Again

At first, no one cared about this disaster. Everyone thought it was just an ordinary blackout, a fire, an industrial accident. Until the disaster became intimately bound to every single person. It began on an unremarkable afternoon under a blazing sun and a cloudless sky. Beneath the azure dome of heaven, the bustling, roaring city center of Luo Island remained packed with heavy traffic. Along the lavish and tasteful duty-free shopping avenue, figures draped in jewels and luxury goods strolled back and forth. Yet compared to usual, more people lingered through the streets and alleys. Numerous fully armed guards were stationed at key intersections, casting cold glances at every passerby, routinely stopping suspicious individuals to check their IDs. At the slightest irregularity or argument, they would immediately arrest them and haul them off. Their posture of "better to arrest an innocent than let a culprit slip" left tourists and travelers in brief bewilderment, struggling to comprehend what could possibly warrant such immense fuss, even at the cost of disrupting commerce and offending countless patrons. "Is there really going to be a terrorist attack?" Inside an armored vehicle parked in an alley, a captain puffed on a cigarette, staring at the surveillance screens before him. He yawned, perplexed. "Tension ratcheting up all of a sudden—what the hell are they doing?" "You don't know?" The driver, having just returned from taking a piss, sat back down and sighed. "Luo Island and Xiangzhou have had a total falling-out. The Chopra family might invade at any moment. A relative of mine working at the docks told me that over the past two days, shiploads of weapons have been arriving. Word is there are even decommissioned warships and armored gear from the Federation!" "Bloody hell..." The captain watching the monitors swore, stubbing his cigarette into a mountainous ashtray with deep irritation. "All of them talking as if they saw it with their own eyes. We haven't seen so much as a stray hair from the Chopras, yet we errand-boys are being worked to the bone... Now they even say the Riot Cats pose a security risk and won't let us use them. Whatever makes our lives miserable, that's what they do. "If there really are Chopras around, why don't one of them step up and let me have a look? "Look at her—does she look like a Chopra hitman to you?" As he spoke, he pointed at a fat woman in a fur coat on the monitor, then shifted his finger toward a sanitation worker emptying trash. "What about him? Think he looks like one? Hell, I think he looks just like Minkler. Might as well arrest them both, for fuck's sake." Instantly, both the driver and the men in the comms channel burst out laughing. For a moment, the air inside and outside the vehicle was filled with cheerful mirth. The captain wiped his runny nose, scratched at the itchy needle marks beneath his cuffs, cursed someone's mother, and rolled another cigarette. Tilting his head, he lit it and inhaled deeply. Amid the curling wisps of rising smoke, his expression relaxed— And then froze. Right before his eyes, the surveillance screens began flickering wildly. A flurry of static erupted across them. The captain, who had been lounging back, reflexively sat bolt upright and slapped the monitor. "Signal's acting up again? How many kickbacks did that idiot procurement officer pocket? I told them gear from the Thousand Islands was unreliable..." He glared at the driver. "Go readjust the antenna." The driver leaned out and fiddled blindly, but the reception only grew worse. Furious, the captain barked, "What the hell are you doing? Fix the signal!" "C-Captain..." From atop the roof, the driver's voice came in a stunned, hesitant stutter. "D-Do you... want to come out... and look?" "Look at what?" The captain's eyes widened in anger. Shoving the window open, he stuck his head out and snapped, "I'll look at your—" The words caught in his throat. He froze in place. Together with the driver, and together with everyone else. Not just inside the vehicle, but across the entire commercial district—from the massive rotating billboard screens at the street corners, to the display monitors in front of every storefront, the televisions inside the shops, and even the phone in every person's hand—dense static had completely taken over. Pedestrians on the street seemed to sense that something was wrong. Heads bowed, they stared at their phones, exchanging bewildered glances. Now, every pair of eyes went wide. Within the endless flurry of snowy static, the silhouette of a hand seemed to emerge. Spreading open, it reached slowly toward the commercial street, toward Luo Island, toward every single soul present—and clenched. With effortless ease, it brushed aside the static, tracing a fluid, cascading countdown across the screens. 【5】 For a moment, the captain forgot to breathe. His constricted pupils reflected the numeral glowing upon the massive screen. 【4】 "Is this some kind of flash mob?" A wealthy tourist, with his arm wrapped around a shapely sales assistant, grinned and clicked his tongue in admiration. "Pretty original, honestly." 【3】 "Do we have an event like this scheduled?" The shopping mall's broadcast supervisor, who had yet to process what was happening, stared blankly at his subordinate. The subordinate's face turned increasingly pale with terror as he numbly pointed out the window toward the soaring clock tower in the center of Luo Island. With a rumbling groan, the clock tower shuddered. Its hour hand leapt backward by one notch. 【2】 Amid the tolling of the bell, pedestrians in the plaza instinctively lifted their heads and looked around. Every gaze converged upon the commercial district's office towers. On those colossal, state-of-the-art screens, a streak of crimson color swirled and slid down, its fading trails outlining the final mark. 【1】 In that split second, the dense array of surveillance cams, the expansive giant screens, the phones in every hand, and even the booming clock tower and public address speakers let loose a final warning that sounded almost like a roaring howl. It reverberated through everything. Dead silence. In that breathless stillness, no one spoke. An instinctual dread welled up from the depths of every heart. Under the blazing midday sun, it felt like plunging into an icy abyss. Yet nothing happened. "What the hell was that?" The captain's face twitched. He forced an awkward, self-reassuring smile. "Just some clown playing mind games? The fuck?" Then, a shadow descending from the heavens swallowed his face. *BOOM!!!* High in the azure sky, an airship that had only just ascended violently convulsed. Plumes of thick smoke billowed forth as, under the watchful gaze of the multitude, it was devoured by flames. Stumbling and teetering, it lost altitude... Plummeting! Like a fallen giant whale dragging smoke as thick and sticky as blood, it plunged from the azure sea of the heavens, slicing past coral-like high-rises, scattering the fish-like panicked crowds, cutting through the bustling downtown, and shattering the fragile veneer of peace and tranquility. The screech of tearing air sounded like an unrestrained, soaring hymn. Before the witness of all Luo Island, the swelling shadow thoroughly eclipsed the solemn edifice at the island's heart. That central landmark, personally constructed in years past by a team led by a master imperial architect—the governing headquarters of Luo Island, the symbol of the Sukarno family's majesty and dominion: the Seat of the Crown! A roar seemed to erupt from within. In midair, a faint barrier manifested, expanding outward to shield the front of the Seat of the Crown! Steadfast as Mount Tai. An airship strike? What a joke! Did they really think Luo Island had zero defenses? Until, as the airship drew closer, the defender finally noticed. Wait! Something seemed... wrong? Why did the airship beneath the roaring flames and thick smoke look so much like... the very one the family had been using to transport phlogiston explosives and weapons? Amid the churning smoke and fire, a flash of red light flickered. At the pinnacle of the Seat of the Crown, the defender froze, speech entirely lost to him. He almost wanted to laugh. "You motherfuck—" *BOOOOOOM!!!!* A light of brutal fury swallowed everything. Amid a cataclysmic blast that shook all of Luo Island, a mushroom cloud slowly billowed into the sky. Smoke rolled; dust surged. The last sound that echoed was a mournful wail of shattering stone and steel. The Seat of the Crown was snapped clean in half! And with that, the curtain on chaos was officially drawn... Half an hour earlier, Ji Jue had taken a seat before the prime viewing position and raised his teacup. Half an hour later, Luo Island spiraled completely out of control. Every mechanism of control collapsed into shambles. The fire raged for a full day and night. Well into the late hours, the soaring flames still painted half the sky crimson, and drifting ash completely wiped out the entire island's stock of face masks. The subsequent sympathetic detonations and flare-ups caused non-stop pandemonium, persisting until the Sukarno family, pushed past their breaking point, conjured a torrential downpour... There was no helping it; the firefighting system was an amateur clown show to begin with, and as the crisis worsened, its incompetence only magnified. Even though it concerned the Seat of the Crown, and the sluggish bureaucracy operated with unprecedented speed, it was entirely useless. From the moment the explosion occurred up through the next hour, a cascading series of command blunders and freak coincidences meant the fire brigade never even received the dispatch order. Immediately following that, an island-wide traffic gridlock struck without warning, miraculously trapping fire engines several kilometers away, unable to draw any closer. Aerial firefighting efforts ran into oil leaks and myriad safety hazards just as they prepared for takeoff. The fire helicopters broke down completely; radio frequencies went haywire, drowning in static; and walkie-talkies dissolved into garbled noise and distorted time stamps. Every piece of equipment reliant on modern civilization experienced bizarre malfunctions. Everything broke down at once! Only when the enraged Sukarnos reverted to the most primitive brute-force manpower did they manage to contain the inferno—and even then, they met endless setbacks along the way. It was not just transportation and communications. The water and power grids suffered non-stop failures. While flames illuminated half the night sky, the other half of Luo Island was plunged into pitch-black darkness, stripped of both electricity and running water. Gas distribution stations mysteriously exploded out of control, and phlogiston reserves suffered frequent leaks and depressurization. Even in the brightly lit resort districts and luxury hotels, chaos continuously erupted. Heated swimming pools suffered electrical leaks, popular scenic spots abruptly caught fire, and dozens of false fire alarms across various hotels in a single night destroyed the island's hard-earned tourism reputation overnight. The financial sector suffered an outright catastrophe. A bull market that had been soaring was discovered at the afternoon close to have been driven by computer glitches. Several major funds predominantly held by the Sukarnos had failed to execute massive buy and sell orders... The market trajectory was bizarre and completely unhinged. While the direct losses were not devastating, the unexplained profits were far more terrifying! Above all, when several shipping conglomerates from the Federation and the Empire found their luxury liners involved in maritime accidents near Luo Island, it was discovered that the Sukarno family had heavily shorted them in advance... Before the next morning even began, the securities regulatory commissions of both nations froze all of the Sukarno family's financial assets and launched a full-scale investigation! In just eight short hours, all of Luo Island teetered on the brink of collapse amidst unprecedented pandemonium. Yet just before dawn... everything miraculously restored itself! It was back—it was all back! As if nothing had ever happened, as if no error had ever occurred, everything hummed along as normal. Society began methodically cleaning up the mess left in the wake of the disaster. After a full day of peaceful calm, with the troubles roughly eighty percent resolved, just as everyone was appreciating how precious a tranquil life was, and just as the Sukarno family thought Ji Jue had finally ceased his torment... He opened his screen once more. He raised his teacup. Make Luo Island great again! AGAIN!!!