After Bai Li Qing had arranged matters on her end, Yu Sheng began to relay his investigation findings to the female Director in detail.
He explained how Old Zheng might have acquired the ‘Angel’s Umbilical Cord’, the failed ‘Descent’ from long ago, the Fairy Tale Book that had been sent away, and the current possible state of Anka Aila.
Even Bai Li Qing, known for her steel-like stoicism, found it difficult to maintain her rigid expression through the torrent of information.
She furrowed her brows deeply and, at the mention of Squirrel’s recollection, finally couldn’t help but interrupt, “You’re telling me that a child living in the Orphanage, who had no development of spiritual talent, directly heard the voice of a Dark Angel and even established communication—while maintaining complete sanity throughout?”
“At least, that’s how Squirrel perceived it,” Yu Sheng nodded. “There is a possibility that the child was hallucinating under the influence of the angel, but the Fairy Tale Book it handed over is undeniably connected to the current Fairy Tale Otherworld, and the book’s influence on Anka Aila is certainly real.”
“A single Fairy Tale Book affecting the process of an angel’s descent—no matter how credible you sound, it’s still hard to believe,” Bai Li Qing said slowly. “But if it’s true, it might indicate that the Dark Angels aren’t as ‘invulnerable’ as we thought—or at least that, in the early stages of their first descent, their ‘operation’ was fragile and could be influenced in some way…”
She paused for a moment, contemplating, before speaking again. “More astonishing is another point—if Squirrel’s information is genuine, that Anka Aila might even possess rationality. This completely overturns our understanding of Dark Angels.”
In this world, no rational or communicative Dark Angel had ever been recorded. So much so that many scholars regarded them as a kind of ‘natural disaster’. Yu Sheng didn’t need Bai Li Qing to remind him of the massive upheaval his intelligence would cause among those studying angelic descent phenomena.
After a while, the topic returned to the Fairy Tale Otherworld itself.
“Furthermore, based on the situations with Snow White and the Thunder Titans, as well as Xiao Xiao facing the Wolf Granny, we can confirm another aspect of the dynamic property of Fairy Tale subsets—each ‘main character’ triggers the creation of a corresponding ‘mutated copy’ of a subset. When two distinctly strong and weak Little Red Riding Hoods appear simultaneously, the Black Forest might even generate two separate ‘versions’ of Wolf Granny.
“All of this, just as the first Little Red Riding Hood mentioned in her will—‘this forest is alive’. In truth, not only the Black Forest but the entire Fairy Tale itself is alive, interacting dynamically with the individuals trapped within.
“This insight might help us understand Anka Aila’s current state.”
Bai Li Qing listened thoughtfully and then softly muttered as if to herself, “It’s still ‘reading’ that book.”
“Yes, it’s still trying to ‘understand’ it, but clearly, a Dark Angel’s comprehension process is completely different from human rationality and cognition,” Yu Sheng nodded lightly. “On the other hand, the Fairy Tale as an Otherworld—its form of existence, its origin, and its connected state with Anka Aila—all differ greatly from what we previously understood.
“As a ‘prison’, it was likely woven by Anka Aila itself. The entire Fairy Tale might have been constructed upon the Dark Angel, like some sort of…”
Yu Sheng hesitated, seeking the right word, and after a moment, continued, “…like some kind of ‘shell’.
“So, the Deep Dive Squad that encountered trouble might have unintentionally made contact with Anka Aila’s true form while breaking through the shell of the Fairy Tale,” Bai Li Qing immediately deduced. “Then those staggering ‘corpses’ mentioned in the action report after the facility was sealed…”
“Might have been Anka Aila ‘leaking’ into the real world,” Yu Sheng replied with a wry smile. “We should feel fortunate. It seems that back then, the leakage was unintentional, and Anka Aila hadn’t truly awakened.”
Bai Li Qing remained silent, her faded eyes flickering faintly. Beyond the expansive floor-to-ceiling window behind her, a pair of hazy, indistinct eyes quietly emerged.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in her mind, “Unexpected… After seventy years, the operation record still gets updates.”
Yu Sheng had already noticed those eyes earlier. Knowing they belonged to Bai Li Qing’s younger sister, he simply waved in greeting with a faint smile.
That pair of eyes blinked rapidly, a hint of panic flashing across them—probably still unaccustomed to the fact that “outsiders” could freely notice them, and momentarily forgetting that they were not invisible in front of Yu Sheng…
Just then, the phone on the elliptical office desk rang suddenly.
Bai Li Qing picked up the phone, listened for a moment, then nodded, “Very well, have it delivered directly.”
She hung up the phone, her expression finally relaxing a little, and looked up at Yu Sheng. “They found the records on the Orphanage from back then.”
Yu Sheng was a bit surprised. “That quickly?”
Bai Li Qing’s face revealed a faint smile. “It went more smoothly than expected. Although the records are nearly a century old, they are indeed filed in the Council’s archives—Special Affairs Bureau and the Council have a coordinated access system for these archives.”
A moment later, a secretary knocked on the office door, delivering a few freshly printed documents to Bai Li Qing’s desk.
Yu Sheng immediately leaned over, flipping through the documents alongside Bai Li Qing.
A photograph soon caught his eye.
It was of a child who appeared to be around seven or eight years old, standing nervously in front of a chalkboard, wearing a dress that looked a bit ill-fitting.
She was very thin, somewhat dark, with a rustic braid in her hair. Everything about her seemed ordinary, nothing particularly cute. In fact, her expression in the photo was almost blank—like a child who had been abruptly asked by a teacher to stand in front of the class for a photo, unsure of what was happening. There was even a trace of confusion and fear in her eyes.
“She went missing just before the ‘Fairy Tale’ outbreak. At the age when one can independently read the Fairy Tale Book, she is the only one that matches,” Bai Li Qing’s voice came from the side. “That was eighty-six years ago.”
Yu Sheng’s expression grew cold as water. He stared at the photograph for a long while, then finally saw her name—Zhao Le Le.
Even her name was plain.
So plain, in fact, that it seemed like it shouldn’t belong in a convoluted story—but on that particular evening, eighty-six years ago, like every story’s beginning, “that moment” found her.
“The time of her disappearance was at night. The Orphanage reported it to the police, but of course, there was no follow-up. There are very few records left on this matter, and the only information remaining about this child is this photo, along with her age and name at the time of her disappearance. As for why she became an orphan, or where she came from, there is nothing,” Bai Li Qing spoke slowly. “If it weren’t for the Council’s regulations that all child disappearance cases must be reported and never closed without finding the person, this photo might not even have been preserved.”
Yu Sheng silently tucked away the document, and Bai Li Qing didn’t stop him.
“Additionally, we are still verifying the situation with the Fairy Tale Book from back then,” Bai Li Qing continued. “Now we have a rough range. If we’re lucky, we might still find a surviving copy of the same edition…”
“Can we really find it?” Yu Sheng asked curiously. “Nearly a hundred years ago, losing a book—would there even be any records?”
“Not necessarily about the loss, but we may be able to find out which books were present at that Orphanage back then,” Bai Li Qing nodded, then paused slightly. “How many books do you think the Cursed Children from that Orphanage could have had?”
“Theoretically, even if the management of that Orphanage was lax at the time, they should have had basic asset registration and records of private donations. During the brief period when the Special Affairs Bureau temporarily took over the Orphanage, we fully took over and organized these records. However, back then, such records typically didn’t have a more detailed indexing system, so it’s difficult to track them now. We’ll have to go through them manually.”
Yu Sheng nodded slightly.
“Then I’ll trouble you,” he said.
“It’s part of the job,” Bai Li Qing replied casually, then pointed to the documents on her desk. “These are also the various surveillance records from the Special Affairs Bureau concerning the Orphanage and its surrounding areas. From the records, there doesn’t appear to be any unusual energy bursts or anything like that, and there’s no report of the ‘glowing object silently falling’ that you mentioned.”
“Ah,” Yu Sheng sighed. “That was expected.”
“From an optimistic perspective, the fact that no ‘phenomena’ were recorded is actually the greatest luck Borderland had that night, eighty-six years ago,” Bai Li Qing remarked with a sense of wonder. “A Dark Angel silently pierced through our world—if that descent had truly happened, every ‘data’ point we recorded would probably have been written with the lives of thousands of people.”
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation