1.59 Midnight Telephone Ring

"Exactly, she is hiding outside New Port City, in the submarine base of Dr. Oort. This requires the master to first complete the Ghost in the Shell fragment derivative storyline. Until then, Dr. Sarah can also act as a healer," the Brain said.

"Understood." For Wu Chen at this stage, a doctor was too much of a luxury, far less practical than having the base's existing personnel double as healers. Besides, the proportion of so-called "pure humans" in the base was not very high. Bio-robots, cyber beast-girls, and various aliens all required different kinds of medical attention.

"Ring-ring... ring-ring... ring-ring..." Just as they were speaking, an unfamiliar telephone ring suddenly echoed.

"Master, it's the telephone booth!" the Brain, Aiyi, urged excitedly, "Hurry!"

"Alright." Wu Chen stepped into the telephone booth alone. Ever since entering the City of Shatters, the receiver—which had never been used once—was gently lifted by Wu Chen.

"Hello?"

"Darling?"

Touched by the familiar voice that stirred his only remaining memories, Wu Chen blurted out, "Ennai."

"It's me." On the other side of the receiver was the soulmate who had given her all for Wu Chen: "Darling, are you alright?"

Originally just a Nokia N9 mobile phone, Ennai had accompanied Wu Chen through a series of Sanctuary adventures, continuously upgrading and transforming until she became Wu Chen's soulmate. She was also the most trusted and cherished female master of New Hong Kong second only to Chun-Li, and the supreme mistress of all super digital lives born in New Hong Kong. As a Sanctuary citizen promoted from a storyline creation, Ennai possessed tremendous authority and lofty prestige second only to Wu Chen.

"Not bad," Wu Chen felt a warmth stirring in his heart, "except for forgetting everything."

"The rules are just like that." Ennai seemed unaffected by the shattered Sanctuary: "This is also necessary for redemption. It's just like how I can only get this call through during the brief window after the Purge Day ends."

"I understand," Wu Chen asked, "Are you all doing well?"

"The sisters are all here." Time was precious, and Ennai kept it brief: "Our fate and ultimate ending all depend on you. Darling, you must find your original self soon."

"Alright." This was precisely the purpose of Wu Chen entering the City of Shatters alone to complete his redemption.

"How many cards have you accumulated, and what issues are you facing?" Ennai went straight to the core.

"I have 16," Wu Chen stated the problem, "One of them is an Umbrella Spirit, and it cannot be activated."

"An Umbrella Spirit..." Ennai asked suddenly, "Could it be the Umbrella Immortal Wan Xiangluo, who went missing alongside the Taoist Mechanic Maria?"

"I'm not sure, and I don't remember." Wu Chen smiled bitterly.

"It's alright, darling," Ennai comforted him softly. "The 2B pencil, has there been any change?"

"Yes, it has sprouted," Wu Chen reported truthfully.

"You can't release it in the base, right?" Ennai seemed to have anticipated this.

"Correct, I am in the Shattered Traveler Camp of the Sci-Fi Spiral, very far from the Xuanhuan Spiral..." Wu Chen kept it concise, explaining the four-system spiral zones of the City of Shatters to Ennai.

"I personally feel it has nothing to do with the four-system spirals, but rather that you're missing a 'Land Card'." Ennai's understanding of the City of Shatters was far deeper than Wu Chen's.

"A Land Card?" Wu Chen could not yet comprehend.

"Yes, it is a very special Sanctuary card loaded with a fragment of a storyline world," Ennai explained concisely. "It can continuously produce various resources for players, host Sanctuary creations, and has immensely powerful functions. Simply put: as long as you release a Xuanhuan-system Land Card first, you can activate storyline character cards of the same attribute. Therefore, such cards are also known as 'Exclusive Land Cards'. Players who possess an 'Exclusive Land' and the storyline creations that match it will all receive various buffs such as repairs and upgrades..."

"Understood." This explanation was not difficult to grasp.

"I have a 5-star Exclusive Land Card with me that matches the Umbrella Immortal Wan Xiangluo," Ennai continued. "However, opening a trans-spacetime teleportation consumes a massive amount of Sanctuary Coins. A 5-star Land Card requires a full 10,000 coins."

"I have them." Wu Chen had just acquired 9,999 coins.

"Very well." Ennai made a prompt decision, "Don't hang up the phone, darling."

"Mm." Wu Chen understood. Come to think of it, fax machines had a similar function. As long as the call wasn't disconnected, teleportation mode could be activated with a single click.

A liquid crystal screen popped up with a prompt: "Remote entry?"

Wu Chen clicked "Yes".

"Please insert your VIP card."

Following the prompt, Wu Chen inserted his campus card once again.

The pop-up vanished, and the familiar sound of card-reading rang out once more.

The Sanctuary Coin balance displayed on the LCD screen plummeted rapidly. When the jumping digits finally stopped, it was precisely 9,999 coins—neither more nor less. According to Ennai, this was equivalent to roaming fees, similar to... well, income tax?

Immediately following, a card both unfamiliar and familiar, a 5-star Exclusive Land Card, was slowly spat out by the card reader: The Secret Realm of Shangri-La.

Unlike standard Sanctuary cards, this time, seven frames were arranged vertically on the left side of the card. Five of them were loaded, from top to bottom: the Fountain of Eternal Life, the Eye of Shangri-La, the Yeti, the Three-Headed Xiangliu, and the Secret Realm Guardian: Witch Zi Yuan.

In the center on the right was a panoramic view of Shangri-La, with two empty film strips above and below. The entire card face closely resembled the cover of an ancient magic book sealed for thousands of years, awaiting its new master to open it.

When Wu Chen tried to place the 5-star Exclusive Land Card right after the 5-star Cursed Witch Queen to make it the 16th exclusive Sanctuary card, it was collectively repelled by the 15 already-activated cards. Several attempts all ended in failure.

"What is going on?" Wu Chen picked up the receiver again, only to find that the call had been disconnected. Ennai, whose location was unknown, could no longer reply.

Two expansions back-to-back had made the interior space of the red telephone booth quite substantial. Aside from the card-and-coin dual-purpose payphone still backed against the glass wall, the left and right glass walls were now more than ten meters away from Wu Chen. After pondering for a moment, Wu Chen walked over to the left wall; changing position to place the card was the most natural train of thought.

As a former Lord-tier veteran gamer, Wu Chen knew very well that being repelled by 15 sci-fi-system cards could mean only one thing: incompatible affinities.

The moment the 5-star Exclusive Land Card was pressed against the blank left glass wall, ripples began to spread across the entire glass surface. The ripples emanated outward from the card as the center, finally boiling at the edges and rapidly sweeping around in a circle. Like melting ice, the entire glass wall suddenly vanished, transforming into a doorway leading to the Secret Realm of Shangri-La.

The card reader chimed again. A moment later, a 5-star Sanctuary card automatically slid out: Secret Realm Guardian: Witch Zi Yuan.

"Greetings, Lord." Witch Zi Yuan stepped out from the secret realm immediately after.

"Blimey... rise," Wu Chen replied, carefully choosing his words.

Seeing the witch naturally looking around the luxurious reception room inside the telephone booth, Wu Chen suddenly had an epiphany: "The telephone booth is a storyline intersection."

Aside from the main entrance leading to the 0326 tablet base, the remaining three glass walls could each activate an exclusive land to house storyline character cards of matching attributes. The reason why the background wall where the card-and-coin dual-purpose phone resided was "ready-to-use" without needing a pre-activated exclusive land was simply because Wu Chen naturally carried sci-fi storyline attributes. Thus, the background wall served as the default "sci-fi posting slot." The left and right walls could each activate a non-sci-fi exclusive land respectively, thereby accommodating non-sci-fi storyline characters.

Perhaps because the Sanctuary had shattered, the "Secret Realm of Shangri-La" had been reduced to a fragment and absorbed into a card, rendering the latest storyline save file unreadable, leaving only the recovery of the old save. Consequently, the storyline of Witch Zi Yuan as the secret realm guardian had not yet had time to unfold. Moreover, once turned into an exclusive card, only Wu Chen's inherent "0326 exclusive branch storyline" could drive the subsequent evolution of the plot. Furthermore, as long as Wu Chen's "0326 exclusive branch storyline" deeply intervened, the storyline trajectory of the fragment was bound to undergo unpredictable deviations—diverging completely from the original storyline was entirely possible.

At this thought, Wu Chen gained a deeper understanding of the City of Shatters.

Because the Sanctuary shattered, all storyline worlds were implicated and likewise reduced to countless fragments, to the extent that the latest saves were corrupted and unreadable. Therefore, players used individual storyline fragments as "storyline markers (spatiotemporal targets)" to retrieve pre-shatter old saves. The price paid for this was Sanctuary Coins.

And what could be retrieved were merely the old saves of these specific fragments, failing to recover entire storyline worlds.

"How can one retrieve an entire world?" Wu Chen seemed to ask himself.