198: Chapter 199 The God's Substitute Screens Out

[Auditory takeover begins]

[Filtering invalid sounds]

[First filter target: calls for help]

When that prompt lit up, Jiangcheng didn't explode immediately.

On the contrary, the world suddenly became very quiet.

Too quiet.

In First Hospital, Xiao Man could still cry softly just a moment ago, but now, although the monitor in the incubator was clearly flashing red, Fang Ning couldn't hear the alarm.

She looked down at the gauge.

Oxygen saturation was dropping.

Beside her, Xiao Man's mother opened her mouth to shout; Fang Ning saw the lip movements but couldn't hear a thing.

Not all sounds were gone.

The sound of footsteps in the corridor was still there.

The sound of dripping water was still there.

The sound of someone dropping a cup in the distance was still there.

Only calls for help, alarms, cries of pain, and calls of names—those sounds that most needed to be heard—were filtered away layer by layer by those two golden auricles in the sky.

In the Beiyuan Mine footage, a young miner had his leg trapped by a collapsed stone rack.

He opened his mouth to shout "Help," but the surveillance footage was as quiet as a photograph.

The Old Miner passed by ten meters away from him without even turning his head.

In a Qinghe County classroom, a student was scratched by a window frame, and blood flowed down her arm.

She cried and called for the teacher. Teacher Song Qing was on the other side comforting other students, with only the God Head's gentle whispers remaining in her ears.

"Don't listen to them."

"They will make you tired."

"Only listen to me."

Teacher Song Qing's movements slowed for a moment.

She clearly felt something was wrong, but there were no calls for help in her ears.

No calls for help meant no danger.

In the Main Control Room, Lin Jin watched the footage from various locations, his expression sinking bit by bit.

The most terrifying thing wasn't being unable to hear.

It was that after being unable to hear, people would think everything was fine.

Qin Shanhe grabbed the broadcast and roared:

"All nodes, check your sites! Don't rely only on your ears!"

The broadcast sound could be transmitted.

But the words "check," "save people," and "alarm" were filtered until they were blurred; when they reached people's ears, only a meaningless segment of electrical static remained.

Luo Wensheng's Record desk suddenly burst with a silent waveform.

She covered her left ear, which had only recently recovered, her face turning pale to the point of transparency.

"In my original sound Record, the segments of calls for help are all empty."

Where the sounds should have been written on the paper, there were only straight, flat lines.

[...]

[...]

[...]

No crying.

No shouting.

No pain.

The God Head's auricles slowly rotated in the sky.

"Sounds of pain will disrupt judgment."

"Sounds of fear will create wrong actions."

"Calls for help will induce disorderly sacrifice."

"I will filter them out for you."

Chen Ye's eyes turned red instantly.

"Filter your mother!"

He roared very loudly.

Everyone saw him roaring.

But the angriest part of his voice was filtered out, leaving only a dry, breathless sound.

Even his cursing was edited by the God Head into harmless noise.

Lin Jin didn't roar.

He stared at the monitoring red light flickering constantly in First Hospital footage.

Suddenly, he grabbed a new tool and slammed the handle hard against the iron frame next to the Mainframe console.

Clang!

This sound was not a call for help.

It was an impact.

Everyone heard it.

He slammed it again.

Clang!

Then he pointed to First Hospital on the screen.

Fang Ning saw the indicator light in the corner of the screen and suddenly realized.

She couldn't hear Xiao Man's mother shouting, but she could see the monitor's red light.

She couldn't hear the alarm, but she could see the oxygen saturation value.

She rushed over to adjust the oxygen.

Xiao Man's chest began to rise and fall again.

Fang Ning didn't let out a sigh of relief; she immediately wrote on the medical chart:

[Alarm sound ineffective, red light effective.]

[Crying may be filtered, need to check vital signs regularly.]

She held this line of text up in front of the Nurse station.

The Nurses nodded one by one and began changing all monitors to a triple alert system: flashing lights, vibration, and bed rail clicking.

Lin Jin looked at Luo Wensheng.

Luo Wensheng covered her left ear, gritted her teeth, and wrote on the paper:

[Being unable to hear calls for help is itself an anomaly.]

Ye Guizhou immediately stamped it.

[Abnormal silence received]

He Zhibai added:

[Due to silence, increase patrol, visual confirmation, and vibration alert costs; to be borne by the public.]

Lin Jin looked up at the auricles in the sky.

"It filters sounds."

"Then let's listen to the silence first."

Cheng Du's eyes lit up, and he immediately activated the Mainframe bypass.

"All nodes, establish silent patrols!"

Qin Shanhe couldn't make it clear via broadcast, so he simply had people put the text on all screens that could display it:

[If there should be sound but there isn't, look immediately.]

[If a child suddenly stops crying, look.]

[If the mine suddenly stops shouting, look.]

[If the classroom suddenly goes quiet, look.]

[If the alarm light is on but there's no sound, look.]

This wasn't a slogan of resistance.

It was on-site operation.

The God Head couldn't filter "looking."

In First Hospital, Xiao Man's mother noticed the baby in the next bed suddenly stopped crying and immediately tapped on the incubator glass.

The Nurse looked over, saw the child's feet turning purple, and immediately handled it.

In the Beiyuan Mine, the Old Miner was halfway there when he suddenly stopped.

It was too quiet in the mine.

He turned back suddenly and saw a miner's lamp flickering under a rock crevice in the distance.

He couldn't hear shouting, but he saw the light where it shouldn't be.

He rushed over, smashed the rubble, and dragged that young miner out.

In Qinghe County, Teacher Song Qing finally noticed that the injured student hadn't made a sound again.

It wasn't that she was okay.

It was that her voice had been taken away.

She rushed over to press the wound and wrote fiercely on the blackboard:

[Not being able to hear does not mean no one is calling you.]

Thirty-seven students looked up at the same time.

Someone covered their mouth and cried.

Some started looking at each other's wounds, eyes, and gestures in the classroom.

The God Head's whispers sounded against everyone's ears once more.

"Vision can also misjudge."

"Silence can also be peace."

"Excessive checking will waste strength."

This time, no one was immediately convinced.

Because Xiao Man was breathing again.

The miner had been dragged out.

The injured student's bleeding had stopped.

Reality had more weight than God's comfort.

The auricles in the sky began to grow brighter.

[Silent anomaly identified]

[Activating auditory whitelist]

The next second, several types of sounds appeared in everyone's ears simultaneously.

The God Head's prompt was very clear.

"Please ignore uncertified panic information."

The official old system's broadcast was very clear.

"Maintain order."

"Wait for unified arrangements."

Some sounds deemed "useful" by God became exceptionally loud.

Management's commands.

System prompts.

Uniform assembly commands.

But ordinary people's calls for help, hesitation, questioning, and gasping were still like being covered by a thick cloth.

Cheng Du looked on with a livid expression.

"It's not making people deaf."

"It's installing a whitelist for ears."

"Only listen to what it deems useful."

Qin Shanhe slammed his fist on the table.

"Does a student crying in pain count as useless?"

"Does a miner crying for help count as useless?"

Lin Jin stared at those two golden auricles.

"In its eyes, sounds that cannot be organized are all useless."

Luo Wensheng suddenly lowered her hand covering her ear.

Her left ear was bleeding, and her translucent throat light was also trembling.

"Then don't let it organize for us."

She picked up a pen and wrote a very small title on the Record paper:

[Noise Retention List]

Below it were not pretty sentences.

They were fragments.

"Wuu."

"Pain."

"Here."

"Wait a moment."

"I'm scared."

"Don't come over."

"Look at him first."

"I don't know."

These words looked very messy.

But every single one was a type of sound that had just been filtered out by the God Head.

Luo Wensheng held up the paper.

"Calls for help aren't necessarily complete."

"Sometimes it's just a 'wuu'."

"It's just gasping for air."

"It's just suddenly going quiet."

Ye Guizhou stamped it:

[Incomplete sounds received]

[Cannot be judged as invalid due to being non-standard]

He Zhibai added:

[Processing noise costs listed as public rescue costs; must not require the caller to express clearly first.]

Lin Jin placed the new tool next to the Record desk.

"Teacher Xu."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou picked up 002.

"Which line should I cut?"

Lin Jin pointed to the new definition on the Mainframe.

[Effective sound = Executable information after God Head filtering]

"This one."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's eyes turned cold.

"Should have cut it long ago."

The God Head seemed to sense it, and the auricles in the sky suddenly pressed down.

The voices of everyone's loved ones sounded in their ears simultaneously.

"Don't be tired."

"Don't worry about it."

"You've already done enough."

"Be obedient."

These voices were not commands.

They were persuasion.

So gentle that it made people want to close their eyes.

In First Hospital, a Nurse had been rescuing for too long; hearing her mother's voice say "Come home," her fingers loosened slightly.

Fang Ning rushed over; unable to hear her own shouting, she slapped a palm-print Record in front of her.

[You just saved bed three.]

[Now bed four has a red light.]

The Nurse's eyes trembled as she looked back at the red light.

She could rest.

But she could not be dragged away by fake comfort.

Qin Shanhe saw many old students in the temporary classroom covering their ears.

They heard the principal from back then say gently:

"Don't make a sound."

"Making a sound will get you eliminated."

The Record persona of the young Qin Shanhe stood in front of them, not speaking, just holding up graduation Records one by one.

[You have already made a sound.]

[You have already graduated.]

[That is not the voice of now.]

The old students looked up one by one.

The God Head's whitelist began to show cracks.

Lin Jin and Teacher Xu Wenzhou acted simultaneously.

The new tool clamped onto that golden line, and 002 slashed down from above.

Snap!

[Effective sound = Executable information after God Head filtering] snapped.

But the auricles didn't shatter.

It immediately generated a second definition.

[Listening to too much will cause chaos]

[Needs to be noise-reduced by the center]

Cheng Du roared:

"It wants to use overload as an excuse!"

"We can't let everyone hear every call for help!"

Lin Jin nodded.

"Right."

"So it's not the whole city listening at the same time."

He grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote on the Mainframe board:

[Nearby listens first.]

[Those on duty must listen.]

[If unable, can transfer.]

[Hearing does not mean immediate obedience, but must confirm.]

[After confirmation, can save, can call people, can Record if unable to save.]

This wasn't stuffing all the pain into everyone's ears.

That would crush people.

This was giving calls for help a path, not being blocked by God.

Fang Ning immediately implemented it in The Hospital:

The Nurse on duty is responsible for red lights and crying in their area.

Nurses resting can not listen to the emergency channel, but someone must take over.

The mine set up local signal lights and vibration ropes.

In Qinghe County, each row of students had an Observer; when tired, they would switch.

A sign was hung at the entrance of the rest station:

[While resting, may not receive rescue tasks.]

[For emergency rescue, please knock on the on-duty desk.]

[If no one is on duty, must light a red sign.]

The God Head tried to interpret this as indifference.

[Some people can choose not to listen]

Lin Jin wrote directly:

[Resting is not indifference.]

[Not having someone on duty is a malfunction.]

Cheng Du laughed and typed this line into the Mainframe.

Luo Wensheng's Noise Retention List was connected to work order no. 002.

Every "pain," "scared," "help," "wait a moment," no longer required standard speech, and no longer required the whole world to hear it.

They only required one thing:

It cannot be deleted by the center on behalf of people.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou swung 002 for the second time.

Lin Jin used the new tool to stabilize the definition line.

Snap!

[Listening center trusteeship] disconnected.

A thin crack opened on the auricles in the sky.

All the filtered sounds surged back into the world like a tide.

At first, it was very chaotic.

Children crying, mine calls for help, hospital alarms, teachers taking attendance, sea breeze, train tracks, cursing, gasping—all squeezed together.

Almost drowning people.

But this time, local on-duty nodes everywhere began to divert.

People nearby listened to nearby.

Those on duty listened to those on duty.

If you can't understand, Record it.

If you can't save, transfer it.

If too tired, switch shifts.

The sounds didn't turn into God's commands.

Nor did they turn into a flood that crushed everyone.

They turned back into lines that needed to be confirmed.

The Mainframe write-back appeared.

[Listening rights belong to the individual and local relationship network, and must not be uniformly filtered by the God Head.]

[Calls for help, crying, cries of pain, incomplete expressions, and abnormal silence must not be judged as invalid sounds.]

[Hearing does not equal obedience, but creates an obligation to confirm; if unable to handle, can transfer, must not pretend not to hear.]

[Those resting may temporarily not receive rescue tasks, but the public system must ensure someone is on duty.]

[No center may delete calls for help on the grounds of noise reduction, order, or efficiency.]

Those two golden auricles in the sky lost their luster and slowly retracted into the divine body.

Jiangcheng heard its complete self again for the first time.

Noisy.

Chaotic.

Lots of crying.

Lots of cursing.

Alarms were piercing.

But everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Because the real world was never a quiet delivery room.

Lin Jin had just put down the new tool when he suddenly heard a very soft voice.

Not through the Mainframe.

Nor broadcast.

It sounded from the bottom of his own heart.

"Lin Jin."

He looked up suddenly.

The voice was very close, as if pressed against his bones.

"You have preserved the calling, and you have also preserved the listening."

"Then you should learn to see."

Deep within the Sky Gate, the Mother of All Things' eyes opened completely.

Not the God Head's eyes.

They were eyes spread throughout the city, the world, and every professional emblem.

A layer of golden annotations floated at the edge of everyone's vision simultaneously.

[Visual correction begins]

[Irrelevant pain obscuring]

[Invalid weak fading]

[Priority display: usable people, usable things, usable paths]

In First Hospital, Xiao Man's figure gradually faded before her mother's eyes.

In the Beiyuan Mine, the young miner with his leg trapped turned into a translucent obstacle.

In the rest station, exhausted people disappeared from everyone's vision, turning into gray shadows.

The God Head no longer made them unable to hear calls for help.

It wanted to make them—

unable to see the people who needed to be saved.