Xin Yan pulled her hand back. She lowered her head and began eating her portion in silence. The night grew deeper. A cold wind blew fiercely from the sea, carrying a pungent, fishy scent of salt that stung the nose. The military had turned off most of the main searchlights to conserve generator fuel, leaving only a few perimeter lights active.
The blood-red glow from the bronze furnace in the distance was now the most dominant source of illumination sweeping across the night sky. The color reflected off the low clouds, creating giant silhouettes of the nine animal corpses above the sea surface. Survivors began to lie down on the asphalt, using tarps as mats and wrapping themselves in silver foil blankets. Several medical tents were already overcrowded with the seriously injured, so those who were healthy had to sleep in the open. Xinghe's group lay close together to preserve body heat.
Xinghe stared at the dark sky. He reached into his jacket pocket, which had already dried. His fingers touched the surface of the bronze watch left by his grandfather. The object now felt ice-cold. There was no longer any strange heat radiation like when the giant object first fell. Xinghe turned the watch in his hand, his eyes observing the numbersless carvings on its surface.
He tried to recall all the ancient literature he had ever read. He looked for patterns, for logical explanations, for history that might have been intentionally erased from school textbooks. But his mind hit a dead end. Modern physics had collapsed, and ancient history provided no definitive answers.
Fatigue eventually overcame his vigilance. His tense muscles gradually relaxed. Accompanied by the roar of the wind and the increasingly faint sound of sobbing, Xinghe closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep. When Chu Xinghe opened his eyes again, the first thing he felt was the extremely humid air and a very thick stench of rotting mud. He blinked, adjusting his vision to the grey morning light. The sky was still covered with overcast clouds, but the rain had stopped.
Xinghe sat up. His back felt stiff from sleeping on the hard asphalt. His foil blanket slipped down to his lap. He turned to the side. The plastic tarp was empty. Li Wei, Han Dong, and the others were not there. He stood up and stretched his muscles. The Baiyun Highlands parking area now looked very different. Hundreds of survivors had awakened. Many military tents had been half-folded. Soldiers in camouflage uniforms moved with a strange rhythm. They did not look panicked, but rather confused.
Xinghe walked toward the hill's perimeter fence. There, he saw his seven friends standing in a row. Zhao Lin held the iron fence with both hands. Lin Mei was pointing her phone toward the bottom of the hill. Li Wei stood frozen with his mouth half-open. Xinghe quickened his pace. He joined them and looked down.
The view below the hill had completely changed since last night. The seawater that had swallowed half of Guangzhou had completely receded. There were no more flood puddles or fierce tsunamis. All that remained was thick, dark brown mud covering the asphalt, piled-up wrecked cars, and building debris. However, that was not what kept everyone transfixed.
The gravitational field that had torn the military drones apart last night had vanished without a trace. The seawater that had previously hovered in pillars against gravity had now fallen back to earth. Consequently, the nine giant corpses and the massive bronze furnace were no longer floating on the water. They had landed. They were stranded on the muddy expanse of the Guangzhou coast, crushing several building blocks under the weight of their extraordinary mass.
The five giant black dragons lay stretched out, their dark scales coated in a thin layer of mud. Their sharp horns were embedded in the concrete ruins. Four giant birds lay beside them, their frozen wings spread wide, covering a collapsed overpass. Ancient iron chains stretched taut across the ground, connecting them to the massive bronze furnace that now stood firmly in the center of the former commercial port area.
"This is insane," Han Dong muttered. He rubbed his face repeatedly. "The water receded in a single night. And those things... they are actual physical objects. They fell to the ground."
"My signal is back!" Lin Mei exclaimed suddenly. Her phone screen displayed a series of incoming notifications. "The magnetic field must be gone. I can connect to the internet."
Zhao Lin immediately reached into his pocket and pulled out his expensive phone, which turned out to be waterproof. He turned on the screen and typed rapidly. "The whole world is talking about this. Military satellites from various countries have broadcasted these images to the public. The government can't hide it."
Xinghe sharpened his hearing. A few meters from where they stood, a high-ranking military officer was speaking into a communication radio in a loud voice. "Repeat, the aerial observation post reports the barometric pressure anomaly is at zero. Gravity is normal. Radiation levels are normal. The object is completely inactive. Yes, General. The engineering corps is clearing a path down the hill. We will approach the target object for a level-one physical observation."
The military began to shift the iron barricades. Several engineering trucks moved forward, opening a path over the mud-covered asphalt left by the flood. The situation became very chaotic. Civilians, hearing that the deadly gravitational field was gone, began to act out of control. The fear that had imprisoned them overnight was now replaced by an overwhelming sense of curiosity. The human instinct to witness a miracle firsthand dominated their rational thoughts.
Some citizens began walking down the hill, following the path opened by the military vehicles. The soldiers tried to hold them back, but the number of civilians was too great. The military forces themselves seemed hesitant to use force, as their commander's primary focus was securing the area around the bronze furnace.
"They are going down there," Fang Hua said, her eyes widening as she watched the crowd descending the slope toward the coastal mud. "Aren't they afraid that thing will suddenly come back to life?"
"That thing is dead, Fang Hua," Zhao Lin replied quickly. His eyes sparkled with a mixture of ambition and resurfacing arrogance. "Satellites have confirmed there are no signs of life. This is the greatest historical discovery of mankind. Whoever gets the first close-up documentation will become rich and famous worldwide."
Zhao Lin immediately stepped toward the downhill path. His two guards, looking hesitant, were forced to follow him from behind.
Lin Mei held up her phone and turned on the video recording mode. "I have to see it for myself. Imagine how many viewers I'll draw on my streaming channel!" She trotted off after Zhao Lin's group.
Han Dong and Fang Hua glanced at each other before finally deciding to follow. The courage of a crowd is always highly infectious.
"You guys are truly stupid," Li Wei grumbled. He turned to Xinghe. "We aren't going to join those crazy people, right? We'll stay here and wait for the evacuation helicopter."
Chu Xinghe stared at the group of civilians and soldiers beginning to mingle down below. His eyes were fixed on the intricate carvings on the surface of the bronze furnace. He narrowed his eyes. The carvings resembled descriptions of the lost Nine Cauldrons of the Xia Dynasty. But the size was wrong, the location was wrong, and the animals pulling it made no sense in human biological records.
The thirst for history that always flowed in his blood began to stir. He didn't care about internet fame or wealth. He just wanted to see those carvings up close. He wanted to verify his grandfather's notes. "I'm going down," Xinghe said flatly. He stepped forward, leaving Li Wei agape.
"Have you gone mad?" Li Wei shouted in frustration. But he had no choice. He didn't dare stay on the hill alone. He grabbed Yun Hai's arm and ran to catch up with Xinghe. Xin Yan followed silently at the very back.
The journey down the hill was slow and slippery. Thick mud covered their ankles. The stench of dead fish and rotting seaweed was sharp and pungent. They had to navigate around scattered wrecked cars and fallen power poles. Once they reached the flat area of the city's former main highway, the scale of the nine corpses became even more irrational. Hundreds of civilians and dozens of soldiers were now spread around the body of the first dragon, which was stranded near the ruins of a bridge.
Chu Xinghe stood about twenty meters from the dragon's head. His neck had to tilt back to the maximum just to see the dragon's lower jaw. The head alone was the size of a train carriage. Its black scales were perfectly hexagonal. Many civilians were starting to get brave enough to approach. Some people touched the scales. Phone cameras flashed from all directions, reflecting off the dragon's dark scales. There were sounds of nervous laughter, gasps of awe, and enthusiastic chatter.
Chu Xinghe walked toward the dragon's belly. He raised his hand and pressed his palm against a single giant scale. The surface was very smooth but had a wavy texture like forged steel. The temperature of the scale was as cold as an ice block. Xinghe tapped his knuckles against the scale's surface. The sound was solid, very heavy, and held no hollow ring. He observed the joint structure between the scales. No soft skin tissue or muscle was visible.
"This has no cellular structure," Xinghe muttered to himself. He pulled his hand back.
If these were animals, they should have been pulverized upon hitting the sea surface due to their own mass. Their bones should have been crushed. Yet these creatures were intact without a single scratch.
"Hey, look at that bird's wing!" Han Dong's voice rang out a few meters to Xinghe's right.
Xinghe walked toward the sound of Han Dong's voice. One of the giant bird's wings stretched across the remains of an apartment building. Its feathers were an absolute black, absorbing the surrounding light. As Xinghe looked closer, the feathers were not made of keratin. The fibers had a microscopic sharpness. The tips of the feathers touching the highway asphalt had sliced through the concrete as if it were a block of butter.
The military began putting up yellow tape around the bronze furnace area. Several military scientists in white protective suits climbed down from trucks carrying scanning equipment. They approached the thick iron chains connecting the animals to the furnace. Zhao Lin broke through the yellow tape boundary, followed by Lin Mei, who continued recording. A soldier immediately stepped forward and pushed Zhao Lin's chest with the butt of his rifle.
"Back off! Civilians are prohibited from crossing this line!" the soldier snapped in a loud voice.
"I just want to take a picture of the furnace from the front!" Zhao Lin protested, his eyes glaring angrily. "My father's taxes fund your uniform!"
The soldier didn't care. He cocked his weapon, causing Zhao Lin to immediately step back while raising both hands.
Xinghe ignored the commotion. He walked along the outer side of the yellow boundary tape, circling toward the back of the dragon and approaching the body of the giant bronze furnace. This furnace stood firmly on its three legs, which were embedded deep into the ground. Its diameter was so large it blocked the view of the open sea behind it.
The furnace's surface was covered in a layer of dark green rust. However, behind that rust, the carvings Xinghe had seen from the hilltop last night were now clearly visible. There was a depiction of a sun being destroyed. There was a relief of a moon split in half. And at the very bottom, a carving that made Xinghe knit his brows.
A relief of humans. Not just one or two people, but a sea of people bowing their heads to the ground, kneeling toward a gateway made of the skulls of ferocious beasts. The clothing of the people in the carving was very ancient, resembling the wide-sleeved robes typical of the era before the Qin Dynasty.
"This carving tells a story of servitude," Xinghe analyzed internally. His eyes traced the details of the faces in the relief. Their expressions were not of fear, but of absolute reverence. "But why did it have to fall here? I've always thought something like this doesn't come without a reason."
The roar of very loud helicopter rotors broke Chu Xinghe's concentration. He turned around and saw three heavy-lift transport helicopters painted dark grey with national research institute logos landing in an area somewhat distant from the crowd. The wind from the rotors blew muddy water spray into the air.
Dozens of people in white and orange hazmat suits jumped out. They carried no firearms but rather various scanning devices, metal cases containing tactical computers, and portable heavy equipment. Among them were several middle-aged men and women wearing ordinary field vests. They looked like high-level academics or professors called in on an emergency basis by the government.
The military immediately cleared a path for the group of scientists. An old man with grey hair and thick glasses walked at the front. He held a military tablet and kept shouting instructions to the technicians around him. Chu Xinghe stepped back, making room for the research team to approach the giant bronze furnace. He stood not far from the yellow boundary tape, watching their every move.
The scientists dispersed. Some approached the large chains binding the nine animal corpses, while the main group led by the old man went straight to the base of the bronze furnace. They placed several black box-shaped devices on the muddy ground and connected thick cables leading to a main monitor in the emergency tent.