The main control platform of Zero Station now felt like the only lighthouse in a stormy sea. On the massive primary screen, the crimson cloud mass representing the super ice storm expanded at a suffocating pace, its approaching spiral bands like countless frenzied white tentacles that had already completely swallowed the signals from the outermost monitoring stations. A cold countdown hung in a corner of the screen, mercilessly ticking away the final moments before the communications window closed.
Wang Jing took a deep breath, his fingertips hovering over the faintly glowing virtual keyboard, fine beads of sweat tracing paths down his temples. His focus was intense, almost burning, as he reported in a low voice to the others behind him, "Temporary encrypted channel established. One-time use protocol, embedded with self-destruct commands. Any unauthorized deep probing or structural scanning will instantly trigger a circuit breaker. All data will be zeroed out within nanoseconds."
"Begin," came Li Chenyuan's voice from behind him, cold and hard like polar rock. He remained standing, his posture straight as a pine tree, a final line of defense, his sharp eyes monitoring every fluctuation in the data stream. "Remember, Wang Jing, any anomaly you can't immediately parse, no matter how minor, cut the link immediately. We can't afford any risks."
"Understood." Wang Jing's voice was dry, but his fingers came down without hesitation.
Beep—
A soft chime signaled the channel's establishment. On the main screen, a thin, hair-like blue line of light connected the two points representing Zero Station and Corona Borealis. It looked incredibly fragile against the backdrop of the vast meteorological map, yet it held on stubbornly.
The first phase of probing began in silence. Corona Borealis sent over a multi-layered, encapsulated data packet first, its outer layer laden with complex checksums and delay markers—clearly a test of the firewall's reaction speed and depth. Wang Jing's brow was furrowed, his fingers becoming a blur on the keyboard as he rapidly constructed a layer of reverse monitoring protocol, sending the probe right back to its sender. The entire process was silent, yet filled with the clashing of blades on a technical level.
"They are cautious," Wang Jing reported in a low voice, his tone slightly hoarse from intense concentration. "It's like reaching out a hand in the dark, wanting to touch but afraid of being burned."
Next, Zero Station sent back a set of basic data on the distribution of ancient microbial communities within the ice layers—valuable scientific information, but not core secrets. The moment the data was sent, the other side almost instantly replied with a "receipt confirmed" signal.
This brief, successful interaction caused the nearly frozen air in the control room to flow again for a moment. It was like two strangers aiming guns at each other, under extreme pressure, managing a highly restrained, non-hostile nod of acknowledgment.
"Comm delay is 17% above normal," Li Chenyuan stated coolly, his eyes never leaving the data waveform display. "This isn't just storm interference. They are deliberately controlling the rhythm, trying to lure us into exposing more underlying protocols."
"That precisely indicates their academic background!" Lu Xingze retorted, leaning forward, his eyes shining with the excitement of finding a kindred spirit. "Only true researchers would insist on this almost obsessive-compulsive data verification process at a time like this! This isn't aggression; it's a pure, obsessive insistence on knowledge accuracy!"
Wang Jing didn't join the debate; his entire being was immersed in the ocean of data. However, just as the second round of test data exchange was about to end, Su Xiaolan's weak yet clear voice came from the medical pod:
"They... are anxious. Within those layers of wrapped data, there are no knives... only cold sweat and a racing heartbeat. Like someone trapped in a locked room, tapping a agreed-upon rhythm on the wall over and over, hoping to be heard, yet afraid of attracting something else."
Her words spread through the tense air like an invisible ripple, injecting a sense of human warmth and weight into the cold data stream. Li Chenyuan's eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly; Lu Xingze fell into a brief silence.
Suddenly, a piercing alarm shredded the temporary calm!
"Ice storm front shockwave arrived early! Intensity 30% above predictions!" a technician's cry was accompanied by a violent shudder running through the main structure. The screen was instantly covered in static snow, the thin blue data line trembling violently as if it would snap at any moment.
Lights flickered. The entire Zero Station groaned like a small boat in a raging storm.
"The channel is highly unstable! Data packet loss rate is rising sharply!" Wang Jing yelled, his hands gripping the console to steady it, his knuckles white from the strain. "We're running out of time!"
Amid the chaos, Wang Jing's peripheral vision caught an extremely well-hidden anomalous beacon—it was almost perfectly concealed deep within the environmental calibration data stream sent by Corona Borealis, its encryption method completely different from the main data stream, ancient and obscure.
Without a moment's hesitation, relying on incredible instinct and skill, Wang Jing instantly marked, captured, and isolated it into a secure virtual sandbox.
A small window popped up in a corner of the screen, containing an incomplete, flickering chain of symbols. It flashed quickly a few times, forming a vague, immediately indecipherable structure—it looked like a coordinate index, or perhaps the beginning of a log entry—before being swamped by the intensifying noise of the data storm.
"What is that?" Lu Xingze leaned closer to the screen, his voice full of shock and doubt.
"It's not the agreed-upon data..." Wang Jing's voice was low with astonishment. "It was hidden deep inside, like a... bullet, or a key."
Su Xiaolan had struggled to sit up halfway. Her gaze, piercing through the swaying lights and chaotic screens, landed on the strange symbols. A faint stream of blue data light flickered once more in her pupils.
"No, not a weapon..." she murmured, as if listening to an echo from a distant place. "That is... a message in a bottle. Inside it is... a cry for help they didn't dare speak aloud."
As her words fell, the crimson representing the ice storm front on the main screen had already swallowed over half of the display. The blue data line flickered uncertainly in the howling wind and snow, seeming on the verge of vanishing completely the next second.
Wang Jing stared fixedly at the hidden message in the sandbox—its origin unknown, its intent unclear. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the console.
Outside was the all-devouring wrath of nature; inside was a mysterious symbol that could overturn everything.
The transaction was not yet complete, but the storm had already arrived. And this "message in a bottle" that had been delivered had completely disrupted all preset rhythms, dragging everyone into a deeper, more unknown puzzle.