In the depths of sleep, Li Lin was suddenly jolted awake by the loud ringing of his phone.
Accompanying the sound was a sense of alertness rising from deep within him.
As an exceptional officer of the Special Operations Bureau, he quickly realized that something was happening.
He sprang out of bed, as if propelled, and rushed towards the window while grabbing his phone from the nightstand.
"This is Li Lin," he answered the call, hurrying to the window where a complex optical device pointed towards the street below.
"What’s happening?"
Instantly, the serious voice of Song Cheng echoed in his ear.
"Have you observed anything unusual?"
While focusing on the light and shadows reflected in the device, Li Lin glanced at his laptop that was automatically monitoring data.
He quickly pulled up the logs and replied, "The monitoring data is normal. There was a minor fluctuation in energy at one o'clock this morning—just a routine ‘surge’ typical of the border zone..."
"Xu Jiali has set out ahead of time. He should be arriving soon," Song Cheng's voice came through grimly.
"Keep monitoring the area, but don't go out without permission—report anything immediately. Remember, do not leave the base alone until Xu Jiali arrives!"
"Ah? Okay, received!" Li Lin hesitated and quickly replied, then asked, "What’s going on exactly?"
“... There’s a large-scale, inexplicable distortion and resetting of space-time occurring at the border zone, happening every five to ten minutes.”
Ignoring Li Lin's gasp of surprise, Song Cheng hung up and took a deep breath, looking up at the enormous screen at the end of the command hall.
The screen displayed a detailed map of the entire "Border City".
Surrounding the map was a three-dimensional structure created by numerous curves and identifiers, along with a flood of rapidly refreshing monitoring data and remote signals.
The brightly lit command hall buzzed with activity, as Special Operations Bureau personnel in black uniforms focused intently on their screens.
People occasionally entered and exited from a side door, relaying reports from other departments or bringing in more bad news.
"There have been several minor space-time distortions over the past few days, but none as severe or frequent as this one," a female officer in a black suit whispered behind Song Cheng.
"The space-time structure at the border is unique, so such occurrences aren't unheard of, which is why the alarm was set low at the time..."
"It seems like a probe before a large-scale operation," another voice chimed in, "now they’ve officially begun… Damn, we’ve been careless."
Just then, a report came in from one of the terminals, breaking the conversation behind Song Cheng.
"Detection of a rift! Pointing towards Cha Wen-12b, unable to confirm the exact location... attempting to trace back!"
Furrowing his brow, Song Cheng said nothing, silently counting in his heart.
A dozen seconds later, he heard another report come through.
"Rift closed! Trace failed! Space-time structure restored!"
Such reports had been repeating in the hall countless times—happening every few minutes.
The intervals were not entirely stable, but generally occurred within ten minutes, each lasting no longer than thirty seconds.
It felt almost artificial, but… what was the point of such action? And more importantly… who could pull off something so outrageous?!
“Detection of a rift! Pointing towards Bai Long-4c, unable to confirm the exact location, attempting to trace back…”
“Rift closed! Trace failed…”
Song Cheng's frown deepened.
Just then, a faint buzzing sound suddenly interrupted his thoughts.
In the next moment, a screen beside him lit up.
A woman, appearing to be under thirty, with a dignified yet cold demeanor, appeared on the screen.
Dressed in a white suit, her gray-white hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, her eyes an unusual gray-white hue, almost colorless.
She gave an impression of being devoid of color.
The moment he saw her, Song Cheng’s back stiffened slightly, and a hint of a stiff smile appeared on his face.
“Director,” Song Cheng greeted.
“How’s the situation?” the gray-haired woman, referred to as the Director, interrupted him with a calm, icy tone.
“Rifts are still forming and disappearing, and we’re unable to trace them, but we can confirm the phenomena are harmless to the border zone itself—the space-time structure hasn’t been compromised.”
“Hasn’t been compromised?”
“Yes. Even though these rifts are temporarily classified as ‘space-time distortions’, their surface characteristics are similar. What they truly are… remains uncertain,” Song Cheng said with a wry smile. “When they form, it’s not a true tearing of space-time, but…”
He paused for a moment, finally recalling the description given by a technical expert earlier. “It feels as if that’s the original structure of space-time—when a rift forms, it’s as if there has always been a stable channel leading elsewhere in the border zone. And when the rift disappears, it’s as if it never existed—no shock, no catastrophic collapse—so far, we haven't received any victim reports.”
The gray-haired woman listened quietly, not speaking for a long while.
Song Cheng likewise stayed silent, patiently waiting.
“Is there any change in that ‘special location’ you’ve been monitoring?”
“No, it’s currently the most ‘calm’ place in the entire Border City, as quiet as a black hole,” Song Cheng sighed. “The oddest thing is this. Everyone knows there must be a problem there, but the biggest issue is the absence of any signs of trouble—I’ve dispatched the second team’s best deep divers and arranged for two additional monitoring groups to approach the street from different angles…”
“What do you think is the purpose of those doing this?” the gray-haired woman suddenly asked.
“…Hard to say,” Song Cheng pondered carefully before replying. “At first, I thought it was some kind of attack, but now it seems they are just continuously opening and closing one rift after another—all night long, and no one has disturbed us…”
“Could it be a new ‘Dark Angel’ phenomenon?”
“It shouldn’t be. The emergence of Dark Angels usually brings large-scale uncontrolled aberrations and extensive damage to the present world, nothing this ‘harmless’,” Song Cheng immediately shook his head. “Moreover, we haven’t received any recent reports about that group of Angel zealots. If a new Dark Angel had appeared, those cultists wouldn’t be so quiet.”
“Not a Dark Angel, then that’s good.”
“Yeah, as long as it’s not a Dark Angel,” Song Cheng sighed. “But then again, if this is ‘man-made’... what kind of ‘person’ could it be? What are they trying to accomplish with this commotion…?”
His last words were more of a self-talk, and after a few seconds of silence, the gray-haired woman broke the tranquility.
"This world is vast; there are still many factions and ancient entities we have yet to encounter,” she said softly, her young face inadvertently revealing a hint of age. “Our universe is young, and many ‘theorems’ and ‘rules’ are yet to be established… Learn to adapt, Xiao Song; our work has never been about dealing with the ‘known’.”
“... I understand.”
The gray-haired woman nodded, then suddenly sensed something and looked up at a certain direction.
Her almost colorless light-colored eyes froze for a moment, then she quietly broke the silence. “It has calmed down.”
Song Cheng raised his head to look at the command hall.
No new reports of rifts forming came.
...
A specific pattern of knocking echoed.
Li Lin stood at the door, using his spiritual intuition to confirm the presence outside before he stepped aside and opened the door.
A towering man, nearly two meters tall, ducked to enter the room, dragging a large black box that seemed to match his size behind him.
"This place is quite cramped," the giant man glanced back at Li Lin standing beside the door.
"More cramped than the landing pod I was in the other day."
Li Lin rolled his eyes.
"At least it’s roomier than your rickety vehicle—if you could drive that here from the bureau, don’t complain about my place."
The giant chuckled, pushing his heavy box against the wall and plopping down onto the living room sofa with a content sigh.
“Alright then, at least this is a place where a person can stay—this sofa is way more comfortable than the hard stone and scalding sand of Aimei-Yin IX.”
Li Lin looked at the burly man in front of him with a bit of a headache.
Mr. Xu Jiali—the most outstanding and experienced deep diver of the second operational team of the Special Operations Bureau.
He found it difficult to interact with this imposing figure.
The main reason for his discomfort was that on the first day of joining the team, when he saw the name "Xu Jiali" on the roster, he went around asking about the person.
During the welcome meeting, a 1.98-meter tall man approached him, patted Li Lin on the shoulder, and introduced himself as Xu Jiali— it was an introduction that was deafening, and even now, seeing the man would still give Li Lin a jolt.
But Mr. Xu Jiali himself was completely unaware; he had lived with that name for thirty years and had long since gotten used to it.
There’s a saying that goes—The Special Operations Bureau’s second team is where hidden dragons and crouching tigers reside…
(End of Chapter)