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In 1936 (Showa 11), deep inside Tunnel No. 5 of the Benshan Mine in Jinguashi, Keelung District, Taihoku Prefecture, a middle-aged man wearing a hard hat, his face smeared with soot and coal dust, was hacking away at the gold veins with his crew. Deep within the dim, suffocating shaft, three men took turns swinging their pickaxes with fierce determination. Defu Chen—known affectionately as Ah-Fu—was the leader of this three-man excavation team.
“Take it easy, Ah-Fu! What’s the fire, man? You think breaking your back is gonna get us an extra couple of yen?” his assistant, Little Xu, grumbled lazily as he splashed water to settle the dust.
“Fuck your mother! We haven’t even cleared twenty meters yet!” Ah-Fu barked, eyeing the seams in the rock face while swinging his pick with rhythmic precision. “Quit dragging your feet! If we fall behind schedule, you’ll be answering to the foreman!”
“You’re asking for it, Little Xu,” chimed in Little Liang, the third crewman, piping up from the side. “Ah-Fu’s got a family to feed. You’re just a single bachelor—what the hell are you whining about?”
As the banter echoed off the stone, a microscopic glint of golden light flashed the exact millisecond Ah-Fu’s pickaxe struck the rock. Little Xu and Little Liang were still squabbling, completely oblivious.
Ah-Fu slammed the pickaxe with precision right against the edge of that golden sheen. With a crisp crack, a spherical chunk of gold—perfectly smooth, like a ping-pong ball—dislodged from the rock face and tumbled down with a spray of loose gravel. To keep his companions from noticing anything amiss, Ah-Fu kept his rhythm going, continuously striking the wall while his mind raced through his next moves.
“Alright, Little Xu, your turn. Dig toward the right, and make sure you follow the vein along the top right corner. I’m fucking exhausted,” Ah-Fu grunted, setting down his pickaxe. As he did, his foot subtly nudged the golden sphere into a dark pile of rubble on the far left.
Taking advantage of a quick water break, under the guise of organizing his tools, he quietly scooped up the golden sphere and slipped it deep into his pocket.
After eight grueling hours of labor, their shift finally came to an end. This relentless twenty-four-hour, three-shift grind in the dark was absolute hell. The Japanese mining company enforced draconian security measures to prevent workers from smuggling out gold dust, subjecting every miner to ruthless strip-searches upon exit. After handing over the tools to the next shift, Defu Chen’s team stood before the guards at the shaft exit.
“一人ずつだぞ。服もパンツも、全部脱いでもらおうか。” (“One by one! Strip down—clothes, underwear, everything off.”)
It was only after leaving the mining grounds that Defu allowed himself a breath of relief. He had gambled and won again. “At least they didn’t dig into my ass today… fuckers,” Defu swore silently under his breath.
On the walk home, Defu was visibly at ease, a faint smile creeping across the corners of his mouth that he couldn’t quite hide. Holding his daily wage of four yen in his palm, he thought about buying a nice slab of pork chops to treat his family tonight.
The next day, Defu called in sick. Truth be told, he was only dragging out his life with his advanced silicosis anyway; there was no cure, and surviving to age fifty was already a miracle.
An old adage ran rampant through the miners’ quarters: “Enter the shaft, one man dies; stay out of the shaft, the whole family starves.”
Defu walked to the edge of the bustling downtown district, stopping in front of a quiet tavern. He glanced left and right to ensure no one was tailing him, then slipped swiftly into a narrow side alley, weaving his way to the back entrance. He gave the door a familiar, rhythmic knock and slipped inside.
“Boss Lady,” Defu murmured cautiously, pulling the golden sphere from his pocket. “Take a look at this gold. What’s it worth?”
“My word, Ah-Fu,” the proprietress gasped, taking the sphere in her palm and testing its weight before pulling out a balance scale with her other hand. “You pulled out something this big this time?”
“Wait… the size and weight of this gold feels completely off. I’m going to have to test it with a blowtorch. You know how it is—business is business.”
“Mmh.”
The proprietress placed the golden sphere into a refractory crucible, blasting it with the full force of her blowtorch.
“This doesn’t make any sense! It won’t melt? Is this stuff even real gold?”
The sphere remained resolutely solid, showing not a single trace of liquefaction or thermal decay under the searing flame. Shock rippled through the proprietress—this defied every law of physics she knew!
“Is that for real?” Defu asked, his face a picture of sheer disbelief as he reached out to grab the orb.
“Hey, hold on! It’s scorching hot!” she warned, trying to stop him.
Driven by sheer curiosity, Defu couldn’t resist and touched the surface of the sphere anyway.
“What the hell? It’s… cold.”
“Unbelievable!” The proprietress touched it herself, equally dumbfounded. The two stood there, staring at each other in stunned silence.
＊ ＊ ＊
On the other side of the globe, inside the Army Munitions Building in Washington, D.C., Major William of the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) received a classified cable from the Asia-Pacific theater. His orders were absolute: extract a fifty-year-old Taiwanese male named Defu Chen and escort him to the United States.
A U.S. Navy PBY Catalina flying boat rendezvoused with Defu Chen off the coast of Tamsui. From there, he was flown to the Philippines, where Pan American Airways’ China Clipper took over, roaring off the Manila runway on a long-haul journey toward American shores.
After nearly a month of grueling transit, American operatives finally brought Defu Chen to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio.
As the headquarters of the U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC), Wright Field was the nerve center for aeronautical technology research, test-evaluating foreign wreckage, and developing experimental aircraft. Defu Chen’s extraction had been orchestrated by the Air Corps all along.
Inside a secure facility, Major Max addressed Defu Chen through an interpreter.
“Mr. Chen, we want to reach an understanding with you. We need you to hand over the golden sphere so our research team can analyze it.”
“Sir,” Defu stammered, “I… I’m deeply grateful that you brought me here. I’m more than willing to give you the golden sphere. But my lung disease is severe, and my wife and child are still back in Taiwan. I don’t have much time left. Could you please send someone to bring them over so I can have peace of mind?”
“Lung disease?” Major Max raised an eyebrow. “According to the medical exam you had yesterday, aside from slightly elevated heart rate and blood pressure, you’re as healthy as a bull.”
“What? How is that possible?” Defu muttered, stunned.
“Furthermore… we have unfortunate news to report,” Major Max continued solemnly. “According to our intelligence, following your disappearance, the Japanese military police arrested your wife and child. They were executed.”
“We did everything in our power to hide them, but the local informants were everywhere. In the end, they were reported and captured.”
“For this, we offer our deepest regrets.”
The words struck Defu like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. His mind went completely blank.
Over the next several years, Defu Chen remained confined to the military base. He surrendered the golden sphere for military research while quietly keeping his own biological transformations hidden.
The changes in his mind were the most dramatic. His intellect expanded far beyond human limits. Where his eyes once struggled to decipher Japanese kanji, he now gazed at pages dense with tensor calculus, watching the abstract symbols automatically materialize into three-dimensional, fluid calculations in his mind… He began devouring books from the military archives, immersing himself in Applied Mathematics, Astrophysics, and Aerospace Engineering. The military slowly recognized his genius, assuming he was simply an undiscovered mathematical prodigy. Suspecting nothing, they invited him to participate in cutting-edge technological development.
As for the golden sphere, beyond its complete immunity to physical destruction, researchers discovered only one thing: it devoured every form of raw energy like an endless abyss. Given the urgency of the war and the artifact’s inability to yield immediate weapons applications, the pace of research naturally slowed.
It was not until ten years after World War II ended that Defu Chen relocated alongside military units to the newly built Groom Lake facility in Nevada. There, he contributed to the development of ultra-secret high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, reshaping military aviation.
Yet Defu’s mind was never truly bound to American military weapons. In the quiet depths of his thoughts, he was building a gateway—a rift capable of tearing through space and time. A doorway that might allow him to see his wife and child once more.
If only he hadn’t succumbed to the Americans’ promises and bribery back then… perhaps his wife and child would still be alive. That single mistake haunted Defu Chen, tormenting him with overwhelming guilt and regret for the rest of his days.
Nearly twenty years had passed since Defu arrived in America in 1936. Yet, instead of aging, his body grew increasingly muscular and lean, and his face appeared steadily younger. In Chinese terms, he was undergoing a complete cellular reversal—a true “rejuvenation.”
He noticed it himself: his mind was razor-sharp, and his body felt weightless. To avoid drawing suspicion and the horrifying prospect of becoming a laboratory specimen, he began faking his age, going so far as to paint age spots onto his skin with makeup. Fortunately, his standing within the facility earned him immense respect, and no one disturbed him. But in recent years, he knew he couldn’t keep up the charade much longer.
Defu formally submitted his resignation to the military, stating that with global affairs stabilizing, there was no longer a need for him to remain in active military research.
He proposed focusing exclusively on the golden sphere, requesting the U.S. government act as the primary investor to establish a commercial enterprise under his name. This would allow him to recruit top civilian talent and break through the research bottlenecks.
The U.S. government eventually agreed, permitting Defu to incorporate an optical technology firm in Texas named HLA (Holistic Laser & Applied Semiconductor Corp.).
Though Defu knew the company was crawling with military intelligence informants, pragmatic realities regarding funding and infrastructure left him no choice. At long last, he could finally dedicate himself to his true life’s work.
Research on the golden sphere hit a wall. Despite Defu’s mind advancing decades beyond human limitations, a vital bridge remained missing between the artifact and the spacetime rift he envisioned.
Until 1999—another forty years later. By now, Defu Chen physically appeared no older than a man in his mid-twenties.
In 1999, through a classified joint initiative between HLA and the Hebrew University, Defu acquired never-before-published copper scroll fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. His team applied cutting-edge quantum decryption to analyze the symbols hidden within the ancient texts. Among them, the golden sphere was identified as the crucial master key.
Its latent energy was immense—comparable to a stellar core.
Guided by the scroll’s ancient runic formulas, the team continuously bombarded the sphere with symmetric streams of high-intensity electromagnetic light. Following years of supercomputer simulations and field trials at key energetic ley lines across the globe, the sphere absorbed enough energy to trigger a funnel-shaped localized spacetime collapse at its core, tearing open a stable rift.
“In the face of ultimate truth, all sacrifice is trivial.” Standing inside a sleek black skyscraper in Da’an District, Taipei, Defu Chen gazed out the floor-to-ceiling window with cold, unyielding resolve.
A doorway leading into the unknown had officially opened in the heart of the modern high-tech world.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Foster Father… no, CEO Chen.” Sitting in a leather executive chair, a gaunt, frail old man spun around to face Alex, who stood tall and imposing with the youthful vigor of a twenty-something.
“You’ve suffered enough,” Alex said quietly, handing him a warm cup of water with a complex expression. “Six months ago, if you hadn’t risked stepping through that gate for me and let that damned Gatekeeper drain thirty years of your life… the one sitting in that chair suffering would be me.”
“I’ve already enjoyed half a lifetime of wealth and glory. This was what I owed you…” The old man gave a raspy chuckle, his voice hoarse. “If you hadn’t adopted me from that orphanage back then, I would have died on the streets of New York decades ago. Besides… I saw my son, Youwen, inside that rift. Even knowing it was an illusion… getting to see him one last time made those thirty years worth every second.”
By 1995, Defu Chen’s physical age had completely reversed to its twenty-something peak, where it locked in a state of eternal stability. Before the U.S. military or scientific community could grow suspicious, he faked his own death via “acute myocardial infarction.” According to his carefully pre-drafted will, control of HLA Corp was bequeathed to his secret, hand-picked adopted son. The global investors and the U.S. government had no choice but to accept the arrangement—no one else alive possessed the intellect to continue the project.
To the world and in the classified archives of the Pentagon, the legendary pioneer Defu Chen was dead and buried.
The real Defu Chen adopted the identity of “Alex,” operating in the shadows of power as the Special Executive Secretary to the CEO, living quietly for over a century.
“My chosen candidate, Eric, has stepped into the forbidden realm,” Alex murmured, his eyes flashing with intoxicating excitement and anticipation.
Alex picked up a handheld gravitational wave communicator, his gaze locked onto the incoming transmission feed.
“He will return.”
To be continued…