74: Morpheus's "gift" and his extraordinary "epiphany"

In the Free Confederacy, at the top floor of the Prophet Foundation's magnificent headquarters, which stood like a black crystal monolith, Morpheus Li sat in his luxurious office that overlooked the pulse of the entire city.

Before him, on a massive holographic interactive tabletop, highly encrypted surveillance data streams and video clips secretly transmitted back by Evelyn flowed silently.

These materials recorded the daily details of Excellence in the rehabilitation room: his mostly dazed and ignorant behavior, those crooked, chaotic lines and symbols that looked like children's graffiti, and the astonishing, brief moments of focus that occasionally erupted like sparks under Su Mu's technical guidance, along with those fragmented yet eerily shining "design sketches."

Morpheus's gaze, like the most precise probe, was locked onto the patterns and fragments drawn by Excellence in an unconscious state that had been specially marked by algorithms.

His fingers gently swiped across the holographic image, enlarging key local areas to perform high-dimensional geometric analysis and information entropy calculations.

When the analysis software showed that the topological structure of certain lines exhibited non-Euclidean characteristics, and that the arrangement of certain symbol clusters had weak but undeniable statistical correlations with some high-dimensional information fragments The Foundation had encountered early on, his face, which had always been like a frozen lake, finally revealed an irrepressible, burning radiance, as if a traveler who had trekked in the desert for a long time had finally seen the outline of an oasis looming in the mirage in the distance.

"As expected... The deep imprint of 'pandora' is still at work! It did not dissipate because of the host's cognitive collapse, but sank into a deeper ocean of the subconscious!"

He whispered to his shadow-like confidant and assistant standing by, his voice filled with the excitement of discovering treasure, "Even in a state of severely impaired cognition and near-collapsed logical thinking, the depths of his fragmented ocean of consciousness can still, through some intuitive channel we cannot understand, occasionally touch and salvage those true 'knowledge pearls' from the abyss of information! This is amazing! We must strengthen this connection and find a way to fish for these fragments more stably and continuously!"

A few days later, Evelyn Li arrived at the rehabilitation isolation area of the "Candle Dragon" base again.

This time, she carried a silver metal sealed case that looked extremely exquisite, made of aerospace-grade titanium alloy and reinforced nano-ceramics, with a cold metallic luster flowing on its surface.

The case required her biological characteristics and a set of dynamic passwords to open.

In the rehabilitation room, in front of Su Mu and a stern-looking, sharp-eyed technical supervisor sent specifically by Wang Jianguo, Evelyn opened the case carefully with an impeccable professional smile.

On the velvet lining, a futuristic, sleekly designed, and softly glowing blue headset lay quietly.

It looked several generations more advanced than the crude "hand-crafted" device Excellence had.

"This is the third-generation 'Neural Plasticity Targeting Accelerator' newly developed by The Foundation's Neuroengineering Laboratory," Evelyn explained in her strictly trained, steady, and persuasive tone, her gaze sweeping over Su Mu and the supervisor, "It uses the latest non-invasive multi-modal fusion stimulation technology, which can accurately act on key cognitive areas such as the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex through specifically encoded sound frequency sequences and modulated low-energy light pulses, effectively promoting synaptic plasticity changes and functional remodeling of neural networks. Theoretically, it can play a significant role in accelerating cognitive recovery."

She handed over a thick, beautifully bound technical white paper and safety certification report, "All parameters have been reviewed and approved by the International Ethics Committee and the Medical Device Safety Bureau."

The supervisor said nothing, took the document, and pulled out a handheld multi-function scanner to perform a ten-minute, extremely meticulous, and comprehensive scan and detection of the "accelerator," from radiation leakage and energy fluctuations to potential malicious hardware and hidden interfaces.

Only after confirming that there were no obvious physical security risks or backdoors did he nod slightly to Su Mu, signaling that it could be tried.

However, when Evelyn, with an encouraging smile on her face, carefully picked up the high-tech device and tried to gently put it on Excellence, Excellence, who had been sitting quietly to the side, curiously fiddling with a resistor, reacted extremely violently!

His body recoiled sharply, as if he had sensed some invisible threat, and his face showed an expression of extreme disgust and fear, as if he were looking not at an advanced medical device, but at a venomous snake!

He forcefully pushed Evelyn's hand away, his voice becoming even more slurred due to his agitation, yet it was full of unquestionable resistance: "No! Take it away! Cold... has bad things! Inside... something is... biting!"

His fingers even began to tremble slightly, and the LED light on the Emotion-Visualization Device erupted with blinding, chaotically flickering blue light, showing his extreme anxiety and rejection.

Evelyn's arm froze in mid-air, and the perfect professional smile on her face instantly became somewhat strained and awkward, with a trace of imperceptible annoyance and confusion flashing across her eyes.

She quickly adjusted her expression and tried to explain in a gentle tone: "Excellence, don't be afraid. This is just a device to help you, like headphones; it won't hurt you. Perhaps he has a special phobia of unfamiliar devices that need to touch his head, or he feels uncomfortable with pre-stimulation of specific frequencies..." She tried to approach again.

"Wait a minute!" Su Mu suddenly spoke.

She stepped forward, took the device from Evelyn's hand, and carefully examined it inside and out.

Her gaze finally rested on a tiny mark at the device's interface, and her brows furrowed slightly, "Is this physical interface and communication protocol... compatible with the third-generation open standard of the NeuroLink Alliance? I seem to have seen a similar protocol stack in the open-source hardware community."

She looked up at Evelyn, her eyes filled with inquiry.

Evelyn was stunned for a moment, clearly not expecting Su Mu to notice this detail, she nodded quickly: "Yes... yes, some Foundation equipment uses modified open standards to facilitate data docking and compatibility testing with mainstream research equipment."

"If that's the case..." A flash of eagerness flickered in Su Mu's eyes, she turned to the supervisor, "Sir, the development kit I brought has compatible debugging tools. Maybe... I can try to connect to it, read its default stimulation parameter set, and see if I can slightly adjust the waveform or frequency to make it... um... a bit more 'gentle'? Maybe it's just a default parameter that makes him feel uncomfortable."

Her proposal sounded reasonable, entirely out of consideration for helping Excellence adapt to the device.

The supervisor whispered a few instructions through an encrypted headset, then nodded: "You may try. But only for parameter fine-tuning; do not flash the firmware or perform any hardware-level modifications. Miss Evelyn, please provide temporary read-only access."

After obtaining permission, Su Mu immediately took out her rugged laptop, which was covered with various labels and looked like it had been heavily modified and tinkered with, and connected it to the "accelerator" with a special data cable.

Her fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard, bringing up a complex debugging interface, with lines of code and parameter streams scrolling across the screen.

Just then, Excellence, who had been huddled in the chair, seemed to be attracted by the characters jumping on the screen and Su Mu's focused expression.

He curiously and slowly leaned over, tilting his head, his blurred vision struggling to focus on the scrolling code on the screen.

After watching for a while, he suddenly stretched out his slightly trembling finger, pointed to a section of function code on the screen that was being executed in a loop and responsible for generating the core stimulation waveform, and said vaguely but with absolute certainty: "Here... wrong... loop boundary... overflow... will prick... need to change... add a... smoothing window..."

The terminology he spoke was fragmented and incoherent, more like an intuitive description of a "feeling."

Su Mu was startled and turned to look at Excellence in surprise.

She immediately located that code according to Excellence's vague instructions.

After a careful check, she was shocked to find that the algorithm did indeed have an extremely hidden boundary condition defect when generating specific sequences of peak pulses!

In extreme cases (such as when triggered by specific brainwave states), it could cause the pulse energy to momentarily slightly exceed the limit, producing a sharp "digital glitch" that could cause neural discomfort!

This defect was hidden very deeply, difficult to detect by conventional testing, and perhaps even... left intentionally?

She remained calm and did not make a scene, but simply followed the train of thought Excellence "spoke," quickly added a smoothing filter function to the code, modified the boundary condition judgment logic, and optimized the pulse shaping algorithm.

Throughout the process, Evelyn and the supervisor were watching from the side, but in their eyes, this was just Su Mu making some soothing, insignificant parameter fine-tuning based on Excellence's "feelings."

After finishing the modifications, Su Mu saved the settings and disconnected the data cable. She picked up the device again. This time, instead of handing it directly to Excellence, she held it to her ear to feel it for a moment (though she couldn't feel anything), then tentatively handed it to him: "Alright, Excellence, I've made it a bit more 'gentle.' Why don't you try it again?"

Something surprising happened. When the modified device approached again, Excellence did not show his previous resistance. He hesitantly and cautiously reached out a finger to touch the surface of the device, tilting his head as if feeling something. Then, the look of vigilance and disgust on his face gradually faded, replaced by a trace of curiosity and confusion: "Hmm... now... it's warm... it doesn't bite anymore..." He even proactively lowered his head slightly, cooperating as Su Mu helped him put on the device.

Even more miraculous effects followed. When the device started up, running the smoother and gentler stimulation algorithm modified by Su Mu, the usually unreliable Emotion-Visualization Device on Excellence's head had its LED lights turn unusually stable and bright, displaying a soft green color representing "calm focus," and the blinking frequency became extremely regular. More importantly, Excellence's gaze seemed to clear up as well; the previous confusion and listlessness had diminished significantly, replaced by a glimmer of focus and thought. He even took the initiative to pick up a pen and began to draw rapidly on paper. This time, what he drew was no longer just chaotic lines, but a circuit diagram with a clearly more complex and sophisticated structure. The coupling methods and energy level annotations of several key Nodes even vaguely revealed the prototype of some kind of... advanced scheme for information control based on Quantum Entanglement!

Evelyn stood to the side, watching this sudden, near-miraculous change in shock. She suppressed the intense turbulence in her heart, maintaining an expression of professional surprise and delight on her face. However, her fingers had already silently pressed the miniature sensor hidden in her pocket, transmitting the device serial number, a summary of the parameter logs modified by Su Mu, and a clear image of the sketch drawn by Excellence back to The Foundation headquarters via a highly covert link, rapidly encrypted. "The target possesses an extraordinary intuitive Perception capability regarding the underlying code of the devices, able to accurately identify and guide the optimization of hidden design flaws. The optimized device produces a significant positive promotional effect on his cognitive functions. Attached is the newly generated, suspected high-level technical sketch." She appended a concise report.

On the other end, Morpheus Li received this report almost instantly. Looking at the sketch that had been sent back—which was more complex and closer to a practical solution than any previous "doodles"—he was overjoyed. He stood up abruptly from his chair and paced excitedly around his office: "Excellent! It's just as predicted! He can not only perform Perception but also optimize! With external assistance, he can even convert the information contained in the pandora fragments into clearer, more actionable technical blueprints! Continue testing! Increase the intensity and depth of the tests! But be more careful; you must not let the other party discover our true intentions!" He felt as if he could already see the key to the door of the new world being slowly forged.

However, all of this was actually within Wang Jianguo's expectations and control. He had long since figured out the methods The Foundation might employ through the infiltration of "Shadow." He had deliberately allowed Evelyn to send the devices in and tacitly permitted Su Mu to perform "assisted debugging," which was, in fact, a precise counter-measure using their own strategy against them. He knew well of Excellence's near-instinctive, astonishing intuition for technology and energy fields (this might be a talent retained in another form after his brain damage), and he also trusted Su Mu's technical abilities and her faith in Excellence. Letting Su Mu and Excellence "accidentally" modify these devices not only satisfied Morpheus Li's voyeuristic desire and greed for acquiring "inspiration," but also effectively kept the control and risks of the devices firmly in his own hands, while also using their own strategy to feed back some "technical bait" that had been screened and controlled—seemingly tempting but actually harmless or difficult to crack.

In the following days, with Evelyn "actively cooperating" and Su Mu "assisting from the side," several more "high-tech devices" that The Foundation had "meticulously" sent in, claiming to have various miraculous rehabilitation effects, were brought in. They all, more or less, carried some extremely hidden and functionally suspicious "features" or "flaws."

An ultra-high-precision heart rate variability analyzer, which Excellence frowned at and said, "The sound of the heartbeat is too noisy... there's static... it's like a lot of people arguing." After Su Mu checked the code, she discovered it had a built-in abnormal heart sound spectrum theft and emotional state classification upload module. She "assisted" Excellence in modifying it into a genuine local device that could only detect slight emotional fluctuations.

An expensive active gait training and balance correction exoskeleton, which Excellence complained about after taking two steps, saying, "My legs are being dragged... it's uncomfortable... like a wooden puppet." Su Mu discovered a hidden complex log system in its control kernel used to collect motor nerve signal patterns and muscle micro-current characteristics. Under Excellence's vague hint that "it feels like it should follow my strength... don't guess randomly," Su Mu successfully modified the algorithm, turning it into a trainer that could truly provide adaptive assistance based on Excellence's own weak neural signal intentions.

Every successful "modification" was accompanied by a small but visible improvement in Excellence's cognitive abilities. He spoke more fluently, his logic improved, and his fragmented memories began to show signs of slow integration. He even joked that the instant coffee Su Mu heated in the laboratory microwave tasted much better than the liquid food provided by the hospital's nutritional cafeteria, which tasted like "battery fluid."

Su Mu watched every bit of her friend's progress with joy, her heart filled with a sense of accomplishment, naively believing this was a miracle brought about by rehabilitation training and friendship. Evelyn, meanwhile, was busy recording the detailed data of every "modification" and every moment of Excellence's "bursts of inspiration," transmitting them encrypted back to The Foundation continuously, while her heart grew increasingly conflicted and uneasy. Wang Jianguo, however, sat steadily in the backstage command center, controlling the overall situation with a smile through layers of monitoring, like an experienced angler, calmly reeling in and letting out the fishing line, watching the fish chase after fake bait in their self-righteous cleverness.

What no one anticipated was that during a seemingly ordinary parameter debugging of a "multi-sensory integration stimulation system," Excellence, in an unconscious state and relying on his intuition that could not be explained by common sense, guided Su Mu to replace a common algorithm used to generate random background noise with a mathematical expression he had casually drawn, which had an extremely strange and complex structure. Although Su Mu couldn't understand it, relying on her trust in Excellence and her technical sensitivity, she compiled it and embedded it into the system. This small, seemingly meaningless change was later discovered by cryptographers at the National Special Bureau. The core algorithm, by a twist of fate, formed the core of an extremely efficient true random number generator, which, by another twist of fate, became the key key in a future operation to crack one of The Foundation's core encryption systems... Sometimes, fate's unintentional planting of willows is more ingenious than the most precise calculations.

On a calm afternoon, sunlight shone through the high-strength glass windows of the rehabilitation room, casting warm spots of light on the floor. Excellence had just finished "modifying" a small biofeedback device when, suddenly, without warning, he put down the tools in his hand and turned his head, staring blankly at the distant, undulating city skyline outside the window. His eyes became somewhat empty and distant, as if gazing at some invisible place far away.

Su Mu was tidying up the tools and noticed his abnormality. Concerned, she walked up and asked softly: "What's wrong, Excellence? Does something hurt? Or is your headache back?"

Excellence turned his head slowly, his gaze gradually focusing and landing on Su Mu's concerned face. At that moment, Su Mu clearly saw that his eyes were no longer filled with the childlike ignorance and listlessness of the past. Instead, they flickered with a long-lost, profound light of wisdom that seemed to pierce through the fog. That light was so familiar that her heart skipped a beat!

He opened his mouth slightly. Although his voice was still somewhat slow, it was much clearer and steadier than before, carrying the focus of someone deep in thought: "Squad Leader... I think... I remember something... some fragments... flickering... it's like... about... Quantum... and consciousness... how they... are entangled together... field theory..." His words were still disjointed, as if he were struggling to salvage the fragments of memory buried in the deepest parts of his mind. But the concepts contained within and that contemplative expression made Su Mu hold her breath instantly, as if she were seeing the shadow of the genius boy who used to roam freely in the laboratory and in the ocean of theoretical physics, now struggling to return, piercing through the layers of cognitive fog.

A glimmer of hope, brighter than ever before, suddenly shone into the depths of Su Mu's heart.