1: Chapter 1 Blue Star is About to Be Liberated

[Brain Storage Area]

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[This book's sci-fi elements lean heavily on the 'fiction' side; please do not get bogged down in scientific principles.]

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Parallel world, USA, NYPD Seventh Precinct, Interrogation Room 3.

The fluorescent lights emitted a faint electrical hum, buzzing like a fly trapped in the ceiling.

The interrogation room was small, containing only a metal table, three chairs, and a one-way mirror embedded in the west wall.

Chen Mu sat on the inner side of the metal table.

The cuffs on his wrists were linked to a metal ring on the tabletop; every time he raised his hands, the sound of metal clashing would echo through the empty room.

He stared calmly at the one-way mirror as if looking at his own reflection, or perhaps at something behind the glass.

The door opened.

Two detectives, a man and a woman, walked in.

The man was a Caucasian in his early forties with an unbuttoned shirt collar and a crooked tie; he tossed the folder in his hand onto the table with a 'thud'.

The woman was younger, a Latina in a dark suit, holding a cup of coffee.

The badges on their chests read NYPD: Vincent Thompson and Maya Rodriguez.

Thompson pulled out a chair and sat down, flipping open the folder: "Jack Chen, twenty-seven years old. No fixed address. Registered four times in the past three years for vagrancy and begging."

He looked up: "What were you doing in Times Square this afternoon?"

Chen Mu didn't speak, just looked at him calmly.

"Surveillance caught you standing in front of that fountain, raising your right hand."

The male detective pulled a photo from the folder and pushed it to the center of the table: "Then the fountain exploded. A water column shot sixty feet high. Everyone in the square was running; we had to evacuate three blocks."

He leaned forward: "So I really want to know right now, what the hell are you trying to do?"

Silence lasted for three seconds.

Chen Mu spoke calmly: "I am not from this planet."

Thompson's brow furrowed.

"I am here to negotiate with your species. Please notify the decision-makers of your race; my time is limited."

The room fell silent for a moment.

Thompson stared at him for two seconds, then leaned back in his chair, covering his forehead and letting out a short laugh.

"God." He turned to the female detective, "Another high-as-a-kite lunatic."

He stood up and packed away the folder.

"Fine, a negotiation. Negotiate with all of humanity. We'll go notify the President right away."

He patted the female detective's shoulder, "Let's go. Let him sober up, or sleep off the drugs."

"Whatever he's on, just let him clear his head first."

Maya hadn't spoken the whole time. Her gaze was fixed on the photo on the table—a surveillance screenshot where the fountain's water column was frozen in mid-air, like an explosion that had been paused.

And at the center of the explosion, six massive words made of water hovered over Times Square.

BLUE PLANET WILL BE LIBERATED.

(The Blue Planet is about to be liberated.)

Thompson had already reached the door.

"You have less than forty-eight hours left."

Chen Mu's voice came from behind him, his tone completely unchanged.

Thompson stopped in his tracks.

"In forty-eight hours, you will believe."

Thompson didn't look back, and the door slammed shut behind him.

In the hallway, he stroded ahead, his leather shoes making dull thuds on the terrazzo floor.

"These high-as-hell junkies are so damn annoying."

Maya followed behind, her pace half a beat slower: "Thompson."

"Yeah?"

"That fountain."

Thompson stopped and turned to look at her.

Maya's expression was a bit uncertain. She chose her words carefully: "I've watched all the surveillance footage, six different camera angles in total."

"That water stopped when it reached its highest point. It didn't just hang there; it truly stopped, suspended in the air, and then formed those words."

"I checked; it wasn't a holographic projection, and there was no projection equipment within three hundred meters."

"What are you trying to say?"

Maya was a bit agitated: "The water was real, and it being held in the air by some kind of force was also real."

Thompson looked at her speechless: "Surveillance catches a lot of things. Last month someone filmed a giant dragon on the Brooklyn Bridge."

He shoved his hands into his pockets: "Are you going to tell me that was real too?"

Maya didn't answer.

"Let him sit there by himself. He'll sober up after missing a couple of meals."

Thompson turned and continued walking: "Come on, I'll buy you a pizza at George's new place."

The sound of footsteps gradually faded.

In the interrogation room, Chen Mu sat quietly alone.

The one-way mirror reflected his silhouette, and he gave a slight smile.

Something was flickering on his retina.

It was a line of text only he could see: fear value 1036, 1058, 2012...

The numbers were still slowly rising.

At that moment, the fluorescent light in the interrogation room flickered.

He saw his reflection wearing that dusty, worn-out jacket, and his thoughts involuntarily drifted back to a month ago.

——————

A month ago, Chen Mu was sleeping at home with his eyes closed as usual.

The next day, however, he was woken up by the stench of urine.

He opened his eyes to see a Black man in a hoodie with his back to him, relieving himself against a bridge pier while humming some unknown tune.

The steam from the urine rose in the cold November air, the smell making him want to gag.

Chen Mu wanted to curse, but his throat felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper, producing only a raspy sound like a broken bellows, and a stabbing pain came from his left leg.

Transmigrated?

When the word popped into his head, Chen Mu's first reaction was that it was absurd.

Yesterday he was still in his pigsty of a home, passionately arguing with people in the comment section of a short video, mocking them for not knowing what a 'kill threshold' was.

Now, he was sitting under a bridge with an injured leg, smelling someone else's piss.

The man shook himself off, zipped up his pants, and left without looking at Chen Mu once.

Fine, it seemed even homeless people couldn't be bothered to look at him.

Chen Mu leaned against the pier with a self-deprecating laugh, letting the residual memory fragments of this body seep in bit by bit.

Jack Chen, twenty-seven years old, born in this world, in Flushing, Queens, USA, a second-generation mixed-race Chinese-American.

His father once owned a Chinese restaurant that went bankrupt, leaving behind a mountain of debt.

His mother ran off with someone shortly after, and his father began drinking heavily, eventually dying of cirrhosis on the street one day.

Jack had worked since he was sixteen—washing dishes, moving goods, delivering food.

When he was twenty-five, a beat-up car without insurance broke three of his ribs, and the driver fled.

Medical bills ate up all his savings, followed by loan sharks, and then more loan sharks.

Finally came personal bankruptcy and life on the streets, just like his father before him.

Last month, he was chased away with a mop by a clerk because he sat in front of a convenience store for too long.

Last week, he was kicked around by three people in turn for a moldy sandwich.