Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

There was something wrong here, she knew it. So the first thing she did upon discovering the traces and after the teleportation ended was to send a message to her companions on Earth using the interdimensional communication tool specially provided by the main god—this exquisite little phone had helped her many times in the past and had never let her down. And she hoped it would be the same this time.

It would be better to do some other preparations...

Standing in space, Sirin blinked, flicked her fingers lightly, and stretched her gaze in all directions—she had followed the teleportation trails and made several space jumps, and this should be the end of the teleportation.

[What could be here...?] Sirin pondered, her sensory abilities spreading out in space like tentacles—she immediately realized this was foolish. After all, even with the strongest fourth-tier perception, scanning a planet and scanning an entire expanse of space are two completely different concepts. And since pure perception wasn't enough, she had no choice but to rely on tools.

She stretched out her hand, and a cluster of detectors, a composite of various radiations, rays, and particle streams, materialized from her fingertips. Then, at her will, she scattered them in all directions. It was as if a bright star had burst forth from her center for a fleeting moment. The entire sky around her lit up in that instant.

The detector on her body suddenly lit up, and a message crossed the void to reach her communication terminal.

Zhao Zhuikong: [Don't act rashly. Ignore anything you discover. We'll be there soon, then we'll act together. Be careful; I don't want to be 'forced' into a fierce battle with a bunch of enemies that we shouldn't have been fighting in the original storyline, like before.]

Xilin raised an eyebrow.

"Be careful... This guy can be caring sometimes, you know. I thought that after going through all the hardships to finally be with his cousin whom he had been longing for, he would keep his distance from all women, whether they were of the same or opposite sex—though he's not exactly my type anyway."

She took a light, non-existent breath; this rare show of concern from her longtime partners, with whom she had worked for over a dozen worlds, slightly lifted her spirits. And now that she was in a better mood, she naturally listened to her companions' advice—after all, she had originally planned to remain on the defensive after discovering something. Now she was simply increasing that level of caution slightly.

[Hmm… the captain seemed to have said something like that. I can track any suspicious traces myself, as long as they don't stray too far. I think six light-centimeters shouldn't be considered a long distance. So, I guess I should be a little more proactive from now on… Well, I'm part of the Central Continent team now. I can't just contact Zhao Zhuikong like before, so the captain's strategy should have more priority.]

She pondered, letting her thoughts entangle with each other. Even with the aid of 'tools,' detecting anomalies in the surrounding universe wouldn't be a matter of a minute or two. Whether she chose a conservative defensive stance or an aggressive exploration, she would ultimately have to wait for the results.

Before that, she could have continued to struggle with the decision.

..............................

"Unable to contact her, absolutely no response." Zhao Zhuikong's true form gripped the same phone as Xilin's, his handsome face displaying a grim expression. "This communicator allows for real-time communication within the same plane, and it relies on the rules of the main god, a technology that mortals cannot analyze. As long as she retains a conscious mind, she should definitely receive the message and reply... but she hasn't responded at all."

"Did she travel to an outer dimension?" Alice asked. "An alternate dimension? A spacetime rift? A distorted void? Or perhaps a strange object like a fragment of the Tower of Babel?"

“Impossible.” Zhao Zhuikong immediately denied it. “I am very familiar with her power and her way of doing things. I know her sensitivity and control over space. She will immediately perceive any involuntary spatial changes unless there is a stronger person or a treasure of two levels above her interfering. Otherwise, she will definitely realize the abnormality from the beginning and at least send us an alarm.”

“But she didn’t. She did nothing, not even a single response. And while she’s intelligent enough, she’s definitely not capable of the sophisticated operation of ‘not responding is also a response.’ Her lack of response simply means that she thinks she has responded, and she might even ‘think she has received a message from Earth’!” Zhao Zhuikong quickly explained, his gaze then sharpening.

“I have to find her and get her out of the way before she causes any more trouble. This is based on my experience; if we leave her alone, she’ll only make things worse every second… She must have found some suspicious traces in outer space nearby, which is why she went missing. And if she can find it, so can I.” He swayed, and the converging projection was about to disappear, but Zheng Zha stopped him before he could.

"Wait a minute," Zheng Zha said in a deep voice, "I was the one who gave her the task, so I have a lot of responsibility. Besides, we're a team, we have to stick together. So, we'll all go together."

As soon as he finished speaking, a light screen appeared in the underground city of Meilan. A 3D projection of Earth and a dozen or so points marked on the surface were clearly displayed in everyone's field of vision. Then Patchouli's voice, now regaining its former composure, rang out.

“I have just mobilized the satellite network and all the computing power of the Great Library. Based on Sirin’s last recorded movements and the investigation report on the surrounding space, she is most likely to change her location at these points. So now we need everyone to investigate these points. If she discovers something or teleports, we will definitely be able to detect any traces. The Great Library is ready. As soon as we find any traces, we can immediately start a jump to track her.”

Zhao Zhuikong nodded, waved his hand, and several points on the holographic projection were marked in red. Then, his avatar located in the underground of Meilan Sub-district disappeared. Zhao Yingkong also marked a few more points in red and left the gathering place. Undoubtedly, about half of the remaining landmarks were Zheng Zha and Alice's tasks, and they also left one after another. At the same time, the stopping point of the Great Library was clearly marked in the mental network.

Everyone sprang into action; those with the ability began the pursuit, while those with less ability headed to the Great Library to regroup. The Overlord glanced at Chelsea, and as she transformed into a stream of particles, he carefully stored the voodoo doll close to his body. As the particle stream enveloped him and broke through the map, flying at extremely high speed towards the designated gathering point, he saw shooting stars of similar color rising from several other dungeons in different locations.

The plan was interrupted; an unexpected variable brought to a halt all the plans that had been prepared in advance.

Then, all the combat forces of the Zhongzhou team assembled within three minutes, and after Xilin's teleportation point was confirmed, they launched multiple jumps and quickly disappeared into the vast universe.

....................................

Celine blinked, gazing at a concealed sphere about 132 light-seconds away. The moment she saw it, her body instinctively began to function, leaping forward to a blank space about a third of a light-second away, or approximately 100,000 kilometers. She immediately realized that this celestial body, large enough to trigger a detection reaction from a ray cluster, was something she recognized very well!

This ball is actually the moon!

Ah… the moon. The original novel of *The Wandering Earth* doesn't mention how the world government dealt with the moon. But it's unlikely they would simply abandon it. After all, just building the planetary engines used virtually all the world's manpower and resources at the time. If they had the resources and inclination to terraform the moon on top of that… then the drowning of three billion people during the Braking Era wouldn't have been necessary.

It shouldn't be here; it shouldn't have arrived in this place without any reason. From a distance of 100,000 kilometers, all Sirin could see was a cold, dull, lifeless dead star. And as she gazed at it, her heart, long since malfunctioning, began to pound uncontrollably. The instinctive warning of the weak facing their natural enemy returned to her extraordinary body, forcing her to instinctively press her hand to her chest.

Don't trust your intuition, don't trust your intuition, don't trust your intuition.

She exhaled a powerful surge of invisible energy, struggling to suppress the unease within her. Radical and conservative thoughts clashed within her mind, and with the intervention of an ominous external force, the balance gradually shifted towards one side.

Zhao Zhuikong hasn't replied to me, which means they should be arriving soon.

If there is indeed a serious threat below, then being so close would likely affect me as well.

Even if there really is a problem down there, I'm alone now, so I can verify it. Anyway, I'm not going to die anytime soon. Even if I encounter something I can't afford to offend, I can always commit suicide and return to the Main God Space, which will at least warn the others.

[And most importantly... the captain said I can track freely, as long as I don't teleport too far.]

She closed her eyes, trying to organize her thoughts. A conclusion immediately formed in her mind: Was she a good fighter? No, Zheng Zha was better. Was she good at calculation? No, at least a third of the team were better at calculation. And since the strongest fighter had told her she could freely track down enemies, and none of the more calculating people objected, wasn't the course of action already crystal clear?

She opened her eyes and found herself still safely and intact, standing in space a third of a light-second away from the moon. Her body was unharmed, her position unchanged, and the distant moon remained a tranquil, stationary planet. She immediately began a self-examination—

—Mental state: No abnormalities. Physical state: No abnormalities. All preventative measures: No abnormalities. All alerts and prophecy detection methods… are all online and providing no feedback. She even checked her communicator and rechecked the conversations, ultimately concluding that 'everything is normal'.

Very well, she decided to go down to the moon before the others arrived.

Chapter Nine: The Interstellar Garden

To Celine's surprise, when she cautiously descended from a point a third of a light-second away on the moon and landed smoothly on its surface, she encountered no attack in any way she could observe.

It was eerily quiet. In this space devoid of any medium, there was absolutely no sound, and nothing that seemed to move. There was no atmosphere above the moon, not even the kind of lunar dust that would scatter everywhere with a single step. The lunar rocks, each with perfectly smooth facets yet incredibly uneven as a whole, lay completely exposed to Sirin's view, stretching to the very end of her line of sight, without her noticing a single crack or fracture.

The moon is a single entity. It's a complete sphere, without a single broken rock or speck of dust. The characteristic lunar craters are still there, but they appear as if they were cast in stone, without any cracks. And Sirin, looking around, couldn't find even a single gram of material that had detached from the lunar surface within a radius of tens of thousands of kilometers.

To achieve this, the moon would have to be dragged from Earth's position to the outer edge of this region in one go, thus eliminating all the discrete mass on the lunar surface. Simultaneously, there couldn't be any geological changes inside the moon; otherwise, even a slight moonquake would create countless cracks on the surface.

[Damn it... This isn't a neutron star. How could this be possible?! The gravitational response on the moon's surface is perfectly normal. And to erase all geological changes inside the moon... it's impossible! Any celestial body with a core must have magnetic poles and a perpetual core undergoing fusion and fission reactions. How could this be...?]

Xilin paused slightly, her already limited astronomical knowledge base—which she'd only recently acquired after being tricked—quickly activated. She recalled a hypothesis that suggested the moon might be hollow. And if that were the case…

[Directly teleported to the interior of the moon? Hmm... there are no fixed coordinates, and if you're unlucky, you might land in some terrible place. Or is it a step-by-step teleportation, 100 meters at a time? But that would require jumping so many times, just thinking about it makes me want to throw up.]

Perhaps I should abandon this idea of ​​acting alone and wait for the main force to arrive before making a decision...

She shook her head, her ankle-length, pale purple hair swaying gently in the weightlessness. Just as she was about to teleport back a third of a light-second away and wait for the others to join her, a thought struck her. A sense of dissatisfaction stemming from her futile efforts drove her to want to do something more before she left.

[Coming here in such a hurry and leaving empty-handed would be incredibly foolish… At least we should explore the lunar surface first. We need to calculate the data on the geography and spatial structure here… Besides, it's really too strange for the Moon, which should be in its third orbit, to suddenly appear in this place. Although I did see familiar lunar maria… perhaps that's just a coincidence, and this isn't even the Moon?]

Thoughts raced through the girl's mind, and her body moved accordingly. After several tens of seconds of meticulous examination, an unexpected discovery appeared before her eyes.

She discovered a tunnel that went straight down. It looked like an engine exhaust nozzle, and it reminded her of the ventilation shafts of the Death Star from Star Wars. The tunnel entrance was located in the center of the largest lunar maria, and when she arrived there, she could tell simply by looking at it that the tunnel entrance had a radius of a full kilometer.

[A jet nozzle? As an engine nozzle propelling the moon, this diameter is far too small. And with no auxiliary nozzles nearby, it simply couldn't change direction on its own.]

[Perhaps this isn't a nozzle, but something else entirely. Propelling a satellite doesn't necessarily require such a primitive method as jet propulsion. Gravity, spatial interference, even probability shifts are all possibilities… However, discovering this man-made object does offer some reassurance.]

She gently pressed her chest, and her senses immediately activated, extending downwards along the cave entrance for hundreds of kilometers without encountering any obstruction. She also checked the inner walls of the passageway and, during the long ten-second search, detected traces of substances flowing from within. A slight sense of relief washed over her, and her tense mind relaxed somewhat.

What can be understood and what can be seen but not understood are ultimately two different concepts. Now that it's confirmed there are artificial traces on the moon and that its inhabitants have a need for material exchange, its perceived threat level with Sirin has significantly decreased. Perhaps the people or non-humans inside the moon possess some kind of scientific technology or magical ability beyond her expectations. But these things should still be within her comprehension.

Since we can understand it, there's nothing to be afraid of.

So, she checked all her protective gear and emergency preparations once again. Then she rechecked her mental and physical condition and sent Zhao Zhuikong several encrypted messages, along with her findings and action plan. And then…

With all her abilities unleashed, a radiant convergence of several powers she wielded appeared around her, protecting her firmly. They intertwined and merged, matter, energy, space, and even the time she had lost in the past subtly revealed itself within the cycle of powers. And beneath this envelope of powers of varying colors and materialized forms… she slowly descended along the passage.

................................................

"This should be the location where Sirin arrived during her last long-distance teleportation."

Accompanied by changes in the spatial structure of a vast region of space, a massive library—vast yet utterly insignificant compared to the overall cosmic background, smaller than a speck of dust—revealed itself in the dark depths of space. The instant it appeared, numerous monitoring agencies activated simultaneously, and various detection methods began operating concurrently.

“Energy disturbance detected,” Alice, in the main control room, glanced at the light screen that popped up beside her. “Strange, this is a very complex energy aggregation, containing at least thirty different types of rays, particle streams, and other miscellaneous things… What is this? Some kind of detection method?”

“It was Sirin who did it,” Zhao Zhuikong, located in another area of ​​the Great Library, replied immediately. “She… doesn’t really trust the enhancements given by the Main God. There was a time in the story world when we encountered an ability seal, and the Main God sealed all our additional enhancements, allowing us to fight only with our original abilities. Since then, she has stopped using the enhancements provided by the Main God and has only used the items provided by the Main God. And this is one of the reconnaissance methods she has developed that do not rely on the Main God’s enhancements.”

Alice nodded and controlled the light screen in front of her, performing a series of complex and precise operations. A lot of data was collected, and then conclusions were gradually deduced at a speed visible to the naked eye—this might take a little time.

"Is this just a case of seeing a snake in a cup?" Zhao Yingkong asked, puzzled. "Isn't that a bit too sensitive?"

“Cirin’s luck… has never been good.” Zhao Zhuikong’s lips twitched slightly. “So she treats every ‘accident’ as an important experience that must be remembered. And the facts often prove that her actions are quite correct… at least until the next ‘accident’ occurs.”

So that's why we're here now?

“Sakura Sky…”

“I’m sorry,” Zheng Zha’s voice suddenly appeared between the siblings, interrupting their conversation. “This was a mistake on my part. But now is not the time to assign blame… Margot Lloyd, what are the results of the analysis? Are you able to trace Sirin’s whereabouts after she was teleported here?”

“Soon, just a few seconds,” Alice replied, her beautiful brows furrowing slightly as she stared at the screen. Something seemed amiss; not just Sirin, but everyone present seemed off. But she couldn't quite put her finger on it. And…

"The conclusion has been calculated: she used space folding to jump over a hundred light-seconds here. The specific coordinates are &@＃￥@… Strange, there's clearly nothing in that area of ​​space. Is there something hidden?"

She answered, her gaze fixed on the final calculated conclusion appearing on the light screen. Her tone was normal, but her expression was strangely peculiar. While tracing the direction Sirin had last left in, she had also analyzed the 'detection spell' Sirin had created. However, the result was somewhat unexpected.

Private Channel - Alice: [Patch, besides the two of us and Marisa... do you remember any other information mages who survived?]

Patchouli: [As far as I know, no. The purge in the Apocalypse was thorough. The only possibility of surviving like us is to infiltrate and hide in another secret space besides Gensokyo. And you should know very well that, given the technology at the time, the spatial rift in Gensokyo was simply impossible to replicate.]

Alice disconnected the communication. She stared at the fluctuating data on the screen, her brow furrowed with an indescribable confusion and bewilderment. She took a full five seconds before taking a deep breath and opening the link on the public mental network.

"Guys, I think we're facing a pretty serious problem this time."

“I just… detected an information shift around Sirin’s ‘detection spell’.” She paused, taking a small breath. “A shift… completely different from my method, but potentially more effective than either of mine or Patsy’s.”

..........................................

Celine rubbed her eyes, seriously considering whether she was sleepwalking. She thought she was probably blind or seeing something hallucinating, because how else could she explain everything that was happening in her field of vision?

She remembered that just a second ago she was slowly descending through a long, bottomless tunnel. Smooth walls surrounded her, and the ceiling and floor were pitch black. Her mind was on edge, all her defensive mechanisms activated to their maximum alertness in that instant. And then… she was here.

What came into view was an endless sea of ​​flowers: roses, gardenias, poppies, and peonies... all the common and rare flowers on Earth that she knew were clearly presented in her field of vision, piled up in an innumerable quantity. But when her feet touched the ground and she stepped onto a cobblestone path, Xilin realized that something seemed amiss in her situation.

The passage overhead had vanished, or perhaps it had never existed in the first place. When she looked up, all she saw was an endless expanse of pure white. There were no clouds, no blue sky, no stars, not even a horizon, but light from a distant source fell to the ground—the purest light she had ever seen, devoid of any nearby attributes or attached concepts, not even heat.

She suddenly realized that the temperature here also seemed to be a constant 23 degrees Celsius, the most comfortable temperature for most people to feel.

"Where is this...an illusion? A spatial rift?" She raised an eyebrow slightly, but the information coming back with all her senses activated left her utterly bewildered. She discovered that she couldn't detect any unusual spatial structure nearby, and everything around her was strangely ordinary yet incredibly commonplace. Ah, yes, ordinary yet strange. Ordinary because the pebbles beneath her feet and the soil beneath them were nothing out of the ordinary. Strange because everything she saw was a pure, idealized entity that only existed in textbooks.

There was truly nothing but stone inside stone, nothing but sand inside sand, nothing but soil inside soil—she took a gentle breath and then realized that there was truly nothing but air inside the air.

Yes, only air. Only the pure components of air: nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, water, inert gases, and so on. Nothing else. No dust, no particulate matter, no nitrogen oxides or oxidants, no hormones or fragrances commonly found in the atmosphere, and not even a single grain of pollen in the air above this boundless sea of ​​flowers.

But they are real, not illusions, not forgeries. Celine could clearly observe the internal structure of each molecule, even discerning the atoms within them and their vibrational patterns—she exhaled softly. Then she discovered that everything in her breath was rapidly purifying.

This is real, as real as it gets. Although the way we got here is incomprehensible, this is undoubtedly a genuine material world.

"Looks like I need to prepare to commit suicide and return to the city." Xilin sighed, bent down, and reached out to pick the nearest small white flower.

"I don't even know if he'll be able to make it—"

Section 10 - Cheng Xin

Her fingers stopped abruptly as they touched the flower stem, and a complex feeling that was hard to describe filled Sirin's heart in an instant.

You must not pick it, you must not damage this flower.

Otherwise, you will inevitably regret it immensely.

What's going on? What kind of nonsense is this?