"What do you mean you went back to grab a can of Coke and when you came back, Zheng Zhi was gone?"

At the entrance of No. 66 Wutong Road, Yu Sheng stared wide-eyed at Li Lin, completely dumbfounded.

Li Lin across from him looked just as baffled, "I don't know! He was just here a moment ago! And everything was normal when we were chatting—now his phone is unreachable, and the locator has no signal..."

Yu Sheng clicked his tongue, then looked at the curb beside him. After a long pause, he finally blurted out, "No way, I didn't even get a chance to take him to work, and now he's gone... What were you two talking about? Did he mention any plans?"

Li Lin: "We talked about the weather, then he asked me to get him a can of Coke, chilled..."

Yu Sheng felt even more troubled after hearing that...

At this moment, Hu Li also dashed out from the house. After hearing Zheng Zhi was missing, he started searching around with Little Red Riding Hood. The two of them led seven or eight wolves to sniff around the vicinity of No. 66 Wutong Road. Finally, Little Red Riding Hood returned, frowning, "The last scent is at the intersection—this area should be within the 'influential range' of your house, theoretically, it shouldn't be affected by 'external forces'."

Yu Sheng was still racking his brain trying to figure out what kind of encounter led to his nephew's disappearance when Little Red Riding Hood's muttering suddenly triggered an idea.

"Right... this open space is within the extended range of No. 66 Wutong Road, so anything effective within this area..."

While mumbling to himself, his eyes slowly scanned the surroundings, and then several gazes around him almost simultaneously focused on one spot.

Not far away, there was a small dent in the concrete ground.

It was the most noticeable "mark" in the area where Zheng Zhi was last seen.

"Wh-what?" The little puppet sitting on Yu Sheng's shoulder shrunk its neck involuntarily, even though she didn't know why she felt guilty, "Th-this is my grinding ball spot."

"...You even gave that dent a name?!" Yu Sheng was taken aback, then carried Erin to the dent and squatted down, touching the rough concrete surface while murmuring thoughtfully, "From a mystical perspective, when something bizarre happens, the closest bizarre object to the incident site is the most suspicious..."

Erin was bewildered by Yu Sheng's mysterious demeanor, "Ye-yeah... No way! Since when do you know so much about mysticism?!"

Yu Sheng didn't answer, only furrowing his brows tightly. When his fingers brushed over that rough concrete surface again, a familiar chilling sensation suddenly appeared in his perception.

Touching that chill, Yu Sheng contemplated for a moment, then closed his eyes slightly, focusing all his attention on the source of the cold sensation.

After concentrating for a moment, he suddenly felt as if he grasped something and instinctively lifted his hand.

When he opened his eyes again, a pitch-black thread was already entwined around his fingertips.

Erin stared dumbfounded at this scene, and after a few seconds, the little puppet suddenly screamed, "Hey, hey, hey! Yu Sheng, how do you know how to pull threads! You secretly learned my skills..."

"Learned what? This is your spider silk, you've been grinding stones here all the time, leaving traces!" Yu Sheng scolded the little puppet, "Zheng Zhi most likely encountered this thing, and with his constitution, he was 'taken'—hurry over and check where this thread leads."

Only then did Erin react, quickly jumping to the ground to grab the floating spider silk, shaking her head as if diagnosing a pulse, unsure if she could get results, but she looked rather professional.

Li Lin, watching this scene, seemed a bit stunned. After roughly understanding Yu Sheng's words, he became even more confused. Looking around, he found nobody questioning the situation, so he quietly asked Little Red Riding Hood, who was closest, "What does it mean? What's the principle?"

"Don't ask me, I don't know how to explain it," Little Red Riding Hood sighed, "Anyway, Zheng Zhi's constitution is vague between reality and the surreal, even the Exotic Realm's barrier is as fragile as nonexistent to him."

Nearby, Yu Sheng couldn't help but nod in agreement listening to Little Red Riding Hood's lament. He had indeed observed his nephew's constitution at the Taixu Spirit Hub, where even under the watchful eyes of Master Yuan Hao in the Supreme Unity Realm, he could vanish unexpectedly.

How to put it, sometimes he even suspected his nephew to be the Holy Relic of Anka Aela—inheriting the Dark Angel's piercing traits...

And at that moment, the little puppet diagnosing next to the "grinding spot" suddenly said "huh," interrupting everyone's actions.

"I think I felt something," Erin's eyes lit up, quickly getting up and grabbing the floating black thread, tugging forcefully. Although it didn't move at first, she gripped Yu Sheng's clothes with her other hand, pulling vigorously, "Got it, got it, this thread leads to a distant place..."

The little puppet was shouting halfway when she suddenly froze.

She stared blankly in a certain direction in the distance, as if she had suddenly forgotten what she was doing.

Yu Sheng instantly noticed the anomaly (mainly because Erin suddenly stopping her chatter was truly unusual): "What's wrong?"

"Ah, this direction!" The little puppet blinked, raising her hand to point in a certain direction, "I just had a moment of blurred vision, almost lost it... hold on, this thread isn't strong enough, I need to weave a few more strands to strengthen it, otherwise it will snap with a little force..."

While speaking, the little puppet began to quickly sketch black threads in the air, the spider-web-like lines weaving and constructing rapidly around that floating strand of Spider Silk...

...

Deep within the Special Service Bureau Building, inside the director's office.

Countless holographic projections floated in the spacious office, scenes displaying various situations throughout Boundary City — from "focus events" in some city areas to changes in a Space Rift near the distant border, from "cross-border" phenomena on a certain floor of the Special Service Bureau Building, to real-time images transmitted back by the Deep Dive Team executing exploration operations in the Foggy Boundary City, enough to make ordinary people dizzy and confused.

But for Baili Qing, this was just the most ordinary "work scene".

She held a cup of coffee, leaning against her large desk, while paying attention to each rapidly refreshing projection around her, and directly in front of her was a communication interface.

In that interface was a tall figure in a white coat, the head fixed with a large spherical fish tank, a goldfish swimming slowly in the tank, its semi-transparent fins appearing to tremble slightly.

"...I understand the situation, this is indeed your responsibility accident, but what's more important now is to find out the reason," Baili Qing said calmly as she looked at the "director" in the communication interface, "find out exactly who or what got into the sanatorium — don't mess it up this time."

"Yes, I understand."

The tall figure in the communication interface slowly retreated, and this holographic projection gradually dissipated in the air, soon replaced by a surveillance feed from Foggy Boundary City.

In the footage, a team of deep divers was setting up communication relay devices on a fog-filled street, and faint weapon flashes could still be seen in the distance, seemingly the ahead exploration personnel were engaging entities generated by the fog.

Baili Qing gently waved her hand, the nearby holographic projections reassembled accordingly, and the surveillance focus shifted to a certain border in Boundary Land — outside the light curtain formed by the continuous Boundary Stele, monitoring drones were watching over a Space Rift leading millions of light-years beyond, the distant starlight leaking from the Space Rift appeared somewhat distorted.

A pair of faint eyes quietly appeared amidst the layers of holographic projections, and Baili Xue's voice sounded out of nowhere: "Feeling uneasy?"

"Things have been unrestful lately," Baili Qing said lightly, "several Space Rifts at the border have experienced several anomalies 'tides' recently, suspected of being human interference... this isn't something ordinary 'stowaways' could achieve."

"...Boundary Land is the most tightly guarded place in this world, yet it is also the most easily invaded place in this world — frankly, considering the impact of the 'Angel Fall' incident and the truth behind it gradually spreading in the Universe, it wouldn't be surprising if anyone attempted to sneak in here to do something at this time," Baili Xue said, "our place has always been like a sieve — wasn't a smuggling ship from the Black Dot Group intercepted at the port just a few days ago?"

Baili Qing frowned without saying anything, just casually dispelling the holographic projection array in the office.

"We'll still need to visit the 'Archives' again in the near future." She broke the silence after thinking for a moment.

"Still investigating the 'Descent' event from three thousand seven hundred years ago?" Baili Xue asked curiously, "Do you think there's more information in the Archives that we overlooked?"

"Three thousand seven hundred years ago, an Alien God named 'Omen' was actively 'invited' to this world by the then-people of Boundary Land, although that descent was not completed in the end, the whole action from early planning to specific implementation was undoubtedly a massive operation, even the 'World Bridge' left at that time appeared again three years ago, and an Investigator died from witnessing the knowledge pollution brought by the 'World Bridge'...

"Various signs show that 'information' related to the 'Omen Goddess' has not been completely erased by the 'Era Stratification' of Boundary Land. This information remains in Boundary Land, just hidden — in any case, we need to check the fragments of the 'Classical Era' in the Archives again."

"What if we can't find it in the Archives?"

Baili Qing slightly frowned upon hearing this.

"Then we can only hope Yu Sheng and his amazing team of troublemakers can break a gap in that misty history."

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