The edges of the light and shadow distorted, like a piece of cloth being blown by the wind.

Chen Hao's hands remained on the control lever, his knuckles a little tight. He didn't speak, but simply reduced the thruster power by half a notch, slowing the boat down slightly.

“It’s still there.” Susan stared ahead, her voice so soft it was as if she were afraid of startling something.

Nana stood in front of the control panel, the data stream scrolling in her eyes. She pulled up three sets of frequency band scans to compare the rhythm of energy fluctuations. "It contracts and expands every twenty-seven seconds, it's regular and stable, not a random disturbance."

Carl peered out from the back cabin: "Is that thing following us?"

"The direction is the same, but the speed is matched by the area drift," Nana said. "It didn't accelerate, nor did it change course to track."

Chen Hao snorted: "Then let's just treat it as an ice floe and avoid bumping into it."

He reached out and opened the communication panel, switched to shortwave pulse mode, and entered a standard identification code. The signal was transmitted, heading straight for the center of the light and shadow.

A few seconds later, the radar feedback showed that the signal passed through without being reflected or absorbed, as if it had hit a wisp of air.

“No response,” he said. “Not even a reply.”

Susan noted down the timestamp: "Could it be a non-physical structure? Or... beyond the detection range of our equipment?"

“Or maybe it just doesn’t care at all.” Carl leaned against the doorframe. “Who knows if that thing is even conscious.”

“Even if it’s conscious, it might not understand human speech.” Chen Hao turned off the communication system. “I don’t want to send it Morse code again to ask if it wants lunch.”

Susan's lips twitched, but she didn't laugh.

Nana switched to the knowledge base search interface and quickly retrieved the relevant models. "Based on the existing data, three possibilities are more likely," she said. "First, a dynamic light curtain formed by the gravitational tidal stretching of a high-density plasma cloud; second, a visual illusion caused by the superposition of background starlight refraction due to spatial folds; and third, a standing wave effect excited by the residual energy field at a specific frequency."

“Speak like a human,” Carl said.

“They’re not aliens.” Nana looked at him. “No explanation requires the intervention of an intelligent civilization.”

"That's good." Karl patted the armrest. "I thought I was going to run into a cosmic version of the city management checking IDs."

Chen Hao turned to look at him and said, "If you really run into him, his first words will probably be, 'I didn't bring my ID.'"

“That’s not important,” Carl waved his hand. “What’s important is whether it will suddenly come rushing over and smash us to pieces.”

“There are no signs of attack at the moment,” Nana said. “There has been no attempt to approach. If it’s just drifting along, we should be able to get out of its range in about two hours if we maintain our current course and speed.”

"Two hours?" Susan frowned. "Won't it cause problems if we stare at it for such a long time?"

“Yes,” Chen Hao said. “Staring at it for too long can make you feel like you’re mentally ill.”

No one responded.

The cabin quieted down.

The blue light from the control panel shone on everyone's faces, and the sound of data ticking became the only background noise.

Chen Hao adjusted his seat back, the backrest making a slight creaking sound. He rested his left hand on the control lever and tapped his knee with his right, as if counting his heartbeats.

“Let’s take turns,” he said. “One person keeps an eye on it for an hour, and the others take turns resting. Don’t strain your eyes; if it really moves, we need to be able to see clearly.”

“I’ll go first.” Susan picked up her notebook. “It’ll be perfect for recording the frequency of shape changes.”

“I’ll go second,” Carl said. “I can’t sleep anyway.”

Nana didn't speak, her finger still sliding across the panel. She was running a set of prediction algorithms in the background, simulating the probability of trajectory deviation over the next two hours.

Chen Hao glanced at the time and pressed the cruise lock. The spaceship maintained a constant speed and stable attitude.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it that way.”

The first hour passed very slowly.

The light and shadow still hovered in front of her, their shapes slowly changing, sometimes stretching into ribbons, sometimes shrinking into a blurry mass. Susan recorded the data every ten minutes, the sound of her pen gliding across the paper exceptionally clear.

Shortly after the start of the second hour, the starboard sensor suddenly triggered an alarm.

“Local gravitational gradient anomaly.” Nana immediately pulled up the readings. “The amplitude was very small, lasted for three seconds, and has recovered.”

"Did it suck you in?" Carl sat up straight.

“No.” Nana compared the trajectory deviations five seconds before and after. “The entire energy zone was experiencing slight curvature fluctuations. We made automatic compensations, so the position didn’t deviate.”

“That startled me.” Carl touched his forehead. “I thought I was going to be sucked into a black hole and take a bath.”

"You can't soak it," Chen Hao said. "You're too fat; it'll get stuck at the entrance."

"Get lost." Karl rolled his eyes. "I call this being strong, you know?"

Another forty minutes passed.

The light and shadow on the main radar began to fade, and the outlines became less clear, like fog dissipating when heated.

“The distance is increasing,” Nana said. “We are driving out of the core area.”

Alarms were cleared one by one. Shield load returned to normal levels. The system interface stabilized and stopped flashing red.

"It's gone?" Susan looked up.

“We’ve gone too far.” Nana deactivated emergency monitoring mode. “Switch to regular patrol.”

Chen Hao released the control lever, leaned back in his chair, and let out a long sigh. "Finally, we made it through."

"You seem pretty relaxed?" Carl stood up. "Whose palms were all sweaty just now?"

"That's because my palms are hot," Chen Hao said, wiping his hands. "The weather's too stuffy."

"Where does the weather come from on this ship?"

Susan closed the notebook and said softly, "I've got it."

"Huh?" Chen Hao asked.

“The entire process,” she said. “The morphology, frequency, distance changes, system response… everything is written down.”

"To scare new recruits later?"

"Keep this for future reference." She glared at him.

Nana went to the last monitoring window and confirmed that all parameters had returned to normal. She turned to Chen Hao and said, "The power system needs to be checked. Prolonged high-load operation may cause overheating."

"Go now?" Carl asked.

"Wait a minute." Chen Hao waved his hand. "Let me calm down for five minutes. I just came back from the brink of death, I need to have some water to calm my nerves."

"Where did you get the water?" Carl said. "The water dispenser broke a long time ago."

"I caught the leaky bits," Chen Hao grinned. "I saved it up for three days, enough for instant noodles."

"Is that instant noodle you have last year's?"

The expiration date is marked as "long-term storage".

"That's military-grade canned food."

As they were talking, the control panel suddenly flickered.

It wasn't an alarm, nor was it a data fluctuation.

It was a very brief black screen, lasting less than half a second, before returning to normal.

All four of them were stunned for a moment.

“Just now…” Susan began.

"I saw it." Chen Hao sat up straight.

Nana immediately retrieved the logs. The system records showed a minor fluctuation in the power module, originating from the engine compartment interface.

“I’ll go take a look.” Carl grabbed the testing pen and turned to walk towards the back.

Chen Hao stared at the screen without moving.

The black screen was too brief to be a malfunction.

It was more like someone had blinked gently.