A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

A 1-millimeter-long tungsten carbide shard popped out from the fingernail area, and the plastic bag tore open with a neat, flat rip without damaging the dried goods inside.

Aunt Wang took a small step back, her eyes fixed on Lin Qi's matte gray metal wrist: "Little Lin, your prosthesis is really well made. Which hospital did it? My cousin's eldest son broke his leg in the mine two years ago, and his prosthetic leg creaks and groans every day. He has to hold onto the railing when he goes up the stairs."

"It was welded by Old Li, the tin kettle welder on the street corner." Lin Qi took out a dried sweet potato, stuffed it into his mouth, and bit it off. The sound of gears meshing was very slight. "It used three and a half welding rods, and two bottles of Erguotou as labor fees."

Aunt Wang chuckled twice and pushed the broken induction cooker onto the worktable: "The panel won't light up, and it trips the circuit breaker as soon as I plug it in. This morning, I had just heated the oil to a boil when it suddenly turned black, and the meat slices almost suffocated in the pot."

Lu Chen leaned back in the wicker chair, holding the chipped enamel mug in his hand, his cotton slippers wobbling as he said, "The fuse's blown, and the rectifier bridge's short-circuited. Ten yuan to fix, fifteen yuan to replace with an original part."

Aunt Wang waved her hand: "A ten-yuan one is fine, as long as it can heat the pot. I'll come pick it up this afternoon after I pick up my grandson."

The person is gone.

The roller shutter door was half-closed, and a draft from the alleyway blew in, bringing in two dry poplar leaves.

Lu Chen took a sip of bitter tea. The tea leaves steeped in boiling water, and the bitterness rose up from the back of his tongue.

Lu Chen's mental state was in motion. Goal: Fix the induction cooker and get ten yuan to buy a pack of loose cigarettes. Assessment: There are only two 0.75mm copper wires left on the workbench; the rectifier bridge can be salvaged from a used part taken from the broken radio he received the day before yesterday. Conclusion: Net profit of nine yuan and thirty cents.

"Lin Qi," Lu Chen called out.

"Yes." Lin Qi swallowed the remaining half of the dried sweet potato.

"Go and plug in the soldering iron, and use the desoldering pump to remove the diode from the radio board."

Lin Qi didn't move. Her gaze went past the counter and towards the alley entrance.

A SUV with out-of-town license plates was parked at the alley entrance. It wasn't an old-fashioned Santana; it was a dark gray, rugged SUV with a high chassis and two disc-shaped receiving antennas mounted on the roof, slowly rotating at a frequency of three times per second.

Zhang Kuang got out of the passenger seat, wearing a brand new navy blue jacket, his hair neatly combed, and carrying a briefcase.

A young woman got out of the back seat. She was about twenty-four or twenty-five years old, with a ponytail, wearing a well-fitting gray field work uniform. The work pants cinched her waist and legs tightly, and a small black instrument, about the size of a palm, hung on her chest, its screen glowing green.

Zhang Kuang walked to the shop door, glanced at the old batteries on the threshold, pulled his leather shoes back, and then raised his hand to knock on the door.

"Mr. Lu, are you resting?" Zhang Kuang's voice was low and forced with a smile.

Lu Chen didn't even lift his eyelids: "Buy the power strip, turn left after exiting; pay the deposit for major repairs."

Zhang Kuang coughed lightly, stepped aside to make way for the woman behind him: "Mr. Lu, let me introduce you. This is Comrade Zhao Lingling, a technician sent from the Provincial Institute of High Energy Physics. She is specifically responsible for verifying low-frequency anomalous radiation in this area of ​​the old city."

Zhao Lingling took a step forward. Her movements were efficient, and her eyes swept around the room.

The room was cramped, only about ten square meters. The shelves were piled with secondhand electric fans, rice cooker inner pots, and disassembled CRT televisions, and the air was filled with the smell of rosin and burnt bakelite.

Zhao Lingling's mental process was as follows: Objective: Confirm the source of the anomalous gravity. Current situation: Since entering Jianshe Road, the pointer of her portable gravity gradiometer had been stuck at its maximum range. This magnitude of microwave background anomaly has only been observed in the main ring tunnel of large particle colliders. But the building in front of her was just a dilapidated appliance repair shop. Conclusion: The radiation source may be buried deep underground or disguised inside some kind of high-powered electrical appliance.

Zhao Lingling raised the black instrument on her chest and aimed it at the socket on the worktable.

The instrument emitted a rapid beeping sound, the green text on the screen instantly turned red, and the value overflowed.

"Who connected this socket?" Zhao Lingling asked, her voice crisp and clear.

Lu Chen put down the enamel mug: "I took it."

"Where is the ground wire connected?"

"It's connected to the galvanized water pipe outside the door," Lu Chen said.

Zhao Lingling pulled a metal probe from her briefcase, inserted it into the grounding hole of the socket, glanced at the reading on the instrument panel, and frowned: "The grounding impedance is negative. The phase angle between the neutral and live wires is offset by seventy degrees. Your shop's power circuit doesn't even go through a transformer; you're directly drawing power from the void space?"

Zhang Kuang stood to the side, sweat streaming down his forehead.

A frenzied mental process was at work. Objective: To stop Zhao Lingling from continuing her interrogation. Current situation: The scene of Mr. Lu crushing a hundreds-of-meters-tall divine body into powder with one hand six months ago was still fresh in his mind. Zhao Lingling was the provincial institute director's niece, recently returned from abroad, her mind filled with classical physics formulas; she didn't know the meaning of death. Conclusion: The topic had to be changed to save everyone's lives.

"Engineer Zhao, you've measured it wrong, you've definitely measured it wrong." Zhang Kuang tugged at Zhao Lingling's sleeve. "The power grid on Jianshe Road is old, the wires have been illegally strung and haphazardly for thirty years, there are many scrap iron pipes buried underground, the induced current is large, and the instruments are easily interfered with."

Zhao Lingling shook off Zhang Kuang's hand and walked to the worktable.

On the table sat an old red plastic bucket, inside which soaked a rusty electric kettle. A thick layer of scale had formed on the surface of the aluminum alloy heating element, and the wire was wrapped three times with black electrical tape. The plug was directly inserted into the socket with the overflowing reading.

The water in the bucket was churning violently, but no steam was coming out.

"What's the water temperature?" Zhao Lingling stared at the bucket of water.

Lin Qi walked over, dipped his right hand into the boiling water, scooped up a handful, and handed it to Zhao Lingling: "Twenty-four degrees."

Zhao Lingling was stunned for a moment. The water was boiling, bubbling violently, but the steam felt icy cold against her skin.

"The boiling point has been forcibly lowered." Zhao Lingling stared at Lin Qi's hand submerged in water, then looked down at Lin Qi's left arm. "Water boils at 24 degrees Celsius under normal pressure, which means the ambient air pressure here has been amplified four times, or the intermolecular forces have been weakened. What... exactly are you doing?"

Lu Chen stretched out his uninjured left hand and unplugged the electric kettle.

The boiling water instantly subsided, becoming like a stagnant bucket.

"Boil water for washing your feet." Lu Chen took out a box of matches worth two yuan and fifty cents from his pocket, struck one, and lit a cigarette butt that was under the broken bowl. "The water pressure in the old town is low, so the water boils slowly. I changed the resistance of the heating element. If Engineer Zhao thinks it's against the rules, just check the meter and issue a ticket. Steal one kilowatt-hour and you'll have to pay three kilowatt-hours in return. We'll do it according to the rules."

Zhao Lingling looked at the cigarette butt in Lu Chen's hand.