Silent Ark

Chapter 60: The Sinking Kingdom

After Shen Ruozhi finished speaking, the symbols on the screen stopped.

A sequence of prime numbers.

Physical constants.

Whale fall offset.

Three pieces of information, three levels—

Language, science, shared memory.

A textbook example of a first contact protocol.

But the textbook didn't explain what to do next.

Wang Xindong pressed the communicator: "Liu Pan, did you see that?"

"I saw it."

Liu Pan stood on the roof of the building, looking up at the three figures.

The lights on the deep-sea armor couldn't reach that height.

But he closed his eyes for a moment.

In the visual connection, those three entities shone brightly.

It's not the gentle halo of pink and gold.

Cool blue.

sharp.

The edges of each ray of light were as neat as if they had been cut with a knife—

There is no diffusion, no transition; the boundary between consciousness and matter is precise to the atomic level within them.

They are not "conscious beings".

They are "consciousness itself compiled into matter".

Liu Pan's right hand started trembling again.

That feeling of hunger.

It wasn't his own hunger—

It is the connection of vision that is yearning.

His ability is to "read" them.

It's like a person who has just learned to read finding an entire library laid out in front of them.

But he held back.

Because last time he tried to read the residual signals of the First Age civilization, he almost burned himself to ashes.

"They're waiting for a response," Shen Ruozhi's voice came through the communicator.

"How do you reply?" Wang Xindong asked.

"In their way, mathematics."

Shen Ruozhi's fingers were already typing rapidly on the terminal.

"The sequence of prime numbers is their 'hello'"

We reply with the same sequence to indicate "received".

Then--"

She paused for a moment.

"Then we have to tell them who we are."

"Didn't you already say that?"

The physical constant is—”

"Physical constants are the universe's identity card, not ours," Shen Ruozhi said. "What they need to know is: does the thing standing in front of them have the right to have a dialogue?"

She brought up an interface.

"I'm composing a response signal."

Prime number confirmation sequence + current value of fine structure constant + mathematical encoding of human DNA base pairs.

"Base-based?" Wang Xindong frowned. "Wouldn't that reveal too much—"

"They already know what we look like," Shen Ruozhi said. "That groove is for five fingers."

They saw humans in the First Period, or—”

She didn't finish speaking.

Or perhaps the First Age civilization itself was humankind.

Shen Ruozhi pressed the send button.

The signal was broadcast into the water in the form of sonar pulses via the external communication array of Unit 0.

A sequence of prime numbers.

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 —

Current value of the fine structure constant.

Base pair encoding.

Three pieces of information were injected into Deep Blue.

silence.

Seven seconds.

Of the three figures, the one that extended its palm—

He withdrew his hand.

The six fingers slowly came together.

Then it did one thing.

It descended fifty meters in Liu Pan's direction.

Hovering above the building's roof.

The distance between me and Liu Pan —

Twenty meters.

The seawater is in the middle.

Deep-sea armor is placed in the middle.

Twenty meters.

It looked down at Liu Pan.

Liu Pan looked up at it.

The face of that being was expressionless.

His grayish-white skin was as smooth as porcelain. He had no eyebrows, no wrinkles, and his eyes were two dark blue dots without pupils.

But Liu Pan saw something else in the connecting vision.

The two points of light were scanning him.

It's not a scanning armor.

It's scanning him.

Penetrating metal, penetrating hydraulic systems, penetrating bone—

Directly read the signals at his level of consciousness.

Liu Pan sensed it.

An extremely slight touch.

Within the connection of vision, a thin, cold blue line extended from the being's eye and touched the edge of his halo of consciousness.

To test the waters.

The force with which fingertips touch the water's surface.

"Liu Pan!" Shen Qingci's voice boomed from the communicator, "Disconnect immediately."

Now disconnect your—

"Need not."

Liu Pan's voice was very flat.

"It's just watching."

The thin, cold blue line lingered on the edge of his consciousness for three seconds.

Then it shrank back.

That being straightened up.

It turned to its two other companions.

Between the three beings, a cold blue light flickered at an extremely fast speed—

It's not sonar, it's not electromagnetic waves, it's a kind of communication method that even Liu Pan's vision can't capture.

The information exchange was completed within one second.

The entity that initially reached out turned back towards Unit-00.

It raised its hand again.

Spread your six fingers.

Unit-00's screen was taken over again.

This time, it's not mathematics.

It's an image.

Three-dimensional model.

A sphere.

The surface of the sphere is covered with dense lines—

Latitude and longitude lines, contour lines, a certain coordinate system.

The sphere is rotating.

Shen Ruozhi recognized it.

"Earth."

But not the Earth as it is now.

The shapes of continents are different—

More concentrated, more complete, without the fragmented coastline we have now.

Pangu Continent.

Or even earlier.

The lines on the sphere began to change.

Some areas light up—

Warm colors, ranging from deep red to orange-yellow.

Shen Ruozhi counted them.

Seven.

Seven bright areas are distributed in different locations on the Pangaea continent.

"The frequency anchor of the seven deadly sins," she whispered.

The image continues to change.

The continent of Pangaea split open.

Continental drift.

The seven bright areas dispersed due to crustal movement.

Some sank to the bottom of the sea, some were pushed to the plateau, and some were covered by volcanoes.

But they are still here.

The location has changed, but the signal hasn't been lost.

Fast forward time.

The outline of the modern Earth has emerged.

Only three of the seven bright areas are still glowing.

The other four have dimmed, but their outlines are still visible.

Three bright areas.

One in the Pacific Ocean.

right here.

One is in the Mediterranean.

One in—

Shen Ruozhi tapped her finger on the screen.

"The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau".

The image stopped.

Then an eighth mark appeared on the sphere.

It's not a warm color.

Cool blue.

It's the same color as those three entities.

This marker is not on the ground.

In the mantle.

depth--

1,200 kilometers.

Shen Ruozhi stared at the mark.

"They are telling us that there is an eighth anchor point."

"There are only seven deadly sins," Wang Xindong said.

"right."

"What is the eighth one?"

Shen Ruozhi did not answer.

She turned to the communicator.

"Liu Pan".

"Um."

The building beneath your feet—

That groove—

What will happen if you put your hand in?

"Shen Qingci said it can read my biosignals."

"I'm not asking about Shen Qingci's file."

I'm asking for your judgment.

Liu Pan looked down at the concentric circles at his feet.

Seven circles.

The center is the groove between the five fingers.

He closed his eyes briefly.

In the visual connection, the building is not static.

It is breathing.

Extremely slow breathing, in sync with the heartbeat.

With each breath, a faint pulse of light flows through the concentric circles of the inscription—

It flows from the outer circle to the center, and then from the center to the outer circle.

cycle.

That groove isn't a lock.

Locks are obstructive.

You insert it, it verifies it, and then it opens.

This groove is the interface.

When you insert it, it doesn't verify your identity.

It connects to your consciousness.

"It's not an authentication system," Liu Pan said. "It's a communication terminal."

There was a two-second silence on the communicator.

"Chen Dunli's exploration report labeled it as a 'biometric authentication interface.'" Shen Qingci's voice was low and deliberate, "The definition of the Ninth Science—"

"Nine Sections never put their hands inside," Liu Pan said.