The large conference room felt somewhat empty, with the young Baili Qing sitting in a wide office chair—many years later, she would often sit in similar places to issue commands to many people, exuding authority and earning people's trust.Yet now she sat on the chair, struggling a bit just to reach the ground.
But she still exuded authority.
"The timeline is not something easy to interfere with; what we see here is at most a historical mirror," the small Baili Qing analyzed seriously. "The easiest point to judge is if this were part of the real timeline, I should have suddenly acquired many childhood memories that didn't originally exist, including the discussion we're having right now in the conference room; moreover..."
As she spoke, her gaze fell on Baili Xue, who was sticking to the projection screen.
The latter had magnified her image a bit, tilting slightly, as if exploring the limits of her enlargement on the projection screen.
Baili Qing's gaze led her to quickly revert to her previous appearance: "Wh-What's the matter? Is this about me too?"
"Having woken up early, I didn't undergo that hypnosis treatment," Baili Qing said calmly. "If this could genuinely interfere with the real timeline, Baili Xue shouldn't exist right now."
Baili Xue's scribbled eyes shook erratically, looking as though they were startled.
"A historical mirror, huh... makes sense," Yu Sheng mused, stroking his chin. "Then the remaining task is to see if there's anything or any place here that can establish contact with that rift... Do you two have any idea?"
Baili Qing and Baili Xue swiftly exchanged glances—though Yu Sheng found it hard to understand how the former exchanged glances with abstract eyes she just drew with watercolor pens, it's clear the sisters reached some kind of tacit agreement in an instant.
"Do you remember what the old vampire lady said before leaving our room earlier?" Baili Xue's voice reached Yu Sheng's ears. "She said she was going somewhere with Kant..."
Yu Sheng recalled and immediately remembered: "...Oh, right, she mentioned something about checking on some hibernation pod..."
"Let's go have a look," Baili Qing nodded. "That thing is placed in the lower level of the containment facility, in a separate safe room."
The conference room door was carefully opened; Yu Sheng peeked out, seeing the empty hallway with no signs of shadows.
Yet even so, out of caution, Baili Xue deployed a concealment barrier bending light, enveloping both Yu Sheng and Baili Qing in an invisibility effect.
Under Baili Qing's lead, the group started heading deep into the facility.
"What exactly is the hibernation pod you mentioned? Why do you think it relates to the rift?" Yu Sheng couldn't contain his curiosity as they walked, lowering his head to ask Baili Xue floating above his arm.
"...Ask my sister," Baili Xue seemed to avoid the topic for some reason. "She knows better."
Yu Sheng turned his head towards the stern-faced child walking beside him, seeing the latter's lips pressed together: "...That's the thing I 'arrived' here in; for a long time, Red jokingly referred to it as my 'egg shell'."
Yu Sheng's eyes widened instantly: "...What do you mean? How did you arrive here? Weren't you originally from Boundary Land?"
"I am from Boundary Land, but..." Baili Qing hesitated, speaking with a somewhat strange tone, "not the current Boundary Land."
Yu Sheng: "...?"
"I don't know the specifics; I don't remember a lot of things," Baili Qing breathed softly, her pale gaze seemingly looking at a distant place, or possibly a distant time. "I was 'fished' up from the fault."
Yu Sheng: "...Ah?"
"A colorful, transparent giant crystal," Baili Qing raised her hand, gesturing a large object, "like a long egg. Red told me about the situation back then; she said there was a time when the fault was somewhat unstable, and she went down with Kant to check, then saw that thing floating next to a floating island—normally, items like that emerging from the fault should be destroyed, but they soon discovered life reactions within the crystal..."
Baili Qing looked up, her faded gray-white eyes quietly gazing at Yu Sheng.
"That's how I came," she continued, "so I spent nearly my whole childhood living in this containment facility—I lived upstairs, while the crystal egg that enveloped me was placed downstairs in the storage room."
Yu Sheng didn't speak for half a minute, as his mind was a bit muddled. The information bombarded at him by the Special Service Director was even more perplexing than hearing Erin yelling at people from eight different teams. He had to gather his thoughts on the spot before finally confirming what he heard, then immediately linked it to the recent events—
"Wait, does that mean this situation resembles the Knights? It's also about fault instability and emerging from 'below'..."
"But back then, there wasn't any 'rift,' nor was there an invading 'Lodahim High Wall' in Boundary Land," Baili Qing shook her head slowly, a serious tone in her voice. "This time, the situation is evidently more peculiar, not only larger in scale but also recently receiving a 'warning' from the Dark Angels... This isn't a good omen."
"No wonder the old lady and old man are so tense about it," Baili Xue muttered beside him, "when my sister floated up back then, she was so well-behaved, she carved the shell out from inside bit by bit without bothering anyone..."
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, pondered for a moment in his mind, and suddenly got a bit curious, "That really does sound like an eggshell, so why do Red and Kant call that thing a hibernation pod?"
His focus was somewhat strange, but Baili Qing was clearly used to it, responding without changing her expression, "Because a normal dragon egg can't have a dashboard."
Yu Sheng: "..."
Baili Qing quickened her pace, even though she was small, she made an effort to walk ahead.
Yu Sheng watched the figure leading the way in front, rubbing his chin with a subtle expression.
He suddenly realized that he still knew very little about this Special Service Director, the outrageous past behind her was completely unexpected to him—this person, who was seemingly an ancient giant dragon "salvaged" from a fault by other Council members, was now not only the director of the Special Service Bureau but also one of the five Council members of the Boundary Land...
What about the other Council members? That robot with an absurdly eerie appearance, the girl who always keeps her eyes closed and seems to be of the "Vampire" race, then there's the council leader and Kant... what's their story?
"... So, the human factor in the Council is not that high," Yu Sheng suddenly remarked softly.
"Huh?" Baili Qing didn't hear clearly, "What did you say?"
Yu Sheng: "I said Boundary Land truly is a remarkable place..."
Baili Qing blinked, although unsure why Yu Sheng suddenly sighed about this, she nodded in agreement.
Turning a few corners, they arrived at an elevator with no signage.
But Baili Qing pulled Yu Sheng to walk in another direction.
"We'll take the stairs," she said, "Starting the elevator suddenly might draw attention."
The stairs leading to the underground levels were not far away, deep and long.
"The security measures don't seem very tight here either," Yu Sheng commented casually while following Baili Qing down, "The containment facilities in your Special Service Bureau are much more secure, with guards every ten steps and a sentry every five..."
"The original security measures were very strict too, but I've lived here for five years now," Baili Qing responded without looking back, "After extensive testing and long-term observation, most of the security personnel and warning facilities have been removed or lowered in alert level... In fact, if not for my upcoming loss of control incident, Red was planning to let me move out in a few days."
Upon hearing this, Baili Xue shrank herself silently and tried to crawl into Yu Sheng's clothing folds.
"No need to hide," Baili Qing glanced back, "That's all in the past, you're very well-behaved now."
Yu Sheng continued walking down.
"Based on the timing, Red and Kant should have left by now, but someone will still be guarding the containment rooms below," Baili Qing continued, "We must be cautious, as one of the guards below is a Spiritual Ability User, and Little Xue's invisibility may not completely block their perception."
Yu Sheng nodded as he listened, but after descending a few more steps, he suddenly frowned.
An abnormal situation appeared in his peripheral vision.
Baili Qing also stopped.
At the end of the stairs ahead hovered a wisp of thin fog, and beneath the fog, a few steps appeared visibly crooked.
Yu Sheng: "…I guess this isn't a construction quality issue, right?"
Baili Qing remained silent, her face tense as she cautiously took a few more steps forward.
She observed the increasingly twisted stairs below, still maintaining basic continuity and completeness, though the further down they extended, the more bizarre and discordant the structural vibe became.
"The path can still be walked," she whispered, "Looks like we've found the right direction… there are obvious signs of distortion below."
Yu Sheng followed, continuing toward the location of the mysterious hibernation pod, and the more he descended, the more abnormal phenomena appeared before his eyes.
Besides the stairway walls and ceiling showing more evident signs of distortion, he began to notice large and small cracks appearing on the surrounding walls—the inside of the cracks was pitch black, showing no steel or cement structure, as if connecting directly to some abnormal space-time.
Yu Sheng raised his hand—several pieces of cement debris of various sizes floated in the air, and when they touched his fingertip, all the debris turned into rapidly shattering colorful bubbles.