The "patients" entering the Jinglin Sanatorium are influenced solely by the sanatorium’s rules—this simple statent made Yu Sheng almost instantly consider a possible scenario.
"...That independent investigator nad ’Sun Chen’, is it possible he’s using the ’rules’ of Jinglin Sanatorium to avoid the influence of that ’Tower’?"
"That’s what I guessed too," Little Red Riding Hood nodded, "After all, he had previously posted about being persistently entangled by that Tower, even suspecting that part of his mind was trapped in nightmares related to the Tower. In this situation, he’s certainly sought help from familiar exotic doctors and spiritual ability users, and possibly even from the Special Service Bureau. Hiding in Jinglin Sanatorium might be advice given by soone."
Yu Sheng recalled his previous experiences exploring the "Dark Alley" with Little Red Riding Hood and the King, rembering the "eroded" old bookstore and his bizarre, chaotic dreamscape at dawn.
"Seems like we have to make a visit to that sanatorium," he said slowly, "to et that independent investigator face to face and confirm the situation."
"Yeah, that’s why I ca to you first thing—entering Jinglin Sanatorium isn’t that easy. Given its special nature, visiting requires special procedures, which I can’t manage, but it shouldn’t be a problem for you."
Listening to Little Red Riding Hood, Yu Sheng quickly reacted, picked up his phone, and started sending ssages, muttering as he did, "Ugh, always troubling such a dignified director with these ssy affairs..."
Erin, who had been sitting on the edge of the table swinging her legs in a daze, imdiately turned her head upon hearing this, "You don’t seem guilty when ssaging people at eleven or twelve at night—today at least it’s a more normal ti."
Hearing this, Yu Sheng instantly tead up with the little puppet, conniving and in cahoots, "Now that you’ve ntioned it, I feel much more justified..."
Little Red Riding Hood looked at Yu Sheng, then at the puppet on the table, opened her mouth but didn’t know how to comnt on the two, so she simply continued eating her bun.
anwhile, Hu Li was busy devouring his food from start to finish, not seeming to care about the others’ conversation. When the room quieted down, he only raised his head curiously, then placed a sausage in front of his good friend.
Little Red Riding Hood ate the sausage and bun, feeling sowhat subtly fed... as if out of nowhere.
Then she saw Yu Sheng across the table suddenly stand up, open a nearby door, and wave at her as he walked through it, "It’s complicated to explain via ssages, so I’ll talk to Baili Qing in person—I’ll be back soon, you three wait here for a bit."
The next second, Baili Qing, sitting in her office in the Special Service Bureau Building, looked up as Yu Sheng pushed the door open and walked in, his face as expressionless as ever.
"I know what you’ve been investigating lately, and I also know your current progress," Baili Qing said bluntly upon eting, without hiding her "interest" in Yu Sheng’s daily actions, "The special investigation permit you need can be issued soon. I’ll personally notify the Jinglin Sanatorium to ask the person in charge there to cooperate."
"That’s really a big help," Yu Sheng said, moving a chair from the side and sitting across from Baili Qing’s desk, looking up at her, "The procedure itself isn’t a problem—as I thought, you had co over for sothing else?"
Baili Qing didn’t waste any words, rely nodding slightly, then turned to look at the large floor-to-ceiling window behind her desk.
Outside the window, a thick fog surged and rolled, rapidly forming various bizarre illusions in the mist. In the blink of an eye, Yu Sheng saw so familiar sights—
It was that broken, eerie Tower, and the blonde puppet charging outside it, racing up the exterior walls toward the top.
"Ah, this is the video footage that Marin sent before," Yu Sheng imdiately said, "I’ve seen it."
Baili Qing stared at the illusions erging from the fog, and as her gaze focused, a part of the scene in the illusion was magnified and zood in.
It was a corner of the scene that had previously only occupied a small part of the video footage, which hadn’t caught Yu Sheng’s attention earlier.
So people were hastily evacuating from around the Broken Tower, with unstable space rifts swelling and contracting at the far end of the open ground, and a few bodies discarded near those space rifts.
The clothing of those evacuating was clearly not of the current style of Boundary City, but rather had a classical or fantasy flair. So were dressed almost like wizards or magicians, others wore complex armor carrying oversized swords and crossbows, and so were laden with various odd trinkets, whose purposes were unclear.
Their attire was eclectic and bizarre, but the only thing clearly visible was that they weren’t a "formal army", but rather more like a makeshift investigative and exploration team.
"These people are a Boundary Land exploration team," Baili Qing’s voice sounded from the side, not letting Yu Sheng guess for too long, "By today’s standards, they’re considered ’colleagues’ of current Investigators and Spirit Realm detectives."
"Oh..." Yu Sheng blinked. Although his attention had been almost entirely on the blonde puppet and the shadow atop the Tower, he hadn’t paid much attention to the team retreating hurriedly in the corner of the scene, but he had sowhat noted these figures, "This art style is very different from current Boundary Land people... I was curious earlier, why is there a Magician among them?"
"Because they ca from three thousand seven hundred years ago — in the unique era division within Boundary Land, it’s referred to as the chaotic ’Classical Era,’" Baili Qing explained calmly, "During that special period, magic... was widespread in Boundary Land."
Yu Sheng’s expression froze, and he turned to look at Baili Qing’s poker face, blinking his eyes, and after a few seconds, he opened his mouth: "...Ah?"
"It wasn’t just magic but also spiritual energy, witchcraft, the bloodlines of anomalous beings, and the ’Ancient Species’ that only exist in certain volus of text," Baili Qing said with a face of indifference, "Here, the Ancient Species refer to giants and dragons—along with so other peculiar intelligent beings whose nas are no longer identifiable but are confird to have existed."
Yu Sheng’s eyes slowly widened, realizing that the woman in front of him had casually revealed sothing quite incredible, leaving him a bit dazed: "Hey, wait a minute... three thousand seven hundred years, just three thousand seven hundred years, you’re telling that Boundary Land back then was filled with magic, spiritual energy, witchcraft, and a bunch of ’anomalous’ beings unrelated to the humans of today’s Boundary City?! Isn’t this... unreasonable?"
He gestured a bit, then struggled for several seconds to organize his words: "Even if this place is rich in talent and resources, shouldn’t it at least talk about the ’continuity’ of civilization and history? At least within the recordable historical scope, you should have developed from ancient to modern tis, can’t just have a big jump that resets the entire world line..."
"Your reaction is normal, but Boundary Land indeed doesn’t care about continuity—the ’big jump’ you ntioned really happened."
Baili Qing said calmly, cutting off all the words Yu Sheng hadn’t finished saying.
Yu Sheng: "...Alright, impressive."
Baili Qing rarely sighed: "I know you have many questions, I do too. Even the people of Boundary Land themselves are unsure of how many secrets this place known as ’Holand,’ isolated from the outside world as a ’Cosmic Hub,’ is buried. The chaotic Classical Era is like a mass of shattered light and shadow, cast deep in the fog of history, blocking our retrospective gaze.
"As you know, this world has experienced two ’Singularity Explosions,’ and many civilizations have more or less had historical discontinuities or collective mory confusion, but even compared to groups with the most severe discontinuities, Boundary Land is the most extre among them.
"We were indeed ’reset’ during the world’s second genesis, and may have even undergone multiple resets after the world was reborn, and this chaotic situation only stabilized after the Special Service Bureau was established and the originally convoluted ti-space of the entire Boundary Land was connected into a whole, but a vast amount of records concerning the Classical Era were seemingly erased as if by conscious intervention during this ’stabilization,’ with now less than one percent of the docunts being verifiable..."
When saying this, Baili Qing suddenly shook her head again.
"However, today we’re not discussing the ’Classical Era,’ but this Tower and this special ’exploration team.’
Upon hearing this, Yu Sheng quickly adjusted his sitting posture on the chair, and his expression beca serious.
Despite Baili Qing having ntioned just now that the records of the "Classical Era" were severely damaged and difficult to verify, judging by her current reaction... the powerful Special Service Bureau seemingly has still found so clues from those ancient docunts.
"In the secret archives of the Special Service Bureau, we found a very suspicious event record," Baili Qing slowly began, "’The year of drifting, the Dark Star aligns with the do, the Alien God descends along the World Bridge, eting us as promised, but the World Bridge unexpectedly breaks, the Alien God loses control and disintegrates... The receiving team suffered heavy losses, only three people retreated and brought back news—an unknown powerful entity intervened on site, intercepting the Alien God and covering the retreat; thereafter, the World Bridge, the Alien God, and the Dark Star all vanished without a trace.’
The office fell into a brief silence.
"That’s all." Baili Qing spoke up.
"...Wait a mont while I process this," Yu Sheng imdiately waved his hand, going over the content he just heard in his mind again while rapidly organizing his thoughts, and only after several seconds did he raise his head again, "So, this passage describes the event recorded in the imagery Marin found in the ’Garden’ network?"
Baili Qing nodded: "The possibility is very high."
Yu Sheng: "..."
Isn’t this a bit too much information to handle!?
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