The conference room.
Wu Yisi was organizing the meeting minutes, her slender fingers flying over the keyboard. The screen's light reflected in her eyes as line after line of text flashed past.
"...Based on the above indications, the subject displays no obvious supernatural characteristics. Credibility is low."
An uproar!
A sudden commotion came from outside the conference room. She could faintly hear the machine gunner shout, "Holy shit!" Someone seemed to have fallen over, too.
Wu Yisi frowned and glanced toward the door in puzzlement.
What were those people doing?
It was so late already. Why weren't they sleeping?
She was just about to shut out the disturbance and finish the last section of the minutes when someone banged on the conference room door.
Bai Xu's voice came from outside. "Director Wu, forget the meeting minutes for now. Hurry out and take a look!"
Hearing this, Wu Yisi saved the document and walked out. "What's wrong?"
She turned to look outside.
At the little window facing the backyard next door, the other three were all crowded together, apart from Bai Xu, craning their heads to peer out like three giraffes.
"What are you doing over there?" Wu Yisi asked in puzzlement.
Bai Xu beckoned to her. "Quick, come with me!"
The other three reluctantly gave up their spots so Wu Yisi could see the scene outside the window.
Wu Yisi walked up to the window. The next second, an almost irrepressible horror flashed in her eyes.
In the backyard next door, a pool of soft, milky-white light flickered gently. Invisible walls of air enclosed a space roughly five meters long and wide and three meters high.
At midnight, all around them lay utterly silent. Only this little space bustled with activity.
Within this space, which resembled a barrier, countless points of light fell like raindrops. Upon touching the ground, they turned from illusory to solid, becoming wood and constructing some sort of building from the bottom up.
The foundation, beams and pillars, waterproofing layer...
The building's base was already complete. Just as Zhang Tianyuan had said earlier, it was probably a little pavilion.
But how could a building be constructed like this?
Only aliens built houses this way, surely?
It was Wu Yisi's first time seeing something so clearly at odds with the logic of reality.
She believed it was the same for everyone else.
No,
Wu Yisi glanced at Bai Xu. This was already his second time.
She suddenly understood why Bai Xu had been so certain earlier that Zhang Tianyuan was not a fraud.
What was happening now was simply impossible to accomplish with magic tricks.
Wu Yisi took a deep breath to calm herself.
"I'll go back and finish the meeting minutes. You'd better hurry and deal with what's going on
downstairs, too." With that, she headed toward the conference room.
Bai Xu asked, "Do you want to revise the meeting minutes?"
Wu Yisi shook her head. "There's no need to revise them, but I'll add this situation separately."
Wu Yisi returned to the conference room and sat facing her computer. Even after quite a while, she still could not help replaying the scene in the backyard next door in her mind.
She quickly typed out the final paragraph of the minutes, which she had already composed in her head. Then she paused, added the scene she had just witnessed at the very beginning along with an explanation, and finally typed another paragraph:
"The following meeting discussion is provided solely as a record and report. The relevant conclusions may be seriously flawed."
"What the hell is going on? What is that thing?!"
In the silence, the machine gunner was the first of the four team members to speak.
Instructor Yin added, "I don't know either, but I do know we're going to have our hands full."
"Let's all head down. Find something to cover it first."
Everyone hurried to the recuperation area's storeroom, found a traditional-style three-color tarp, and dragged it back at a run. Then, working together, the four of them finally managed to cover all the light.
The three-color tarp really did the job!
During this process, their work phones all rang one after another, but none of them had time to answer. They waited until the three-color tarp was in place and they were certain no one could see it.
Only then did they breathe a sigh of relief and report the latest developments to the relevant department.
"You're saying that strange phenomenon from before has appeared again?" the person on the other end asked.
Bai Xu said, "It's different. You'll understand once you watch the video I sent."
The person on the other end opened the file and immediately saw the three-color tarp held up by empty air. After watching for just ten seconds, their mouth reacted before their brain did. "Stay right there. Don't leave. The science team will be there immediately. We need to test this invisible dome."
Only after hurriedly finishing did their brain finally catch up. "Right, Mr. Zhang is still sleeping, correct?"
"Yes. He has pretty heavy dark circles under his eyes. He probably hasn't been sleeping well lately."
"Will acting without his permission anger him?"
Bai Xu immediately recalled what Zhang Tianyuan had said to him earlier, things like "you'll be looking forward to it, too" and "I can let you use it"...
He had clearly let them see it on purpose.
It was just that Bai Xu had been so slow on the uptake that he had actually thought Zhang Tianyuan simply wanted to put them through some trouble. He had never imagined a "pavilion" could be built like this...
Bai Xu immediately voiced his thoughts.
After hearing him out, the person on the other end immediately said, "All right, then. Tell the people on site to be careful. Don't wake him. Let him get a good night's sleep."
"Also, you need to be sharper from now on. Improve your powers of observation. Luckily, you wrote down your real number at the bar, or we wouldn't even know how to contact this gentleman now..."
As his superior kept nagging, a question mark slowly formed in Bai Xu's mind.
How was this my fault, too?
The next morning.
Zhang Tianyuan got up and went downstairs, only to see four people squatting in a neat row in his backyard, yawning loud enough to shake the heavens, their eyes narrowed to almost invisible slits.
Seeing him come downstairs, the four people in the backyard hastily stood up and approached him in a respectful line.
"What happened to you? Did you stay up all night?" Zhang Tianyuan deliberately looked a little astonished to keep the atmosphere from becoming awkward, though he was actually asking a question he already knew the answer to.
Because he had indeed deliberately let them see the school in the backyard.
Bai Xu shook Zhang Tianyuan's hand again and said earnestly:
"Mr. Zhang, thank you very much for your earlier warning. We've received instructions and hope to consult with you on the relevant matters soon, so we can assess how the situation will develop."
"If you have any ideas, or any actions that require our cooperation, we can do our best to accommodate them," Instructor Yin added, then rubbed his temples. He was pushing forty. Going an entire night without sleep while remaining so worked up was really a little more than he could take.
Zhang Tianyuan nodded.
Earlier, the other side had been naming their price. Now it was his turn.
Patting Bai Xu, Zhang Tianyuan said amiably, "Let's take a look at last night's results first."
[Elementary School]: Construction complete Student places: 7 Student places currently occupied: 0
The school before them let the wind in on all four sides, with only some wooden bead curtains hanging in place of walls. Inside, the frontmost seat was slightly elevated, while the six student places below it were arranged in three columns.
"Is there anything special about this building? Can we try sitting in it?" Bai Xu recalled Zhang Tianyuan's words again. This pavilion seemed to be for studying?