Silent Ark

Chapter 38: The Mysterious Taxi

3:17 PM.

The sunlight is normal.

The sky was greyish-white—not the greyish-white of an overcast day, but the color of the sovereign body.

But today the sovereign entity appears to be at a higher level, and the nodes of the monitoring grid are sparser than usual.

Yao Chong closed his eyes briefly.

A gray sky.

Suspended shape.

Monitoring grid.

Still.

He opened his eyes.

I checked his pulse—I placed my left index and middle fingers on his right wrist for three seconds.

Heart rate is normal.

He wasn't sure when the habit started, but it certainly made him feel at ease.

A taxi stopped in front of him.

Yellow.

It's very old.

The characters on the license plate were mostly covered by dust, and only the two characters "京A" could be vaguely seen.

The car window rolled down.

The driver was a middle-aged man with messy hair, and his eyes narrowed into slits when he smiled.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Get in the car."

Yao Chong opened the car door and sat in the back seat.

There was a strange smell in the car.

It's not the smell of cigarette smoke or air freshener commonly found in taxis—it's a more ancient, deeper scent.

Like the smell of a stone split open by lightning.

It looks like something is burning, but it's not fire.

"Fasten your seatbelt," the driver said.

Yao Chong fastened his seatbelt.

The car started moving.

"Going to the Chinese Academy of Sciences?"

"right."

"Young man, what unit do you work for?"

"Institute of Physics"

"A physicist? Has something happened lately? I saw on the news about some kind of collider abroad—something like that."

"Yes," Yao Chong said. "Something happened."

"What is it?"

Yao Chong looked out the car window.

In the world of BJ, the roads are still the same, the Third Ring Road is still the Third Ring Road, but there is a very fine crack on the road surface.

From the car window, it's about two millimeters wide. This isn't a physical crack, but a spatial fold; the laws of physics have been torn open here.

Like something beneath the skin exposed to the air, left behind at some unknown time—maybe yesterday, maybe three years ago, maybe a thousand years ago…

"What is it?" the driver asked again.

"The laws of physics are out of balance," Yao Chong said.

"what?"

"It's nothing," he said. "It's a small matter."

The driver didn't ask any more questions.

"Master," Yao Chong said, "we should turn right here."

"I know the shortcut," the driver said.

Yao Chong frowned.

He glanced at his phone—no signal.

It's not that the signal weakened, it's that the signal disappeared completely.

The signal bar in the upper left corner of the phone screen changed from 6G to E, and then from E to no service.

"Sir, my phone has no signal."

"The signal is bad in this area," the driver said.

Yao Chong closed his eyes again.

A gray sky.

Suspended shape.

Monitoring grid.

Still.

but--

The nodes of the grid are moving.

It's not a normal slow drift—it's a rearrangement.

It's like something is adjusting the density of the surveillance.

They are tracking this car.

Yao Chong's heart started racing.

He checked his pulse—ninety-two beats per minute.

It is nearly 30 degrees higher than the normal value.

"Driver, stop the car. I'll get off here first, and I'll give you the money back."

"We're almost there."

"It's alright, driver, please stop the car."

The car didn't stop, and Yao Chong vaguely sensed something was wrong. Could it be that the driver was a foreign spy, specifically sent to assassinate cutting-edge researchers?

Yao Chong calmly reached out to pull the car door open.

The door is locked.

He did not hesitate.

He slammed his right fist into the car window. Even if it didn't hurt anyone, he could just pay some compensation later. The Silent Ark Project concerns the fate of all mankind and cannot be affected in the slightest.

After surviving that ordeal underground, his physical abilities were enhanced in every way; his fists could penetrate an eight-centimeter-thick concrete slab.

However, the car window remained completely still.

There were no cracks, no vibrations, not even a sound—the moment the fist touched the glass, the force was absorbed like water droplets falling into a deep pool.

"Don't bother," the driver said, his tone even carrying a hint of apology. "This car window isn't glass."

"What?"

"Asgardian craftsmanship," the driver said. "You can't break through it."

Yao Chong withdrew his fist.

My knuckles feel a little numb—not from pain, but from the emptiness that comes after all the strength has been absorbed.

For the first time, he clearly realized that this thing in front of him was not on the same level as anything he had ever faced before.

"you--"

"Relax," the driver said.

He glanced at Yao Chong in the rearview mirror.

Those squinted eyes suddenly opened a little bit—not completely open, but just revealing a wider slit.

But the pupil in that slit wasn't a human pupil.

It's a vertical pupil.

Like a snake.

Like a lizard.

Like something that shouldn't be in the eyes of any mammal.

"I just want to talk to you for a bit." His voice had changed—it was no longer the voice of a middle-aged man, but a younger, more agile voice with a certain mischievous pleasure.

"Who are you?"

"The name isn't important," the driver said. "What's important is—have you considered that you might have taken the wrong route?"

Yao Chong remained silent.

His right hand was clenched into a fist—not in preparation for hitting someone, but an instinctive reaction when he was nervous.

After his physical abilities were enhanced, his grip strength was much greater than before, and the feeling of his nails digging into his palms kept him alert.

"You're building a ship," the driver continued, "a very big ship, for escaping."

How did you know?

"I know a lot of things," the driver said. "For example—you have no allies."

He paused for a moment, as if enjoying the change in Yao Chong's expression.

"The Ninth Division is a human institution. CERN has disbanded. You have fewer cards to play now than you think."

"Who exactly are you?"

Yao Chong's voice was a little lower than before.

It's not fear—it's rapid calculation.

The car turned onto a road that Yao Chong had never seen before.

It's not a "road that has never been traveled"—it's a "road that should never exist."

The buildings on both sides are arranged in an abnormal way: they are not perpendicular to the ground, but slightly tilted, like a row of dominoes slowly falling.

The angle of inclination was not large, about three to five degrees, but it was enough to trigger Yao Chong's sense of balance.

"Asgard," the driver said, "have you heard of it?"

"The realm of the gods in Norse mythology."

“It’s not a myth,” the driver said. “It’s a real place. Beyond what you call the ‘dry zone,’ in areas where the laws of physics completely break down, there are places… where the rules are different. Not that there are no rules—it’s a different set of rules. Asgard is one of them.”

"What are you trying to say?"

"I wanted to say—" The driver slammed on the brakes.

The car stopped.

There was a wall in front of us.

It is not a building wall—it is a wall that appears out of thin air, without any support, extending from the ground to the sky.

The walls were grayish-white—the same grayish-white as the sky.

The color of the sovereign entity.

"—You can't build that ship." The driver turned around and looked directly at Yao Chong.

His face changed.

It's not that my face has changed—every detail on my face is changing at the same time.

The spacing between facial features, skin texture, hair color, and bone structure—all parameters are reset in a fraction of a second.