The ancient return was exposed by his sister's live stream.

Chen Siyao continued, "It was extremely useful. After we imported the model into the simulation system, the spatial distortion rate of the wormhole jumped directly from twelve percent to fifteen percent. Overnight."

"but?"

Chen Siyao bit her lip. "But brother, your model... is too complicated."

Zhou Mingyuan squeezed into the frame from behind: "God, to put it bluntly, what you gave us is like a calculus book written in ancient celestial script."

"We can tell what it's describing, but every single word has to be translated. After that, we still need to experiment and decipher it."

"How much has been translated?" Chen Hao asked.

Zhou Mingyuan and Chen Siyao exchanged a glance.

"0.2 percent," Chen Siyao said.

The living room was quiet for a few seconds.

"0.2 percent," Chen Hao repeated.

"The entire team of thirty-seven—no, twenty-nine people—didn't sleep a wink all night." Chen Siyao's voice was strained.

"You only advanced by 0.2%. Brother, your spatial laws are operating too deeply."

"The logical hierarchy inside... Professor Zhou calculated that there are at least forty-seven nested structures, each with its own independent self-consistent system. We have only deciphered one-fifth of the outermost layer so far."

"How many solutions are needed before they can be used in wormholes?"

"Around ten percent," Chen Siyao answered quickly, clearly having already calculated it.

"If we can decipher even 10% of the laws governing wormholes, it will be enough for us to reconstruct the core algorithm of wormholes. At that level, long-distance interstellar travel could theoretically be achieved."

"How long will it take?"

silence.

This time it was Zhou Mingyuan who spoke. His voice was dry: "Based on the current decoding speed, extrapolation will take fifteen years."

fifteen years.

Blue Star has less than four years left.

Chen Hao looked at his sister's face on the screen. Her eyes were red and swollen, clearly she hadn't had a good rest in a long time.

"Brother, we'll try to speed things up. If we can recruit more..."

"understood."

Chen Hao interrupted her.

The call ended.

After the image disappeared, Chen Hao leaned back on the sofa. The ceiling light was on, casting a pale, anemic glow.

The path of technology is no longer viable.

It's not going to work for at least four years.

Yang Wanqing was standing in the kitchen doorway at some point, looking at him. She opened her mouth, but said nothing.

Chen Hao stood up.

I'm going out for a bit.

His figure disappeared in the living room.

At the summit of Kunlun Mountain.

The wind is colder than yesterday.

Chen Hao sat cross-legged in the center of the smooth platform, the archway just ten steps behind him. The faint light in the six recesses had not yet dissipated, like six dying fireflies.

He closed his eyes.

It cannot be found. The technological route is blocked. The spatial passage is sealed off by the law of cause and effect.

Then there's only one way left: find Fu Zhaojie himself.

Once he's dealt with, the causal interference will naturally disappear. The passage will reopen. Everything will return to normal.

But he didn't even know where the other person was.

The law of cause and effect can erase the traces of existence; it cannot be found in the database.

He remembered that someone had tampered with his things. His perception of the laws of nature couldn't detect it; the other person's shielding technique was more than a level higher than his own.

But Chen Hao had one last trick up his sleeve.

Law Resonance Technique.

This is no ordinary search method. It involves completely merging one's divine soul into the laws of Heaven, using the entire planet's network of laws as a medium to scan every corner inch by inch.

Any Dao Master who remains within the territory of Blue Star can have their interaction with the Heavenly Dao detected by the Law Resonance.

The cost is that the practitioner's body is completely unprotected during the procedure.

Chen Hao didn't care.

He circulated the eleven Great Daos, and the power of the laws completed its final cycle within his body. Then, light shone between his brows.

A semi-transparent phantom rose from above his head.

That was his soul. Its outline was exactly the same as his body, but it was as transparent as a condensed mist.

The spirit did not linger. It soared into the sky, unfolding ten thousand meters above the summit of Kunlun Mountain, and then melted away.

Like a drop of ink falling into an endless expanse of water.

Chen Hao's consciousness spread out, completely merging with the web of laws of Blue Star.

next second...

A bolt of lightning struck the sky.

There were no dark clouds. The sky was a grayish-yellow. But a white arc of lightning struck down from the center of the sky, hitting the surface of the Pacific Ocean and sending up a water column hundreds of meters high.

Then comes the second course. The third course.

Thunder rumbled across the entire continent.

Shenzhen. In front of the floor-to-ceiling window of Baotian City, Yang Wanqing was eating porridge. Her spoon paused in mid-air as she gazed at the white arcs of electricity crisscrossing the gray-yellow sky outside.

"What's going on...?"

The bracelet popped up an urgent notification from the Human Union Weather Station: Abnormal thunderstorms are occurring globally, the cause is unknown, and the expected duration is unknown.

She put down her bowl of porridge and opened Chen Siyao's communication device.

"Yaoyao, are you looking out the window?"

"I saw it," Chen Siyao said calmly. "It was my brother."

Yang Wanqing paused for two seconds, then asked, "...Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

The call ended.

Yang Wanqing glanced back out the window. The lightning grew increasingly intense. The entire sky was illuminated by the flashing lights, like a broken fluorescent lamp.

But there was no rain.

Not a single drop.

-

On the street, a shirtless middle-aged man poked his head out of an abandoned shop, clutching a stolen bottle of liquor. He glanced at the lightning in the sky and cursed.

"Damn, even God has gone mad."

The people around him ignored him. Most people just glanced up twice, then went back to doing their own thing—those who wanted to slack off just stayed home, and those who wanted to work went about their business.

It's the end of the world. What strange things haven't we seen?

What's the point of thunder without rain? The sun's practically been swallowed up.

The first day is over. The lightning hasn't stopped.

The third day. The lightning was still there.

The seventh day. Arcs of electricity flashed continuously over every city, every ocean, and every mountain in the world.

White light tore countless cracks in the gray-yellow sky, then quickly closed them again.

The People's Federation Weather Station abandoned the tracking.

"Natural phenomena cannot be explained," the chief weather officer said at an internal meeting. "The UNIFIL has no means to intervene."

"So we're just going to ignore it?"

Do you have any other suggestions?

Day 15.

Chen Siyao stood by the laboratory window, gazing at the ever-shimmering sky outside. Zhou Mingyuan spoke to her behind her about data models, but she didn't hear a word he said.

This is not a natural phenomenon; only my brother has the ability to perform such a feat.

Day .

Chen Hao's divine soul had already scanned the network of laws of Blue Star seven times. Every mountain range, every river, every inch of the seabed, every layer of atmosphere was searched inch by inch.

No.

No single law node showed any trace of fluctuation in the "Way of Cause and Effect".

It's as if Fu Zhaojie doesn't even exist on this planet.

Or perhaps he is there, but his understanding of cause and effect allows him to erase the traces of his interaction with the laws of nature.