Chapter 401: Dual Investigation |
Under a dim sky, rain fell over the endless plain, and blurred information was hidden within its curtains.
This rain came from Sentinel Silence. It fell in the real world, crossed the border between life and death, kept falling on the Soul Wilderness, and cast this vision before Yu Sheng.
But why? Yu Sheng watched the droplets that formed again and again in his hand only to vanish swiftly, his brow slightly knit. He asked: “You are saying the rain began suddenly after I ‘died’?”
Luna nodded and said: “Yes. The knights and I just made a patrol of the plain and discovered the rain’s range is not very large. It only runs from here to a stretch of the road leading to the Cathedral of the Firekeepers. For some reason, as long as you stand under its cover, there is an illusion that the rain is boundless.”
“That is not an illusion,” Yu Sheng said, exhaling lightly as he pressed down a tangle of guesses with no logic. “It is a sensory projection from the real world. In Sentinel Silence, this eternal rainy season does cover the entire equator. Aside from the rain, have there been any other changes in the plain? Any effects Otherworld?”
“No,” Luna said, shaking her head. “We checked everywhere. Outside is ‘quiet’ as always.”
“Then leave it for now,” Yu Sheng said. “If its range suddenly expands or anything else changes, report to me.”
Luna nodded, then asked with a trace of hesitation: “You mean it is harmless here?”
“Harmless,” Yu Sheng said as he extended his senses through his bond with the plain to feel the range and influence of this ‘illusory rain.’ “As for how exactly it is ‘projecting’ here, I will have to investigate. There is no rushing this.”
Yu Sheng inclined his head, then released his focus and stepped back. In the next second, he fell toward the world of the living.
A moment of weightlessness and misaligned senses surged like a tide and ebbed the same. When the familiar feeling faded, he opened his eyes and found himself walking through the rain curtain of Sentinel Silence in the real world.
He passed through the rain and saw the abandoned factory at the end of his view. Luna, dressed as a nun, stood at the corner of the factory’s side wall and waved at him.
Yu Sheng smiled and walked quickly toward her. At once he saw the Jade-faced Golden Fox stirring awake under everyone’s care, and he took in the busy forms of Foxy, his nephew, and the others.
Then he saw the two little dolls hopping up and down behind the crowd.
One looked like she had just crawled out of a mud pit, grime from head to toe. The other was worse, with electricity arcing all over her, hopping like RGB come to life. Everyone kept a very respectful distance. Foxy drooped her three tails to the ground as grounding cables, and every time Irene approached she braced herself as if facing a mortal enemy.
Although Luna had mentioned it in the Soul Wilderness, Yu Sheng was still startled to see Irene’s current state with his own eyes. While he stood there stunned for a heartbeat, the two little dolls spotted him at the doorway. They ran over in glee, shouting as they came: “Hey, Yu Sheng is back. Yu Sheng is back.”
One mud ball and one lightning sprite charged straight at him. His blood went cold on the spot. He could not even decide which one to dodge first. In his two seconds of hesitation, both dolls jumped on him. The muddy one was fine and merely smeared a ring across his chest. The one wreathed in electricity, though, landed with a crackle right on his face.
In that instant, Yu Sheng felt himself almost hurled back into postmortem chaos. [He nearly did not survive five minutes this time.]
“Do not wreck the new account,” Yu Sheng barked after two or three seconds of blackness in front of his eyes. He wrestled Irene, the pika, off his head, though he could not bring himself to fling her away, especially seeing how happily she had pounced. Holding her by the scruff at arm’s length to keep her from his face, he said: “From now on, until the extra charge in your body bleeds off, you are not allowed to pounce on me.”
Irene did not seem to hear a word, still thrilled as she hung in the air and chattered: “Listen, I was amazing just now. I fired a beam…”
“I already know the gist. I heard it from Luna before I came back,” Yu Sheng said, cutting her off fast. He knew that once this little thing started, she could chatter for half an hour straight. He added: “To be fair, you did top the damage charts this time. I will max out this month’s event skin for you.”
Irene’s eyes lit up, truly lit, still crackling: “Nice.”
After setting the two dolls carefully down, Yu Sheng strode to Immortal Yuan Hao’s side.
Immortal Yuan Hao faltered for the briefest moment. In that fleeting instant, he felt something was amiss. In the next second, the sensation vanished, and it was as if Yu Sheng had never been away at all, merely out of his line of sight for a moment.
Yu Sheng glanced at the Tibetan fox on the ground, whose breathing was steady like deep sleep, and asked: “We can move the wounded now, yes? I will open a gate and send him to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain.”
The last trace of Immortal Yuan Hao’s puzzlement about Yu Sheng’s brief disappearance dispersed completely. He nodded at once and said: “Moving him is no problem. I already contacted my junior brother and asked him to prepare. You can open the gate directly to the Queyun Palace Grand Hall.”
Yu Sheng had already raised his hand toward the air. After another glance to confirm the Tibetan fox’s size, he took a gentle breath. A door far wider than what he usually opened unfurled from his palm.
On the other side lay the familiar vistas of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain and Yuan Ling and Yuan He leading a team in person.
It looked exactly like the medical sage and the master veterinarian teaming up for a consultation, very well suited to the patient’s situation.
Immortal Yuan Hao lifted a hand, and the still-sleeping Tibetan fox floated through the door.
Yu Sheng turned back and saw Ling Long, the golden fox, staring with wide eyes from not far away.
The local fox gaped at the door he had opened. Perhaps the aftereffects of Irene’s shock had not entirely worn off, because her gaze still looked a touch vacant. Yet in that blankness was obvious tension and worry, the look of someone afraid for her kin.
“Go with him,” Yu Sheng called to the golden-fox girl, waving her over. “You are a bit hurt too. Let Immortal Yuan He take a look as well.”
“Ah… all right,” Ling Long answered, dazed. She stepped to the threshold, craning her neck and peering about, not daring to enter. She had clearly never seen such ‘immortal arts’ and was nervous.
The pika had no patience for that. Irene saw Ling Long dithering, ran over, and poked one of the girl’s tails with a finger, saying: “Boo.”
Sparks flew with a crackle.
With a yelp, Ling Long leaped into Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain.
Yu Sheng shut the door with a casual gesture.
“Good. Let the two of them rest at Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain,” Yu Sheng said, dusting off his hands. “Before we head back, let us sweep this place again for any missed clues. Then we see what progress Xuan Che has made.”
…
The rain had dwindled to a patter, as if it might stop at any moment, yet it never truly stopped. It swelled and faded instead, sketching a wavering, half-real landscape beyond the window.
The sky remained as overcast and dim as ever. Even when the rain was at its heaviest, the thick clouds blanketed the city like a nightfall. On rare occasions when a frail beam of sunlight pierced the clouds and cast mottled, dubious “light” upon the cloud base and on a few nearby high-rises, that sunlight looked like a false mirage in the night and vanished in a blink.
A woman with a commanding presence, striking features, and a regal air stood at the window, calmly gazing at rain-lashed Mo City.
She wore a long black gown embroidered with gold. Her jet-black hair reached almost to her ankles. The gown’s hem was stitched with ink-wash swirls like whirlpools, the emblem of the Mo Clan, an eminent house of Sentinel Silence.
She was Mo Ran, City Lord of Mo City.
Mo Ran turned from the window to her visitor and said: “It is always like this here. The rain feels endless, only sometimes lighter. In a year of four hundred and sixty days, the rainy season lasts four hundred. The remaining sixty are not truly sunny either. The rain merely stops, and now and then you can glimpse a little sunlight from the clouds. For many from Otherworld, this is hardly a place to convalesce. If you find the city uncomfortable, I can arrange other lodgings for you. Atop Refining Tower No. 7, the Mo Clan built a cloudside manor. It is not very spacious, but at least it gets some sun.”
Xuan Che sat near the window with a faint smile and said: “Your kindness is appreciated, City Lord, but I often travel on my master’s behalf. I am used to taking things as they come and appreciating all manner of scenery. Mo City’s ‘rainy season’ is a novel experience to me. There is no need for further arrangements. I am here by my master’s order to conduct a discreet inquiry. The circumstances are special. I would rather not alarm anyone. I ask for your understanding.”
“Mo Ran understands,” the City Lord said, bowing slightly to Xuan Che. “The Mo Clan of Sentinel Silence has long flourished under the protection of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain. Since the master has sent word, the Mo Clan will give its full cooperation.”
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