Chapter 184: The Twins' Spacetime Game

Zhao Jianguo clutched the advertisement sheet stamped with "TY-", his steps just entered the Siheyuan gate, before he could catch his breath, two small figures rushed out from the Main Hall doorway.

"Dad! Dad, look!"

The Shuang Baotai, one holding a modified metal toy, the other hand pulling the sibling, hopped and pounced in front of him. The device looked like a disc assembled from an old circuit board and metal sheets, with a grayish glass piece set in the middle, and a few loops of electric wire wound around the edge.

"We can stop time for three seconds!" the older brother said, tilting his head up, his eyes shining like freshly polished glass.

The sister quickly nodded, "Really! Just now, the sparrow in the Courtyard was halfway flying when we pressed this button—" she stuck out her little finger toward a raised copper button on the side of the disc, "it froze! Not even its wings moved!"

Zhao Jianguo lowered his head to look at them, his heartbeat suddenly sinking.

He crouched, slipped the advertisement sheet into his trouser pocket, and gently grasped the two children's wrists. A system interface silently popped up, the scan results showing: abnormal Energy Fluctuation in the golden birthmark area, frequency perfectly matching the "Second-Generation Transmigrator Activation State."

He said nothing, his gaze shifting to the toy in their hands.

That metal sheet… was a fragment of the signal recorder Jia Wu had left behind. He recognized the pattern of the engravings and recalled Dong Xu saying that this code set could not be duplicated by outsiders. Yet now the piece had been welded onto a crude model, with a battery and a switch attached.

"Who made this for you?" he asked, his voice very low.

"Brother Chen Xiao Jian!" the sister shouted, "He said this is a 'Spacetime Stabilizer', it can help us practice our skills."

Zhao Jianguo frowned.

He stood up and hurried into the Main Hall. The old photograph on the wall was still there, but on closer look, Jia Wu's face in the frame had begun to blur, the once‑clear military insignia now dulled, as if soaked in water.

His heart tightened.

He turned, scooped up the Shuang Baotai and headed toward the inner room, closing doors and windows as he went. The system activated "Microscopic Time Flow Monitoring", and the Screen instantly displayed a Waveform Diagram—every three seconds a time stall of a few tenths of a second appeared, lasting exactly three seconds, with error under one percent.

Exactly as the children had described.

He took the toy and examined it closely, discovering that when the button was pressed, the metal sheet briefly conducted electricity, emitting an ultra‑low‑frequency Pulse signal. It was not an ordinary electronic device, but a crude yet effective spacetime anchoring tool.

"How many times did you try just now?" he asked.

"Five!" the older brother counted on his fingers, "the first time the sparrow stopped, the second time the steam from the kettle froze, the third time…"

"The third time I sneezed, and the expelled air hung right in front of my nose!" the sister giggled.

Zhao Jianguo did not smile.

He knew where the problem lay. This ability did not arise from nowhere; it was inherited through bloodline, but required a triggering medium. And this toy, modified from Jia Wu's relic, was the key.

He quickly fetched a thick cloth, wrapped the toy tightly, and placed it into his portable Storage Ring. That item could not stay outside, nor could the children touch it again.

"That game can't be played now," he said, looking at the two children, his tone serious, "it's too powerful; you're still young, you can't control it."

"But we can stop time!" the brother protested, "we're faster than others!"

"Precisely because you're faster than others, you must be more careful," Zhao Jianguo patted his head, "if one day you stop time, what if others can't return?"

The children were stunned.

The sister blinked, "Then… what will happen to them?"

"They might forget who they are, or they might never wake up again." He paused, "just like the person in the photo, gradually disappearing from view."

Both turned together to look at the fading photograph on the wall, the smiles on the faces slowly receding.

The house was quiet for a while.

Zhao Jianguo opened the system, encrypted and uploaded the energy data recorded moments ago, labeling it "S‑Class New Generation Ability Emergence." He also wrote a line in the remarks field: **All items containing Jia Wu's code must be recalled immediately; minors are prohibited from contact**.

Just after clicking send, a knock sounded at the door outside.

"Old Zhao! Are you there?"

It was Chen Xiao Jian's voice.

Zhao Jianguo walked over and opened the door. Chen Xiao Jian stood in the doorway, clutching a black box, his face full of anxiety.

"Why did you give that toy to them?" Zhao Jianguo asked bluntly as he opened the door.

"How would I know they'd use it!" Chen Xiao Jian slapped his forehead, "I brought it as a sample for research, just placed it on top of the Toolbox in the Courtyard corner; who could have guessed those two little rascals would secretly remove the battery, install it, and even rewired it!"

"Rewired?" Zhao Jianguo felt a chill in his heart.

"Exactly, they added a timed switch that lets the Pulse release automatically. Originally one activation could only pause a moment, now it can trigger several times in succession." Chen Xiao Jian lowered his voice, "I've already tested it; those recent pauses created tiny spacetime wrinkles—though the area was small, the frequency was too high and has already affected local memory retention."

Zhao Jianguo glanced back at the photograph on the wall. Jia Wu's face had faded further, the outline barely discernible.

"They must not touch any related items again," he said.

"I think the same," Chen Xiao Jian handed over the black box, "this is an interference device I just made; it can block that kind of Pulse signal. If you place it in the house, it will at least protect this area."

Zhao Jianguo took the box, switched on its power. The indicator light lit up, and a system prompt sounded immediately: 【Stable field detected, time wrinkles are smoothing】.

He exhaled a sigh of relief.

Just as he was about to speak, the system suddenly flashed a red alert: 【Time paradox risk level raised to yellow alert, recommend immediate termination of all second‑generation transmigrator experimental operations】.

Immediately afterward, his phone vibrated once.

It was a message from the East City Monitoring Unit: 【Virus signal cluster in transit, target area the Workers' Cultural Palace vicinity, suspected overlap with teaching equipment delivery routes】.

Zhao Jianguo stared at the Screen, his brows furrowing tighter.

On one side were the newly awakened children, who could at any moment trigger irreversible temporal disturbances; on the other was the spreading virus network, which, if it infiltrated the school system, would have unimaginable consequences.

He turned and walked into the inner room, where the Shuang Baotai were already seated at a small table drawing. The sister held a pencil, drew a circle on the paper, and said it was "the stopped time."

He approached and whispered, "Stay obedient at home today, you aren't allowed to go anywhere, understand?"

"Mm." the two replied in unison.

He patted their heads, glanced again at the increasingly blurred photograph on the wall, and turned to walk out.

"Where are you going?" Chen Xiao Jian asked.

"East City," Zhao Jianguo said while pulling on his Coat, "there's a batch of new stationery to distribute at the Cultural Palace, the timing lines up perfectly."

"Should we call someone?"

"No time." He grabbed the interference device and slipped it into his pocket, "you stay, keep an eye on them. As long as they don't touch that kind of thing, no more problems will arise."

Chen Xiao Jian nodded, "Alright, I'll take care of the house."

Zhao Jianguo walked to the Courtyard Gate, placed his hand on the doorframe, then paused.

He took out his phone, pulled out the high-definition backup of Jia Wu's original photo from the system save file. Comparing with the photo on the wall, the difference was obvious. The past image was being slowly erased, as if someone had an eraser, gradually wiping away traces that shouldn't exist.

He put his phone away and stepped out the door.

Wind blew in from the hutong entrance, stirring scraps of paper on the ground. He looked up at the sky; the cloud layer was low.

He had taken just a few steps when his phone vibrated again.

New message from the surveillance backend: 【Suspicious tricycle spotted, license plate obscured, cargo area plastered with a "Student Smart Assistant" ad, heading toward the south gate of the Culture Palace】.

Zhao Jianguo quickened his pace.

As he walked, he opened the system tracking interface and entered the "TY-" code. The database popped up a new record: the batch belonging to that code totaled three hundred units, with fewer than fifty confirmed to have entered the market; the rest are unaccounted for.

Among them, twelve signal sources are concentrated in the East City area.

He was about to call the contact team when he suddenly heard hurried footsteps behind him.

He turned around and saw Chen Xiao Jian chasing after him.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Just now inside…" Chen Xiao Jian panted, "the 'Frozen Time' drawing by the twins has a line of small writing in the corner—"

"What does it say?"

"**Next time let's try stopping for five seconds. **"