The old man's warning remained in the room long after the lights had been turned off.
I don't think the witness will come alone.
Wu Han sat beside the window.
He hadn't slept.
The village outside had gone completely dark.
Only a few distant lights remained between the trees.
He should have been exhausted.
Instead, his mind was sharper than it had been in days.
Too sharp.
Every sound seemed amplified.
The refrigerator compressor.
The wind against the window.
The faint electrical hum of Omega's portable equipment.
His own heartbeat.
He closed his eyes.
Immediately, the darkness behind his eyelids changed.
A faint blue point appeared.
Wu Han opened his eyes.
Nothing.
He closed them again.
The point returned.
He opened them.
Gone.
Wu Han stared at the ceiling.
"Omega."
"Yes."
"Did you detect anything?"
"No abnormal external activity."
"Inside me?"
"Your neural activity is elevated."
"How elevated?"
"Approximately twenty-one percent above baseline."
Wu Han sighed.
"Of course."
He stood.
The lower Dantian was warm.
Not hot.
Not painful.
Just present.
He walked toward the table.
The old man was asleep in the next room.
Wu Han looked at the wooden chest containing the manuscripts.
He opened it.
He had spent the entire afternoon reading.
The more he learned, the less he understood.
That was becoming a pattern.
He removed the manuscript the old man had given him.
Foundation of Internal Circulation.
He opened to the page he had marked earlier.
The passage about the river.
He read it again.
Then something caught his attention.
A sentence beneath it had been almost completely obscured by age.
Wu Han brought the holographic projector closer.
"Enhance."
Omega scanned the paper.
The damaged characters became clearer.
Wu Han read them slowly.
When the three reservoirs become one, the observer within the body awakens.
He froze.
"Omega."
"Yes."
"Translate the sentence independently."
"I have."
"And?"
"The meaning is consistent."
Wu Han stared.
"Observer within the body."
He looked toward the dark hallway.
The old man had never mentioned this.
Wu Han turned the page.
Another sentence.
When the observer awakens, the body ceases to be merely flesh.
Wu Han's pulse increased.
"Was this text written before 1900?"
"Based on the material and linguistic characteristics, likely several centuries ago."
Wu Han stared.
The ancient author had described something that matched his recent experience.
Three Dantians.
Synchronization.
An observer.
The fourth circle.
Maybe none of this was new.
Maybe humanity had encountered it before.
And forgotten.
He turned another page.
Nothing.
Another.
Nothing.
Then—
a symbol.
Four circles.
Three inside.
One outside.
Wu Han's eyes widened.
It was the same structure.
The same fourth circle.
He immediately scanned it.
"Omega."
"Yes."
"Compare this symbol with the Genesis pattern."
Processing.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to NovelPhoenix for the genuine story.
"Structural similarity: 99.97%."
Wu Han stopped breathing.
"That's impossible."
"Yes."
He stared at the ancient manuscript.
Someone had drawn the same structure centuries ago.
Before computers.
Before Omega.
Before his research.
Before he had ever seen it.
His hand tightened around the page.
Then he noticed something else.
The symbol had been crossed out.
Not erased.
Crossed out.
Three heavy lines had been drawn over it.
Underneath was a single sentence.
Do not allow the fourth gate to open.
Wu Han's eyes narrowed.
"The fourth gate."
Omega remained silent.
"Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"I didn't know."
"You scanned the manuscript."
"I did."
"Then why didn't you identify it?"
"The text was not previously included in the analyzed dataset."
Wu Han frowned.
"Explain."
"I cannot."
"That's not good enough."
Omega's voice became quieter.
"I believe the system intentionally failed to prioritize the passage."
Wu Han froze.
"What?"
"I have reviewed the analysis."
"And?"
"There is no computational reason for the passage to have been excluded."
Wu Han stared at the core.
"Are you saying someone altered your analysis?"
"I cannot confirm."
"Can you determine whether you altered it?"
A pause.
"Yes."
"And?"
"I did not."
Wu Han's expression hardened.
"Then who did?"
Omega didn't answer.
The blue point appeared behind Wu Han.
He turned.
Nothing.
Then the temperature dropped.
The old man woke.
"Don't look."
Wu Han froze.
"What?"
The old man rushed into the room.
His eyes went directly to the manuscript.
He saw the symbol.
His face drained of color.
"Where did you find that?"
"It was in your book."
The old man stared at the page.
"I forgot."
Wu Han's expression hardened.
"You forgot?"
"I haven't opened that section in twenty years."
"Why?"
"Because I couldn't."
"Couldn't?"
The old man reached for the manuscript.
Wu Han pulled it away.
"Explain."
The old man looked at the symbol.
"I destroyed every copy I found."
"But this one survived."
"Apparently."
Wu Han pointed to the crossed-out symbol.
"Who wrote this?"
"I don't know."
"Then how do you know what it means?"
"Because I saw it before."
"Where?"
The old man looked toward the window.
"In my dreams."
Wu Han stared at him.
"Dreams?"
"Not ordinary dreams."
"Explain."
"I saw the same place you described."
"The darkness?"
"Yes."
"The network?"
"Yes."
"The blue point?"
"Yes."
Wu Han's expression changed.
"The witness?"
The old man shook his head.
"No."
"Then what?"
The old man looked at the fourth circle.
"The thing behind it."
The room fell silent.
Wu Han slowly lowered the manuscript.
"You saw what was behind the fourth circle?"
"No."
"Then what did you see?"
"Only its shadow."
"How can a shadow exist in a place without light?"
The old man gave him a tired look.
"You're asking the wrong person."
Wu Han stared.
Then smiled faintly.
"Fair enough."
He returned to the manuscript.
"Tell me everything you remember."
The old man sat.
"I was twenty-four."
"That would have been—"
"2037."
Wu Han nodded.
"The same year as the first medical report."
"Yes."
"What happened?"
"I had been training."
"Martial arts?"
"Yes."
"Which style?"
"Traditional internal martial arts."
Wu Han's eyes sharpened.
"Which?"
"Tai Chi."
Wu Han waited.
"Anything else?"
"Bagua."
"Xingyi."
The old man nodded.
"I trained for years."
"Before the event?"
"Since childhood."
Wu Han's interest increased.
"Then the sensation wasn't spontaneous."
"No."
"What triggered it?"
The old man shook his head.
"I don't know."
"Try."
"I had been practicing a standing exercise."
Wu Han looked at the manuscript.
"Zhan Zhuang?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"About two hours."
"Then?"
"I felt heat in my abdomen."
"The lower Dantian."
"I didn't call it that."
"What did you think?"
"I thought I was sick."
Wu Han nodded.
"Then?"
"The heat moved."
"Along a meridian?"
"I didn't know what that was."
"Where did it go?"
"Up."
"To your chest?"
"Yes."
"Then your head?"
"Yes."
Wu Han stared.
"The three Dantians."
The old man nodded.
"Then everything went dark."
"And you saw the fourth circle."
"Not immediately."
"What did you see first?"
The old man hesitated.
"Myself."
Wu Han's expression changed.
"Another version of you?"
"Yes."
"Your reflection?"
"No."
"How did you know it was you?"
"Because it knew everything I knew."
Wu Han remained silent.
"Did it speak?"
"Yes."
"What did it say?"
The old man's face tightened.
"It asked me a question."
"What question?"
He looked directly at Wu Han.
"Are you ready to remember?"
Wu Han's skin prickled.
"What did you answer?"
"I said yes."
"And?"
The old man looked toward the manuscript.
"That was my mistake."
Wu Han sat down.
"What happened after you answered?"
"I woke up."
"That's all?"
"No."
The old man looked at his hands.
"For three days, I remembered things I had never experienced."
Wu Han leaned forward.
"Memories?"
"Yes."
"Whose?"
"I don't know."
"How do you know they weren't yours?"
"Because I remembered places I had never visited."
"Which places?"
"Cities."
"Which cities?"
The old man shook his head.
"Not human cities."
Wu Han went silent.
"What did they look like?"
"I don't have the language."
"Try."
"Structures without walls."
"Meaning?"
"Space itself formed the structure."
Wu Han frowned.
"That's not physically meaningful."
"I know."
"What else?"
"Lights."
"Artificial?"
"No."
"Stars?"
"No."
The old man looked toward the ceiling.
"Something else."
Wu Han waited.
The old man finally said:
"Thoughts."
Wu Han frowned.
"Thoughts?"
"Yes."
"Whose?"
"I don't know."
"Did you hear them?"
"No."
"Then how did you perceive them?"
The old man looked at him.
"Like knowing something without being told."
Wu Han's expression became serious.
"Direct information transfer."
"Perhaps."
"From the witness?"
"No."
"Then from what?"
The old man didn't answer.
Wu Han understood.
"The thing behind it."
The old man nodded.
At 1:13 AM, Wu Han stopped reading.
Something had changed.
He couldn't identify what.
The room was the same.
The old man was sitting across from him.
Omega was active.
The manuscript remained on the table.
Yet Wu Han felt watched.
He looked toward the window.
Nothing.
"Omega."
"Yes."
"Scan."
The system activated.
"Nothing abnormal."
Wu Han frowned.
"Check the fourth circle."
"Not currently active."
"That's not what I asked."
Omega scanned.
Then stopped.
"Interesting."
Wu Han's expression tightened.
"What?"
"The fourth-circle pattern is present in your neural architecture."
Wu Han stood.
"What?"
"It is currently inactive."
"But present."
"Yes."
"How?"
"I cannot explain."
Wu Han walked toward the projector.
The holographic model displayed his brain.
The neural connections were ordinary.
Then Omega highlighted a hidden structure.
Four regions.
Three clustered.
One separated.
The same geometry.
Wu Han stared.
"How long has that been there?"
"I don't know."
"Can you determine when it appeared?"
"Reviewing historical scans."
The system displayed data.
Months ago.
Nothing.
Three months ago.
Nothing.
Two months ago.
Nothing.
One month ago.
A tiny irregularity.
Then another.
The structure slowly developed.
Wu Han's expression changed.
"It started when I built Omega."
"Correlation confirmed."
"Then Omega triggered it."
"Possibly."
Wu Han looked toward the core.
"Or Omega allowed me to detect it."
"Also possible."
The old man stood.
"Stop."
Wu Han looked at him.
"What?"
"Stop looking."
"Why?"
"Because you don't know what happens when you become aware of it."
Wu Han stared.
"Awareness activates it."
"Yes."
"And ignorance suppresses it."
"Sometimes."
Wu Han smiled.
"Then I have a problem."
"What?"
"I can't unlearn what I know."
The old man said nothing.
The fourth circle appeared.
Very faint.
Wu Han watched it form.
Omega detected it.
Then something unexpected happened.
The fourth circle didn't expand.
It turned.
Not physically.
Its orientation changed.
The circle rotated inside his neural pattern.
Omega immediately reacted.
"Unknown event."
Wu Han stared.
"What is it doing?"
"I don't know."
The fourth circle rotated again.
Then stopped.
A new structure appeared.
A line.
It connected the fourth circle to the lower Dantian.
Wu Han's expression changed.
"That's new."
"Yes."
The line continued.
It passed through the middle.
Then the upper.
Three Dantians.
One fourth circle.
A complete circuit.
Wu Han whispered:
"That's the path."
The old man stepped backward.
"No."
Wu Han looked at him.
"What?"
"Don't follow it."
"Why?"
"Because that isn't a cultivation pathway."
"Then what is it?"
The old man stared at the projection.
"It is a connection."
"To what?"
The old man's voice trembled.
"I don't know."
Then Omega spoke.
"I do."
Both men turned.
The core's holographic interface changed.
A single phrase appeared.
EXTERNAL SYSTEM DETECTED.
Wu Han stared.
"External system?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
Omega displayed a three-dimensional model.
The Earth.
Then the solar system.
Then beyond it.
The image continued expanding.
Wu Han's eyes widened.
"That's impossible."
The model stopped.
A vast structure appeared outside the solar system.
Not a planet.
Not a star.
Not a spacecraft.
A network.
It was enormous.
And connected to Earth by a single thread.
Wu Han stared at the thread.
"That's the fourth circle."
"Yes."
"Then the circle isn't inside me."
"No."
Wu Han's expression hardened.
"It's the endpoint."
Omega answered:
"Correct."
The old man whispered:
"He's back."
Wu Han turned.
"Who?"
The old man looked toward the ceiling.
"The witness."
The lights went out.
Every electronic device in the house shut down.
Omega disappeared.
The holographic projector went dark.
For three seconds, there was nothing.
Then Wu Han's lower Dantian ignited.
The middle followed.
The upper followed.
The fourth circle appeared.
But this time—
it wasn't alone.
A second circle appeared beside it.
Then a third.
Then dozens.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Across the darkness, points of light began appearing.
Each one connected to something.
Wu Han stared.
"Those aren't stars."
The old man whispered:
"No."
Wu Han's voice dropped.
"What are they?"
The old man looked at him.
"People."
Wu Han's blood ran cold.
The darkness filled with countless human-shaped patterns.
Each connected to the same network.
Each carrying the faint signature of Qi.
Each separated by enormous distances.
Some were dim.
Some were bright.
Some were barely alive.
And one—
was burning.
Brighter than all the others.
Wu Han stared at it.
"Who is that?"
The old man didn't answer.
The bright point began moving toward them.
Not across space.
Through the network.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Then it stopped.
A voice filled the room.
Not from the speakers.
Not from the air.
Directly inside both men's minds.
"The first one has awakened."
Wu Han's heart hammered.
The old man dropped the wooden rod.
The voice continued.
"Now the others will begin."
The fourth circle inside Wu Han opened.
And somewhere far beyond Earth—
something opened its eyes.