No matter how well he got along, Li Lin had to admit that Xu Jiali was indeed the most excellent deep diver he had ever seen—having such a capable fighter come to support him at least showed that the Service Bureau took good care of a newcomer like him.
The premise was that he had to tolerate the burly man's big mouth and bragging nature, especially after he completed each mission.
"I'm telling you, I really ran into some freaky stuff on this mission," the burly man, sitting on the sofa, casually reached for a bottle of water from the side table, twisted it open, and spoke off the cuff, "I caught that Angel Sect believer who blended into Amein, and after finally cornering him in a deserted area, just as we were fighting, I looked up, and guess what?"
Li Lin rolled his eyes: "You and your big mouth, should you be talking about this outside?"
"Yeah, I've finished reporting to the Bureau, and this part of the intelligence has been cleared to be shared with you," Xu Jiali gestured with her hand, not caring whether Li Lin wanted to listen or not, and kept going, "As I looked up, damn! There was a person standing right there! You know what they looked like? Just wearing a shirt and slacks, standing in the toxic hot wind of Amein-IX, oh, and there was even a door frame next to them. I was shocked—I was about to kill that Angel Sect believer in the next second, and because I got startled, I let them catch their breath. Luckily in the end, it was me who had the upper hand..."
Li Lin waved impatiently, walking towards the monitoring equipment in front of his window while speaking offhandedly, "Okay, okay, every story ends with 'luckily you had the upper hand.' Can't you think of something more original for a twist?"
"But I truly did have the upper hand," the burly man glared, watching Li Lin's actions, "Hey, aren't you surprised? I saw a person in the toxic hot wind of Amein-IX! Not even wearing Power Armor! Even the team leader isn't that fierce!"
"Last time in the acid rain of Tarta-V, you also saw a person pop up suddenly without protective gear—it was a professor from 'the Academy' collecting materials," Li Lin responded without turning back, "There's no shortage of oddballs in this world, not to mention the various illusions you deep divers get from diving too much. I've heard similar thrilling stories from you like eight hundred times, and now I don't believe a punctuation of it. When you see a person standing outside the window flying with you while you're starting up a Shuttle on the Starport Orbital, come talk to me then. At least that sounds a bit more innovative."
"I've seen that too," the burly man grinned, sat down on Li Lin's bed with a flop, "It was a Taoist priest from Qianfeng Ling Mountain, damn it when I was about to accelerate he was waving a mirror at my monitor saying he wanted to overtake me... Overtake my ass, if he has the guts, he should physically enter hyperspace..."
Li Lin finally couldn't help but stop what he was doing, turned his head, and looked at Xu (Burly) Jiali (Man) next to him, and after a long while, he sighed: "Your life as special operatives really is full of color."
"Why don't you get a deep diving license too? Maybe next time you could run special ops with me," the burly man egged him on, "What's so good about living in the Boundary Land? It's dangerous, troublesome, and anything you do comes with great responsibility."
Li Lin thought about it and still shook his head: "The Boundary Land always lacks manpower; someone has to keep watch over this 'hub.' And honestly, I don't think wearing Power Armor and risking life and limb with Angel Sect followers on a desolate planet is any better than staying in the Boundary Land dealing with Exotic Realm security. Besides... running special ops doesn't mean you don't still have to deal with the 'Exotic Realm.'"
"That's different, the Exotic Realm density out there isn't as high as here. It's not like the Boundary Land, damn, a bus ride with twenty stops, seven are Exotic Realms..."
Li Lin turned his head and glanced at Xu Jiali, thinking to himself that 99.99% of people under normal circumstances can only see the thirteen regular stations, but thinking of the record that this burly man accidentally wandered into an Exotic Realm "platform" at the age of twelve and survived alone on the "platform" for six whole years, and later became a deep diver only after psychological correction due to being unable to shake off the pursuit of the Exotic Realm, he ultimately didn't say what was on his mind.
Special Service Bureau's frontline combat personnel have two types: those who come up through the normal training and assessment process, and those, who are fished up from the Exotic Realm.
Do not flaunt your extensive knowledge in front of people with traumatic experiences—even if they truly don't care about it.
Li Lin lowered his head, focusing on checking the various parameters recorded by the equipment.
The burly man next to him seemed a bit bored; he was a thorough combatant, primarily here as a reinforcement, with little interest in jobs like "staking out."
"The Bureau is in total chaos right now," he said suddenly after being bored for a while, "Several action team captains have been called up to work overtime, I heard even the Director went."
"I know," Li Lin didn't look up, "This is the Boundary Land after all."
"Is this kind of thing common in the Boundary Land?" the burly man scratched his head, "Have there been similar 'Abnormal Phenomenon' before? I've been on special ops all year round, I wouldn't know..."
"If you're talking about tonight's spatial dislocation incident, it never happened before, but if you're talking about 'Abnormal Phenomenon' itself, the Boundary Land has never been short on that. After all, this is the Boundary Land."
"Alright, enchanting Boundary Land, I freaking love this place," the burly man stretched his arms and shoulders, lay back, and reclined on Li Lin's bed, the heavy body making the poor single bed creak, "Those who want to destroy the world and those who want to protect the world both freaking love this place—lucky I don't have to be on duty at the Bureau, I heard the team leaders are working overtime every day."
Li Lin didn't respond to him, just focused on performing his monitoring and recording tasks.
However, just then, the sudden ringtone of the phone broke the silence in the room.
Li Lin glanced at the phone screen, immediately picked it up to answer: "This is Li Lin... uh-huh? Oh okay, I understand."
The burly man sat up from the bed, curiously looking at Li Lin, whose expression had changed: "What's the matter?"
Li Lin's expression was strange as he looked up at the calm night outside the window.
"Just now I got a call from the Bureau, the Rift phenomenon... has stopped."
The burly man was taken aback upon hearing this.
"Stopped?" His eyes widened, "Just stopped? No follow-up attacks, no Angel Sect or anything? Not even an Exotic Realm appeared?"
"No, it just stopped. Now all the surveillance nodes in Boundary Land have quieted down."
"So my extra night shift was for nothing?"
"It wasn't for nothing—and we have to keep going. The Special Service Bureau hasn't rested," Li Lin shook his phone, "Everyone continues to monitor, to see if the force that created the Rift phenomenon has any subsequent moves. You go to the next room to sleep now, and I'll wake you up to take over for me in six hours."
"Okay," the burly man stood up immediately, now without wasting any words, "Just wake me up if anything happens."
Li Lin nodded, then once again looked out into the night.
"Another sleepless night..." he murmured quietly.
…
Yu Sheng had a very sound sleep in the latter half of the night.
After successfully replicating a "door" to a distant space-time, he firmly remembered that feeling, knew how to control the so-called "Spiritual Guidance", and how to endow the door with a certain "frequency" while opening it, so it would stably lead to a specific location.
He felt that most things in this world could be summed up by the saying, "The first attempt binds with nervous threads, the second weaves with practiced treads."
Following that, he kept practicing and enhancing the process of opening the door, successfully replicating various channels until he was completely exhausted.
Sleep after complete exhaustion was always especially sound; he felt he hadn't had such sound sleep in many years.
But he was somewhat disappointed; during this particularly sound night's sleep, he didn't dream of that fox—at all; he didn't even have any dreams.
It seems that the dream with Hu Li wasn't a stable occurrence.
This made Yu Sheng feel a bit uneasy and somewhat more urgent.
After waking up in the morning, he shared the situation with Erin.
"Don't worry too much, that fox has been surviving in the Exotic Realm for so many years, it's not likely that something will happen in a day or two," Erin didn't spout any trash talk this time; instead, she comforted Yu Sheng seriously, "Dreams are inherently unstable, maybe you'll see her again in your next dream, right?"
"I hope so." Yu Sheng replied casually as he took a slice of meat from the table and put it into his bowl.
The meat was still from that "local specialty"; he had eaten it for three meals in a row, not finished yet, and not tired of it.
However, he could no longer feel any enhancement to his body from this kind of "eating"; it seemed that the effect of this thing had reached its limit on him.
But in any case, it still tasted good.
"Any plans after lunch?" Erin's voice came from the side, "Continue practicing 'opening the door'? Or try to replicate the passage to the 'valley'?"
"I need to go out to buy some things first. After coming back, I'll start trying to construct the path to the valley. This might take a long time; I don't quite remember the 'feeling' from that time," Yu Sheng spoke and suddenly noticed a hesitant expression on Erin's face, "Hmm? Do you have an idea?"
Erin stared straight at him; it seemed the doll-like lady was hesitating. It took several seconds before she spoke, "…Carve out half a day for me."
Yu Sheng was taken aback; he rarely saw such a solemn expression on this doll's face.
"Allocate half a day to you... what for?"
"Make me a body." Erin said calmly and with determination.