Second Resonance

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

"What suggestion?" Ment froze for a moment, clearly not understanding what Sun Hang meant.

A huge mass of white mycelium suddenly appeared, condensing into the shape of a fist and smashing through the safety glass of the temporary containment chamber. Alarms immediately blared throughout the chamber.

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

"...All right." Though Song Yarong also did not understand Sun Hang's intentions, she still shut off the temporary containment chamber's alarm.

The next second, the Aberrant Long Blade floating inside the containment chamber melted into liquid out of thin air and "flowed" through the breach blasted open by the mycelium. Under Ment's stunned gaze, the Liquid Metal rapidly spread over Sun Hang's skin, then seeped into his body through his pores.

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

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

"It works, but it's a little uncomfortable." Sun Hang landed on his feet and drew the Liquid Metal out of his body, whereupon it condensed back into the form of the Aberrant Long Blade.

"J2796 can actually remain liquid at room temperature? This is incredible! According to the test results, the metal's atomic structure itself hasn't changed, but its properties... No, that's not right. I shouldn't be looking at anomalous objects as if they were ordinary things..." Blue lasers shot from Song Yarong's prosthetic eyes, continuously scanning the Aberrant Long Blade. "You... how exactly did you do that?!"

"I don't know either..."

Before Sun Hang could finish, he suddenly felt an electric current pass through his head. Almost without hesitation, he headed for the door and shoved Ment, who was standing there, aside.

"Sorry, something urgent came up. Excuse me."

Sun Hang rushed into the elevator in a few quick strides and pressed the button for the institute's top floor.

He did not know what he was doing. He only vaguely sensed that something had appeared on the rooftop, and that he had to go take a look.

The institute's elevator was fast. In just over ten seconds, it carried Sun Hang to the highest floor, the thirty-fifth. He hurried out of the elevator and found the door leading to the rooftop.

When he pushed open the door, a dense fog, almost tangible, rushed into his face. As far as the eye could see, all of Tianfu City was shrouded in a vast white "sea of clouds," while the forest of reinforced concrete seemed to have been overlaid with a lead-gray filter.

An indescribable oppression spread through the air. The suffocating clouds hung so low they seemed within reach, and the heavy, stagnant atmosphere was like an enormous piece of amber that had sealed the entire city inside.

Sun Hang could not feel any wind. Standing on the rooftop thirty-five stories above the ground, he could not sense even the slightest movement of air... Everything within sight resembled a frozen black-and-white silent film, bizarre and irrational at every turn.

He vaguely remembered dreaming of a scene like this before, one almost identical to what he was seeing now.

Dark clouds, city, rooftop, no wind.

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

Sun Hang braced both hands against the rooftop railing and gulped down breath after breath... Whether it was an illusion or not, he felt as though the oxygen content in the air had become incredibly thin, far too thin to sustain his vital signs...

Yet when his gaze swept across his wristband's screen, he discovered that every reading displayed there—his heart rate, pulse, and blood oxygen saturation—was completely normal. In other words, every bit of discomfort he felt... was purely psychological.

"What's going on?" Sun Hang supported the weight of his upper body with both arms, his head buried against his chest. He tried to remember again, but the familiar, excruciating pain made his entire body tremble uncontrollably.

The sound of an electric wheelchair rolling across the floor came from behind him. Sun Hang turned around and found that the old man in the wheelchair whom Yang Qi called "Teacher" had somehow also arrived on the rooftop.

Sun Hang knew this man was the institute's director, the foremost authority on anomalous objects in all of Tianfu City, without equal.

"Sure enough, you resonated with that thing once again," the director said calmly as he looked at Sun Hang.

"Resonated?" Startled, Sun Hang raised his head and found the sky utterly cloudless. A pleasantly cool breeze swept across the rooftop, and the air was filled with the faint fragrance of blooming bougainvillea and jacaranda.

Everything just now... had it been some kind of illusion, or merely his mind playing tricks on him?

"Just now, we received word that the Blood Moon has disappeared," the director said.

"The Blood Moon disappeared?"

"It wasn't only the Blood Moon. The entire anomalous zone disappeared as well... along with everyone carrying out search-and-rescue operations inside it."

"What do you mean?"

"Everything has returned to normal. The displaced space has returned to its original position, South City Public Cemetery has reappeared where it originally stood, and so have those missing people." The director continued, "Of the 213 people who went missing earlier, aside from 27 who left the cemetery area and failed to return in time, all the others have been found."

"But the people who went looking for them disappeared along with that anomalous zone... Yang Qi was among them too, wasn't she?" Sun Hang took out his phone. Sure enough, Yang Qi, who had been messaging him not long ago, now had a gray profile picture indicating that she was "offline."

"Yes. Including Yang Qi, a total of 1,755 search-and-rescue personnel have gone missing." The director nodded.

"The anomalous zone should appear again, right? As long as they haven't left that area, there's still a chance they can return to this spacetime... Is that the right way to understand it?" Sun Hang asked.

"Uncertain." The director shook his head. "When studying anomalous objects, you can identify certain 'patterns,' but never rely too heavily on them... They may return, or they may never appear again. Our preliminary assessment is that the Spacetime Anomaly was caused by an unknown Phenomenon-type anomalous object."

The director coughed softly twice before continuing. "There are over a thousand known Phenomenon-type anomalous objects. Some can persist for decades or even centuries, while others vanish in an instant, disappearing from this world completely before humanity has even observed them. We can only infer that they once existed from the traces they leave behind... I cannot determine whether the anomalous object responsible for this Spacetime Anomaly will appear again, nor can I determine whether those missing people can return."

"Then what is this 'resonance' between me and that thing?"

"The fact that you can resonate with 'it' means your memetic frequencies share certain similarities. Compared to ordinary people, you are more likely to detect its presence," the director said. "Oh, and one more thing. Yang Qi's disappearance has left your direct supervisor position vacant. Level Two Researcher Song Yarong wanted to apply for the position, but after careful consideration, I rejected her application."

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

"Yang Lian, an operative from the Tianfu City Anomaly Investigation Bureau." The director turned his electric wheelchair around. "She will be seconded to the institute to take over her sister's work."