It started when a bloody rain was about to fall.

Just as Lin Wei and her six companions were trembling with fear and panic because of the bizarre scene before them, and their rationality was contradicting itself because it violated the common sense of physics.

Almost simultaneously, a strange, dreamlike fragment of memory crashed into Ji Yuezi's mind without warning:

The blood-red rain wasn't falling, it was "pouring".

It poured down like ink beneath the distorted, cracking, purplish-black sky.

Each drop was thick and had a rusty, metallic smell.

The earth shattered amidst silent groans, the cracks spreading wildly like living creatures, extending into gaping maws that devoured everything.

Above the sky, the stars seemed to be extinguished one by one by an invisible giant hand.

With each light extinguished, the world plunges into deeper darkness; it is not the loss of light, but the fading of existence itself.

Only one solitary figure stood atop the ruins and dust.

Ji Yuezi's face was obscured; all that could be seen was her long, dark blue-purple hair, flowing down to her waist as if condensed from the night sky, dancing wildly in the blood rain and darkness.

The star chart scroll tightly held in the man's hand burst forth with billions of feet of light that tore through the darkness. Ancient symbols and galactic trajectories on it flowed and recombinated wildly, writing the code of the apocalypse on their own.

An ancient, hollow voice, transcending all gender and emotion, seemed to rumble and echo from the cracks between the beginning and the end of time:

"Time...is running out..."

The sound, the image, the rusty smell of blood and rain, the roar of the earth cracking, the despair of stars extinguishing.

At this moment, the pulsation of the "Starry Night" pendant that was touching Ji Yuezi's right fingertip, and the "heartbeat" of the distant nebula overlapped, like a cold, withered hand reaching out from a crack in time, suddenly gripping her soul.

Then an indescribable combination of cold and shivering erupted from the deepest part of her soul, penetrating her bone marrow, her flesh, and every nerve in her body.

Ji Yuezi almost lost her balance.

The people observing inside the dome reacted in various ways.

Chen Siyuan subconsciously took half a step forward.

He didn't know what he could do in the past, but he saw that unwavering figure sway slightly. The sway was so small that others might not even notice it, but in his eyes, it was like a mountain tilting in front of him.

Ji Yuezi—that Ji Yuezi—she actually—

Lu Beichen stood up from his seat, his chair sliding back half a foot with a dull thud.

His body reacted before his brain did; it was an instinct he had developed from years of dealing with sudden dangers in the wild.

But at this moment, he didn't know where the danger was coming from.

Her expression changed; in that instant, she seemed to have seen something. Not light, not data, but something deeper, unknown.

At the same time, Wang Ya clenched the hem of her white coat. The fabric crumpled in her palm, but she didn't even notice.

Her gaze was fixed on Ji Yuezi's back, which, shrouded in a ghostly blue light, resembled a remnant of the Star Sea race who had been left behind in the mortal realm for too long and had finally received the signal to return.

It was as if she didn't belong here, or had never belonged. And that silver pendant wasn't an ordinary ornament at all; what could it be?

Just when everyone was at a loss in the face of this situation.

Ji Yuezi gripped the "Starry Night" pendant on her chest tightly with her right hand.

Then, the contradictory sensations of cold and warmth surged in her palm.

The sharp edge dug into the skin, leaving a whitish indentation, from which fine beads of blood oozed out.

The pain was sharp and clear, like an ice needle tempered in the extreme cold, precisely piercing into the most chaotic fog of Ji Yuezi's consciousness.

Her knuckles turned white from the force, and the blue veins on the back of her hands were faintly visible—the only trace that revealed the turmoil in her heart.

When she raised her eyes again, all the turmoil in Ji Yuezi's eyes had been forcibly suppressed, soothed, and solidified by the absolute freezing of her will.

At this moment, Ji Yuezi's eyes returned to their unfathomable, vast, and icy calm.

But deep within that tranquility, there was a faint, eerie light, like an eternally burning flame suddenly frozen beneath the ice.

Seeing this, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Zhao Mingyuan loosened his fist, which he had been clenching without realizing it. There were crescent-shaped marks left by his fingernails on his palm, which throbbed faintly.

She's back. No, she's always been here. She just chose to keep us from seeing what just happened.

Xu Zhixing bent down to pick up the pen that had just fallen to the ground, his movements so slow it was as if he were confirming that he was still alive.

But his gaze never left Ji Yuezi.

In just a few seconds, she used her willpower to suppress the unknown storm of her soul that suddenly erupted within her. How strong must that be, and how tough must her heart have been forged?

Shen Linxi's Adam's apple bobbed slightly. For the first time, she felt an emotion she had never experienced before—not admiration, not fear, but something more complex.

Ji Yuezi suppressed the unknown in less than three seconds. Although Shen Linxi didn't know what had happened, it wasn't calmness, but rather the result of her strong willpower. It was a testament to her resilience, which allowed her to withstand and contain the sudden and terrifying mental shock.

"It could be a visual illusion caused by light reflection at a specific angle, or interference from a weak electromagnetic field generated by a nearby high-sensitivity detector array."

Just then, Ji Yuezi's voice rang out, explaining the strange glowing phenomenon of the silver pendant, her tone absolutely calm and rational. There was not a trace of emotion in her voice.

However, upon closer inspection, beneath her calm demeanor, there was a very subtle, almost non-existent tremor, like the barely audible hum that lingers deep within the blade of a peerless sword after it has severed everything.

At the same time, Chen Siyuan sat back down in his chair.

He didn't look at the screen, but instead focused his gaze on his outstretched palm, the lines of which were clearly visible under the cold white light, like some kind of map that no one could decipher.

She didn't tell us explicitly; she didn't want us to know. She chose to bear it all alone. We didn't even have the right to ask, because we didn't even know what it was.

Wang Ya lowered her eyes. She loosened the creases in her clothes, her fingertips gently tracing the wrinkles, as if smoothing out some emotion that shouldn't be seen.

You mentioned "light reflection," you mentioned "electromagnetic interference." We believed you because you said so.

It's not because it's true, it's because it's what you want us to believe.

From the very first day we met you, we learned not to pry into things you don't want to talk about.

At the same time, Lu Beichen slowly sat back in his chair and silently pulled it back to the table.

He stopped looking at Ji Yuezi and turned his gaze to the screen in front of him, where the code was still running silently.

She doesn't need us to ask her questions, nor does she need us to comfort her.

What she needs is for us to do our own jobs well. Like her, let's see things through to the end.

"Continue observation. Record all environmental parameters and instrument status changes. Increase the spectral and radiometric sampling rates to the theoretical maximum allowed by the system hardware, synchronizing every second."

Then Ji Yuezi continued speaking, pausing briefly, yet the pause felt as long as an eternity.

"Notify all core members and advisors of the Astrophysics Research Group, High-Energy Cosmic Ray Group, and Cosmological Theory Group—"

As she spoke, Ji Yuezi turned back to the enormous telescope that led to the Eye of the Abyss.

His back was upright and solitary.

In the dim light, the white lab coat resembled an ice peak that would never melt, bearing the secrets of the stars.

"Tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM sharp, in the first conference room, we will hold an emergency cross-group analysis joint meeting."

The preliminary topic is: the applicability boundaries of the existing standard cosmological model in the face of extreme deep-space high-energy phenomena and possible...fundamental revisions.

When talking about the "foundational revisions", Ji Yuezi's voice finally revealed a very faint trace of solemnity.

That solemnity conveyed the gravity of the situation far more effectively than any exclamation or trembling.

Like an iceberg, only a fraction of it is visible above the water; beneath the surface lies a silent and immense entity capable of overturning all perceptions.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Mingyuan, Chen Siyuan, Wang Ya, Xu Zhixing, Shen Linxi, and Lu Beichen all felt the same unknown chill almost simultaneously.

The chill didn't come from the outside, but rather from a place deep within my heart filled with reason and common sense, seeping out quietly.

"Foundational revisions".

They each chewed on the word, like chewing on a piece of ice they couldn't swallow.

She wanted to revise those theorems printed in bold in the textbooks, those things we had memorized countless times and never doubted.

It's not arrogance, it's a necessity.

After Ji Yuezi finished speaking, Lin Wei, realizing the seriousness of the matter, responded in a low voice, turned around with her tablet in hand, and quickly walked towards the control panel in the distance to relay her senior sister Yue's instructions.

During this process, her heels struck the metal floor, the crisp sound echoing briefly within the observation dome like a pebble thrown into an abyss.

Then the pebble fell, swallowed by an even heavier silence, as if it had never been heard.

After walking a few steps, Lin Wei couldn't help but look back.

That white, solitary figure still stands before the enormous telescope, motionless, as if it has stood for a thousand years and will continue to stand for another thousand years.

A faint blue light continued to emanate from the silver pendant on her chest, stubbornly flickering in the dim light.

Like a heart beating alone in the deep sea, or like an ancient eye opening and closing silently in absolute darkness, peering into another dimension.

Lin Wei bit her lip hard, drawing a trace of blood. Then she turned and quickened her pace to leave.

Simply because she dared not look anymore, dared not think anymore.

Some things, once seen, can no longer be ignored.

Once you know something, you can never go back to being unaware of it.

Wang Ya watched Lin Wei's departing figure. Her back was slender, her shoulders slightly tense, and her pace much faster than usual.

She saw the eerie glow of the silver pendant and the fleeting tremor of her senior, Yue. This freshman, who had only been there for half a year, would grow up after this incident.

Xu Zhixing watched Lin Wei's retreating figure as she walked towards the control panel, his gaze lingering for a moment on her tense shoulder line.

He remembered how he felt when he first observed the anomalous data—his hands trembled, his heart pounded, yet he had to pretend everything was normal. She was braver than he had been then. At least she dared to look back.

Shen Linxi picked up the stylus again and twirled it between her fingers. She didn't look at anyone, just stared at the screen in front of her, but her gaze wasn't focused on any line of code.

"Tomorrow at nine o'clock. Foundational revision." After this thought flashed through her mind, Shen Linxi took a deep breath and then started typing on the keyboard. She wanted to finish all the analysis she could.

Not to prove anything, but simply to be worthy of standing inside this observation dome.

Inside the observation dome of the South City North Aerospace Observatory, Lin Wei and six others silently worked at their respective worktables.

The sounds of keyboards, page turning, and instruments intertwined to create a persistent background noise in the space.

Ji Yuezi, standing quietly beside the giant astronomical telescope, seemed to be surrounded by an invisible barrier, isolating all of this from her.

Only the "Starry Night" pendant on her chest flickered with an eerie light, synchronized with the strange pulsation of the nebula in the deep sky, and echoed the reverberation in her blood that seemed to have been dormant for billions of years.

Meanwhile, deep within Mount Tai in Dongcheng, the "Mountain Soul" bracelet on Shi Linglong's left wrist continues to burn, resonating with the ancient rhythm of the earth's core, imprinting ancient memories deep into the depths of her soul.

And so, at the same time, there was a distance of thousands of miles between them.

The earth and the starry sky, through two ancient relics, send out alarms at the same frequency to two women.

A kind of "change" that transcends cognition has already begun to unfold in an unseen dimension.

Like the calm before a storm, the restlessness of animals before an earthquake, a silent, suffocating harbinger before all great changes.