Yu Sheng stared at the woman in front of him, who claimed to be the director of the Special Operations Bureau, wondering why she suddenly looked lost in thought.
Curious, he examined her face and, seeing that she remained silent, decided to take the initiative: “I must say, your Special Operations Bureau really has high standards when meeting with parties involved. I thought it would be Li Lin and the others coming to see me, but here I am, meeting the director directly—has it always been like this?”
Bai Li Qing quickly regained her usual calm demeanor upon hearing this. “No, it’s only under special circumstances.”
“Special circumstances?”
“For example, a ‘strange person’ who has lived in a foreign land for over twenty years while presenting himself as an ‘ordinary person’ at the boundary.” Bai Li Qing locked eyes with Yu Sheng. “I apologize for referring to you in this way.”
“Um, I don’t mind, but do I really seem that strange to you?” Yu Sheng felt a little awkward. “Li Lin and Xu Jiali seemed surprised by my lifestyle too; though I suppose it’s understandable to some extent.”
“You may not have realized it yourself,” Bai Li Qing sighed. “Many at the Special Operations Bureau have been observing your movements. In just the past few days, a large number of personnel have been quite busy because of you.”
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, bewildered. “... Huh?”
Bai Li Qing looked at him intently. “You have a unique ability to open ‘doors,’ don’t you?”
“Ah, yes,” Yu Sheng nodded, reaching out and grabbing at the air beside him.
A door suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere. “I returned with Li Lin and the others using this thing…”
Before he could finish, the woman suddenly raised her hand. “No need to demonstrate!”
Normally composed and indifferent, Bai Li Qing rarely showed such strong emotions.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, Yu Sheng let go of the door handle and began to understand from her response. “So, um… it seems that my ability to open doors affects you all?”
“When you open a door, the entire boundary observes a spatial tremor of unknown origin,” Bai Li Qing explained plainly. “The staff responsible for monitoring this situation have raised significant concerns—didn't you feel anything?”
Yu Sheng’s expression grew blank, and his gaze shifted slightly.
After a long while, he shook his head with a puzzled look. “I didn’t feel anything… So my door opening could create such a big disturbance across the entire boundary? Does this mean I shouldn’t use this ability anymore?”
He didn’t seem happy about the suggestion, as “doors” were indeed quite useful, and he had only recently begun to familiarize himself with this ability.
He had tasted its convenience, so it felt a bit strange that people from the Special Operations Bureau had come to tell him it was disruptive.
However, given the director's attitude, it appeared that the disturbance created by his door-opening was indeed… considerable, which made it a bit awkward.
Bai Li Qing sensed Yu Sheng’s feelings and thought for a moment before shaking her head.
“I’m only making a suggestion. I hope you can control the frequency of your ‘door openings’ in the future. At least… don’t open over a hundred rifts overnight like you did before, or at least give us a heads up. After all, this is your ability, and it doesn't actually cause substantial harm to the boundary, so in principle, we cannot directly prohibit such actions—provided you are willing to cooperate with us and register your ability legally. We can also make some technical adjustments to monitoring methods to accommodate your capabilities.”
Yu Sheng was a bit taken aback.
The director in front of him appeared aloof and serious, giving off an impression of being difficult to approach, yet to his surprise, she was rather… agreeable.
Upon hearing about the “hundreds of rifts opened overnight,” Yu Sheng immediately understood what she meant.
While he hadn’t felt anything at the time, just imagining it now made him realize how much noise he had actually made that night—yet here stood the “Director Bai Li Qing,” willing to discuss this matter with a calm and reasonable attitude, even coming herself to negotiate…
Yu Sheng was not a naïve youth; he understood just how significant this was from the “official” perspective, a strong overture of goodwill.
This offer of being “negotiable” even caught him by surprise—he had prepared to engage in a battle of wits with the Special Operations Bureau regarding disturbances, but before he could even throw a punch, the cotton had already landed on his face.
He felt a bit bashful, saying, “Well, if that’s the case, registering shouldn’t be a problem… but can you answer a few questions I have first?”
Bai Li Qing nodded. “Of course, what do you want to ask?”
“First, what exactly is this ‘Special Operations Bureau’?” Yu Sheng sorted through the questions he had kept to himself, his expression serious as he spoke. “What kind of organization is it? What’s its scope of authority?”
“Is that all you’re curious about?”
Bai Li Qing seemed a bit surprised by Yu Sheng's questions but quickly responded.
“The Special Operations Bureau, formally known as the ‘Special Security and Service Support Bureau,’ is managed directly by the highest authority of the boundary—the Council. It is the top official department that deals with all sorts of ‘extraordinary events’ involving foreign lands, entities, and anomalies. If the boundary is divided into ‘natural’ and ‘non-natural’ aspects, you can consider us as the chief authority on the ‘non-natural’ side. However, our jurisdiction is not limited to just the boundary—I don’t know if you’re aware of the unique nature of the boundary…”
Bai Li Qing paused, studying Yu Sheng’s eyes.
“The special nature of the boundary…” Yu Sheng furrowed his brow, suddenly recalling various pieces of information he had heard from Ai Rin, as well as what he had realized when opening those doors to distant places—this world is far from limited to just one boundary.
Beyond this strange “city,” countless “distant lands” existed.
“I think I understand some of it,” Yu Sheng said thoughtfully. “From its name, it seems to connect to many places? I’ve heard that everything strange and bizarre can be found here, hidden beneath a layer of ‘normalcy’…”
“Hiding those things that exceed reason and the ‘baseline’ of the boundary, allowing this city to operate and develop according to ‘standard parameters’—this is one of the Special Operations Bureau’s tasks,” Bai Li Qing nodded slightly.
“As you’ve understood, this place does connect to many areas, and the quantity and breadth of these connections… exceed anyone’s imagination. You can imagine the entire world as a grand ‘net’ woven from countless transportation lines.
These ‘transportation routes’ do not exist in the real dimension and cannot be perceived by ordinary people, yet on the ‘non-natural’ side, they are tangled together, influencing one another, converging at a single point…
“That point is the boundary.”
Bai Li Qing paused to ensure Yu Sheng fully grasped what she was explaining before continuing. “The work of the Special Operations Bureau is primarily to maintain the boundary between ‘natural’ and ‘non-natural’ within the boundary, ensuring order on the ‘non-natural’ side.
Secondly, we handle threats that spread from the ‘transportation network’ to this ‘convergence point’—no matter if they come from just around the corner or from three hundred sixty billion light-years away in deep space.” Yu Sheng’s eyes widened, and after several seconds, he blurted out,“…Isn’t the distance between those two extremes a bit too much?”
“From the perspective of the ‘boundary’ and its special attributes, the distances are the same,”Bai Li Qing replied calmly, pointing at Yu Sheng.
“Isn’t it the same for you?”
Yu Sheng was taken aback, quickly understanding the meaning behind her words.
“Among those hundreds of rifts, there are certainly a considerable number pointing towards places billions of light-years away.”
Bai Li Qing stated matter-of-factly. Yu Sheng remained silent. Though his expression was calm, his thoughts were tumultuous.
In fact, he wasn’t surprised. When those doors had opened, he had entertained such guesses—how far really were the distant sights? He didn’t have a clear answer, but when excitedly discussing it with Ai Rin, he felt… part of them might be as far as his imagination could reach.
The numbers he heard from Bai Li Qing now felt like a footnote to his earlier thoughts.
What truly shocked Yu Sheng was the“coverage”of the Special Operations Bureau—he had seen Li Lin before, an operative who stocked instant noodles with him in the supermarket and would disguise himself as a spirited young man watching short videos by the roadside while tailing (he had already connected the dots at this point).
To put it kindly, he was only a neighborhood officer, yet this someone suddenly spoke of an organization behind him with a vast and far-reaching background. That was hard to fathom… But Yu Sheng hesitated for a long time, not daring to voice his feelings to the director in front of him.
He mainly worried it might affect Li Lin’s career… When neither Yu Sheng nor Bai Li Qing spoke, they both fell into brief silence. After half a minute, Bai Li Qing took the initiative to break the quiet.
“Do you have any other questions?”
“I do,”Yu Sheng quickly brushed away the jumbled thoughts in his mind, organizing his words before continuing.
“Next question, is there only one boundary city?”
(End of Chapter)