Alien Hotel.

Chapter 478 The Shadow of an Ominous Sign
Deep inside the Secret Service building, in the director's spacious office, Yu Sheng pushed open the door and walked in: "I happen to have some free time—and I also happen to have a lot of things I want to ask you."

Sitting behind her desk, Baili Qing was clearly used to Sheng walking in without a word. She didn't move at all, just looked up and watched him find a chair in the room, move it over and sit opposite her at the desk. After a while, she finally spoke: "What do you want to ask?"

Yu Sheng sat down in the chair, and just as he was about to speak, he seemed to notice something and glanced at Baili Qing's desk: "You got a new desk?"

Bai Liqing's tone was subtle: "...Is this also one of the problems?"

“Uh, that doesn’t count, I just asked casually,” Yu Sheng coughed twice, then organized his thoughts and went through a lot of things that had happened recently before speaking, “'Goddess of Omens', I want to know if the Secret Service has any information about this name—or any intelligence about the word 'Omens'.”

Almost the instant he finished speaking, Baili Qing shook her head: "No."

"...Are you so sure?" Yu Sheng was a little surprised. "Aren't you going to check?"

“I already investigated before you came,” Baili Qing said calmly. “I have connections with Yuanling Zhenren, so I know a bit about what happened in the Feiyu Starfield—you came to ask about that doll named ‘Eileen,’ right?”

“Well, that saves me the trouble of explaining the whole story,” Yu Sheng sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Now it’s not just Eileen’s problem; something seems off about my house too…”

He had barely finished speaking when he suddenly looked up at the huge floor-to-ceiling window behind Baili Qing, and his lips twitched: "Is it really necessary to roll your eyes so big..."

Bai Lixue's voice reached their ears: "I think your house is more than just 'a little strange'."

“Okay, I admit that No. 66 Wutong Road is a little bit special,” Yu Sheng said, forcing a smile. He turned his head away guiltily in front of the pair of eyes that looked at least two or three square meters wide reflected in the French windows. “But things have been getting more and more outrageous lately. You know there’s a special room at the end of my second-floor corridor, right? I fell into a mirror a couple of days ago. There’s a temple of the Goddess of Misfortune down there…”

In front of Baili Qing, with whom he had worked for a long time and was quite familiar with the various aspects of the hostel, Yu Sheng did not hide anything, but instead told her all about his experiences in that "darkness in the mirror".

After Yu Sheng finished speaking, Baili Qing's usually expressionless face showed a hint of seriousness. After careful consideration, she looked into Yu Sheng's eyes and asked, "Mind if I 'take a look'?"

Yu Sheng was taken aback, quickly recalling his first meeting with her and her special abilities. He hesitated for a moment, then said, "...I don't mind, but the scene was quite strange. I suspect there might be some kind of contamination. Are you sure you want to see it?"

“We’ve seen even stranger things,” Baili Xue said calmly. “You can trust our professional expertise.”

Yu Sheng was quite curious about what kind of eerie scene the other party was referring to as "even more bizarre," but after thinking about it, he was too embarrassed to ask. So he got up and leaned his head closer: "Then you'll see, but be prepared."

Baili Qing got up from behind her desk, leaned forward, and reached out her hand to Yu Sheng.

They couldn't reach it.

The two men sat across the wide desk, each leaning over the surface, staring at each other for a couple of seconds. Finally, Yu Sheng couldn't help but ask, "...Isn't your desk a little too wide?"

If anyone's name is the bureau chief, Baili Qing isn't embarrassed at all. She simply gets up without changing her expression, walks half a circle around the table to Yu Sheng, and places her hand on his temple.

It has a slightly cool touch and a very faint perfume scent.

Yu Sheng felt a momentary daze in his mind, as if a "gaze" swept across the shallow memories he had deliberately let go of, and then the slightly cool touch left.

Baili Qing's gaze fell on the floor-to-ceiling window not far away. The huge, faded eyes that had been floating on the window quickly disappeared, and the thick fog outside the window began to churn as if boiling, quickly becoming stained with a layer of muddy black texture. In just a few seconds, huge stone pillars were neatly arranged, an ancient temple with a strange and gloomy style, black figures crawling and twisting on the stone square, and... a huge phantom of some kind of half-human, half-spider located deep in the temple.

As the scene shifted, Yu Sheng instantly noticed the half-human, half-spider illusion in the temple. He stared in astonishment, his eyes widening: "Wait! I didn't see that before!"

“You saw it,” Baili Qing’s calm voice rang out from the side, “but you overlooked it—this figure is hiding on the edge of your subconscious, undetectable, yet still within your field of vision.”

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, but in the end he didn't say anything. He just slowly walked to the French window and looked at the illusion in his memory reflected in the fog.

The image of the temple was zoomed in and out once more. His gaze passed over the wide gate supported by four magnificent pillars and observed the figure that he had subconsciously overlooked.

The enormous female body, with its horrifying spider-like half-body, and behind it seemed to be a huge web that stretched infinitely in the darkness, appearing to have even exceeded the physical structure of the temple itself, spreading out in a way that defied the laws of geometric space.

A pair of faded eyes quietly emerged from the black mist; they were Baili Xue's eyes.

She cautiously "entered" the temple, slowly approaching the enormous phantom that was half-human and half-spider, seemingly wanting to observe it up close.

However, the moment she entered the temple gate, the enormous figure, which was merely extracted from Yu Sheng's shallow memories and was theoretically just a shadow, or even just an "impression," suddenly raised its head—a scarlet gaze suddenly looked at the gate, and the faded eyes that were about to sneak in instantly seemed to be struck by an invisible force and quickly faded away.

The next second, those faded eyes reappeared in a coffee cup on the desk, and Baili Xue's voice came from it, sounding like she was still shaken: "You scared me to death."

Yu Sheng turned his head and glanced at it, then looked back at the temple, only to see that the "phantom" had returned to its original posture, as if nothing had happened.

Baili Qing raised her hand and gently clenched her fist towards the French windows. The thick fog outside immediately surged and boiled again, the darkness receded, and the grayish-white mist quickly swallowed the illusion of the temple. "Are you alright?" she asked her younger sister.

“It’s nothing,” Baili Xue’s voice rang out, her eyes returning to the French windows. “I was just startled.”

Baili Qing nodded slightly, then looked at Yu Sheng after a moment's thought: "...Has anything been wrong with that doll named Eileen lately?"

"Does that mean she's become even more talkative after getting the 'Ominous Star'?" Yu Sheng spread his hands. "Apart from that, she's still the same as before, except she's developed a new hobby of going out to walk her ball every day."

“I will contact Terra’s ‘Academy’ to see if they have any information about the ‘Goddess of Omens’, but don’t get your hopes up too high. Also…” Baili Qing said, but then stopped abruptly and shook her head. “No, it’s nothing.”

Yu Sheng noticed the woman's momentary hesitation, but based on his understanding of her, he didn't press her for details. Instead, he brought up another matter: "In addition, there is a strange celestial body called 'Black Star'... or it might be an astronomical phenomenon. I hope you can keep an eye out for it."

"Black Star?"

“Yes, an anomalous celestial body that is completely black but surrounded by a large area of ​​faint light. Yuan Hao encountered it. It seems to be connected to another dimension deep inside, and it is suspected to be related to that strange empty room in my house as well… He also gave it the name ‘Black Star’.”

Yu Sheng told Bai Liqing and her sister a lot of things.

It's about Black Star, about celestial bodies, about the current state of the Flying Feather Starfield and "Desolation," and even about the wonderful experience of being a living planet.

At first, he was just trying to exchange intelligence with the Secret Service, but later he became completely absorbed in the storytelling—after all, there aren't many opportunities to make a stoic, expressionless man pause in surprise.

A long time later, Yu Sheng left.

The spacious office fell silent again. Baili Qing stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, lost in thought for a while, before returning to her desk, rubbing her temples and letting out a soft sigh of relief.

"...This is an eye-opener." Baili Xue's voice echoed in her mind.

Baili Qing raised her eyelids and glanced at the pair of eyes that were wandering around the room.

“You’ve really broadened your horizons today,” she said, her tone slightly reproachful. “Could you please refrain from doing such risky things in the future? Even illusions extracted from memories can be dangerous at times.”

Those eyes lowered: "Oh."

Bai Liqing sighed and then glanced at the phone on the table.

"Perhaps it's time to contact that Ms. 'Marlene'."

"The 'messenger' sent by Alice's Cottage?"

"Well... professional matters should ultimately be left to professionals."

……

At the entrance of No. 66 Wutong Road, in the "avoidance for idlers" area, Eileen was squatting on the ground, her two hands gripping the Nightmare Star and grinding it on the ground with great effort.

Halfway through polishing, the little doll suddenly raised its head and shrank its neck.

The fox, who was happily eating its lunchbox next to it, turned its head in confusion: "What's wrong?"

"It's chilly," Eileen muttered, continuing to grind her stone ball on the ground. "Someone's probably talking bad about me behind my back... I'll let them know I'm dead meat."

"Oh," Hu Li continued shoveling rice into her mouth, but then suddenly turned her head, "By the way, why are you rubbing it like that?"

“It’s rough and scratchy, and it’s hard to handle,” Eileen said earnestly. “I want to make it smoother.”

"...I don't understand, but I respect it."

Eileen thought for a moment, then stared at Hu Li with her scarlet eyes: "Silly fox, I suspect you're also talking badly about me behind my back!"

“I don’t have any,” Hu Li shook her head, then shook the lunchbox in her hand. “The braised pork rice is delicious.”

"Yes, really?"

(End of this chapter)