Lungmen erupted with rolling thunder that seemed to come from nowhere, unaccompanied by the ghastly white flash of lightning. It was thunder on a clear, sunny day.
The sight was bizarre. In some places, it would even be considered an omen of disaster.
The meteorologists were the first to suffer the calamity.
"Th-this makes no sense."
Xuezhi was at a loss for words.
She was a Catastrophe research scholar who had graduated this year. It was clearly after work; she had only just clocked out at the institute when she was urgently recalled by the meteorological activity team. Without even having time to sleep, she was thrown straight into nonstop weather mapping.
"This weather model is wrong, and that one is wrong too..."
What kind of Catastrophe could show such signs?
"Are there any earthquake clouds?"
Xuezhi asked. When the answer was no, she grew even more flustered, so nervous she did not know where to put her hands.
"What about seismic waves?"
The answer was no again.
"Ugh... why is this happening?"
She racked her brains, running through every geological issue she knew, but no matter how hard she thought, Xuezhi could never have guessed that a person was piloting First Father toward Lungmen, uprooting mountains and trees in its path.
Who could possibly have imagined that?
It was not just her. None of the other scientists at the meteorological bureau could identify the problem. But Xuezhi was not like the others. Whenever she encountered a problem she could not solve, she instinctively felt guilty, as though she ought to have known the answer.
From a personal perspective, that was inferiority.
Yet from another perspective, it was an almost extreme sort of pride. Feeling guilty because she could not do something—beneath Xuezhi's timid exterior lay immense pride.
"Seismic detection...