Chapter 49: Time and space are out of order and accidentally enter the time and space rift to reveal Gu Yifeng's secret...
Wen Yi gathered her scattered consciousness and opened her eyes dazedly. She curled up in a cramped, dark space, barely able to move. Memories began to slowly return, those moments of madness, trembling, and agony resurfacing in her mind. The final scene was her leaping from the summit of Qingluan Mountain, only to be swallowed by a sudden wormhole...
She sat up abruptly, her heartbeat accelerating, her chest heaving violently. She looked around, the metal bulkhead looming before her. Her hand gently touched the cool metal. This place—the "Anchor of Time" laboratory chamber.
"Could it be...?" Wen Yi pushed open the cabin door in disbelief and jumped out.
The entire laboratory was the same as she remembered, but now it was empty, with only the humming sound of various terminals running.
"Gu Yifeng?" She called his name tentatively.
No one responded.
"Director Cao?" Wen Yi looked around in confusion. Where had everyone gone?
She quickly walked to the window, holding her breath—her gaze peered through the glass into the distance. The night was as dark as ink, the Milky Way stretched across the sky, the stars gleaming blindingly bright, a world far removed from the hustle and bustle of the city. Wen Yi's heart instantly relaxed. Yes, this was the Zero Lab.
She is really back!
But the next second, she sensed something was wrong. It was too quiet here. No experimenters were coming and going, not even the sound of footsteps outside the corridor could be heard. Even more strange was, how could Gu Yifeng not be waiting for her here?
The door was suddenly pushed open, and a fat uncle in a white lab coat walked in with documents in his hand.
"Ouch! Who are you!!!" The fat uncle looked up and exclaimed when he saw Wen Yi.
"Ah!!" Wen Yi was also startled, and they both took a step back at the same time.
The fat uncle reacted very quickly and immediately rushed to the door and shouted, "Guard! Someone broke into the lab!"
"Don't scream!" Wen Yi's heart tightened. Having been taken away by the police so many times had left her severely stressed, and she instinctively resisted. Instead of yelling, she quickly rushed to the lab door.
With a "click", the door was locked.
The fat uncle was about to open his mouth to warn, but was interrupted by Wen Yi: "I'm not a bad person, I can prove it! Oh right... find Director Cao! Where is Cao Mo?!"
Xu Xiaoyi looked at her in shock, but when he heard Cao Mo's name, a look of surprise flashed in his eyes: "You... who are you? Did Cao Mo let you in?"
Wen Yi paid attention to the movement outside the door and said hurriedly, "That's right! Director Cao, the project leader, asked me to come. Just having him here will prove everything!"
There were footsteps and the rustling sound of the intercom outside the door: "Report, there is an abnormal movement in the laboratory, please confirm whether you need to enter." Wen Yi's face turned pale in an instant, and breathing became difficult. She could only desperately signal to Xu Xiaoyi with her eyes - now only he can save her.
Xu Xiaoyi frowned and looked at the woman who had fallen from the sky with a complicated expression. After thinking for a moment, he gritted his teeth and shouted out the door:
"Uh...it was me, a mistake, it's okay."
"Got it." There was silence outside the laboratory door for a moment, and the footsteps gradually faded away.
Wen Yi didn't breathe a sigh of relief until she was sure that the guards had completely left. She knelt down on the ground almost exhausted.
"You just said...Cao Mo is the project leader?" Xu Xiaoyi, having regained his composure, looked up at her, his eyes inquiring. "Did he tell you that?"
Wen Yi looked up blankly, recalled that she was not mistaken, and nodded affirmatively: "That's right."
Xu Xiaoyi looked into her determined eyes and suddenly realized something. He then asked her, "Do you know what day it is today?"
Wen Yi was slightly startled, her brain working hard to find the answer in the chaotic timeline: "September...what day was it?"
"Which year?" he continued to ask.
"20xx?" she blurted out, then realized something. She looked at him with wide eyes, her voice filled with uncertainty, "What day is it today?"
The air in the laboratory froze for a moment, and both of them read surprise in each other's eyes.
Xu Xiaoyi stared at her, as if confirming an absurd guess: "You...you are from the future?!"
*
"Eat slowly. Would you like some dessert?" Xu Xiaoyi looked at Wen Yi who was wolfing down her food. He took out some chocolate and handed her a bottle of water. "Don't choke."
Wen Yi, who had eaten ten duck gizzards in one go, didn't refuse. She took the chocolate and took a bite. The sugar intake gradually made her body more alive. She realized that she had been so hungry that her legs were weak and she couldn't even remember the last time she had eaten.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"You're welcome." Xu Xiaoyi also sat down. "I have some rice dumplings here. Do you want some?"
"The lab even has meat dumplings?" Wen Yi's eyes lit up. "I absolutely have to! I'm a firm believer in salty dumplings!"
"These are all my survival supplies. I spend every day in the lab, so I need some comfort." Xu Xiaoyi smiled and patted his round belly. "It's a pity that I haven't made any breakthroughs in scientific research yet, but I have made some breakthroughs in waist circumference."
Wen Yi couldn't help but laugh: "Director Xu, you are so humorous, unlike Director Cao, oh no, Deputy Director Cao, who is too serious."
Xu Xiaoyi shook his head helplessly, his tone tinged with disdain: "What an arrogant fellow! I've been fed up with him for a long time. He's always against me."
"Maybe this is the pride of scientists." Wen Yi complained in cooperation.
The atmosphere in the lab quietly softened. Snacks and small talk, though minor, had invisibly lowered their guard, allowing two people who should have had no connection to actually engage in conversation.
Xu Xiaoyi considered his words carefully before asking, "You said you were drawn into a mysterious passage and ended up here?"
"That's right." Wen Yi nodded, "It was like a big blue ball. I lost consciousness after being sucked in."
She took a bite of the soft and sticky rice dumpling and looked a little hesitant: "Director Xu, can I ask you a question?"
"Of course." Xu Xiaoyi stuffed a piece of mung bean cake into his mouth and responded vaguely.
"Will there be any side effects on the body from frequently traveling through time and space in this way?" she asked tentatively.
Xu Xiaoyi was stunned for a moment, put down the snacks in his hand, and looked serious: "Are you feeling unwell?"
Wen Yi thought about it, shook her head and said, "Not yet."
Xu Xiaoyi looked into her eyes, frowning, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, I really can't help you with that. Our research focuses only on the transmission mechanism."
Wen Yi sighed softly and lowered her head to eat the rice dumplings.
Xu Xiaoyi noticed her disappointment and pondered for a moment before his eyes suddenly lit up. "However, I do remember someone—although he's not from Zero Lab, he's handled a lot of supernatural cases, especially those involving time travel and people with special abilities. He knows more about this than I do."
Wen Yi raised her head, a glimmer of hope in her eyes: "Oh? Really?"
Xu Xiaoyi nodded. "He's a very capable person, calm and rational, and he never makes mistakes in handling cases. He was the first person to solve a case by tracking abnormal gravitational fluctuations. Most importantly, he has personally come into contact with several people with space-time abilities."
As Wen Yi listened, her brows furrowed more and more. Why did it sound... familiar?
She asked in a low voice: "Excuse me, who is this person...?"
"He's the current director of the Special Case Investigation Division of the Seventh Bureau, Gu Yifeng." Xu Xiaoyi said with a hint of pride, "I was the one who recommended him to the Investigation Bureau from the Yunhu Public Security Bureau."
Wen Yi almost choked on the rice dumpling in her mouth and only recovered after taking a gulp of water.
"Ouch? Are you blushing?" Xu Xiaoyi looked at her flushed face and smiled meaningfully: "Do you want to meet him? Gu Chu is a handsome man, and many people pursued him in the past."
"Hmm...ah...no!" Wen Yi immediately denied, "I choked on the rice dumplings!!"
"Really?" Xu Xiaoyi raised an eyebrow, looking like he knew everything but refused to say anything. "However, if you really want to get to know him, I advise you not to get your hopes up."
Wen Yi was puzzled: "What do you mean?"
"Others may not know, but I know the truth." Xu Xiaoyi observed her expression calmly, his tone somewhat complicated, "There's a reason why he's still single."
"...What is it?" she asked casually.
"More than a decade ago, Gu Yifeng suddenly came to me, his senior, and asked me to recommend him to the Seventh Bureau." He took a sip of water and continued, "He was very insistent, and his reason was very special. He said he wanted to get involved in special cases involving the intersection of time and space, as well as those who possessed time and space abilities."
Wen Yi didn't say anything, just lowered her head and listened quietly.
"How has he been doing these years?" She lowered her eyes and asked softly, "Does he have any friends in the Investigation Bureau?"
Xu Xiaoyi's gaze lingered on her trembling eyelashes, and he slowly said, "As far as I know, he has always been alone."
She suddenly looked up: "What do you think of him, Director Xu?"
Xu Xiaoyi stared at Wen Yi for a moment, then spoke slowly, "He's a bit idealistic, very persistent, and even a bit paranoid." He took a bite of the mung bean cake, his eyes darkening. "He doesn't strike me as the type of person I could build an intimate relationship with."
He then smiled, "But I'm not saying he's cold-blooded. In fact, as his introducer and colleague, I've inadvertently learned some information." He lowered his voice and continued, "After joining the Investigation Bureau, Gu Yifeng was briefly suspended due to mental instability and underwent a period of psychological evaluation and treatment."
Wen Yi widened her eyes slightly.
Xu Xiaoyi looked into her eyes and explained, "I was very surprised at the time, so I asked around privately. It was said that Gu Yifeng was looking for a 'non-existent' person. He only knew a name and had no clues. But he firmly believed that the person really existed, just in another time and space. In order to test whether he had a mental illness, the Investigation Bureau invited psychologists and mental illness experts to repeatedly evaluate him until it was confirmed that he was not ill and resumed work." Xu Xiaoyi sighed, "I later found out that he was not ill, but just... too persistent."
Wen Yi lowered her head and took a bite of the rice dumpling, but could not taste it.
It turns out that this is how he spent all these years, keeping a name. He endured all kinds of doubts and pressure, but never surrendered to himself.
This was the first time Wen Yi pieced together from other people's accounts the image of Gu Yifeng, a person she thought she knew but was actually a stranger to her. The torment he had endured over the long years weighed heavily on her heart like a dull pain, finally unlocking her understanding of him.
*
Inside the Zero Laboratory
On the surveillance screen, the last frame of the picture was still frozen at the moment when Wen Yi disappeared into the wormhole.
She had been gone for a full hour.
Cao Mo and Gu Yifeng stood at the console, watching closely as the experimenters used various methods to locate Wen Yi's current coordinates. Time ticked by, but still no clues emerged.
"Where are the people?" Gu Yifeng turned around and said to Cao Mo with suppressed anger: "Try all the methods you can use!"
Cao Mo's brows furrowed as he heard this. His tone was calm but filled with dissatisfaction: "What do you think I'm doing? I've already activated three monitoring systems, but there's no signal from her."
"Contact the Sky Dome gravitational wave monitoring center." Gu Yifeng didn't look at him and whispered to the experimenter in front of him, "Request them to retrieve all recent abnormal fluctuation data."
The experimenter turned around suddenly, his face horrified, and said, "The Skydome system is a military secret! Do you know what level of clearance that is?"
Gu Yifeng did not answer.
Of course he knew that it was by relying on the Skydome to repeatedly capture the faint changes in time and space that he finally found her. But he really couldn't give her the authority now.
Cao Mo looked at Gu Yifeng and once again felt a strong suspicion: Who is he?
He walked aside and quietly pressed the communicator: "Security Department, there is a person of suspicious identity in the laboratory. Send someone immediately."
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The author has something to say: [burst into tears] I want to eat big meat dumplings, why are all the Wufangzhai dumplings here sweet dumplings! Although sweet dumplings are also delicious, I still want to eat meat dumplings.
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