, then recalled some materials he had read before—

"The machine spirit is unhappy." / "The machine spirit is scared."

The two of them spoke the words simultaneously, though with different tones.

Then they both fell silent for a moment before speaking in unison again: "You remembered it wrong."

"We'll talk about it later," Song Cheng waved his hand, pushing the scooter as they began to walk back slowly. "Let's just get out of here first."

Li Lin pushed his scooter behind Song Cheng: "...Boss, are we really just pushing it all the way back?"

"What else? You don't want your scooter?"

"Doesn't the Bureau have a small truck or something? If not, can't we call over that electric tricycle from the logistics office downstairs... Pushing this back is going to kill me..."

"Stop complaining. You're young, yet your stamina is worse than mine?"

The two veteran Special Service Bureau agents pushed their scooters into the distance, their figures gradually disappearing at the intersection of Wutong Road.

...

Yu Sheng was already very familiar with the boundless, profound darkness. He had been coming here quite frequently lately; while drifting in this dark chaos, he even felt as if he were returning home.

Eileen's scream still echoed in his ears.

He thought that the scene of him, covered in blood with a hole in his stomach, pushing open the door and dying inside, had probably terrified that doll in the painting—it seemed that even as a "Cursed Object," Eileen's psychological resilience was only so much.

This made Yu Sheng look forward even more to what would happen after his "return."

When he returned to the mortal world and appeared before Eileen again... how would the doll lady react?

Would she... still remember him pushing the door and dying in the house?

Yu Sheng floated in the darkness. The figure of Hu Li emerged "before his eyes." Recalling his experience in the Nightfall Valley, he remembered that when Hu Li saw him in the ruined temple, she had completely forgotten the process of how she had killed him with a headbutt—though for some reason she had suddenly remembered it later, at the beginning, Hu Li had indeed completely forgotten his "death."

Yu Sheng didn't know how this "forgetting" worked, nor was he sure if it was a problem with him or Hu Li—after all, that fox girl's mind seemed quite chaotic; it was normal for her to suddenly forget certain things.

But if Eileen also failed to remember the scene of him pushing the door and dying in the house, then Yu Sheng could basically be certain... the problem lay with him.

It was impossible to judge the length of time spent floating in the darkness, so after briefly organizing his experiences so far, Yu Sheng emptied his mind, allowing his tense nerves to rest while patiently waiting for the moment the darkness would end.

Then, he felt that familiar sensation of falling, feeling himself rapidly "returning" to the mortal realm.

Prepared in advance, Yu Sheng immediately concentrated his spirit, attempting to capture his perception at the exact moment he crossed the "boundary"—

Familiar scenes appeared "before his eyes," and a vague sense of guidance drove him to "fall" in a specific direction. He struggled to distinguish himself amidst the flurry of images emerging in those moments, but before he could grasp anything, he "saw" one image rapidly enlarge before his eyes—

No. 66 Wutong Road, the living room after entering the door.

Yu Sheng snapped his eyes open.

The familiar furnishings of his home came into view. In the dining room next to the living room, that ancient and exquisite oil painting sat quietly on the dining table.

Eileen, in the oil painting, broke the silence.

"Yu Sheng! You're finally back!"

(End of Chapter)