"I don't know either," Le Gu Nan replied softly.
"Didn't Han Ling tell you?" Shen Heng asked.
"No, Sister Ling just told me she had something to do today and would switch with you," Le Gu Nan said softly.
Shen Heng nodded slightly upon hearing this, just as Han Ling had told him.
He didn't dwell too much on what Han Ling had to do today, and his gaze shifted to the table in front of Le Gu Nan.
An open book sat on the brown solid wood table.
Le Gu Nan spent the whole day reading.
"What are you looking at today?" Shen Heng asked.
Le Gu Nan followed Shen Heng's gaze to the book on the table.
She reached out and flipped open the book's cover.
Rheology: How Solids Flow!
"How do solids flow?" Shen Heng looked at the book cover; against the cold gray background, a drop of black asphalt seemed about to fall.
Le Gu Nan's slender fingers gently traced the pages, her fingertips lingering for a moment on the cover design where asphalt had dripped.
"Yes, this book talks about things like why glaciers move, and why the ground undulates like waves during an earthquake..."
Le Gu Nan spoke softly, his voice carrying a hint of academic focus.
One particularly unique perspective in this book is the concept of time scale!
"Time scale?" Shen Heng asked, somewhat puzzled.
"Hmm." Le Gu Nan nodded gently, turned to the inside page, and pointed to a diagram of the microscopic structure of a rock.
The book argues that given a sufficiently long timescale, even continents are actually in a slow-moving state.
Shen Heng lowered his eyes, pondered for a moment, and then said, "Is this a variant of the plate tectonics theory?"
"Hmm..." Le Gu Nan pondered for a moment, then said softly, "Strictly speaking, no, it focuses more on the flow of the continent and the ground."
"Is it caused by the movement of the continents and the ground? Or by geological activities such as mantle convection deep underground?" Shen Heng inquired.
"No, it doesn't focus on the macro level, but rather on the micro level..." Le Gu Nan paused after speaking, seemingly thinking about how to explain it to Shen Heng.
A moment later, her gaze settled on the table in front of the two of them.
"Let me give you an example." Le Gu Nan raised his hand and placed it on the table.
Shen Heng nodded, his gaze following Le Gu Nan's hand to the table.
"This solid wood table appears completely still to us, but if we extend the timeframe to several hundred years, the cellulose molecules in the wood will slowly shift and recombine." Le Gu Nan raised his finger and tapped the tabletop twice.
Shen Heng subconsciously touched the tabletop; it felt solid and cold to the touch.
He thought for a moment and said, "So... you mean to say that everything is in motion?"
"Well, you could say that, but it's not entirely accurate."
What's inaccurate?
"On a sufficiently long timescale," Le Gu Nan said softly.
As she spoke, she lightly drew a circle on the table with her fingertip.
Shen Heng looked over there.
Soon, the originally hard and flat wooden tabletop began to Distortion slightly, like ripples on the surface of water.
Immediately afterwards, Le Gu Nan's palm began to move across the tabletop, and wherever it touched, the hard wood became as soft and malleable as clay.
"The key lies in... how to change the scale of time."
The ethereal sound echoed.
Shen Heng remained silent, sitting to the side and watching the scene unfold before him.
Under Le Gu Nan's palm, the tabletop was gently moved around like the surface of water.
After a moment, Le Gu Nan stopped what he was doing and restored the desktop to its original state.
Shen Heng withdrew his gaze and looked at Le Gu Nan, a smile playing on his lips.
"Have you already reached this level?"
Le Gu Nan looked at Shen Heng and said softly:
"That's all we can do. To achieve what you described earlier—the ability to freely manipulate the ground and buildings for attacks, and to reach an extremely long distance—is beyond our current capabilities."
As she spoke, she looked down at her palm.
"I'm not even sure if I can reach that level."
"After all, there's not much time to prepare during a battle, and my ability requires analyzing matter before it can Reconstruction."
"It's alright, take your time, you'll get there eventually!" Shen Heng said with a light laugh.
"Hmm." Le Gu Nan nodded gently.
Shen Heng suppressed his smile, turned his head, and looked towards the crowd.
There, a figure walked straight towards them after testing their affinity with source Origin Power.
He was a businessman who looked to be in his late twenties, wearing a neat white shirt and dress pants, with his hair neatly styled back.
"Hello, I am Jiang Yifan, the executive vice president of Changshun Group." The man bowed slightly and handed over a business card with both hands.
Shen Heng took the business card and glanced at it; the information matched what the man had just said.
He looked up at the man in front of him and asked:
"Um, is there anything I can help you with?"
"No, I just wanted to ask if you two are inspectors from the Supervision Bureau?" Jiang Yifan asked with a smile.
"We're just two people running errands and delivering things, we're not inspectors at all." Shen Heng pointed to the supplies beside him.
"Is that so...?"
Jiang Yifan glanced at the house next to the two, then turned his gaze back to them and smiled:
"I'm sorry, I saw you two sitting here doing nothing, so I thought you were inspectors watching over the scene!"
"We're not, you've mistaken us for someone else," Shen Heng said with a light laugh.
"Um, sorry to bother you!" Jiang Yifan bowed slightly.
"Fine."
Jiang Yifan turned and took two steps, then stopped and asked:
"By the way, may I know the names of the next two people?"
Shen Heng looked up at him, pondered for a moment, and said, " Shen Heng."
Just as Le Gu Nan was about to speak, Shen Heng stopped him.
Seeing this, Jiang Yifan smiled and looked at Shen Heng, saying:
"Well, it's okay if you're not an inspector. Let's just be friends. If you need my help later, feel free to contact me."
Shen Heng nodded without saying anything.
"Then I apologize for disturbing you!" Jiang Yifan bowed slightly once again.
This time, he didn't linger; he turned and left immediately.
"What does he want?" Le Gu Nan glanced at the departing figure, then turned to look at Shen Heng.
"They knew about the Calamity Beast and the existence of the Supervision Bureau, and then they just wanted to make contact with the people in the Supervision Bureau." Shen Heng withdrew his gaze, not surprised by this situation.
Whenever inequality arises, whether subjectively or objectively, with good intentions or malice, there will always be people who want to gravitate towards the side with the advantage.
Call them opportunistic or pragmatic, as you will.
That's human nature; there's nothing wrong with it.