The study fell quiet again.
Chen Siyao stood in the doorway, staring at the floating bead for a long time.
"Six years," she murmured.
She turned toward the living room, opened her Wristband's projection, and pulled up the list of specialists Cai Jingwen had sent her.
Thirty-seven leading spatial physicists, twelve quantum mechanics experts, and eight string theory researchers.
She went through them one by one.
Outside, the sky was still blue. The sun was still bright. People still went to work, shopped, argued, and fell in love.
No one knew that the boundaries of the Solar System were shrinking, inch by inch.
The first year.
The Human Alliance Astronomical Observatory was the first to detect something wrong. Three deep-space monitoring stations near Neptune's orbit lost contact on the same day. Their signals cut off completely.
The investigation team sent two Warp Ships.
Neither returned.
The second year.
All eight orbital space stations around Uranus were destroyed within a week. In the final footage they transmitted, black, threadlike objects covered the stations' outer walls.
The Human Alliance Security Council convened an emergency closed-door meeting.
The footage was played at the meeting. Of the twenty-seven representatives of member states, nineteen rose to their feet on the spot.
"What is that?"
"We don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
The third year.
Neptune vanished.
It did not explode or shatter. An entire planet was swallowed whole over the course of three months.
The Human Alliance's telescopes captured the entire process. Black threads wrapped around the icy blue planet from every direction, then tightened.
Like a hand crushing a grape.
But not even a drop of juice splashed out.
The news was suppressed for forty-eight hours. Then it leaked.
Riots erupted worldwide.
In the fourth year, Uranus followed Neptune's fate.