160: Chapter 160 The Rhythm of the Editing Room

Burbank's editing room became Alex Su's new battlefield.

There were no spotlights here, only countless flickering screens, intricate cables, and the scent of caffeine and focus permeating the air.

But for Alex, this place was more exciting than any stage.

His four-person team quickly fell into a rhythm.

Their workflow was highly collaborative: the editor would show a new rough cut sequence, and Alex and the sound designer would immediately experiment with different emotional recipes on the "Sound Palette" system.

Sometimes it was increasing the crispness of "Error Correction" within the "Data Torrent" to match an unexpected data flashback on screen, and sometimes it was lowering the sharpness of "Malicious Attack" in favor of a low, humming sound representing "System Underlying Anxiety" to complement the character's somber expression.

Alex played the role of "Sound Director" in all of this.

He not only grasped the overall direction but, relying on the subtle intuition for the "energy texture" of sound brought by his [Energy Perception], he could often offer refreshing adjustment suggestions.

For example, in a key scene in the "Memory Graveyard," the protagonist touches a broken data crystal, and memories flash by.

The initial sound design leaned towards crystalline shattering sounds and ethereal echoes.

After listening, Alex suggested: "Memories aren't all beautiful. This crystal might also carry painful or chaotic memories. Beneath the high-frequency shattering, could we layer a very, very low, muffled sound—like heavy metal twisting or perhaps... the rubbing of old leather? You don't need to hear it clearly, just let the ears 'feel' that uncomfortable underlying pressure."

The sound designer tried it, and after adding that almost imperceptible low-frequency texture that brought a faint psychological discomfort, the emotional depth and complexity of the entire memory sequence improved by more than a notch.

Even the usually critical Visual Effects Supervisor stroked his chin and said: "Hmm... this feels more 'real,' more human. Memories in a data ruin should naturally be stained with rust and dust."

After a few similar precise suggestions, the core members in the editing room changed their view of Alex from the initial "musical genius trying a crossover" to "this guy's understanding of sound narrative is eerily accurate."

Zack Snyder even joked during lunch: "Alex, do you have some kind of emotional decoder installed in your ears?"

Alex just smiled, attributing the credit to "maybe I'm just sensitive to the emotional symbolism of sound."

This sensitivity, recognized in the professional field as a rare talent, perfectly masked the extraordinary essence beneath it.

Although the work was high-intensity, progress was rapid and full of creative pleasure.

Immersed in this top-tier industrial collaboration three days a week, Alex felt his own understanding of "narrative" itself deepening rapidly.

This growth even fed back into his other work.

The operations team for "Echo Blind Box" noticed that Alex's comments on submissions, especially his excavation of "narrative potential" and "emotional layers," had become sharper and more insightful.

He even opened a small column on the platform called "Narrative Sound Lab," sharing simple tips learned from film work on how to tell a good short story with sound, which was deeply loved by core users.

Taylor's new single had entered the final mixing stage.

She specifically picked an evening when Alex returned from the editing room to have him help listen one last time with "those ears honed by film."

The two huddled in front of the studio's monitoring system.

Alex didn't intervene too much in technical details; he just closed his eyes and listened, occasionally pointing out that a certain passage's "emotional progression could be more decisive," or that a harmony's "energy could be more concentrated; it's a bit scattered right now."

After Taylor fine-tuned it according to his feeling, the effect was often immediate.

"You've started using terms like 'energy concentration' when giving feedback now." Taylor smiled at him after finishing the adjustments, "Though... it's damn accurate."

"Birds of a feather." Alex put his arm around her shoulder, and the two listened to the final completed version together, immersed in the satisfaction of their joint creation.

On the platform side, the seventh-week theme for "Echo Puzzle," "All Things Have Spirits," went live, encouraging users to find and record sounds in the natural world or everyday objects that seemed to have life or soul.

Submissions once again brought countless surprises: the wailing of wind passing through a cave like the earth's sigh, the subtle groaning of an old house's wooden structure under temperature changes, and even the "sigh" with a sense of metallic fatigue emitted by a rusted spring slowly rebounding on its own...

Alex instructed the operations team to establish a "Monthly Echo Star" award starting from this issue, comprehensively evaluating the most creative, narrative-potential, or moving works and their creators from all "Echo Puzzle" and "Echo Blind Box" entries over the past month, granting them more generous rewards and deeper development resource inclination (such as professional training opportunities, signing cooperation with the platform, etc.).

He wanted to normalize and stratify this incentive system, truly building an upward path from "playing around" to "professional."

The Architect's feedback regarding anomaly scanning remained in a calm state of "sporadic activity detected, interference effective, no signs of escalation for now."

Alex instructed Hank to just maintain daily security and not be overly nervous.

He put more energy into a "defensive" layout: through the official channels of "Echo Vision," he high-profile sponsored several cutting-edge legal research projects on digital privacy protection and creative copyright, and established strategic partnerships with several reputable cybersecurity companies.

These measures were reasonable on the surface, while also invisibly reinforcing his own moat.

On Friday night, work in the editing room came to an end.

Alex didn't return directly to Malibu but drove to a secluded sea cliff.

This place was far from the main road, with only the eternal sound of waves hitting the rocks.

He stood alone on the cliff edge, letting the strong sea breeze blow.

Then, he slowly and completely released the shackles of [Energy Perception], no longer limiting himself to vigilance or fine analysis, but letting his perception spread as far as possible like ripples, to "touch" the salt particles in the wind, the surging of the seawater, the stability of the rock strata, the radiation of distant stars in the night sky, and even the ubiquitous, faint background "noise" of the universe.

In this state of total emptiness yet high connection, he once again captured that trace of familiar, artificial abnormal frequency.

This time, it was weaker, more intermittent, as if a cautious probe was touching the edge of his energy field from afar and tentatively, retracting at the slightest touch.

Alex didn't make any reaction, just calmly "remembered" the orientation, intensity, and that unique "unnatural" texture of this contact.

The other party was very careful, seemingly learning and adapting to his "existence."

This was more like observation and assessment than an attack.

He withdrew his perception and took a deep breath of the crisp sea breeze.

The unknown observer might exist, but at least for now, they were maintaining a fragile distance.

And he, between the stage under the spotlight and the editing room behind the screen, between the booming platform and the warm private harbor, was growing and consolidating at an astonishing speed.

He turned and walked toward the car parked in the distance.

His phone screen lit up; it was a message from Taylor: "Made the soup you like, when are you coming back?"

Alex's lips curled up, and he replied: "Right away. Bringing back the sound of the Burbank starry sky and seawater for dinner."

The headlights cut through the night, driving toward the warm place of return.

The challenges of the editing room, the pulse of the platform, the ripples in the dark, all constituted different movements in the symphony of his forward journey.

And he was the increasingly skilled conductor.