Novel Bin Chapter 36: The Sleepless Ones
“I tell you, this mission was something else,” the burly man on the sofa said casually, grabbing a bottle of water from the coffee table and unscrewing it. “I caught that Angel Cultist who infiltrated Amine. Finally cornered him in the wasteland, and just as we were fighting, I looked up—you’ll never guess what I saw.”
Li Lin rolled his eyes. “Big mouth, is this something you can talk about outside?”
“Sure can. I’ve reported it to the Bureau, and this part is cleared for you,” Xu Jiali waved dismissively, continuing regardless of whether Li Lin wanted to hear. “So I looked up, and bam! Someone was standing right there! Know what he looked like? Just a shirt and trousers, standing in the toxic hot winds of Amine-IX. Oh, and there was a doorframe beside him. I was shocked—I could’ve finished off that Angel Cultist in the next second, but I was startled and let him catch his breath. But luckily, I was superior in the end…”
“Alright, alright, every story ends with you being superior,” Li Lin said impatiently, walking over to the monitoring equipment by the window. “Can’t you come up with a more original twist?”
“But I really was superior,” Xu Jiali protested, glaring at Li Lin. “Wait, aren’t you surprised? I saw someone in the toxic hot winds of Amine-IX! Not even wearing power armor! Even the Captain isn’t that tough!”
“The last time, you saw someone appear in the acid rain of Tata-V without protective gear—it was a professor from the Academy doing fieldwork,” Li Lin replied without turning around. “There are plenty of weird folks out there. Plus, after deep diving so much, you might hallucinate. I’ve heard similar horror stories from you hundreds of times; I don’t believe a single word now. If someday you see someone standing outside your shuttle window as you take off from the spaceport, then tell me. At least that would be a fresh story.”
“I’ve seen that too,” Xu Jiali grinned, plopping down on Li Lin’s bed. “It was a Taoist priest from Thousand Peaks Mountain. Just as I was about to accelerate, he was waving a mirror at my monitor, saying he wanted to overtake me… Overtake me, huh? If he’s got the guts to enter warp with his bare body…”Li Lin couldn’t help but pause his work. He turned to look at Xu Jiali sitting nearby and sighed. “Your life on special missions is really colorful.”
“Why don’t you get a deep diving license? Maybe next time you can join me on special missions,” Xu Jiali suggested. “What’s so great about staying in the Borderlands? It’s dangerous, troublesome, and you’re held responsible for everything.”
Li Lin thought for a moment and shook his head. “The Borderlands always lack manpower; someone has to guard this biggest ‘hub.’ Honestly, I don’t think wearing power armor to fight Angel Cultists on a wasteland planet is any safer than dealing with the Otherworlds here. Besides, don’t you still have to deal with ‘Otherworlds’ on your special missions?”
“That’s different. Out there, the density of Otherworlds isn’t as high. It’s not like the Borderlands—on a twenty-stop bus ride, seven stops are Otherworlds…”
Li Lin glanced back at Xu Jiali. He wanted to say that 99.999% of people can only see the thirteen normal stops, but then he remembered Xu Jiali’s file. At twelve, he had accidentally entered an Otherworld’s ‘station’ and survived there alone for six years. Only after psychological adjustment did he become a deep diver, unable to escape the Otherworld’s pursuit. In the end, Li Lin kept his thoughts to himself.
There are two kinds of frontline combat personnel in the Special Affairs Bureau: those who come up through normal training and assessments, and those who are rescued from Otherworlds.
Don’t flaunt your knowledge in front of someone with traumatic experiences—even if they don’t care.
Li Lin lowered his head and focused on checking the equipment’s recorded parameters.
Xu Jiali seemed a bit bored. He was a pure combatant, here mainly as backup firepower, and wasn’t interested in tasks like surveillance.
“The Bureau is a mess right now,” he suddenly said after a while. “Several action team captains have been called in for overtime. I heard even the Director is there.”
“I know,” Li Lin said without looking up. “After all, this is the Borderlands.”
“Is this kind of thing common here?” Xu Jiali scratched his head. “Has there been similar ‘anomalous phenomena’ before? I’ve been out on special missions for years, so I’m not too familiar…”
“If you’re talking about tonight’s spatial dislocation, it hasn’t happened before. But if you mean ‘anomalous phenomena’ in general, the Borderlands never lacks them. Here… well, it’s the Borderlands.”
“Alright, the charming Borderlands. I love this place,” Xu Jiali stretched his arms and shoulders, then leaned back on Li Lin’s bed, his heavy body making the poor single bed creak. “Those who want to destroy the world and those who want to protect it all love this place. Good thing I don’t have to be on duty at the Bureau. I heard the captains work overtime every day.”
Li Lin didn’t reply, focusing intently on his monitoring and recording tasks.
Just then, the sudden ringing of his phone broke the silence.
Li Lin glanced at the screen and quickly answered, “This is Li Lin… Hmm? Ah, got it.”
Xu Jiali sat up, curious about the change in Li Lin’s expression. “What’s up?”
Li Lin wore a strange look, gazing out at the calm night sky. “The Bureau just called. The rift phenomenon… has stopped.”
“Stopped?” Xu Jiali was stunned. “Just like that? No follow-up attacks, no Angel Cultists? Not even an Otherworld appeared?”
“No, it just stopped. All monitoring nodes in the Borderlands have quieted down.”
“Then wasn’t I pulling a night shift for nothing?”
“Not for nothing—and we still have to continue. The Bureau hasn’t rested either,” Li Lin said, waving his phone. “Everyone continues monitoring to see if the force that caused the rift has any further actions. You should go next door and get some sleep. I’ll wake you in six hours to take over.”
“Alright,” Xu Jiali stood up immediately without a word of complaint. “Wake me if anything happens.”
Li Lin nodded, his gaze returning to the night outside the window.
“Another sleepless night…” he murmured softly.
Yu Sheng slept soundly in the latter half of the night.
After successfully recreating a ‘door’ to a distant time and space, he had firmly memorized that feeling. He knew how to control the so-called ‘spiritual guidance,’ how to imbue the door with a specific ‘frequency’ when opening it, so it would reliably lead to a designated location.
He believed that most things in the world could be summed up as ‘practice makes perfect.’
After that, he kept practicing and refining the process of opening doors, successfully recreating various passages until he was exhausted.
Sleep after exhaustion is always especially restful; he felt he hadn’t slept so well in years.
But he was a bit disappointed that in this good night’s sleep, he didn’t dream of that fox—not even any dream at all.
It seemed that the dream with the fox wasn’t a stable occurrence.
This made Yu Sheng feel uneasy and a bit anxious.
After waking up in the morning, he told Irene about the situation.
“It’s okay, don’t overthink it. That fox has survived in the Otherworld for so many years; she won’t run into trouble in just a day or two,” Irene said seriously, for once not making snarky comments. “Dreams are inherently unstable. Maybe next time you dream, you’ll see her again.”
“Hopefully,” Yu Sheng replied casually, placing a slice of meat from the table into his bowl.
It was meat cut from that ‘local specialty’; he’d been eating it for three meals straight and wasn’t tired of it yet.
However, he no longer felt any physical enhancement from eating it. It seemed its effect had reached a limit.
But regardless, it still tasted good.
“What’s the plan after breakfast?” Irene asked. “Continue practicing ‘opening doors’? Or try to recreate the passage to the ‘valley’?”
“I need to go out and buy some things first. When I get back, I’ll start trying to build the road to the valley. It might take a long time; I can’t quite recall the exact ‘feeling’ from before,” Yu Sheng said, noticing the hesitant expression on Irene’s face. “Hmm? Do you have something in mind?”
Irene stared directly at him; the doll seemed to be hesitating. After several seconds, she spoke, “Set aside half a day for me.”
Yu Sheng was taken aback; he rarely saw such a serious look on her face.
“Half a day for you… to do what?”
“Make me a body,” Irene said calmly and firmly.