Secondary Resonance

"I think Researcher Song Yarong's suggestion just now was quite valuable," Sun Hang said unhurriedly.

"What suggestion?" Ment blinked, clearly not grasping what Sun Hang meant.

A large clump of white mycelium suddenly appeared, condensing into a fist shape, and punched through the temporary containment room's safety glass. Alarms blared throughout the containment area.

"Could you please turn off the alarm? It's a bit noisy," Sun Hang said to Song Yarong.

"...Okay." Although Song Yarong didn't understand Sun Hang's intentions, she still turned off the temporary containment room's alarm.

The next second, the Aberrant Long Blade suspended in the containment room melted into liquid out of thin air and "flowed" out through the opening created by the mycelium. Under Ment's dumbfounded gaze, the liquid metal quickly covered Sun Hang's skin and then seeped in through his pores.

Immediately after, Sun Hang, like an astronaut training in a zero-gravity simulator, lifted off the ground and slowly floated up.

"This... this works too?" Ment muttered, looking as if he had seen a ghost.

"It works, it's just a bit uncomfortable." Sun Hang landed on his feet, drew the liquid metal out of his body, and it reconsolidated into the shape of the Aberrant Long Blade.

"J2796 can actually maintain a liquid state at room temperature? That's incredible! According to the test results, the atomic structure of the metal itself hasn't changed, but its properties have... No, wait, I shouldn't be looking at anomalies with the same perspective as regular objects..." Blue lasers shot from Song Yarong's cybernetic eye scanned the Aberrant Long Blade. "How... how did you do it?!"

"I'm not sure..."

Before Sun Hang could finish speaking, he felt a surge of electricity in his head. Without hesitation, he walked towards the door and pushed aside Ment, who was standing there.

"Sorry, I have an urgent matter to attend to. Please excuse me."

Sun Hang practically sprinted into the elevator, taking two steps at a time, and pressed the button for the highest floor of the Research Institute.

He didn't know what he was doing, but he vaguely sensed that something had appeared on the roof and he had to go see it.

The Research Institute's elevator was fast, and in just over ten seconds, it had brought Sun Hang to the highest floor, the thirty-fifth. Sun Hang quickly exited the elevator and found the door leading to the rooftop.

He pushed the door open, and was met with a thick, almost tangible fog. Looking out, the entire Tianfu City was shrouded in a vast expanse of white "sea of clouds." The concrete forest looked as if it had been filtered with a lead-grey hue.

An indescribable sense of oppression spread, the suffocating dark clouds hung so low they seemed within reach, and the heavy, stagnant air was like a giant piece of amber encasing the entire city.

Sun Hang couldn't feel the wind. Standing on the thirty-fifth-floor rooftop, he felt no airflow at all... Everything within his sight was like a frozen black and white silent film, exuding strangeness and irrationality everywhere.

He vaguely remembered dreaming of such a scene, almost identical to what he was seeing now.

Dark clouds, a city, a rooftop, no wind.

He was certain these were his own memories, not those fragmented, chaotic memories.

Sun Hang placed his hands on the railing at the edge of the rooftop and took deep breaths... Whether it was an illusion or not, he felt as if the oxygen content in the air had become extremely thin, insufficient to maintain his vital signs...

But when his gaze fell upon his wristband screen, he saw that the data displayed, whether it was heart rate, pulse, or blood oxygen saturation, was all within normal levels. This meant that all the discomfort he was feeling... was actually just psychological.

"What's going on?" Sun Hang supported his upper body with his arms, his head buried in his chest. He tried to recall again, but the familiar sharp pain made his entire body tremble.

The sound of an electric wheelchair rolling over the floor came from behind him. Sun Hang turned around and saw that the old man in the wheelchair, whom Yang Qi called "Teacher," had also come to the rooftop at some point.

Sun Hang knew this guy was the Director of the Research Institute, the most authoritative figure in anomaly research in all of Tianfu City, bar none.

"As expected, you've resonated with that thing again," the Director said calmly, looking at Sun Hang.

"Resonated?" Sun Hang's heart leaped. He looked up and saw that the sky was clear, with a comfortable cool breeze sweeping across the rooftop, and the air was filled with the faint fragrance of bougainvillea and jacaranda in full bloom.

Was everything that just happened... some kind of illusion, or purely psychological?

"Just now, we received news that the Blood Moon has disappeared," the Director said.

"The Blood Moon disappeared?"

"It wasn't just the Blood Moon that disappeared, but the entire anomaly zone... and everyone who was on a search and rescue mission within the anomaly zone."

"What do you mean?"

"Everything has returned to normal. The displaced space has returned to its original position, the South City Public Cemetery has reappeared in its original location, and those missing people too." The Director continued, "Of the two hundred and thirteen people who were previously missing, twenty-seven left the cemetery area and couldn't return in time. The rest have all been found."

"But the people who went to find them disappeared along with that anomaly zone... Yang Qi was among them, right?" Sun Hang took out his phone. As expected, Yang Qi, who had been communicating with him not long ago, now had a grey icon symbolizing "offline."

"Yes, including Yang Qi, there were one thousand seven hundred and fifty-five missing search and rescue personnel," the Director nodded.

"The anomaly zone should reappear, right? As long as they haven't left that area, there's still a chance for them to return to this spacetime... Can I understand it this way?" Sun Hang asked.

"Uncertain." The Director shook his head. "When researching anomalies, you can deduce some 'patterns,' but never rely too heavily on 'anomalies'... They might return, or they might never appear again. Currently, it's preliminarily determined that the cause of the spacetime anomaly is an unknown 'Phenomenon-type' anomaly."

The Director coughed lightly and continued, "There are over a thousand known Phenomenon-type anomalies. Some can last for decades or even centuries, while others are fleeting, disappearing from the world before humans can even observe them. We can only infer their existence from the traces they leave behind... I cannot be sure if the anomaly that caused the spacetime anomaly this time will reappear, nor can I be sure if those missing people will be able to return."

"Then what's with the 'resonance' between me and that thing?"

"Your ability to resonate with 'it' indicates that your meme frequency is close to 'its,' making you more likely to detect 'its' presence than ordinary people," the Director said. "Oh, and one more thing. With Yang Qi missing, your direct supervisor position has become vacant. Researcher Song Yarong from the institute wanted to apply for this position, but after careful consideration, I rejected her application."

"Then who do you plan to have replace Yang Qi?"

"Yang Lian, an executive officer from the Tianfu City Anomaly Investigation Bureau." The Director maneuvered his electric wheelchair to turn around. "She will be seconded to the Research Institute to take over her sister's work."