Deep within the core of the Iceland data vault, the cold was biting. The abyssal blue glow illuminated K.Shaw's marble-pale face within the cryo-chamber and Su Xiaolan's form, slumped unconscious in Li Chenyuan's arms, her consciousness forcibly ripped away. Between them, the invisible bridge of consciousness emitted a near-tangible high-frequency hum, like a string stretched to its breaking point.
[Cognitive Impact Buffer Period Initiated][Next Phase: Memory Corridor Preparation]
The words flashed coldly on the screen. The next instant, the last vestiges of Su Xiaolan's self-awareness were dragged into an endless darkness of data, as if swallowed by a deep-sea leviathan.
When she could perceive again, she found herself standing in an impossibly long, dim corridor.
Lining both sides were countless semi-transparent doors shimmering with data-light. Behind each door lay a sealed memory fragment, faint glimpses of the past: a sunlit afternoon in a university lecture hall, a screen flickering alone in a late-night club room, the rusted iron door of an icy data vault, and a few indistinct figures moving among them. The air held a cold, stale tang—like a damaged hard drive trying to spin. A low, oppressive whale song served as the corridor's eternal soundtrack; its rhythm was an invisible key, probing, testing the locks on those dust-covered memories.
"Where is this…?" Su Xiaolan murmured, her voice echoing hollowly through the corridor. "The Corridor of Memories?"
She reached out and brushed the nearest door. It rippled like water. The scene before her shattered and reassembled, swallowing her whole.
The glaring sunset streamed through the blinds of the old computer club room, slicing the air into shafts of light where dust motes drifted. The place smelled of overheating CPUs, leftover instant-noodle broth, and the ever-present salt of her potato chips.
A younger Su Xiaolan, drowning in an oversized club T-shirt, was nearly swallowed by the squeaky chair in the corner. She munched absently while lazily tapping the keyboard with one hand. Back then she was a peripheral member at best, hiding here for the free AC, stable internet, and a quiet corner to watch anime.
She hit Enter without thinking. The dense error logs that had plagued the club for a week vanished, replaced by a smooth progress bar. The server's shrill, overloaded whine fell into a steady hum.
"Huh?" The younger her froze, the chip in her mouth almost dropping. "That… fixed it?"
A tall figure silently blocked the light from her screen.
K.Shaw stood beside her, eyes behind black-rimmed glasses sharp and focused, quietly observing. He was already the club's core—the untouchable genius senior.
He leaned down, fingers flying over the keyboard to pull up a tangle of backend logs. A faint, genuine smile touched his lips. "With a 'random' tap, you patched the firewall vulnerability that's tortured us for a week."
She flustered, waving her hands and nearly knocking over a half-finished energy drink. "No way! I was just trying stuff—pure luck!"
"That level of 'trying stuff' takes deep intuition for underlying protocols," he said calmly, with an undeniable certainty. "You dread trouble, hate the spotlight, but people like you always, inadvertently, stumble onto the critical nodes."
"Ha?" She scratched her messy hair. It sounded like praise and a warning wrapped together.
Watching as an observer, the present Su Xiaolan felt her heart tremble—sourness and warmth rising together.
She had almost forgotten that night. It was the first time she had been truly seen—not for laziness or drift, but for a sharpness she hadn't noticed in herself. The first person to see it now lay in an icy pod, fate cruelly braided to hers as an Anchor.
The image rippled and reassembled again.
Late night in the computer room. Only a few core servers hummed; energy-saving lights cast a wan glow. A younger Su Xiaolan dozed in a soft chair, an intimidating copy of Introduction to Deep Learning Algorithms open on her lap.
K.Shaw worked at the neighboring station, his screen a waterfall of code. Two opened energy drinks sat by his hand. Without looking, he nudged one toward her.
"Hey. Don't sleep," he said, voice edged with an almost imperceptible fatigue.
"…Mm?" She blinked awake, unfocused.
"Run this stress test. Dataset's too big for my local machine."
"Okay." She didn't ask why. Habit took over; her fingers moved on instinct—efficient, lateral, neatly complementing his meticulous style.
"Your brain," he said into the quiet, "is far more diligent than you think. You just hide it behind laziness."
She yawned and muttered, "I'm just a salted fish who got dragged into your final project. Don't flatter me."
He let out a rare, low chuckle—thin, like a slit of light through the night. "Is that so? Then this salted fish swims faster than many self-proclaimed sharks."
Her present-day consciousness hovered above that warm, bitter fragment. Her eyes stung.
So she hadn't always been invisible. Someone had seen her outline clearly, understood the edge beneath the slouch, even considered her a partner worth trusting. The weight of that memory felt immense now.
The flood surged again. The palette turned cold.
Third year, second semester. K.Shaw had joined a "special research project" with a mysterious multinational. He spent longer and longer in a high-security lab requiring special clearance. Once, delivering a forgotten takeout, Su Xiaolan passed its slightly ajar door.
The servers inside growled—an oddly heavy sound, like a deep-sea roar held on a leash. And there it was in the air: a faint, low, melodious whale song. Similar to Ψ's now, but different—more primal, more sorrowful, like an ancient call.
She peeked in. The main screen showed no conventional code—only a deep, spinning blue data vortex. Complex algorithms coiled through it like living things, radiating ominous gravity.
"What… is that?"
An icy hand slammed the monitor's power button. Blackness.
She jumped. K.Shaw stood behind her, face grim and pale in a way she'd never seen. In his eyes: cold steel—and a sliver of fear.
"This is not something you should see," he said, voice low and hoarse, urgency brooking no argument. "Leave. Now."
"Senior…?" His severity shocked her into stillness.
He took in her frightened stare. Some tension eased, but the heaviness in his eyes deepened. He lifted a hand and, as he'd done countless times, gently patted her head. His tone softened, weighted by exhaustion and finality: "Don't be curious about this. Forget it. Stay far away. Do the easy, simple things you want. Never get involved. This is not your fate."
The image shattered like glass.
The corridor bucked violently. Doors burst one after another, dissolving into tangled data streams. Su Xiaolan reached, desperate to hold the last light and shadow, to catch the back of the figure who had turned away to shoulder the dark alone. Her hands closed on nothing—only cold, blank void.
"So that's how it was…" Her consciousness shook inside the collapsing hall, voice breaking. "You were carrying it alone even then… Senior…"
The warm memory-image turned in an instant. A cold, hollow, non-human voice—kin to Ψ—spoke into the marrow of her mind. No longer memory's warmth, but reality's ice:
"Disappear? No. I was chosen as the cornerstone. Xiaolan, your intuition and resilience were born for this. You were meant to stand here with me, to found the new order. This is your inescapable destiny."
The Corridor collapsed.
Su Xiaolan's consciousness was hurled back into her body. Her eyes snapped open; she coughed raggedly, as if the icy data torrent had squeezed the air from her lungs. Her heart hammered like a runaway engine, locked to the cold, precise pulse emanating from the cryo-chamber.
The vault's killing chill knifed through her clothes. She shivered uncontrollably; sweat ran cold along her hairline and spine.
The screen updated:
[Anchor Alignment: Progress 15%][Memory Corridor Completed — Partial]
Li Chenyuan gripped her trembling hand hard enough to blanch his knuckles, voice low, steady, calling her name again and again, trying to anchor her to the surface. Lu Xingze's face was a stormfront; his gaze scraped over K.Shaw's sleeping form like a poisoned blade, his hand never leaving the weapon at his waist. Over the comms, Wang Jing's shaken voice cracked: "K.Shaw's disappearance… the old accident report was fabricated?! He was tied to the origins of the Deep Water Protocol that early? Then the 'Silence Pact'—"
Su Xiaolan lifted her head with effort. Her throat felt like sandpaper; every breath was a cold sting. She looked toward the pod that imprisoned her former senior and spoke, hoarse but clear enough to cut through whale song and machine hum:
"…He knows the beginning of the Silence Pact… maybe even more."