The strongest intermediary in all realms

Zhou Ming returned to his office and fell asleep immediately, sleeping soundly until noon the next day. When he woke up, his whole body ached, and his fingertips were still a little numb from squeezing the talisman too hard the night before. He struggled to sit up and found Gulu lying on top of his head, its transparent little belly rising and falling with its breath.

"Get down here." He reached out and scooped the salamander onto the table. It squeaked in dissatisfaction, swished its tail, and climbed back onto the windowsill to continue sunbathing.

After washing up, Zhou Ming sat down at the table and opened the system panel to review the operation from the previous night. Xiao Qi had prepared the data analysis in advance and displayed it on the panel for him to review: the forged log was read and executed, resulting in an energy backlash incident, and the operator was initially judged to be seriously injured; the fire caused by the explosion of the attack talisman destroyed a small tool shed in the backyard, but there were no new casualties; the energy heat map of the Sihaitong warehouse area has been stabilizing since 3 a.m., but the teleportation array is still offline.

"They can't fix it for now." Zhou Ming turned off the panel with satisfaction. "We've gained a valuable window of time."

Xiao Qi floated out of the system, wearing a light yellow dress and her hair in a bun. She looked quite energetic: "What's next? Go back to Plane Twelve to smash the stone plate as planned?"

"Yes, but there's one thing I need to do before we set off." Zhou Ming opened a drawer, took out the Green Wave Sword, placed it on the table, and gently ran his palm over the surface of the scabbard. "There's still some information left to be extracted from the deep seal of this sword. I was worried before that the amount of information was too much for Lin Xiaowan to handle, but now the situation has changed—the Purifiers already know the sword is in her hands, and I must quickly grasp all the contents of the sword, just in case."

He had just placed the Green Wave Sword flat on the table, preparing for Xiao Qi to start a new round of scanning and extraction, when there was a knock on the office door.

Three rhythmic knocks, neither hurried nor slow. It was quite different from how customers usually knocked.

Zhou Ming put the Green Wave Sword back into the drawer, locked it, and got up to open the door.

There was a woman standing outside the door. To be precise, she was a woman he couldn't describe as "ordinary" at first glance. She was around thirty years old, wearing a fitted black trench coat, her long hair loosely tied back, and her face was slender and fair. She was holding a thick sheet music in her arms, the cover yellowed and curled, looking very old.

What's most striking are her eyes. The pupils aren't the usual brownish-black, but a very light grayish-blue, like diluted lake water, gleaming with a translucent light under the fluorescent lights.

"Hello," her voice was soft but clear, "Are you from Yorozuya Real Estate Agency? My name is Shen Qinglan, and I'm a piano teacher at the Yuecheng District Conservatory of Music. Teacher Chen Jianguo recommended me."

Zhou Ming stepped aside to let him in: "Please come in."

Shen Qinglan walked into the office, her gaze sweeping around—the broken table, the rickety chair, the transparent newt on the windowsill—her eyes lingered on Gulu for two seconds before calmly looking away. This reaction surprised Zhou Ming. Ordinary people usually react much more strongly to a transparent, glowing, and moving newt.

"What service do you need?" Zhou Ming asked, sitting back down at the table.

Shen Qinglan placed the sheet music she was holding on the table and opened it. Zhou Ming glanced down and saw that the inner pages contained handwritten musical notes and Italian annotations. The paper was yellowed and brittle, with some curled and torn edges. But what caught his attention was the blank space of the sheet music—it was filled with strange symbols drawn with extremely fine strokes, the winding lines intertwining to form a structure resembling some kind of language.

"This is a memento left by my grandfather," Shen Qinglan said, stroking the edge of the sheet music. "He was a music theorist during the Republic of China era, and he studied many ancient folk music pieces. This sheet music was his most treasured possession, supposedly copied from a mysterious person. But I've searched through all the materials and still can't understand these symbols. I've tried playing it according to the notes on the sheet music, and every time I play certain sections, some inexplicable phenomena occur."

"What phenomenon?"

Shen Qinglan was silent for a moment, seemingly choosing her words carefully: "The lights on the ceiling would flicker, the air would get cold, and sometimes a low humming sound would come from the room. I once thought it was my imagination, until one time when I was playing, the water glass on the table next to me moved by itself."

Zhou Ming turned to look at Xiao Qi. Xiao Qi had already silently emitted a scanning beam that swept across the musical score. A few seconds later, a result popped up on the system panel: [The musical score contains a dimensional resonance structure. The symbols are variants of the lost language "Sanskrit," used to guide musical energy to open dimensional rifts. Performance is unstable; it's a non-systematic traversal method and has randomness.]

"The phenomenon you experienced while playing is because the score itself is trying to open some kind of channel," Zhou Ming carefully chose his words, trying not to frighten the other party. "The score your grandfather obtained from the supernatural being might be a fragment of a 'melody-crossing method.' Those symbols aren't decorations; they're some kind of guiding structure."

Shen Qinglan's grey-blue eyes widened slightly. But her reaction wasn't fear, but rather a calm that bordered on relief: "So I'm not crazy."

"no."

"For the past six months, every time I play this movement in my music room, a light pattern appears on the wall." Shen Qinglan flipped back a few pages of the sheet music, pointing to a section marked with dense symbols. "Last month, the pattern cracked open, about half an inch wide, and a breeze carrying the scent of flowers wafted out. I was terrified and covered the wall with tape."

Zhou Ming and Xiao Qi exchanged a glance. The musical score's dimensional travel technique had accumulated enough energy over time, beginning to form a substantial dimensional rift in the Blue Star world. The crack in the wall of Shen Qinglan's music room was a "door" taking shape.

"Is that opening still there?" Zhou Ming asked.

"Yes. I've blocked it with a bookshelf," Shen Qinglan said, "but I'm worried it'll get bigger. So I've been asking around to see if anyone can handle this, and someone recommended you."

Zhou Ming stood up and paced around the office. The "Sanskrit" on the musical score was a lost language. If Xiao Qi could decipher it, it would be equivalent to mastering a completely new method of interdimensional travel—through music rather than through a portal. This might be the only way to enter certain dimensional spaces with extremely thick barriers. And the crack in the wall of Shen Qinglan's music room, if used properly, could even become a private, stable dimensional connection point, far more efficient than taking the main road through the crack each time.

"I'll take this job." He turned back, "but the process might be more complicated than you think. I can't just patch up your wall and call it a day, because once that crack forms, forcibly sealing it could trigger an energy rebound. The best approach is to guide its orderly release, perhaps even finding the dimension it connects to, confirming its safety, and then making the final decision."

Shen Qinglan listened quietly to his words, then closed the sheet music and nodded gently: "What do you need me to do?"

"Take me to your music room to see that crack. Also—" Zhou Ming pointed to the sheet music, "I need to borrow this for three days to study. I have a friend who studies lost linguistic symbols, and I'll ask her to help decipher it."

Shen Qinglan pushed the sheet music over: "Here you go. I'll write down the address of the practice room for you." She took out a notepad from her trench coat pocket, wrote a line, handed it to her, and then got up to leave. She paused at the door, turned around, and looked back.

"Mr. Zhou, I don't know much about time travel or formations. But I know that if this musical score my grandfather left behind were just an ordinary antique, he wouldn't have dedicated his life to protecting it," she said softly. "If you discover anything about the world it connects to that world that needs my help, please tell me."

She left. After the door closed, the office fell silent again.

Zhou Ming opened the sheet music, and the page was covered with dense Sanskrit symbols. Xiao Qi couldn't wait to get closer, her hands emitting blue scanning beams to capture the symbolic information page by page.

"This thing is priceless," Xiao Qi said while scanning. "The principle behind Sanskrit teleportation is completely different from physical channels. It uses the resonance of musical frequencies to soften dimensional barriers. Theoretically, as long as the performer's skill is high enough and the score is complete, a single performance can tear open a temporary dimensional portal. It's a bit slower than your system's teleportation, but the advantage is that it doesn't consume universal points."

Zhou Ming stroked his chin: "So, if I can decipher this musical score, I won't need to use the system portal every time I take people to another world?"

"Yes. You could even turn this technology into a product and sell it to time travelers with musical talent." Xiao Qi's eyes lit up. "The music score-based time travel method is ten times safer than current physical channels, and it's reusable. This patent alone is a top-tier resource in the time travel industry."

Zhou Ming didn't get excited. He closed the sheet music and put it away, then stood up and slung his equipment bag over his shoulder. The blue crystal sphere lay quietly in the drawer, with the Green Wave Sword beside it.

"First, smash the stone disc in Plane Twelve to ensure the Cleaners' supply line is completely destroyed, then come back to study the Musical Transcending Method. Don't get the priorities wrong."

Xiao Qi nodded and crawled into the system space. Gulu also climbed down from the windowsill and slipped in on its own; it was now very familiar with the signal that "its owner is going on a long trip."

A silver-gray corridor tore open in the center of the office.

Zhou Ming stood at the entrance of the passageway and glanced back at the office—a note with Shen Qinglan's address was spread out on the desk, two treasures were locked in the drawer, and the afternoon sun outside the window made Wutong Road shine brightly.

He turned around and stepped into the stream of light.

The liquidators' supply lines need to be cut off.