Some people numbly turned around, looking up, trying to trace the trajectory that hadn’t yet dissipated in the sky to find what terrifying thing had destroyed this place.

Then they followed that long trajectory, tracing it all the way back to… Chongming Palace.

Spanning from east to west, a distance of ten li.

But could such a terrifying thing exist in this world? Fired from within Chongming Palace, destroying the weapons depot ten li away in the blink of an eye? The key question was—how did the enemy determine this was the weapons depot? And how did they aim and hit the target with such precision across such a vast distance?

If such a thing truly existed, what city walls in the world could withstand it? What weapons could oppose it? What kind of army could face it in battle?

Should such a thing exist in this world? It was simply a nightmare.

…

Inside Chongming Palace, Yun Buci wore a gas mask and raised her hand to release a firework.

With a “bang,” a silver-clad person kicked open the already tottering door, and a group of silver-clad people rushed in with guns, quickly circling the hall.

The leader held his gun, its attached thermal imaging device displaying red and green objects.

After a moment, he said: “No living people.”

Yun Buci said: “Underground.”

Another silver-clad person approached, holding a small box that scanned across the ground.

The small box emitted beeping sounds.

The silver-clad person was delighted, bringing the box closer, and a mechanical click sounded as something opened.

The mechanism opened, revealing a hole.

The silver-clad person was overjoyed and called out: “It’s here!” Then, emboldened by his skills, he jumped down.

Yun Buci couldn’t stop him in time, and immediately heard the fellow cry out in pain.

Looking again—the person had jumped down but still had half his body sticking out. He had prepared for it to be very deep and jumped with great force, but now his lower half was numb from the impact.

Yun Buci: “…”

Then came another beeping sound, and someone said: “There’s one here!”

This time the person was more careful. Seeing the hole, he didn’t jump but reached in to feel around.

They were all fully armed, their armor and gloves impervious to blades, fire, or poison—fearless of everything.

The next instant he cried out, pulling a cat from the hole. The cat bared its teeth and claws, biting his thumb, slapping him across the face with its tail, then ran away like a flash.

The person: “…Hey, is this a cat? This era indeed still has such terrifying creatures as cats!”

“Beep beep beep.”

“There’s another one here!”

This time the hole was only half an arm’s length deep. The silver-clad person pulled out a lump of cat droppings, and not knowing what it was, studied it by his mouth for quite a while.

“Beep beep beep.”

“Here’s one!”

This time the hole was deep and looked real. The previous experiences made the silver-clad people more cautious, so three people went down.

Yun Buci still stood to the side without moving, looking dejected.

After a moment, all three came back up, their faces a sickly green.

After going down, there was just an earthen chamber. One wall looked somewhat suspicious, so they boldly broke through it, only to have black, foul-smelling liquid flow out, nearly sending them straight to their deaths.

“Beep beep beep.”

When the sound rang again, no one wanted to go down.

Finally, they sent a small robot down.

After a while, the little robot was thrown in an arc, flying out of the hole and landing at everyone’s feet.

Looking at the robot’s face, it had already been corroded into pits and holes.

Someone had to throw an incendiary bomb inside.

A moment later, three poisonous snakes, one python, a swarm of scorpions, a pack of rats, and a cluster of spiders rushed out of the hole like a vast black tide, flowing over the silver-clad people’s feet.

Wherever they passed, they left pools of black, red, blue, and yellow liquid.

The silver-clad people kept crying out: “…My God, what is this? Are these rats? So disgusting indeed! Why do these things have hooks on their tails? What are these many-legged things? My trypophobia is acting up, help!”

Yun Buci sighed.

“Beep beep beep.”

When the sound rang again, no one moved anymore.

Who could have imagined that the main hall and side halls of Chongming Palace were riddled with holes underground?

No one knew which pit the Emperor had passed through, and by the time they found out, they’d have suffered enough.

One of the silver-clad people who seemed to be the leader said irritably: “Stop searching. Just tear up the entire floor and release gas bombs. Let’s see where she hides!”

Yun Buci said: “If we destroy Chongming Palace, what if we can’t get the imperial seal?”

The abdication edict didn’t matter much—the scanner could scan Tie Ci’s handwriting once and instantly simulate an identical copy that no one could distinguish.

But the imperial seal was an ancient artifact that those people couldn’t replicate.

The person said: “Isn’t she your disciple? Why don’t you know where she is?”

Yun Buci chuckled: “A disciple isn’t a tapeworm in my belly.”

The silver-clad people had to continue searching. After a bout of chaotic shouting, someone finally said: “This seems like a real tunnel.”

This time they looked again, first testing with instruments to confirm there were no living beings or weapons inside before sending someone down.

Entering the tunnel without poison gas, these people all removed their masks, revealing pale faces that seemed long deprived of sunlight.

As soon as they removed their masks, they showed expressions of contentment, all tilting their faces up and breathing in the slightly damp, decaying underground air with near-greedy gulps.

“The air in this ancient period is still good—so refreshing!”

“Of course! No industrial waste gases, toxic fumes, wastewater, heavy metals, smog, water and air pollution, plus ecological degradation from technological development and resource competition, leading to numerous viruses, bacteria, declining human constitution, species extinction… If we hadn’t made such a mess that we couldn’t survive, why would the Technology Management Bureau take such a desperate gamble, choosing this dynasty to try to give the last humans a living space?”

“Good air, good water too. I just saw that the spring water in this palace is completely transparent—truly incredible. My eyes can actually see buildings a li away clearly. There are many living things here, many fresh fruits. I smell the fragrance of fruit—my God, that stuff is so expensive and scarce in our time. A month’s wages can’t buy a single slice of melon, and it’s not even sweet… The only bad thing is it’s too backward—no electrical appliances, clothes are thick and heavy, houses have poor sealing and durability, no personal optical brains, no space vehicles or ion tracks…”

“Enough. Nothing in the world is perfect. Being able to survive is the priority. We don’t have much time, few resources, and few people. If we want to establish a foothold and gradually return to our former good life, we must first gain high status and voice here, or we’ll just be a second-class people…”

“What’s to fear? Hot weapons against the cold weapon era—we’ll be invincible. Never mind anything else, have they seen photon guns? Particle beam cannons? Laser bullets? Drones? Gene locks and nano-programming robots? Muscle soldiers…”

“Enough.”

When the leader spoke, everyone fell silent.

“Some of these things we no longer have, others are our last inventory. Unless absolutely necessary, don’t bring them out. Do you want us to finally tear open a rift to come here, only to end up destroying it and having to return to await our planet’s destruction, continuing to wander in the universe?”

“It’s just that this side won’t cooperate. Why can’t they just lie down obediently and transition peacefully?” someone muttered. “What a waste of the dove faction in the Management Bureau spending over ten years to create a…”

The leader suddenly crouched down, dipping his hand in something on the ground.

He shone an instrument on it, nodded, and shouted up to Yun Buci: “You said last time that she had discovered problems with her meridians and therefore sealed them, right?”

Yun Buci said expressionlessly: “I’ve already unlocked her restrictions as you instructed.”

“She seems to still be injured. You know BMG9—once shot, it creates explosive wounds… internal and external damage combined, she won’t live long.”

Above, there was silence for a while, then Yun Buci said: “Very good.”

The silver-clad person nodded: “It’s better if she dies. If the lower-class people here still need a monarch to feel secure, once we find the corpse and sign an agreement with the Management Bureau, we can bio-clone one—it’s the same thing.”

Yun Buci didn’t respond.

The silver-clad people continued forward. Ahead was an iron door that looked very sturdy, with no visible mechanism to open it.

So these silver-clad people, who possessed weapons advanced beyond this era by countless generations, didn’t need to think much—they raised their guns and blasted.

With an explosive sound, the door was indeed blown open with a large hole. Then everyone’s eyes flashed with silver light, and they all looked up in alarm.

Behind the door was actually a river! A massive water flow roared in, instantly sweeping away the unprepared silver-clad people.

At that moment, the earthen walls on all four sides also collapsed with tremendous impact, blocking the silver-clad people’s retreat.

The silver-clad people were caught in the current. The leader remained relatively calm, patting himself once. Immediately, webbing grew from his feet, and his silver clothing became more slippery. With a light movement, he swam far along with the current.

After brief panic, the others quickly adjusted their forms. The silver material of their clothing was battle suits from that era, with waterproof, fireproof, insulating, and cut-resistant features as basic configurations. They also had built-in emergency air pumps that automatically inflated upon entering water. They had even more advanced combat suits, but coming to this lower civilization’s territory, they all felt such good equipment was unnecessary.

But just as they adjusted their forms, someone felt a black shadow flash past, with a cold gleam briefly visible in the darkness.

The person quickly twisted around, then saw many human figures in the water, gliding past them like fish, delivering cunning attacks from various angles.

These were clearly water ghost troops specialized in underwater combat. The silver-clad people hadn’t expected these ancients to be so well-prepared. What made them even more speechless was that when these people discovered their clothing was waterproof and cut-resistant, rendering knives and stabs useless, they all drew iron clubs from behind and raised them to strike.

They specifically targeted the searchlights on their heads first.

The water instantly filled with countless glass fragments, spreading like a field of cold white bubbles, and the light source was immediately lost, plunging everything into darkness.

The silver-clad people lost their light, but the water ghosts had long adapted to darkness. The second strike came again, directly targeting the oxygen tanks on their backs.

The oxygen tanks shattered, and the third strike went for their heads.

Someone’s head was struck, and he opened his mouth to spew a large cluster of bubbles, immediately darkening a patch of water.

The leader turned around just in time to see this and was shocked. He pressed his wrist, and a beam of light burst forth, instantly cutting through the water flow. The water ghost who had just swung the club was silently cut in two, and a pile of blue, red, black, and yellow matter scattered in the water.

This scene was truly unacceptable even to post-modern humans accustomed to war. A sharp whistle sounded, the water waves vibrated strangely, and the water ghosts clutched their heads and retreated in panic. But the lead silver-clad person issued a retreat order.

He turned around, waving his wrist. Where the light wave passed, the earthen wall that had collapsed to block them instantly crumbled to powder, dispersing in the water and immediately revealing a passage.

The silver-clad people turned to retreat, and the water ghosts didn’t pursue, turning to swim back.

Yun Buci waited at the exit with the others. The silver-clad people outside had originally been relaxed—some curiously examining the palace furnishings, others wandering about, some greedily inhaling fresh air, and others secretly eating pastries. But gradually, those examining, wandering, and eating all slowly stopped, staring at the real-time imaging monitoring devices on their wrists, their faces growing increasingly grave.

Someone cried out: “What’s happening? The underground connects to water flow?”

Someone said: “What kind of soldiers are these? Were they lying in ambush there? Why would they ambush there?”

Someone wondered: “How cunning—when knives don’t work, they use clubs… How do they know to hit the searchlights first? Aren’t they afraid when they see such bright things? Didn’t we say all military supplies absolutely cannot be sold to lower civilizations?”

Yun Buci sighed leisurely.

Indeed, there had been no sales.

But someone had seen them.

If this person was also deep-thinking and prepared for danger in times of peace, then being prepared was only natural.

“They smashed the oxygen tanks! How do they know what those things are!”

“No good, someone’s injured!”

“Lower humans—how could they possibly injure us!”

“Yun, didn’t you say we’d be absolutely safe here!”

“Logically speaking, that should be the case,” Yun Buci said. “The massive gap created by thousands of years of civilizational discontinuity should allow us to maneuver freely here. Even though we’re few in number, nearly out of resources, and at the end of our rope in that era, the natural suppression of civilizational technology should be enough to make them collapse and submit just from directly facing us. Unfortunately, that group of hypocritical politicians in the Management Bureau—clearly invaders yet insisting on hypocritically raising the banner of peace, insisting on peaceful transition, on cultivating emperors, on pursuing enjoyment, on quickly transplanting our systems and lifestyle here—allowed the people here to come into contact with our knowledge, civilization, and products too early. Though this helped me establish enormous influence, it also invisibly weakened the shocking impact that modern technological products should have when appearing in backward civilizations.”

“We clearly had you control product outflow, clearly only had you influence Tie Ci alone!”

“Sometimes, influencing one person is enough,” Yun Buci said. “I can remind you—she alone can match a thousand troops and ten thousand horses.”

“So what if it’s a thousand troops and ten thousand horses? A thousand troops and ten thousand horses from a backward civilization is nothing more than what a single photon cannon flash can annihilate.”

“Provided your photon cannons are truly sufficient,” Yun Buci said. “Does that side still have enough energy for the Management Bureau to squander? Aren’t the young masters and ladies of the big shots still using the last military energy to hold aerial concerts for their favored little stars?”

A moment of silence.

—

Author’s Note: Well, the deepest buried clue and the real enemy in the entire text has finally emerged. Then it involves some settings from different eras—don’t apply them to reality, don’t apply them to Earth. Just consider it some planet and race on the verge of extinction in a future world. I don’t understand science fiction and lack common knowledge. The technology, weapons, and settings inside are all made up by me. Don’t take them seriously, and don’t argue with me about them. This is just a melodramatic, illogical romance novel.