Matter and Physics

Under the cover of Lu Zihan and Zhang Qiuqiu, Ren Yi returned to the second-floor office looking quite disheveled.

The moment they stepped through the door, the three of them were silenced by the sight before them.

That poor glass window was already shattered into pieces, with a few shards hanging mournfully from the frame, creaking whenever the wind blew.

As for Ms. Zhang’s heavy wooden desk, not even a shadow of it remained—it was completely obliterated.

Only a pile of sawdust and scattered office supplies were left on the floor, looking as if a storm had just swept through.

Zhang Qiuqiu reacted the fastest. She quickly locked the door behind them and pulled the curtains shut in one smooth motion, terrified that another curious "child" might wander in.

Ren Yi found a relatively clean corner and took a moment to piece himself back together properly.

He slowly rolled his neck and stretched his stiff limbs before turning to look at Lu Zihan and Zhang Qiuqiu.

While he had been busy trying to condense his solid-liquid hybrid organs and piece them back together bit by bit, the two of them had been watching him with eyes full of urgency and concern.

However, as Ren Yi became more whole, their expressions turned a bit strange.

The corners of their mouths were twitching upward uncontrollably, and their eyes were darting around.

Ren Yi glanced at Lu Zihan’s left cheek, which was puffed out as if he were sucking on a candy, then peeked at Zhang Qiuqiu’s tightly pursed lips on the right. He sighed helplessly.

"Laugh if you want to."

"...Pfft."

Lu Zihan’s composure instantly broke, and a muffled snort escaped him before he completely lost it.

"Pfft... haha... sorry, Stool, I really didn't mean to, Hahahahaha!"

Zhang Qiuqiu wasn't doing much better. Her face was a mix of embarrassment, amusement, and guilt—turning various shades of red and white like a kaleidoscope of emotions.

Ren Yi supported his neck, leaning against the wall with a look of utter exhaustion. He silently watched the two of them laugh, waiting for them to calm down.

Once they had laughed their fill, Ren Yi finally spoke up. "By the way, Old Lu, why are you here?"

Lu Zihan’s arrival had been incredibly timely.

If he had been any later, the school’s counseling office might have had to welcome two more teenagers suffering from mental breakdowns, claiming they saw a slime or a jelly monster in the school.

Well, that was assuming the owner of that "sunlight" cared about the mental health of teenagers and didn't just go straight for a cognitive distortion and memory wipe.

"Me? Oh, I just went to Lord Cha’s place to cool off for a bit. I heard them say you came to Ms. Zhang’s to pick up an Anomaly Artifact, so I thought I’d come join the fun and see what kind of good stuff it was."

Lu Zihan scratched his head, and as he spoke, his expression began to contort again.

"But as soon as I got near the plaza and opened my perception, I saw you splattered on the ground, shattered into dregs. I almost didn't recognize you."

He quickly coughed twice and lowered his head to hide his smile, changing the subject.

"So what actually happened? Where’s your Anomaly Artifact? Did you get it? Is it any good?"

"Here, take a look."

Ren Yi raised his hand, and the translucent marble appeared out of thin air in his palm.

With a casual toss, the marble flew toward Lu Zihan.

Lu Zihan’s attention was instantly captured by the marble in Ren Yi’s hand.

He turned it over in his hands, looking at it with great fascination, instantly forgetting the embarrassing incident from moments ago.

"It’s beautiful. You can tell it’s no ordinary object just by looking at it... So, what does it do?"

Ren Yi glanced at him, his tone as flat as if he were stating something trivial.

"Nothing special. It just explodes after you hold it for a while and blasts the holder out of a broken window."

Lu Zihan’s expression froze instantly. The marble in his hand suddenly felt like a red-hot iron.

Terrified, he juggled it from his left hand to his right, then back again, desperate to throw it away but afraid of breaking it. He broke into a cold sweat of panic.

"Holy crap! Are... are you serious? Don't scare me like that, Stool!"

"Dummy, he’s lying to you," Zhang Qiuqiu couldn't help but roll her eyes.

She then turned to Ren Yi, the amusement fading from her face to be replaced by guilt.

"Anyway, Ren Yi, I’m sorry. I really didn't think the experiment would turn out like this and cause you to fall so hard."

Ren Yi shook his head. "It’s fine, Monitor. I was the one who suggested the trial in the first place."

"And regardless, it's better to encounter these risks and figure them out within the safety of The Alliance’s campus rather than stepping on a landmine in another world or an Instance."

"Now that I know the side effects, it's much better than failing at a critical moment later... In a way, you could say you saved my life."

Ren Yi joked half-seriously.

"Uh... so what are you two even talking about? What trial? What side effects? What actually happened here?"

Lu Zihan, who hadn't been there for the whole process, was completely out of the loop. He looked at the two of them in confusion.

"And how were you blasted away by a desk? There isn't even a desk in this office."

"The desk... well, it has naturally vanished from this world."

Ren Yi looked at the mess in the office, which looked like it had been hit by a cyclone, and couldn't help but feel a headache coming on.

"That thing has probably disappeared from this world entirely."

"As for what exactly happened, let me think about how to explain it to you... Right, give me the marble first."

He took the marble back from Lu Zihan and crouched down, carefully observing the spot where the experiment had taken place.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the concrete floor beneath his feet remained largely intact despite the intense shockwave from earlier.

This definitely wasn't because the floor was exceptionally sturdy.

No matter how much "rule protection" the school buildings had, the marble floor on the first level was sturdier than the concrete between floors.

Yet when he fell earlier, the first-floor tiles were smashed to pieces, while the second floor here was unharmed.

The only explanation was that the explosion’s effect was very peculiar. The shockwave produced wasn't scattered in all directions; it was entirely a directional "vector force."

As for the direction, it likely pointed straight from the desk’s original position toward him.

"This might involve some laws of physics."

Ren Yi looked at Lu Zihan hesitantly, thinking as he spoke.

"Essentially, the suddenly appearing energy and mass created an immense repulsive force against the objects that were already there."

"Where the matter of both overlapped, they were dismantled by the strong interaction force, resulting in an extremely powerful atomic force explosion."

"Furthermore, the internal molecular attraction chains triggered a chain reaction, causing the entire mass of matter to collapse, which in turn released even more energy."

"And as an Anomaly, I was blasted directly from my original solid form into an energy state, and the explosion from the overlapping matter sent me flying."

Lu Zihan’s eyes went glazed. His face practically screamed 'Who am I, where am I, and what are you saying?'

"...What interaction force? What atomic force? Stool, I barely scraped by in my mechanics classes. Stop speaking in tongues; I can't understand a word!"

"Oh, sorry. I forgot to tell you what the Anomaly Artifact actually does first."

Ren Yi slapped his forehead and stood up with a laugh. "Come here, Old Lu. I'll explain it to you in a way that's guaranteed to be easy to understand..."

"No, no, no! I was wrong! Spare me!" Lu Zihan backed away repeatedly.

As the three of them were messing around, a knock suddenly came from the door. Everyone froze instantly, and the office fell silent.

"It's me," Ms. Zhang’s gentle voice came from outside.