Li Lin was jolted awake from deep sleep by the obnoxious ringing of his phone, accompanied by an abrupt spiritual warning prickling at the back of his mind.
As a top-performing operative of the Special Affairs Bureau, he realized almost instantly that an incident was underway. Snapping wide awake in a single shudder, he launched himself out of bed in his temporary rental like a released spring, grabbing his phone from the nightstand as he dashed toward the window overlooking the street.
"Li Lin here," he said rapidly into the receiver, sinking into the chair by the window and aiming a device fitted with a complex lens assembly at the street below. "What's going on?"
Song Cheng's voice came through immediately, sounding uncharacteristically grave. "Have you observed anything on your end?"
Li Lin kept one eye on the light and shadows refracted through the lens array while glancing at the laptop automatically logging data nearby. He quickly scrolled through the monitoring log before speaking up: "All sensor readings are normal. The only blip was a minor energy fluctuation at 1:00 AM—just a typical periodic surge for the boundary zone..."
"...Xu Jiali set out early; he should be arriving at your location shortly," Song Cheng said in a low, heavy voice. "Maintain surveillance on the street. Even if you spot something, do not head outside rashly. Report it immediately. Remember, until Xu Jiali is in position, under no circumstances are you to leave the safehouse alone!"
"Ah? Right, understood!" Li Lin faltered for a second before hastily complying. Then he couldn't help asking, "What on earth happened?"
"...The boundary zone is experiencing massive, unexplained spatiotemporal dislocations and realignments, once every five to ten minutes."
Paying no heed to Li Lin's gasp on the other end, Song Cheng hung up. He drew a deep breath and looked up at the massive screen at the far end of the command hall.
The screen displayed a two-dimensional map of all of Jiecheng, surrounded by a three-dimensional model constructed from countless curves and identifiers, alongside a frantic deluge of updating monitoring data and remote surveillance feeds.
The vast command hall was brightly lit. Special Affairs Bureau personnel in black uniforms stared intently at screens across various terminals, while staff slipped in and out through side doors every so often, delivering status reports from other departments or bringing more bad news.
"There were a few minor spatiotemporal dislocations over the past two days, but none on this scale, nor this frequent," a female bureau operative in a black business skirt muttered quietly behind Song Cheng. "Given the boundary zone's unique spatiotemporal structure, such occurrences aren't unheard of, so the alert level on those initial reports was kept low..."
"Looking back, it seems more like preliminary probing before a major operation," another voice chimed in from the side. "Now 'they've' officially begun... Damn it, we let our guard down."
Just then, a report shouted from a terminal cut short the conversation behind Song Cheng: "Rift generation detected! Orienting toward Chawen-12b! Precise coordinates still cannot be confirmed... Attempting trace!"
Song Cheng's brow knitted tight. He said nothing, merely counting seconds in his head.
A dozen seconds later, the follow-up report came in—
"Rift closed! Trace failed! Spatiotemporal structure restored!"
Reports like this had already echoed through the hall dozens of times—repeating every few minutes.
The intervals weren't entirely uniform, though mostly within ten minutes; each event's duration varied slightly as well, never exceeding thirty seconds. It appeared intentional, but... what was the point of doing this? And more importantly... who could possibly pull off something so absurd?!
"Rift generation detected! Orienting toward Bailong-4c! Unable to confirm precise coordinates, attempting trace..."
"Rift closed! Trace failed..."
Song Cheng's frown deepened. Just then, a faint hum interrupted his thoughts, and a screen beside him lit up a second later.
A dignified woman who looked not yet thirty, with an aloof air about her, appeared on the display.
She wore a white suit dress. Her ash-white hair was tied behind her head in a loose ponytail, and her eyes were a distinctive ash-white, their pupils so pale that her whole figure seemed... drained of color.
The instant Song Cheng laid eyes on her, his spine visibly stiffened, and a somewhat stiff, wry smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"Director," Song Cheng greeted her. "We're still tracking..."
"What is the situation?" the ash-haired, ash-eyed director interrupted, her tone cool and collected.
"The rifts continue to form and collapse. We still can't trace their origin, but we can essentially confirm that the phenomenon is harmless to the boundary zone itself—the spatiotemporal structure hasn't suffered damage."
"Undamaged?"
"Yes. Although the rifts have temporarily been classified as 'spatiotemporal dislocations,' that's only because their surface properties resemble them. What that stuff actually is... remains hard to say," Song Cheng replied with a bitter smile. "Whenever one appears, it isn't truly tearing spatiotemporal fabric apart. Rather..."
He racked his brains for a moment before finally recalling the technical expert's phrasing, continuing: "It gives the impression that it's simply the natural structure of spacetime. The instant a rift forms, it's as if a stable passageway leading far away had existed in the boundary zone all along. And when the rift vanishes, it's as if it was never there to begin with. No shockwave, no catastrophic collapse. So far, we haven't received a single casualty report."
The ash-haired woman listened in silence and didn't speak for a long time.
Song Cheng remained quiet as well, waiting patiently.
"Has there been any change at that 'special location' you assigned personnel to monitor?"
"None. Right now, it's the most 'peaceful' spot in all of Jiecheng—so peaceful it's like a black hole," Song Cheng sighed. "That's precisely what's most abnormal. Everyone knows something's up over there, but the biggest problem is that you can't see anything wrong at all. I've dispatched the Second Brigade's best deep diver, and I've also assigned two additional surveillance teams to approach the street from other angles..."
"What do you think the perpetrator's objective is?" the ash-haired woman asked suddenly.
"...Hard to say," Song Cheng mused, speaking cautiously. "At first, I assumed this was some kind of attack. But looking at it now, they're simply opening and closing rift after rift. Nearly the entire night has passed, and they haven't disturbed a single soul..."
"Could it be some new manifestation of a Murky Angel?"
"Unlikely. Whenever a Murky Angel manifests, it's invariably accompanied by massive containment loss in foreign domains and widespread devastation in the mundane world. Nothing about them is ever this 'harmless,'" Song Cheng shook his head immediately. "Besides, we haven't received any recent reports about those Angel cultists. If a new Murky Angel had truly appeared, those fanatics wouldn't be this quiet."
"If it isn't a Murky Angel, that is acceptable."
"Yeah, as long as it's not a Murky Angel," Song Cheng sighed. "Then again, if this is done by a 'person'... what kind of 'person' could they possibly be? What on earth are they trying to do by kicking up such a massive fuss...?"
The latter half of his sentence was spoken entirely to himself. On the other side of the screen, the ash-haired woman broke the silence after several seconds of reflection.
"This world is vast; there remain far too many species and ancient beings we have yet to encounter," she murmured softly. Though her face appeared youthful, an unwitting hint of weathered age tinged her words. "And our universe is still very young—so young that many of its 'theorems' and 'laws' have yet to take shape... Learn to adapt, Xiao Song. Our work has never been about dealing with the 'known.'"
"...I understand."
The ash-haired woman nodded. Then, as if sensing something, she abruptly looked up in a certain direction—her pale, virtually colorless eyes freezing for a split second before she spoke softly, breaking the quiet: "It has calmed down."
Song Cheng raised his head and looked out across the hall.
No new reports of rift formation came in.
...
A knock sounded at the door in a distinct cadence. Standing by the entrance, Li Lin used his spiritual intuition to verify the aura outside before stepping half a pace aside and pulling the door open.
A burly man nearly two meters tall ducked his head as he squeezed through the rental doorway, dragging behind him an enormous black crate that matched his colossal build.
"Man, your place is cramped," the big man said, glancing back at Li Lin beside the door. "Tighter than the drop pod I rode the day before yesterday."
Li Lin rolled his eyes. "Still roomier than that jalopy of yours. If you could drive that rust bucket all the way here from the bureau, don't go complaining about my apartment."
The giant chuckled twice. Shoving his heavy crate against the wall, he made himself at home on the living room sofa, letting out an appreciative sigh of bliss.
"Fair enough. At least it's fit for humans. This couch beats the rock-hard stones and scorching sand on Emein-IX by a mile."
Li Lin looked at the giant with an aching head.
The Special Affairs Bureau's Second Action Brigade's finest and most senior deep diver—Mr. Xu Jiali.
He still wasn't used to dealing with this mountain of a man.
The main reason was that on his very first day with the brigade, Li Lin had seen the name "Xu Jiali" on the roster and gone around asking everyone about this person. Then, at the welcome party, a six-foot-six juggernaut of a man had marched up, clapped Li Lin on the shoulder, and introduced himself as Xu Jiali. That booming introduction had been so deafening that Li Lin still felt a tremor every time he saw him.
Yet Mr. Xu Jiali himself was completely oblivious to the effect. He had lived with this name for thirty years and had long since grown accustomed to it...
How did the saying go again? The Special Affairs Bureau's Second Brigade was truly a place of crouching tigers and hidden dragons...
Chapter 35