Regardless of how well they got along, Li Lin had to admit that Xu Jiali was indeed the best deep diver he had ever met. Having someone so capable in a fight come to support him at a time like this at least showed that the Bureau took good care of him as a newcomer.
That was, of course, assuming he could stand this burly man's big mouth and boastful personality—especially after every mission.
"Let me tell you, I ran into some seriously bizarre stuff on this mission," the burly man said casually, taking a bottle of water from the coffee table beside the sofa and twisting off the cap. "I caught that Angel Cultist who'd infiltrated Ameine. After finally cornering him in an uninhabited area, we started fighting, and then I looked up. Guess what I saw?"
Li Lin rolled his eyes. "You bigmouth, is this something you can talk about outside?"
"Of course. I already reported it to the Bureau, and this part of the intelligence was cleared for disclosure to you." Xu Jiali waved a hand, continuing without caring whether Li Lin wanted to listen. "I looked up and—fuck! Someone was standing right beside me! Know what they looked like? Just a shirt and trousers, standing in Ameine-IX's toxic hot wind. Oh, and there was also a doorframe sticking up beside them. I was completely stunned. I was about to kill that Angel Cultist the next second, but the shock gave him time to catch his breath. Fortunately, I still came out on top in the end..."
"Enough, enough." Li Lin waved impatiently as he walked toward the monitoring equipment he had placed in front of the window. "Every story ends with you coming out on top. Can't you think of a fresher twist?"
"But I really did come out on top." The burly man stared wide-eyed at Li Lin's movements. "Hey, wait. You're not surprised? I saw someone standing in Ameine-IX's toxic hot wind! They weren't even wearing Power Armor! Even the captain isn't that tough!"
"Last time, you also saw someone suddenly appear in Tarta-V's acid rain without wearing protective clothing—the professor from the 'Academy' who had come out to gather material." Li Lin did not turn around. "This world isn't short of strange people. Not to mention that the more deep dives you make, the more varied hallucinations you develop. I've heard you tell similar horror stories eight hundred times already. I don't believe a single punctuation mark anymore. Come back and tell me when you're taking off from a starport orbit in a shuttle and see someone standing outside the porthole, flying alongside you. At least that would sound a little more original."
"I've seen that too." The burly man grinned and plopped himself down on Li Lin's bed. "It was a Daoist priest from Thousand Peaks Spirit Mountain. Damn, just when I was about to accelerate, he held up a mirror and waved it at my monitor, saying he was going to overtake me... Overtake my ass. If he had the guts, he should've entered a jump with his physical body..."
Li Lin's hands finally stopped moving. He turned his head and stared at Xu (Burly) Jia (Man) Li sitting beside him. After a long while, he sighed, "Your everyday life as special-duty personnel really is colorful."
"Why don't you get a deep-diving license too? Maybe you could join me on special duty next time," the burly man urged. "What's so good about the Crossroads? It's dangerous, troublesome, and everything you do carries enormous responsibility."
Li Lin thought about it, but still shook his head. "The Crossroads is always short-handed. Someone has to guard the biggest 'hub' there. And honestly, I don't think wearing Power Armor to risk your life against Angel Cultists on wasteland planets is any safer than staying in the Crossroads to deal with the Otherworld. Besides... you still have to deal with the 'Otherworld' when you go on special duty, don't you?"
"That's different. The Otherworld density outside isn't nearly this high. How could it compare to the Crossroads? Damn, on a single bus route with twenty stops, seven of them are Otherworld..."
Li Lin glanced back at Xu Jiali. He wanted to say that under normal circumstances, ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of people could only see the thirteen normal stations. But when he remembered that the burly man's records stated he had accidentally entered an Otherworld "platform" at the age of twelve and survived there alone for six whole years, only becoming a deep diver after psychological rehabilitation because he could not escape the Otherworld's pursuit, he ultimately kept those words to himself.
The Special Operations Bureau had two types of frontline combat personnel. One type came up through the normal training and assessment process. The other had been fished out of the Otherworld.
Do not show off your vast knowledge in front of people with traumatic experiences—even if they do not care about it at all.
Li Lin lowered his head and focused on checking the various parameters recorded by the equipment.
The burly man beside him looked somewhat bored. He was a pure combat specialist, here mainly to provide additional firepower, and had little interest in work such as "keeping watch."
"The Bureau's a complete mess right now," he suddenly said after a while of boredom. "The captains of several action teams were all called in to work overtime. I heard even the director went."
"I know." Li Lin did not look up. "This is the Crossroads, after all."
"Are things like this common in the Crossroads?" The burly man scratched his hair. "Have there been similar 'anomalies' before? I spend most of my time on special duty, so I don't know much about it..."
"If you're talking about tonight's spatial displacement phenomenon, it hasn't happened before. But if you mean 'anomalies' in general, then the Crossroads has never lacked them. This place... is the Crossroads, after all."
"Fine, fascinating Crossroads. I love this place to death." The burly man stretched his arms and shoulders, then fell backward onto Li Lin's bed. His heavy body made the poor single bed creak. "Everyone who wants to destroy this world and everyone who wants to protect it loves this place to death. Thank goodness I don't have to stand watch at the Bureau. I heard the captains work overtime every day."
Li Lin did not answer. He simply concentrated on carrying out his monitoring and recording duties.
Just then, the sudden ringing of a phone shattered the silence in the room.
Li Lin glanced at the phone screen and immediately picked it up. "This is Li Lin... Mm, mm? Oh, okay. I understand."
The burly man sat up on the bed and looked curiously at Li Lin's strange expression. "What's going on?"
Li Lin's expression was peculiar as he looked up at the calm night outside the window.
"The Bureau just called. The rift phenomenon... has stopped."
The burly man froze.
"It stopped?" he asked wide-eyed. "Just stopped? No follow-up attack, no Angel Cultists or anything? Not even an Otherworld appeared?"
"No. It just stopped. The monitoring nodes throughout the Crossroads have all gone quiet."
"Then wasn't my night shift for nothing?"
"Not for nothing—and you still have to keep working. The people at the Bureau haven't rested either." Li Lin shook the phone. "Everyone is to continue monitoring and see whether the force that created the rift phenomenon makes any further moves. Go sleep in the next room for now. I'll wake you in six hours to take over for me."
"Okay." The burly man immediately stood up, without a single unnecessary word this time. "Wake me directly if anything happens."
Li Lin nodded and looked out at the night once more.
"Another sleepless night..." he murmured softly.
Yu Sheng slept soundly through the latter half of the night.
After successfully recreating a "door" leading to some distant spacetime, he firmly remembered that sensation. He learned how to control the so-called "spiritual guidance" and how to give it a specific "frequency" when opening the door, allowing the door to stably lead to a designated location.
He felt that most things in this world could be summed up as "the first time is strange, the second time is familiar."
After that, he kept practicing and strengthening the process of opening doors, successfully recreating all sorts of passages until he was completely exhausted.
Sleep after complete exhaustion was always especially sound. He felt that he had not slept so deeply in many years.
Still, he was somewhat disappointed. During that night of good sleep, he did not dream of that fox—not even once did he dream.
It seemed that the dream involving Huli was not generated consistently.
This left Yu Sheng feeling somewhat uneasy, along with a faint sense of urgency.
After waking up in the morning, he told Eileen what had happened.
"It's fine. Don't overthink it. That fox has survived in the Otherworld for so many years. It's not as if something will happen to her in just a day or two." Eileen did not spout any more nonsense this time. Instead, she earnestly comforted Yu Sheng. "Dreams are inherently unstable. Maybe you'll see her again the next time you dream?"
"Hopefully." Yu Sheng said it casually, picking up a slice of meat from the table and putting it into his bowl.
The meat had been cut from that "local specialty." He had already eaten it for three meals in a row, yet he still had not finished it or grown tired of it.
He could no longer feel any physical strengthening from this "food," however. It seemed that its effects on him had reached their limit.
But regardless, it still tasted good.
"What are you planning to do after eating?" Eileen's voice came from the side. "Continue practicing 'opening doors'? Or try to recreate the passage leading to the 'valley'?"
"I'll go out and buy some things first. After I get back, I'll start trying to construct the path to the valley. It might take a long time to experiment. I don't remember that 'feeling' very clearly anymore." As he spoke, Yu Sheng suddenly noticed the hesitant expression on Eileen's face. "Hm? Do you have an idea?"
Eileen stared straight at him. The doll lady seemed to be hesitating, and only spoke several seconds later. "...Set aside half a day for me."
Yu Sheng froze. He rarely saw such a solemn expression on this doll's face.
"Set aside half a day for you... What for?"
"Make me a body." Eileen spoke calmly and firmly.
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