"Shhh!"
Lin An put his finger to his lips, signaling to keep quiet, and crawled out of bed while crouching, sticking his butt out as he inched his way to the window.
He pulled the curtains over the window and slowly poked his head through to look outside through the hollow patterns in the curtains.
A pair of enormous dark red hands, one reaching down and the other up, tore a massive rift in the sky's curtain, easily hundreds of meters wide.
Inside the rift swirled dark gold fog, which looked somewhat like an ink painting yet was filled with a mysterious and eerie aura.
Within the dark gold fog, an enigmatic statue seemed to float, its details indistinct.
One could barely make out a dark gold figure draped in a copper-green loose robe, reclining on the back of a giant toad, with long legs hanging from the robe.
In one hand, the figure cradled a black cat, and in the other, held a branch with red leaves.
The leaves shone bright red in the dark gold fog, like a blazing fire.
"What is this?"
Lin An blinked in disbelief at the sight before him.
At that moment, a point of light appeared over the city, flashing as it flew towards the statue.
It was a helicopter patrolling the city at night!
The helicopter seemed oblivious to the terrifying scene, flying straight through the hundreds of meters wide phenomenon and steadily toward the other side of the city.
"Do you think..."
Lin An turned his head towards the head with a hint of sadness, "my condition is getting worse?"
The head didn't speak; it had somehow turned back into a basketball and was rolling down from the bed, gently hitting the nightstand before rolling under it.
Lin An let out a deep sigh, pulled the curtains wide open, and stared blankly at the enigmatic statue in the sky.
The statue seemed to sense his gaze; the dark gold-skinned woman on the giant toad slowly sat up and looked towards Lin An.
Their eyes met, and they said nothing.
Lin An tugged at the corner of his mouth and softly said, "Hello."
This was the second time he responded to these abnormal scenes.
The first time was to the head that the basketball under the bed had become because, alone at home, he no longer needed to pretend he saw nothing. Lin An had spent that evening confiding many thoughts to that ugly head.
In the dark gold fog, the woman on the toad's back tilted her head, as if one could faintly see the corners of her mouth curve into a slight smile.
The huge hands that had torn the sky moved, and for some reason, the massive rift over the city swiftly flew towards Lin An's building.
It was only up close that Lin An could see how large the woman on the toad really was.
She must have been at least 5 meters tall, with just the leg that casually dangled from her robe and hung over the toad's knee larger than Lin An's entire body.
Waves of dark gold light flooded in from the windowsill, illuminating the room with a bright glow.
An inexplicably cold chill permeated the light, accompanied by an underlying restlessness that was deeply unsettling.
The woman on the toad, as if in thought, placed the black cat she was holding in her left hand to one side, and plucked a red leaf from the branch she held in her right like a torch.
Then, she placed the red leaf in the palm of her hand and gently stretched it out in front of the windowsill.
"For me?"
Lin An blinked curiously at this interaction with the apparition.
The woman just nodded slightly but did not speak.
To take it or not to take it, that was the question.
Because the giant statue's palms were too large, and looking forward from her dark gold slender fingers, the red leaf in the palm was a whole two meters away from the windowsill.
That is to say, if he really had a mental illness, experiencing some inexplicable hallucination,
then reaching out of the window to climb to the palm and grab the leaf,
to a normal person, it would look like a fool who couldn't stand the pressure of the city and jumped from the twenty-something floor!
Was Lin An a fool?
Of course not, but these bizarre abnormalities might be driving him insane.
Compelled as if by an unseen force, he smiled at the vast statue and whispered, "Alright."
He climbed laboriously onto the windowsill, one hand braced on the dark gold soft fingers; unlike the cold metallic touch he expected, the fingers were soft, warm with the heat of living flesh.
Moving cautiously onto the fingers, he looked down beside him on impulse, the sheer drop from the twenty-odd floors in the darkness of the night was terrifying.
The breeze fluttered his pajamas as Lin An stood up straight on the finger, feeling a peculiar sense of lightness in the wind.
That lightness flowed through his sleeves in the high-altitude breeze and bubbled from deep within his heart.
The sensation was bizarre, as if his entire being had been dosed with a stimulant. Lin An stretched out his arms like a madman, squinting slightly as if he found standing in the center of this palm more comfortable than sleeping on a soft mattress.
This feeling was both alien and familiar, the last time he'd felt this way was when he was a kid doing part-time work. The boss's place had lost power, and while waiting for the electrician to come for repairs, he followed a few people to the shade of a tree nearby, sitting by a brook with his feet dipped in the shallow stream.
Wandering on the soft, colossal palm, Lin An bent down to pick up the red leaf from its center.
The leaf was large, with a stem, and measured a full meter long and nearly half a meter at its widest point.
The red leaf looked somewhat thick and radiated a fiery glow, much like a flame itself.
It inexplicably reminded Lin An of the Banana Leaf Fan from "Journey to the West" he had seen in his childhood.
However, this leaf did not resemble a banana leaf; it looked more like a narrow willow leaf in shape.
"What is this?"
Lin An examined the leaf curiously. It looked quite substantial, but it was light to lift, as breezy as holding a ballpoint pen.
The gigantic woman did not speak; she only turned to glance somewhere, then with her palm raised, transported Lin An through the air towards the other side of the residential area.
Describing it as flying didn't seem quite accurate.
Lin An saw as if a pair of immense palms ripped through rifts rapidly, and the gigantic Dark Gold Statue shuttled through these gaps, taking a while to arrive above the other side of the residential area.
But peering through these spatial gaps, everything in the city seemed to stand still, only the slight swaying of treetops signaling that time continued to flow, albeit at a glacial pace.
Curiously standing at the edge of the palm, Lin An looked down to see a familiar house appear before him.
It was Professor Cao's villa!
A figure shrouded in darkness stood at the entrance of the villa.
One could barely make out that it was a woman, her loose robe unable to conceal the enchanting figure inside, topped with a hat with an asymmetrical pointy top.
It was the female boss of Suxin Software!
As if recalling something, Lin An remembered the face and figure of this female boss, then looked up again at the Dark Gold Statue supporting him, and exclaimed in astonishment, "You two look somewhat alike."
But only somewhat.
The same phoenix eyes, the same delicate nose, the same shape of mouth.
Yet, their temperaments differed greatly.
The female boss seemed very gentle, giving off the impression of a domesticated and soft-spoken housewife.
Where as this woman, akin to a statue, had a mysterious and sinister air about her. She appeared dignified at first glance, but beneath that decorum was a fiery restlessness, both cool and alluring.
After floating above the female boss, the huge Dark Gold woman seemed to become a bit dull, as if losing some of her animation and becoming more like a mere statue.
The boss of Suxin Software stood quietly at the entrance of Professor Cao's villa, not speaking a word, just holding a slender ladies' cigarette between her fingertips.
The lit end of the cigarette glowed orange in the night.
After a while, the female boss gently lifted her right hand, holding the cigarette between her delicate thumb and middle finger, giving it a light flick with her index finger.
Ash sprinkled out with sparks.
Fluttering about, it was as if countless fireflies flew into Professor Cao's villa.
Boom!
The fire seemed to ignite something.
The villa exploded into a fiery blaze.
As the flames shot into the sky, the gas canisters used for welding exploded once again, blowing the villa apart as if it were hit by a missile, with countless fragments ejecting violently outward.
Suddenly, a loud bang erupted from a second-floor window, and a large figure broke through the glass and leapt out.
It was Professor Cao.
The robust man looked quite disheveled at the moment, his white vest covered in scorch marks, his back a bloody mess.
His dense hair and beard were almost half burned off, some parts still smoldering with embers.
After tumbling through the front yard flowerbeds of the villa, Professor Cao sprang to his feet and glared coldly at the figure ahead, "A witch?!"
At that moment, the female boss of Suxin Software wore a demoniac mask, placing her cigarette between the jagged teeth of the mask to take a puff, then gently exhaling a stream of smoke towards Professor Cao.
The smoke rolled in the air, growing larger until it seemed like a dark cloud.
Lightning roiled within the cloud, with red flashes surging through it.
The lightning broke free from the cloud in an instant, striking Professor Cao's chest faster than the naked eye could follow.
"Pff~"
Mr. Cao was blasted away in an instant, his blood spraying through the air as he flew.