Mastering the Sword Manual, sweeping across the globe

Then, with two fingers joined like a sword, and brows furrowed in concentration: Primordial Qi

The moment the sword technique was completed, the entire building solidified into a single entity—steel bars, concrete, and glass curtain walls, all components were fused together into an indivisible rigid body.

The same applies to the foundation.

……

BBC Helicopter 1, in the air.

Photographer Mark Thompson has been in this business for 23 years.

Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria—he's seen it all.

Now, his right hand is gripping the lens handle tightly.

In the shot, the small figure stands at the base of the building wall, with both hands pressed against the wall.

From high above, he looks as small as a grain of rice, while the tall buildings look as big as a mountain.

The next moment, a single grain of rice lifted up a mountain.

Mark's left hand was trembling.

In my 23 years in this line of work, this is the first time my hands have ever trembled.

"Zoom in!" came the director's voice through the headset. "Zoom in! Zoom in even more!"

Mark pushed the focal length to its limit.

In the picture, those hands are pressed against the wall—they are ordinary hands, no different from anyone else's.

Those hands began to exert force.

The building moved.

Mark stopped breathing.

A building with more than 30 floors, covering several thousand square meters, and buried in the foundation of Manhattan for decades—begins to rise.

One foot, two feet, three feet...

"My God..." came the director's voice through the earpiece. The director, who was always calm and spoke at a rapid pace, was now uttering each word slowly and deliberately, as if he had just learned to speak, "He's... he's building..."

The camera locks onto the scene, onto that tiny human being and that enormous building, onto that moment that is happening, defying all common sense.

-

The ground, inside the warning line.

A young police officer—three months into his job and on his first field assignment—stood still, looking up at the building.

His mouth was open, his brain had stopped functioning, but he still firmly remembered that the gun was pointing downwards.

The building rose before his eyes.

A gap began to appear between the foundation and the ground. At first, it was a thin black line, and then the line widened and widened until the soil, pipes, and gravel beneath the foundation could be seen.

A gust of wind blew out.

That was the wind squeezing out from the gaps—the underground space, which hadn't seen light for decades, was now being exposed to the Manhattan afternoon sun for the first time.

The wind carried the smells of mildew, earth, and concrete dust, rushing towards us.

The young police officer squinted slightly as the wind blew through his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, the building had already left the ground.

One foot...

Two feet...

Three feet...

……

The entire building is suspended in mid-air.

He looked down at his feet.

His feet were still in the same place.

He looked up and continued to stare at the building.

He didn't know what he was thinking.

He wasn't thinking about anything.

-

CBS Helicopter 2, in the air.

In Frank's lens, the building is lifting off the ground.

From the air, the Midtown Manhattan skyline is normally a complete outline.

Now, the line is crooked, and a building is being lifted diagonally from its original position.

Zoom out a bit.

Zoom out a little further.

In the image, the entire Midtown Manhattan skyline bows down before that tiny figure.

All the surrounding buildings—those office buildings that are also dozens of stories high, those world-famous landmarks, those skyscrapers that are hundreds of meters high—they all stand upright, only this one is leaning.

A pair of hands.

A building.

Frank's camera also began to tremble.

This time it wasn't the photographer's fault; the helicopter was flying around erratically—and the pilot's hand on the control stick was shaking.

"Hold on!" the director shouted into the headset. "Hold on!"

Frank took a deep breath and steadied the camera again.

In the video, the young man has already lifted the building above his head.

-

The ground, next to the white plastic chair.

Vanderbilt stood still.

Various voices came through the walkie-talkie—the director was speaking, the FBI was speaking, and the Department of Homeland Security was speaking.

Vanderbilt gaped, completely unaware of what he was saying.

The young man heard this, turned his head, smiled, and then threw the building out.

Throwing...the...building...out...out...

-

CBS Helicopter 2, in the air.

Frank saw the man's movement as he lifted the building upwards—very lightly, like tossing a ball, like throwing something not too heavy.

And so, that multi-story office building began to fly in the air.

"Chase them!" the director yelled into the headset. "Go after them!"

The pilot had already reacted; the helicopter tilted sharply, the engine power was turned up to maximum, the fuselage shook violently, and it chased after the building that was flying.

Frank's camera remained fixed on that building.

It is flying.

The 30-plus-story concrete and steel-structured office building flies eastward steadily, straight, and firmly, completely defying the laws of physics.

Flying over Madison Avenue.

Flying over Third Avenue.

Fly over Second Avenue.

The people below looked up as the building passed overhead.

Some people raised their phones, some knelt down, and some just stood there with their mouths open, motionless.

Mark's camera panned down for a second.

The whole street was packed with people.

A dense mass of heads, all looking up, all facing the same direction.

Sunlight streamed down from the edge of the rooftop, casting a moving shadow on their faces.

-

Ground, by the East River.

A mother who brought her child for a walk is standing on the riverside promenade, looking at the sky.

Her child, a six-year-old boy, tugged at her hand and asked, "Mommy, what's that?"

The mother looked up, unable to answer at all.

A building?

A thirty-plus-story office building is flying in from the direction of Manhattan, over the East River, and heading towards the sea.

It flew very high.

It is so tall that it does not affect any other buildings; it is so tall that it resembles an isolated island suspended in the air.

Sunlight streamed in from behind, gilding the entire building's silhouette with a golden edge.

The little boy said again, "It's so pretty."

-

New York, coastline, balcony of a high-rise apartment building.

A retired professor stood on the balcony, holding a cup of coffee he hadn't finished in the morning.

A building flies in from afar...

A building flew in from afar!

It's getting bigger and bigger, like a building block, like a boulder, like a suffocating building!

And it got smaller and smaller, smaller and smaller, like a building, like a shooting star, like a seabird, like a tiny dot, so small that—

The direction in which it disappears into the horizon.

Rumble...

It's so boring.

A sound deeper, thicker, and more distant than thunder came.

A few seconds later, a white wall of water rose up on the horizon.

Very high.

Very white.

It sparkled in the afternoon sun.

91 Systemic Problems

After throwing the building away, Zhang Qiliang clapped his hands and waved to Conrad Vanderbilt III.

The sheriff looked around and pointed to himself in confusion.

Zhang Qi nodded.

Conrad took a deep breath and ran over quickly. His running posture wasn't very graceful—a policeman in his fifties, wearing a bulletproof vest, with a bunch of equipment on his belt that jingled as he ran, but no one dared to laugh.

Zhang Qiliang waited until he ran up to him, then reached out and took the notebook and pen from his waist.

Conrad paused for a moment, instinctively wanting to say something, but then swallowed it back.

Zhang Qiliang opened his notebook and began writing rapidly.

It was extremely quiet around us.