Alien Hotel.

Chapter 468 Beyond the Boundary
The vast ruins were shrouded in endless darkness and chaos, with massive architectural structures resembling a collapsed temple. Towering stone pillars and connecting beams and arches adorned the ruins, and a huge shadow loomed within—bearing the outlines of humans, but clearly not human…

Listening to the scene described by Master Yuanhao, Yu Sheng only needed to briefly recall it in his mind before he instantly remembered a scene he had witnessed before!
In the room at the end of the corridor at No. 66 Wutong Road, deep within the scene reflected in that mirror, he had seen such a scene before!

—And there should be more than just these things in that picture.

"What else? What else did you see there?" Yu Sheng didn't hide his interest and immediately asked in a low but urgent voice, "Was there a doll next to that 'shadow'? Blonde, wearing a black dress, with its eyes open..."

As he spoke, he glanced up in Eileen's direction—only to find the carefree little doll still huddled with Huli and Luna, the three of them studying the blessed trinkets on the stall, completely oblivious to what was happening here.

"How did you know?" Yuan Hao asked in surprise. "You've been to that place too?"

“I haven’t been there, but I’ve seen it,” Yu Sheng said after a moment’s thought. “There’s a room on the second floor of No. 66 Wutong Road. That room is very strange; it seems to lead to other dimensions…”

He then gave Master Yuanhao a general account of the strange room at No. 66 Wutong Road. After listening, the other party showed a look of astonishment and doubt, and shook his fan: "...What is the principle behind this?"

He immediately followed up with, "Could I see it with my own eyes later?"

“That’s no problem—besides, I took Xuanche to see it before, but he didn’t see anything particularly remarkable at the time, only roughly guessing that it was a point where time and space converged,” Yu Sheng said casually. “But now tell me about your experience—what happened after that? What happened after you saw those ruins and shadows?”

"My celestial vessel crashed straight into that shadowy, humanoid silhouette..."

Noticing Yu Sheng's momentary look of surprise, Yuan Hao Zhenren helplessly shrugged and said, "I knew my immortal ship was out of control..."

"Uh, I know, I know," Yu Sheng quickly waved his hand, "And then what? You just bumped into that shadow?! Nothing happened?"

"What happened next... was very strange," Yuan Hao's expression suddenly became strange, as if he was struggling to find the right words to describe the scene he remembered. "The shadow and the ruins beneath it seemed like nothing but an illusion. When I crashed into them, there was no resistance at all, but a moment later, I felt as if my soul had left my body and I had lost my physical form. Then even the immortal boat disappeared without a trace."

"I felt as if I had become a lonely soul, cut off from all things in heaven and earth, drifting aimlessly in the chaos, and after drifting for an unknown amount of time, I seemed to suddenly bump into a 'mirror'—Mr. Yu, have you ever had the experience of passing through a mirror?"

Yu Sheng: "Where would I get that kind of experience?"

“Well, it’s hard to imagine,” Yuan Hao sighed. “Anyway, the feeling was strange, like I suddenly fell into the ‘other side’ of the world. I only had one ‘perspective’ at the time, and I couldn’t do anything but watch the chaos in front of me turn upside down. Then many things grew out from the other side of that ‘mirror’, some like ruined cities, some like mountains, and some like a fleet of large ships frozen on the sea…”

"I wandered aimlessly through those illusions, some real and some illusory. I even felt as if I had been wandering in that chaos for thousands of years, to the point that my spirit was weakened and my primordial spirit was so weak that I forgot where I came from and where I was going..."

"But suddenly, I was stopped by a 'person'."

Upon hearing this, Yu Sheng exclaimed in surprise, "...What?! A person?"

“I’m not sure. At that time, I only had a wisp of consciousness left. I couldn’t even remember if I was ever human. I only remembered that something was blocking my way. My remaining ‘cognition’ told me that it was something called ‘human’,” Yuan Hao said with a serious expression. “That ‘human’ was holding a flag, a very large, tattered flag.”

"I remember what 'it' said to me, but I couldn't hear or understand it. Then 'it' tore a piece of cloth from the flag. In that instant, I felt that the cloth almost covered the sky, instantly obscuring countless illusions around me. Then, the 'person' waved his hand and wrapped me layer by layer in the piece of cloth torn from the flag. And it was in that instant of touching the cloth that I understood the few words that the 'person' spoke to me:"
"He said his name was Kondaman and that he was a messenger. He also said that the flag was called the 'Ominous Banner'."

Yu Sheng took a deep breath: "Ominous Banner... the 'ominous' from Ominous Wandering Star?!"

“Yes, that’s the word.” Master Yuanhao nodded slowly.

"Did you ask Ominous Yusei about it afterwards...?"

“I asked, but got nowhere,” Yuan Hao sighed. “That ominous star was incredibly stubborn, insisting it knew nothing about the ‘banners’ or who ‘Kondaman’ was—I even immersed it entirely in the earth’s veins for seven days and seven nights, but it still wouldn’t open its mouth.” Yu Sheng: “…”

He briefly considered what the Earth Veins of the Void Spirit Pivot meant to the Ominous Wanderer Star, and then coughed twice: "Well, it probably really doesn't know."

"Yes, thinking about it afterward, I think so too," Master Yuanhao nodded slightly. "So the clue to this matter was lost. However, I have traveled around for many years and have had quite a few strange and sudden loss of clues. I'm used to it."

Yu Sheng was momentarily at a loss for words regarding the old man's carefree and adventurous attitude, and could only manage a wry smile: "Alright, so what happens next? After you understand what the other person is saying—"

Master Yuanhao's face showed a look of reminiscence: "Then, I suddenly woke up on the immortal ship. Everything before seemed to be just a bubble and an illusion. Even the malfunction of the immortal ship was not recorded in the spirit plate. Even that 'black star' disappeared without a trace. The only thing left was a strip of cloth that appeared out of thin air in my hand - it was a piece that the 'messenger' who called himself 'Kondaman' tore off from the 'Ominous Banner'."

Yu Sheng stared wide-eyed: "...That's it?"

“That’s all,” Yuan Hao said seriously. “Or rather, all I can remember is this—maybe I went through something after being wrapped in that ‘piece of cloth,’ but I have neither memory nor evidence.”

Yu Sheng pinched his chin, his brows furrowed.

After a brief moment of thought, Yuan Hao suddenly spoke up: "There's another detail."

Yu Sheng instantly perked up.

“After returning to ‘reality,’ I carefully examined the records in the star chart,” Master Yuanhao said with a serious expression. “Although the spirit did not record the previous malfunction of the immortal ship or the situation when passing through the ‘Black Star,’ the ‘time’ in the navigation log in the star chart still skipped 17 minutes out of thin air—those 17 minutes disappeared from the star chart without any environmental parameters being recorded, or even any record of the immortal ship’s own condition.”

“I immediately sensed something was wrong, so after docking the celestial ship at a starport, I immediately set up an altar and cast a divination, carefully examining the celestial ship inside and out several times. I discovered that the 17-minute jump was not just the ‘record’ in the astrolabe, but… the entire celestial ship, and even myself.”

Yu Sheng listened to the other person's explanation and vaguely understood something, but still frowned slightly: "It means..."

“At least for those 17 minutes, my immortal ship and I completely disappeared from this world,” Master Yuanhao said slowly, shaking his fan. “From the outside world’s perspective, it seems that I only disappeared for a moment, but the result of divination is that the immortal ship had an extra 17 minutes of ‘blank’ travel loss, and I had a little less ‘lifespan’ out of nowhere.”

Yu Sheng felt his heart pounding, and countless guesses flooded his mind. He never expected that Yuan Hao Zhenren's experience was so bizarre, and the amount of information hidden behind this bizarre experience was even more astonishing!
What did those missing 17 minutes mean? What did Yuanhao Zhenren see and where did he go during his journey through the "Black Star"? And what exactly is that strange "Black Star"?
What is the connection between all of this and "Eileen"?
Yu Sheng frowned in thought, but suddenly remembered something else.

In the room on the second floor of No. 66 Wutong Road, the mirror reflects not only the ruins in the black mist—but more recently, especially when and after the appearance of the "fragment of fabric," the mirror reflects a snow-covered cave with heavy snow falling outside.

...Could that snow-covered mountain and cave be part of the illusions that Master Yuanhao saw after passing through the "mirror"?

“I’m not sure either,” Yuanhao Zhenren said after listening to Yu Sheng’s description. He thought about it seriously for a long time before slowly shaking his head. “At that time, my primordial spirit was extremely weak, and everything around me was just a phantom veiled in a veil of illusion. I couldn’t distinguish the details. However, I did see something that looked like a ‘mountain’. The ‘cave’ you mentioned might really be on one of those mountains.”

Upon hearing the other party's reply, Yu Sheng seemed to be deep in thought and remained silent for a moment.

After a while, he suddenly heard a faint whistling sound behind him, and then a small body landed on his back and quickly climbed onto his shoulder.

A loud and cheerful voice reached my ears: "What are you guys talking about?"

Yu Sheng looked up and saw Eileen smiling brightly in the sun. The little doll's hair, body, and arms were covered with a bunch of strange little trinkets, making her look like a peacock. She was also holding a sachet that was almost half the size of her face, which she was happily swinging around in the air.

The ominous star floated beside her head, spinning slowly, round and round.

(End of this chapter)