"Welcome to Network Jia2983. Please relax as much as possible and let your consciousness return to your inner self. We will now cross 3.4 dimensional distances."
The voice that echoed in his consciousness was beautiful—clear, sweet, and mellow.
This guidance was obviously different from the electronic program that had guided him before.
Wei Keng felt his five senses gradually merge. Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and the sensations of heat and cold all blended together. This guidance had a unique quality to it, like a pair of small hands caressing him.
Wei Keng's physical body had completely vanished from the Shenzhou Plane.
During the process, he felt the matter around him moving farther and farther away.
The Pod Bed he was lying on, the walls of the Space-Time Pod, the laboratory walls, the ground holding him down with gravity, the air that constantly surrounded him—all of it seemed like shadows retreating from a light, scattering beyond the range of his unified senses.
It was as if he had fallen into a void, like falling in a dream. But unlike in a dream, his senses were clear.
As all matter on Earth disappeared from his perception, Wei Keng entered a void without color, where even the concepts of matter and energy did not exist.
The System Interface was still there.
Wei Keng asked, "System, how long until we arrive?"
Fifteen Large Hourglasses appeared before him. Beneath the first Large Hourglass were fifteen Medium Hourglasses, and beneath the first Medium Hourglass were fifteen Small Hourglasses. The sand in the first Small Hourglass was visibly falling.
Wei Keng asked, "System, is it really going to take that long?"
"Please wait patiently."
"Oh, then, System—"
"I'm an Observer, not a system. Please remain quiet unless you have something necessary to say."
After the first Medium Hourglass had emptied,
Wei Keng asked, "Observer Girl?" Then he called out again, "Beautiful lady?"
"What is it?"
"Your voice is lovely. How about singing a song?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't offer that service."
"Um, what's your name?"
"I'll tell you later."
After a while, Wei Keng sighed and thought, Looks like I shouldn't have been so confident.
It was easy to get overconfident during a transmigration, much like a middle-aged man who became rich and gradually started thinking he had irresistible masculine charm. It was all an illusion.
That brief exchange didn't lead to anything. The dimensional traverse soon opened Rookie Wei Keng's eyes to a whole new world.
The sudden sensation of vastness overwhelmed him, and he felt countless lights appear around him.
He expanded his senses, and everything around him seized his attention. He forgot all about trying to flirt with the Observer.
There were such magnificent "stars" in this void. Then Wei Keng realized that he, too, was one of these tiny stars—or perhaps the trail he had left as he passed through the void was adding a faint glimmer to it.
Each star was headed in a different direction. They had merely converged here, before descending into different planes.
The Main World was now like a "sun," radiating its "light" toward the surrounding regions with all its might.
As Wei Keng gazed out over this "Sea of Stars,"
ripples suddenly appeared directly ahead of him, spreading outward in expanding rings.
At that moment, all the points of light around him seemed affected and sped up—as though they regarded the ripples as some kind of interference. But Wei Keng was too close. The ripples had already reached him, and then he realized his connection to the Observer seemed to have been severed.
If there had been an explosion in the void, Wei Keng would have been right at its epicenter.
The ripples grew larger. Wei Keng had no idea what they were and could only watch as they unfolded. Suddenly, he saw light.
Yes—the center of the ripples seemed to contain something blindingly bright, as if it had smashed through some kind of barrier and was now about to descend nearby.
It was the light of consciousness, far more brilliant than any star he had just seen in the splendid Sea of Stars. It also seemed to possess an indescribable vitality. Was it trying to break through something? Does it want to return? The thought appeared in Wei Keng's mind for no reason.
Wei Keng's attention was drawn to it, too. As if longing for something, he tried to reach out.
But the opening in the space at the center of the ripples was already small. Only Wei Keng, who was extremely close, could see the very center being torn open. Then the ripples began to contract, and a powerful force pulled the light back. Once the ripples had finally closed, space settled again. The bright consciousness was gone.
Wei Keng felt a profound sense of loss, as if he had lost something. As for his own situation? Well, he seemed to be able to reconnect with the Observer.
Meanwhile, the Time-Space Administration Bureau was in chaos. Atop the New Oriental Pearl Tower, all four indicator lights had switched from blue to red.
On the Earth Central Control Platform, the data of tens of thousands of transmigrators jumped all at once. After receiving signals of particles flickering in the Gravity Well, the sixty thousand Supercomputing Centers across East Asia began calculating at high speed, printing particles in the Quantum Birth-Death Field and preparing to send them back.
The Unknown Fluctuation spread directly into every transit channel in the void. The consciousness of almost every transmigrator was affected, and their original transit vectors were disturbed and needed to be recalibrated.
"What on earth caused this?" "Nothing like this has ever happened before!"
At the Earth Eastern Time-Space Department, dimensional observation facilities around the world had detected the phenomenon. People began discussing it on the Public Channel, and half an hour later, the Other Side of the Ocean sent an inquiry as well. Clearly, their transit had been affected too.
The two Space-Time Exploration Organizations, normally rivals, tacitly reached a verbal agreement to avoid escalating plane conflicts for the time being and to form a Joint Investigation Team.
Ninety percent of the affected transmigrators could have their disturbances corrected. For the rest, their space-time coordinates had been slightly affected: their positions had shifted a little along the Timeline, or their arrival time was off by around ten years.
Only one unlucky fellow had been right in the middle of the Space Ripple. He'd been unable to avoid it at all.
That fellow was in serious trouble during his space-time transit.
On the Shenzhou Plane, in Hetu, inside the command hall of the Space-Time Physics Department,
Ke Feijia had just sent Wei Keng away from the plane. Not even an hour had passed.
He was at the top of the tallest building in the center, looking out at the ravine-scarred Northern Shaanxi Plateau on the horizon. Suddenly, he jerked his head up and turned to look toward the center of the golden, spherical test base.
Just moments ago, every number on the interface in his consciousness, showing the details of Wei Keng's transit, had abruptly turned red. The numbers were jumping wildly, and their changes were so erratic that they looked like a little boat caught in a raging storm.
Ke Feijia's expression changed.
He had just sent his teammate into the space-time transit array, and now his teammate had suddenly "crashed." No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like he had murdered him.
Concern clouded his judgment, especially since he couldn't contact the Observer directly from this plane. He rushed to the Space-Time Test Field, found another Super Space-Time Pod, climbed inside, and entered the Space-Time Rift. Then he operated the system and opened the chat interface.
On the dimensional plane, he found Wei Qiang already waiting for him, along with two Observers. One of the Observers had her head bowed.
When Wei Qiang saw Ke Feijia, he didn't give him a chance to speak first. He calmly said, "Don't panic. Make a space-time backup for him on that plane first. He won't be able to come back and complete the mission anytime soon."
Ke Feijia started to say something.
Wei Qiang added, "Nobody could have predicted that possibility. If I were you, I'd have done the same." Then he turned to the Observer on his side. "Chunfen, where is my unlucky older brother now?"
The Observer named Yang Chunfen brought up the space-time data. "He's in Area 9834. The nearest safe plane isn't close enough for him to reach. He has to make an emergency landing in a known plane and wait for rescue, but every known plane nearby is high-risk. There's no—"
"I understand." Wei Qiang opened a Timeline. "He can land here, then complete a Space Wormhole on this Timeline to replenish his supplies. Bai Linglu, I'm counting on you."
Bai Linglu was the Observer assigned to Wei Keng's transit. She had escaped the violent disturbance thanks to the Gravity Well's protective mechanism during the Space Ripple. But for an Observer, losing contact with a transmigrator during transit was a serious matter. She had to find him.
After assigning the tasks, Wei Qiang reported the situation. He needed to return to the Main Plane, and Ke Feijia had to come back first.
Ke Feijia returned from the Space-Time Pod to the Shenzhou Plane. He glanced at the clock on the wall; it was exactly ten in the morning. From that moment on, this world's Timeline split into two parallel timelines. This was now Line A.
The Wei Family had already sent someone over. Three years ago, the Luoshui Group had just changed its Patriarch. Now, with another mishap looming, the group couldn't withstand such turmoil.
Ke Feijia looked at the Wei Family's visitor and said slowly, "The space laboratory is still operating. He'll be back in a hundred days."
The old man from the Wei Family asked, "May I ask what guarantee Mr. Ke can offer?"
"Just now, after entering the space-time zone, I connected with him. I'm going into the laboratory now. By increasing the output power, I can bring him back."
Fifteen hours later in the Shenzhou Plane, Ke Feijia entered the Space-Time Pod again.
The space-time backup was complete. On this Timeline, Wei Keng would return after Ke Feijia entered the Space-Time Pod for a hundred days. Ke Feijia, however, would not return.
Ke Feijia entered the Space-Time Pod and reached the higher dimension once more. By then, Wei Qiang had already left for the Timeline where Ke Feijia had not made a backup.
When Ke Feijia emerged from the Space-Time Pod, it was now Line B, ten days after Wei Keng's disappearance.
But five days earlier, in the Hetu Laboratory in the Qinghai Yellow River Source region, the previous Patriarch, Wei Qiang, had emerged. He had then flown to the Luoshu Laboratory in Northern Shaanxi to wait for Ke Feijia's arrival.
When Wei Qiang saw Ke Feijia, he said, "It's over. You should get on with your own affairs."
Ke Feijia looked at Wei Qiang's expressionless face, feeling guilty.
Turning around, Wei Qiang took a deep breath and put on his Iron Mask as he addressed the Wei Family members who had rushed there. "I wasn't here, and it looks like you all planned to divide up the inheritance. What are you waiting for now? A funeral feast?!" The final word, "feast," boomed like an explosion.
An invisible gust of air spread a hundred meters from Wei Qiang. The glass panels outside the hall shuddered, their surfaces webbing with cracks.
On this plane, Wei Qiang was in the Innate Realm. Every word he spoke carried a force that pressed down on those around him. Now that he had returned to this plane, he was like a tiger back in the mountains. Those who had played games with Wei Keng earlier were now drenched in cold sweat.
Six days later,
Wei Qiang stood in a helicopter, looking down at the industrial park in the northwest. Wei Keng had spent the past three years building it up. After Wei Qiang returned, members of the family had reported that Wei Keng's pointless investments had seriously drained the family's resources.
As for those who had tried to "set things right" and "label certain people as traitors so they could trample on them,"
Wei Qiang wrote down the names of everyone who had filed a report in a little notebook on his system.
During Wei Qiang's era, the Luoshui Group had been an intensely heavy-industrial conglomerate within Shenzhou, with close ties to the military and the Imperial Court.
By comparison, Wei Keng had clearly taken a more "low-end" approach.
But Wei Qiang didn't think his older brother's efforts were misguided. Wei Keng's down-to-earth approach was also a strategy for deepening their influence on the plane.
Wei Qiang knew what kind of honest man his older brother was. He couldn't ingratiate himself with the upper classes, nor could he haggle with Shenzhou's major Interest Groups. So he had simply done the basic work diligently and protected the family's legacy quite well.
Now, Wei Qiang would carry on Wei Keng's strategy in its entirety. Since they had already decided to give up the cutthroat competition in the Military-Industrial Complex Field and turn to civilian manufacturing, they couldn't just abandon it.
Wei Qiang opened the comms and asked Ke Feijia, "What do you think of my older brother?"
"He's a good person. Just a little too honest."
Wei Qiang's mouth twisted into a faint sneer. "That's right. It's just like what his teachers wrote on his report cards."
Ke Feijia tried to change the subject. "Everyone's like that when they first start plane travel. Besides, everyone has a different style of transmigration."
Wei Qiang glanced again at the dull gray Solar Energy Collection Fields below.
They were all Concave Mirrors Collecting Light, focusing the light onto the heat-absorbing pipes in their concave centers. That was why their colors didn't look very vivid from the air.
Wei Qiang tapped the Cabin Door to signal the pilot to turn back, then continued talking with Ke Feijia. "There's another side to my older brother's personality."
After a pause, Wei Qiang said, "Sometimes, he won't turn back until he hits a wall. No, even after he hits a wall, he still won't turn back. Tell him he's too honest once, and he'll just grin. Warn him a second time that he's 'too honest,' and he still won't act. Tell him a third time that he 'can't afford to be so honest,' and he still won't listen."
Wei Qiang continued in a calm voice, "If we were both on this plane, I could make the decisions on a lot of things. But on some matters, he'd just drag his feet."
He let out a breath. "He's been here before. Let's do it his way."
Ke Feijia thought it sounded strange. The atmosphere felt a little like someone sorting through a dead relative's belongings.
So, what kind of plane had Wei Keng landed on?
Before you continue