Chapter 1

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Chapter 1: The Long Fall

"This is the Shan Hai Jing. I am the leader, Luo Yu. We encountered a time-space magnetic storm while returning from the Ming Dynasty. Requesting assistance, our coordinates are…"

After Luo Yu reported the coordinates, she placed the communication device back on the control panel. She waited for three seconds, but the signal returner remained silent, and the message didn’t go through.

She turned to look out the window at the bottomless, pitch-black void. The time capsule of the Shan Hai Jing floated in space like a wandering piece of cosmic debris, small and lost.

For the past two years, they had traveled through various time and space, and this was not the first time they faced a magnetic storm. It was common for them to stay in a time gap for two to three hours.

But today was different; they had been stuck here for five hours, and communication had not yet resumed.

She had to keep contacting the space station every half hour, waiting for instructions to return once the storm passed.

Just then, a rustling sound of pages turning came from Luo Yu’s right side. She pulled her gaze away from the dark window and turned to look at her deputy, Zhu Huai, who sat in the co-pilot seat. Zhu leaned against the control panel with her left knee, one hand holding a book on her lap and the other propping up her head, her fingers idly running over her newly short hair. She looked as relaxed as if she were on vacation.

Luo Yu glanced back at the scientists in the rear and the two trainee members in the tail section. They all seemed a bit nervous, especially the two trainees who were on their first mission. Since they saw the veteran crew members in silence, they didn’t dare to speak, their expressions set with a determined readiness for heroically sacrificing themselves.

Luo Yu reassured everyone, explaining that this magnetic storm was larger than previous ones and asked them to be patient and not too anxious.

Seeing that the others calmed down a bit, she turned back and pulled out the activity panel under the control panel, deciding to double-check the history live broadcast screens they had collected today to pass the time. She didn’t want to keep staring out the window.

She unlocked the panel and gently slid her fingers across the touchscreen, opening the summary page of the historical live broadcast screens gathered from various parallel times. There were four screens, sourced from the Qin Dynasty, Han Dynasty, Tang Dynasty, and Ming Dynasty.

Since its establishment two years ago, the Shan Hai Jing team had been specifically responsible for investigating anomalies in specific areas of parallel time. The sudden emergence of cross-time live broadcasts in the past two years caused significant deviations in the historical processes of multiple parallel times, and signs of blending between time and space began to appear. In some regions, people even exhibited collective historical memory deviations.

To address these anomalies, the global Space Administration set up the Time Bureau to investigate and collect the cross-time live broadcast screens appearing in various regions.

Luo Yu opened each of the live broadcasts on the panel, chronologically marked at the twenty-eighth year of the First Emperor’s reign, the second year of Emperor Wu of Han’s Yuan Shou, the fifteenth year of Emperor Taizong of Tang’s Zhenguan, and the twelfth year of the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty.

She observed the time points of these screens, which focused on the theme of "Strong Technological Nation," highlighting several dynasties at their peak national strength as their broadcast subjects.

Luo Yu thoughtfully activated the live broadcast screen on the panel, where side-by-side was the return feed from the screen: on one side was a gentle technological enlightenment, while on the other was a group of stunned emperors and ministers.

In the first two years, the content of broadcasts in various parallel times lacked specific direction; they were primarily historical spoilers for amusement or purely flaunted modern technology to the ancients.

This form of enlightening teaching through live broadcasts was appearing for the first time. Who initiated this series of broadcasts in these dynasties and for what purpose? The Time Bureau’s investigation into the sources of the screens had not progressed smoothly for two years. This thought made Luo Yu frown.

"Luo Yu," just as she pondered, Zhu Huai suddenly called out to her, then asked meaningfully, "Do you believe in ‘gods’ in this world?"

Luo Yu looked at the book in Zhu Huai’s lap, titled "The All-Seeing Eye: Insights from Beyond the Dome," and thought for a moment, "First, you need to define what you mean by ‘god’."

Zhu Huai closed the book and glanced out the window: "I certainly don’t mean the kind found in religion…"

"Beep beep…" Just as Zhu Huai was about to finish her thought, the signal returner on the control panel suddenly alerted. Luo Yu quickly raised her hand to interrupt her, listening attentively.

However, the signal returner did not immediately send back a command; instead, it emitted a "beep" every three seconds, indicating it was attempting to reconnect. This was taking longer than usual for a connection recovery.

While she focused intently on waiting for the command, the time capsule suddenly jolted. The control panel that had shut down due to the magnetic explosion lit up with warning lights as driving functions resumed.

Immediately, the displacement indicator on the control panel displayed a series of values. Luo Yu saw that the time capsule was shifting without control and quickly grasped the control stick.

In the moment she grasped the control stick, the entire time capsule began to plunge rapidly, as if they were on a wildly spinning drop tower.

But in space, falling had no real meaning. Luo Yu held onto the control stick tightly, thinking that the recent shift must have caused them to slip out of the time gap, pulled by an unknown gravitational force. They were very close to the time tunnel at their stop. A bad feeling suddenly washed over her.

Falling, a long fall.

The Shan Hai Jing swirled rapidly toward the source of the gravitational pull. Fortunately, this level of tumbling was nothing to Luo Yu. She continued to grip the control stick firmly, her eyes on the various indicator lights on the control panel, searching for a moment to break free from the pull.

They had been "falling" for almost two hours. The three experienced team members were securely strapped in their seats and remained conscious, but the two trainee members in the tail section were not as lucky; Luo Yu saw in the cabin mirror that their heads bobbed helplessly with the rolling motion and clearly appeared to be unconscious.

But no one could leave their seats at that moment, so Luo Yu only scanned quickly back toward the rear before returning her focus to the control panel, her hands gripping the control stick turning taut with urgency.

Half an hour later, the control panel suddenly issued a near-ground alert. At the same moment, the pitch-black window brightened as if someone had pulled away a black curtain covering the time capsule.

Wearing protective glasses, Luo Yu was not blinded by the sudden light, but she instinctively squinted to take a closer look at the scene ahead—a familiar blue planet.

She had no time to ponder how the Shan Hai Jing had bypassed the space station to reach this place; the planet was rapidly approaching, and there was no time to slow down or change course. The outside world quickly blurred, and they directly entered the atmosphere.

Luo Yu pulled up on the control stick, steadying the Shan Hai Jing. They finally stopped rolling and began to dive straight downward.

Zhu Huai, sitting in the co-pilot seat, stared ahead. The expression on her face grew increasingly grim as they completely lost speed. The Shan Hai Jing now resembled a meteor plummeting toward the ground. It wouldn’t take half an hour before they landed—likely breaking into pieces.

Due to their excessive speed, not long after entering the atmosphere, the stealth layer on the outside caught fire. Almost all the warning lights on the control panel flashed frantically, reflecting a bright red on the pilots’ protective glasses. The stall warning in the cockpit pierced their eardrums, and a faint burnt smell began to waft from the sides of the oxygen circulation vents, indicating they were overloaded.

Luo Yu calmly turned off a line of alarms, gripping the control stick with one hand while she reached forward with the other to activate the emergency landing gear.

Zhu Huai, seeing the situation, grew anxious. "What are you talking about? We should prepare to eject!"

But Luo Yu simply silenced three more alarms. "Wait a little longer." After that, she switched to the backup manual mode, pushing down on the stick, trying to restore power to the Shan Hai Jing and slow their descent.

Zhu Huai observed her actions in silence, placing her hand on the ejection lever on the side of her seat. If she pulled that lever, the Shan Hai Jing would instantly break apart, jettisoning the tail section and ejecting the three main team members’ seats with parachutes.

There were still people in the tail section, but she couldn’t worry about that now; losing two team members was better than total annihilation.

Luo Yu saw her movement through the cabin mirror but said nothing. Both of them fixed their eyes on the altitude indicator on the control panel; the minimum ejection height was three thousand meters.

Eight thousand meters… six thousand meters… four thousand meters.

The burning smoke outside began to dissipate, and below them, the scenery started to come into focus. Luo Yu quickly pulled the control stick to adjust their direction.

At three thousand five hundred meters, as Zhu Huai prepared to pull the ejection lever, the Shan Hai Jing finally caught an upward draft at an estuary and, after Luo Yu’s seventh attempt, the power was restored.

The time capsule no longer plummeted, and the descent indicators on the altimeter leveled off. At this point, the stealth layer on the outside had burned away, and the fire was extinguished.

Luo Yu observed the unfamiliar terrain below. This was not the time and space they had come from; her judgment was correct—the Shan Hai Jing had dropped into another time.

And it appeared that this time was quite distant from their own.

She carefully scanned below, finding a suitable place for an emergency landing. She looked back at the altimeter, which now read two thousand eight hundred meters.

Luo Yu glanced at Zhu Huai, noticing her hand still resting on the side of the seat, her face tense as she stared out the window. Luo Yu couldn’t help but lightly scoff, "Let go of your hand; it’s too low for ejection now."

Realizing that the Shan Hai Jing was not returning home, Zhu Huai broke into a cold sweat. If they had ejected just now, they would be unable to go back at all.

Hearing Luo Yu’s words, she awkwardly lifted her hand, wiped it on her pants, and laughed sheepishly, "Hey, can I not trust you?"

At that moment, below them, a sleeping continent was awakening. The ground noticed the bizarre occurrence on that early morning; a spaceship streaked across the clear dawn sky like a meteor, leaving a long trail of cloud behind.

At sunrise, the Shan Hai Jing made an emergency landing on a wide, flat river surface, gliding over two thousand meters before coming to a steady stop on a shallow riverbank.

As soon as the craft touched the ground, the detector on the control panel activated automatically: "Distance from point of origin: -32,083 years."

Luo Yu exchanged a look with Zhu Huai; thirty thousand years ago, they had certainly dropped far.

The scientist in the back quickly unbuckled her safety belt and went to check on the two trainee members in the tail section. Luo Yu and Zhu Huai donned their stealth helmets, activated the cloaking devices on their suits, and prepared to step outside to assess their situation and find a flat area to settle the injured.

As they crawled out of the time capsule, Luo Yu placed the detector on the ground. The detector’s legs extended, transforming into a little mechanical dog.

"Something’s not right," Zhu Huai murmured, stopping after just a few steps. She whispered to Luo Yu, "Look above."

Luo Yu looked up and saw eight low-flying silent aircraft surrounding them.

The detector dog continued to work diligently beside them: "Soil sample complete; geologic confirmation: belonging to a matriarchal primitive tribal era."

They both looked up at the aircraft above and then down at the detection dog: "Is this what you call a primitive tribe???"

At that moment, Zhu Huai quietly signaled Luo Yu to hide and observe in the nearby woods; after all, they were in stealth mode and shouldn’t be discovered.

Luo Yu thought for a moment, nodded to her, and as they raised their feet to move, one of the aircraft immediately shot a strong light, tracing the outline of their cloaking suits with a red beam, completely exposing them.

"Wow… is this technology really that advanced?" Zhu Huai murmured as she watched the detailed outline around her fingers.

Soon, a mechanical female voice came from the air, and their portable translators took ten seconds to analyze the meaning and transmit it to their earpieces: "Invasive outsiders detected; target locked."

Before they could react to the message, Luo Yu suddenly felt as if she had been struck by lightning and fell stiffly backward. As her head hit the shallow riverbank, she thought in despair: Why are the ancestors from thirty thousand years ago attacking them right away!