The rain fell increasingly harder. Droplets struck the roof of the wrecked car and the cracked asphalt. The night air turned bone-chillingly cold. The wind blew, carrying the scent of salt, mud, and blood. The group of youths fell silent after hearing Chu Xinghe's words. Zhao Lin kicked the tire of his SUV hard, cursing under his breath, but he did not argue further. He knew that forcing his way down to the flooded streets was an act of suicide.
Li Wei pulled at the collar of his soaking wet shirt. His teeth chattered against the cold. Yun Hai sat hugging her knees beside Li Wei, her gaze blankly fixed on a puddle near her feet. Xin Yan stood not far from Chu Xinghe, her eyes constantly darting toward the giant furnace in the distance. Chu Xinghe slipped his hand into his jacket pocket. He gripped the bronze watch left behind by his grandfather. The metal surface still radiated an unnatural heat.
This heat spread into his palm, providing a bit of warmth amidst the freezing air. Chu Xinghe did not understand why this watch was reacting to the giant object in the middle of the sea. His brain kept searching for a correlation between ancient history books, his grandfather's disappearance, and the dragon corpses before his eyes. But he found no definitive answer. Time moved very slowly. No one knew for sure how many hours had passed.
Zhao Lin's luxury watch had died from being submerged in seawater. The sky was still covered by thick storm clouds. The blood-red light from the carvings on the bronze furnace became the only main illumination lighting the ruins of Guangzhou. The roar of the seawater was heard occasionally as waves crashed against the remains of tall buildings. Baiyun Highlands was gradually filled with more survivors who managed to climb the hill or use off-road vehicles.
Hundreds of people gathered in darkness and despair. The cries of children and the moans of the injured were heard from various corners of the parking area. The hum of rotors broke the sound of the rain. Chu Xinghe looked up. From the north, three extremely bright white spotlights pierced the night darkness. Large military transport helicopters flew low over the Baiyun Highlands. The wind from the helicopter blades swept the puddles on the asphalt, forcing the crowd to duck and shield their faces.
At the same time, the roar of diesel engines was heard from the uphill road on the west side of the hill. A convoy of amphibious armored vehicles and moss-green military trucks emerged from behind the bend. The vehicles' spotlights highlighted the pale faces of the survivors. Soldiers in camouflage uniforms jumped down from the back of the trucks even before the vehicles came to a complete stop. They carried long-barreled rifles and tactical flashlights.
Behind the armed troops, dozens of medical personnel in white and orange uniforms ran carrying first aid kits, folding stretchers, and thermal blankets. Command voices were shouted through megaphones, ordering citizens to remain calm and move back from the cliff edge. Chu Xinghe released his grip on the bronze watch in his pocket. He looked around. The military presence provided a glimmer of hope for the people there.
Zhao Lin immediately ran toward one of the medical officers, shouting for blankets and treatment for himself while mentioning his father's name. Zhao Lin's guards followed behind him. A young soldier with the rank of sergeant approached Chu Xinghe's group. He shone a flashlight toward Xinghe's overturned car, then moved it to the faces of the youths one by one.
"Is anyone seriously injured? Anyone having heavy bleeding or broken bones?" the sergeant asked in a firm voice.
"We just have bruises and are cold," Li Wei replied with trembling lips.
The sergeant nodded and pointed toward an emergency tent being set up by the military in the middle of the parking area. "Go there. The medical team will provide blankets and check your condition. Do not approach the cliff edge. This area is now under emergency military control."
Chu Xinghe supported Li Wei, whose leg was starting to cramp. Xin Yan put her arm around Yun Hai, while Han Dong helped Lin Mei and Fang Hua walk. They joined the long line of civilians in front of the medical tent. The smell of antiseptic and medicine began to overpower the smell of sea mud. A female nurse handed two sheets of silver foil blankets to Chu Xinghe. Xinghe accepted the blankets, giving one to Li Wei and wrapping the other around his own shoulders. The nurse then noticed the bleeding on Xinghe's temple.
"Sit here," the nurse ordered, pointing to a folding chair. "I need to clean your wound. This might sting a bit."
Chu Xinghe sat quietly. The nurse opened a bottle of medical alcohol and poured it onto a cotton ball. As the cold cotton touched the wound on his temple, Xinghe winced slightly. He looked at the nurse's face, which appeared very tired and tense.
"Does the military know what that object in the sea is?" Chu Xinghe asked in a flat tone.
The nurse paused her movements for a moment. She glanced toward the dark ocean where the red light from the furnace glowed. Her hand trembled slightly before she returned to cleaning Xinghe's wound.
"We don't know anything," the nurse replied softly, almost in a whisper. "Central command only ordered a total evacuation for a fifty-kilometer radius from the coastline. Land communication lines are cut. Weather radar did not detect any anomaly until the object pierced the storm clouds. No one knows what it is."
Chu Xinghe nodded in understanding. If modern radar capable of tracking missile movements from other continents could not detect an object that large, then the object was clearly outside the parameters of human science. The nurse applied a plaster to Xinghe's temple and moved on to check Yun Hai, who was still shivering.
Xin Yan sat in the chair next to Xinghe, pulling the foil blanket tight around her body. She looked down at her dirty boots. "You were right, Xinghe. Zhao Lin's father's bunker wouldn't be able to protect us from something that can't even be seen by radar."
Chu Xinghe did not respond to Xin Yan's remark. His attention was diverted to the military activity at the cliff edge. Several high-ranking officers were huddling around a folding table. They spread out topographical maps and turned on several portable satellite communication devices. Near them, a group of soldiers was assembling four tactical observation drones. The drones were quite large, equipped with dual rotors and high-resolution cameras at the bottom.
An officer gave the signal. The four drones took off simultaneously, emitting a high-pitched buzzing sound. The drones flew across the parking area, heading straight toward the open sea toward the location of the dragon corpses and the bronze furnace. Chu Xinghe stood up from his folding chair. He walked toward the military barricade separating civilians from the command area. Han Dong and Li Wei followed him from behind, their curiosity overcoming the cold in their bodies.
From behind the shoulder of a guarding soldier, Xinghe could see a large monitor screen connected to the drone cameras. The monitor displayed a visual of the dark, churning sea. The tsunami had subsided, but the water currents were still very unstable. The drones flew closer to the area of the water pillars floating into the sky. The drones were now about five kilometers from the target object. On the monitor screen, the black scales of the giant dragons became clearer. Their size was truly enormous.
The largest aircraft carrier in the world would look like a child's toy if placed next to them. However, as the drones tried to fly closer to scan the bronze furnace, the monitor screen suddenly flickered. Static lines began to cover the image. The altitude and coordinate indicators on the screen changed into rows of random numbers scrolling very fast.
"High magnetic interference!" shouted one of the drone operators sitting in front of a computer. "GPS signal lost. The drones' internal compasses are spinning aimlessly."
"Switch to manual control," ordered the high-ranking officer next to him. "Increase the antenna transmission power."
The operator typed several commands on his keyboard. But the monitor screen did not improve. Instead, the visuals from all four drones suddenly went pitch black. The hum of the rotors from the sea disappeared just like that.
"We've lost contact, Commander," the operator reported with a tense face. "It's not just a signal loss. Telemetry shows all four units were destroyed instantly upon touching a three-kilometer radius from the object. There was no explosion. They were just crushed by extreme gravitational pressure."
The commanding officer slammed the folding table hard. He stared out at the open sea with a look of frustration. Tactical weapons, observation drones, and satellite radar were the eyes and ears of the modern military. Without all that, they were no different from blind men trying to grope around in the dark.
"Pull the defense line back," the commander ordered his subordinates. "No helicopters or aerial vehicles are to fly past the coastline. That object has a gravitational anomaly that can tear metal out of the air. Contact central command headquarters using underground fiber optic cables. Tell them we are facing an entity that does not obey standard laws of physics."
Chu Xinghe heard the conversation clearly. He leaned his body against the iron barricade. His knowledge of past dynasties was useless for explaining gravitational anomalies. He only knew that whatever was inside that furnace, it was strong enough to distort the environment around it simply by its existence alone. The military began to set up large additional spotlights along the edge of the Baiyun Highlands.
The bright white light illuminated the debris of the submerged city of Guangzhou. Human corpses floating began to be seen among the wreckage of wood and plastic. The smell of death began to reek, mixed with the fishy scent of the ocean. Search and rescue teams using motorized rubber boats began to be lowered from the sloped road toward the flood area. They moved carefully, navigating the boats between car roofs and power poles protruding from the water surface.
Their goal was to search for survivors who might be trapped on the top floors of buildings that had not yet fully submerged. Chu Xinghe watched the rubber boats recede. He felt the temperature of the bronze watch in his pocket begin to decrease slowly, returning to normal room temperature. Was that giant object falling asleep? Or was it gathering energy for something larger? Chu Xinghe found no logical hypothesis.
Li Wei tapped Xinghe's shoulder. The chubby youth looked very pale under the spotlight. "Xinghe, I'm hungry. And I'm scared. Are we going to die here?"
Li Wei's question represented the thoughts of all the civilians there. No one knew what would happen next. The government might send bombers or launch long-range missiles to destroy the object. But if even drones were crushed by gravity, ballistic missiles would likely explode before reaching the target.
"We aren't going to die today, Wei," Chu Xinghe replied to reassure his friend, though he himself was not sure of his words. He looked at the night sky, which was still covered by thick clouds. "Calm down, buddy; just think of this as a tsunami in a small town."
Chu Xinghe shifted his gaze to some soldiers who were starting to unload logistics. "Take Yun Hai and Xin Yan over there; you must be starving, and so are they." Chu Xinghe patted his friend's shoulder.
Li Wei nodded slowly. The youth wiped his face, which was dirty with muddy water. He walked weakly to catch up with Yun Hai and Xin Yan, who had already joined the line behind a large military truck. The vehicle had a thick canvas canopy with several soldiers busy distributing brown cardboard boxes and bottles of mineral water.
Chu Xinghe watched them from a distance before finally stepping closer. The logistics distribution area was filled with lines of citizens shivering from the cold. The sounds of coughing and muffled sobbing were heard from various corners.
When his turn came, a soldier gave Xinghe two emergency ration packs and a bottle of water. Xinghe took the rations and looked for his friends. He found them sitting in a circle on a blue plastic tarp spread out in a corner of the parking area, slightly hidden behind a military tactical vehicle.
Zhao Lin sat at the edge of the tarp with a scowling face. He held his emergency ration pack with a look of disgust. Lin Mei and Fang Hua were trying to open the hard plastic packaging using their trembling hands. Han Dong sat leaning against the tire of the tactical vehicle, staring blankly at the water bottle in his hand.
Xinghe sat next to Li Wei. He tore open his ration package. Inside were high-nutrition compressed biscuits, a small pouch of bean paste, and a water heater sachet. The food was far from delicious, but calories were what their bodies needed most right now to fight hypothermia.
"My father has a private chef who cooks wagyu every weekend," Zhao Lin grumbled. He threw the compressed biscuit onto the tarp. "And now I have to eat this flour stone. The military should have brought proper food."
Han Dong stared at Zhao Lin sharply. "Just eat the biscuit, Zhao Lin. We're lucky to still have something to chew. Hundreds of people down there drowned tonight."
Zhao Lin snorted, but he did not argue anymore. His stomach growled loudly. He finally picked the biscuit back up and began to chew it with difficulty.
Xinghe chewed his biscuit in silence. It tasted bland and had a texture like compressed sawdust. He took a gulp of mineral water to push the food down his throat. Xin Yan held her pouch of bean paste toward Xinghe.
"You need this more than I do," Xin Yan said softly. Her eyes glanced at the wound on Xinghe's temple. "You used a lot of energy to get us out of the car."
"Save it for tomorrow morning," Xinghe replied briefly. He refused the offering. "We don't know how long we'll be stuck on this hill."