Chapter 5 Level 3 Response Plan

The phone rang for a long time. Just as Lin Yuan thought no one would answer or that it was a dead number, the call connected.

"Hello."

A woman's voice came through the receiver. It was steady, even a bit cold, devoid of any emotion. The background was extremely quiet—not like a typical office, but more like a room with excellent soundproofing.

Lin Yuan's palms were slick with sweat as he gripped his phone. He cleared his throat, trying his best to make his voice sound less nervous.

"Hello, I... I'm looking for someone."

"There is no one here by that description," the other party's voice remained flat. "You have the wrong number."

She seemed ready to hang up after speaking.

"Hey, wait!" Lin Yuan panicked and shouted quickly. "I didn't get the wrong number! An old squad leader named Li gave me this number. He said... he said if the sky ever falls, I should call this number!"

He roared the entire sentence out in one breath.

Silence fell on the other end of the line.

A deathly silence.

About a dozen seconds passed. Just as Lin Yuan thought she had already hung up, the woman's voice spoke again. This time, her tone had clearly changed, carrying a hint of vigilance and gravity.

"What is your name? Where are you? What is Squad Leader Li's full name? Which unit was he with?"

A barrage of questions was thrown at him.

Lin Yuan composed himself and replied, "My name is Lin Yuan. I'm at the Yuanshen Scrapyard on the outskirts of the city. Squad Leader Li's full name is Li Jianguo. He used to be with Unit 7315 and should be retired now."

He remembered these details very clearly.

There was another silence on the other end. Lin Yuan could even hear the faint sound of typing. Clearly, the other party was verifying the information he provided.

This calmed him down slightly; it seemed he had called the right place, and the other party was very professional.

After another half-minute, the woman's voice returned: "Mr. Lin Yuan, Comrade Li Jianguo is indeed one of our registered liaisons. Now, please briefly describe the 'sky is falling' situation you have encountered."

Although her tone was still formal, the address "Mr. Lin Yuan" indicated that she had begun to take him seriously.

Lin Yuan organized his thoughts. He knew how shocking his next words would be, so he had to be as concise and clear as possible, or he might truly be dismissed as a madman.

"I... I found something," he took a deep breath and said. "A metal plate, about half a square meter in size. It's extremely heavy with a very high density. I've used a plasma cutter, hydraulic shears, a sledgehammer... I've tried every tool I have here, and I can't even scratch it. I suspect... it's not from Earth."

By the time he reached the last few words, he felt a bit lacking in confidence himself.

The other end fell into silence once more.

This silence was longer than any before.

Lin Yuan waited nervously. He could almost imagine the expression of the person on the other end after hearing his words. Most likely, they thought they had encountered a paranoid delusional.

Just as he was about to add a few more words to prove he wasn't crazy, the woman spoke.

"Mr. Lin Yuan, please confirm if you are currently in a safe state. Has the object you mentioned exhibited any anomalies, such as glowing, emitting heat, making sounds, or radiation?"

The response was completely beyond Lin Yuan's expectations.

There was no questioning or ridicule; instead, she asked about the object's status and his safety with professional precision.

This caused the heavy stone in Lin Yuan's heart to instantly drop halfway. Did they believe him? Or rather, they were at least handling this with the attitude of "better to believe it might be true than dismiss it."

"I'm safe," Lin Yuan answered quickly. "This thing... it's very 'quiet.' It doesn't glow or get hot. Aside from being unreasonably hard, there's nothing else unusual. Oh, right, it can absorb heat. I blasted it with a plasma torch at tens of thousands of degrees, and it didn't get hot at all."

"Understood." The woman's voice sounded much more solemn. "Mr. Lin Yuan, from this moment on, please stay where you are and do not leave your scrapyard. Do not contact anyone, and do not discuss this matter with anyone. We will dispatch a team to you immediately. Until our personnel arrive, please maintain a safety distance of at least ten meters from the object and do not perform any further contact or testing. Can you do that?"

"Yes! I can do that!" Lin Yuan agreed repeatedly.

"Very good. Keep your phone line open; our people will contact you as soon as possible. To repeat: do not contact anyone, and do not leave your current location."

"Understood!"

"Ending call."

She hung up the phone decisively.

Lin Yuan gripped his phone and let out a long breath, feeling his entire back soaked with sweat.

That call, though brief, had put more pressure on him than arguing with debt collectors all day.

He glanced at the black metal plate on the ground and obediently backed away a dozen meters. He found an old tire to sit on and pulled out his cigarettes, wanting to smoke one to calm his nerves, only to find the pack was empty.

"Damn, what a mess..."

He shook his head with a bitter smile, but his heart felt much steadier.

"Now, all that's left is to wait."

He didn't know who would come or how they would handle it. But he knew that from the moment he made that call, the situation had left his control.

He, a lowly scrapyard owner, had set in motion a massive national machine that was completely beyond his imagination.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, deep inside an unmarked building.

The moment she hung up, the female operator who had just spoken with Lin Yuan shifted from calm to incredibly solemn. She quickly typed a series of commands into her console.

[Incident Number: T-0973]

[Reporter: Lin Yuan (Civilian)]

[Associate: Li Jianguo (Retired Third-Class Liaison Officer)]

[Incident Description: Discovery of suspected non-terrestrial high-strength unknown alloy.]

[Preliminary Assessment: Object properties stable, no immediate danger. Information source credibility: Medium-High.]

[Recommended Action: Activate Level Three Response Protocol. Dispatch field team for verification.]

She clicked the "Submit" button.

Almost simultaneously, this information appeared on a screen in another room, before a man in his fifties with graying hair but eyes as sharp as an eagle's.

The man looked at the information on the screen, his brow furrowing slightly.

"Non-terrestrial high-strength unknown alloy?" he murmured, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the desk.

A young secretary behind him asked softly, "Director, should we dismiss this? There have been quite a few similar false reports lately."

The man shook his head, his gaze deep. "No. A soldier from Unit 7315 wouldn't joke about something like this. Moreover, this Lin Yuan's description is very specific—plasma cutting, hydraulic shears... he mentioned specific testing methods and results. This doesn't seem like a groundless fantasy."

He pondered for a few seconds and then gave a decisive order: "Notify the Donghai City Action Group. Have Zhang Wei and Li Na lead a team, and bring the 'Explorer-3' portable analyzer. Have them make the trip."

"Yes!" The secretary immediately turned to convey the order.

The man looked at the screen again, staring at the unfamiliar name "Lin Yuan" and the address "Yuanshen Scrapyard," his expression becoming somewhat complex.

He muttered to himself, "I hope... it's just a false alarm. But if it isn't..."

His eyes instantly became incredibly sharp.

"Then the world might truly be about to change."