Chapter 19: Homecoming
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Li Lin stood frozen, staring at the empty corner of the wall as if it held some hidden secret. The small sampling scraper in his hand felt unusually heavy, its weight anchoring him in place. His mind was confused, trying to grasp what had just slipped away. He couldn’t even recall what he’d been doing moments before.
Captain Song Cheng—the Special Operations Bureau’s Second Team leader—stood a short distance away, frowning at the wall where a bloodstain had been just moments ago. But now, not only had the blood vanished, but something far more significant seemed to have been erased from his mind. He could feel it—an elusive sense, like a whisper heard in a dream, fading before it could be understood. His instincts screamed that something was terribly wrong.
Song Cheng’s brow furrowed for a moment, but he quickly shook off the feeling. He focused, determined to hold onto the flickers of memory before they slipped away entirely. His years of training kicked in, helping him secure those faint fragments in his mind, just enough to keep the sensation of loss at bay.
“Sir…” Li Lin’s voice was shaky, breaking the silence. “I… I think I’ve forgotten something. Wasn’t there something here?”
“There’s mental interference!” Song Cheng’s voice sharpened, shifting into command mode. “Check the depth levels immediately!”
Li Lin reacted instantly, dropping his sampling tool and reaching for the small black box clipped to his belt. With quick, precise movements, he pressed a few buttons on its surface before pulling out a slender, needle-like tube. Without hesitation, he connected the tube to his eye.
The box began to emit a soft hum, and a strange liquid flowed through the tube. Li Lin’s eye turned an unnatural shade of black, and as his vision sharpened, the world around him transformed into a monochrome of stark blacks and whites.
“Depth reading: L-minus,” Li Lin reported in a flat, mechanical voice. “No anomalies detected from Otherworlds. No signs of emergence or residual energies.”