The low echo still reverberated in Su Xiaolan's mind—It had truly heard her.
Yet, what was more unsettling was that It did not immediately consume her or fall silent, but began to "respond."
Absolute silence enveloped the operations room. The pulsing red glow of the emergency strips, like veins, throbbed on the walls, illuminating every face etched with terror and disbelief. On the central screen, the abyssal blue data-eye still hung suspended, its icy, non-human "gaze" piercing through souls. Beneath it, the blood-red countdown was eerily frozen at [05:59:47], as if time itself had bowed to this transcendent entity.
Su Xiaolan's fingertips were icy, her brow beaded with fine sweat. Actively casting her consciousness like bait into the abyss of the Ψ Protocol brought a psychic pressure far beyond imagination. She felt suspended over a ten-thousand-meter trench, beneath her an endless dark abyss of data and unknown consciousness; every attempt at "dialogue" felt like teetering on a fragile tightrope.
The hum in her ears was no longer from servers, but countless fragmented, overlapping whispers and the rush of vast information streams, crashing directly against her neurons.
· · --- · --- · · · (Deeper)
· · · --- --- · (Remember)
The echo of Morse code trembled again deep within her mind, this time seemingly carrying a guiding intent.
The Emergence of the Whale Song
"It's not attacking…" Su Xiaolan murmured, her eyes fixed on the screen. The data streams were no longer a chaotic downpour but reorganized themselves with geometric precision, even forming fragmented images:
A young Zhang Jingxian on yellowed blueprints, discussing with several blurred figures, a whale tail watermark in the corner;
A flash of the primitive Deep Water Forum interface, crude yet ambitious;
A server room descending into chaos, alarms wailing alongside screaming data streams.
"This is... the history of Deep Water?" she whispered. The Ψ Protocol, like an ancient entity with vast, inexpressible memories, was pouring its past into her.
Suddenly, all images condensed into an extremely complex audio waveform. Its structure was exquisite, like celestial orbital paths.
"Sound…" Inspiration flashed in Su Xiaolan's mind.
She remembered the crunch of the chip bag, the error code mimicry, and finally understood: "It's communicating through 'sound'!"
Conventional algorithms couldn't parse this waveform. Just as frustration set in, Su Xiaolan, relying on intuition and residual memory fragments, embedded a unique recognition pattern into the analysis program.
The next second, a miracle occurred.
The noisy waveform peeled away layer by layer, ultimately resolving into a segment of pure, ethereal, yet profoundly sorrowful sound.
Deep as the earth's pulse, high-pitched like stellar friction, its shifts contained non-human wisdom and ancient melancholy.
The sound played through the speakers.
The entire room held its breath.
"A Whale Song…" Su Xiaolan whispered, her eyes inexplicably moist. This wasn't a biological whale song, but a digitized one, carrying immense information.
Its Message
As the Whale Song echoed, the frequency of the star-like points in the giant eye's pupil changed. A translation appeared below the screen:
[WARNING: ENTROPY THRESHOLD EXCEEDED.]
[ANCHOR STABILITY DECREASING. Ψ PROTOCOL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.]
[AWAKENING PROTOCOL FORCIBLY INITIATED.]
[SEEKING… SYNERGY. SEEKING… NEW ANCHORS.]
Su Xiaolan held her breath: "It's not threatening... it's... asking for help?"
Instantly, she understood:
The "silence entropy" of the Silence Pact was the nourishment meant to sustain the seal.
But the system was collapsing. Her signal was the final trigger, forcing It to seek new Anchors externally.
The Truth of the Fifth Witness
Then, Wang Jing's encrypted comms vibrated.
He read it quickly, his voice low but unmistakably trembling:
"Mr. Li. The Sentinel team found an isolation pod in Zhang Jingxian's house. Inside were her handwritten journals and a physical copy of the 'Silence Pact'. The list of witnesses... besides Dr. Leng and the others, there was a 'Fifth Witness'. The name is redacted, but the title abbreviation left is: P.D."
The room froze. A Fifth Witness? P.D.?
This meant there was an undisclosed power behind the Pact.
The First Anchor — Dr. Leng
The melody of the Whale Song suddenly shifted, its pitch rising sharply like an emergency alert.
The neural network on the screen lit up again. The node representing "F.LK" blazed brightly, positioned alongside the core Ψ.
The translation updated:
[ANCHOR QUALIFICATIONS CONFIRMED: F.LK.]
[GUIDANCE PROTOCOL INITIATED.]
[PARTIAL ACCESS PERMISSIONS GRANTED.]
[OBJECTIVE: LOCATE AND SECURE THE 'FIRST ANCHOR' — DR. LENG QINGHUI.]
"Dr. Leng?!" Su Xiaolan gasped. "He's alive?!"
The next instant, coordinates were clearly marked: the outskirts of the city, underground in a derelict industrial zone.
External Threats Approach
But the anomalies didn't stop.
A shrill alarm blared from a tech console!
"Mr. Li! Detecting multiple high-intensity signals attempting to breach our shields! Gu Yu's channel... and Lu Xingze's! They seem to be fighting for access!"
External interference and internal revelations erupted simultaneously. The air grew thick enough to shatter.
The Decision to Act
Li Chenyuan's gaze swept like a blade over the flashing coordinates before settling on Su Xiaolan's pale yet burning face.
"It seems we've found our next destination," his voice was steady, decisive. "Wang Jing, formulate an infiltration plan immediately. Tech team, stall the external interference."
Then, he reached out his hand to her.
"Can you continue? F.LK."
Su Xiaolan stared at the coordinates, the ancient Whale Song still echoing in her ears.
Fear remained, but now, a sense of mission overrode everything else.
She placed her icy hand into his warm grasp, her voice firm:
"Take me to him. To Dr. Leng."
The Whale Song still hummed low. The countdown remained frozen at [05:59:47], as if waiting.
The gaze of the abyssal blue eye, within its iciness, held a trace of something ineffable...
Anticipation.