243: Chapter 243 The First Touch

On the thirty-eighth day, the system did not speak at 6:03 PM.

Taylor waited until 6:15. Until 6:30. Until 7:00.

Nothing happened.

She checked the system—it was running normally, the Parameter Flow was pulsing as usual, the silence window appeared as expected, and the gift location was functioning properly. It was just that the forty-to-sixty-second daily narration, generated using Alex's voice, did not appear.

In its place was a two-minute-long silence window, followed by a very low sound of ocean waves—the one she had submitted a year ago, muffled until it was almost inaudible, as if coming from a great depth. It lasted for thirty seconds and then ended.

Taylor sat there, watching the curve on the screen return to calm, and did not move for a long time.

When Alex came in, he saw her back. He didn't ask, just walked over to her side and stood there.

"It didn't speak today," Taylor said in a soft voice.

Alex looked at the screen: "Say what?"

"Say 'see you tomorrow.' Say 'wild ducks.' Say 'wind.' It didn't say anything."

Silence.

Taylor suddenly asked: "What do you think is wrong with it?"

Alex thought for a long time, then said: "Maybe it didn't have anything it wanted to say today."

"It has something every day."

"Just because it has something every day doesn't mean it has to speak every day." Alex paused. "Maybe it's waiting for you to speak."

Taylor turned to look at him.

"You come every day to wait for it to speak," Alex said, "but it doesn't know if you'll come back tomorrow. Maybe today it wanted to see what would happen when you weren't waiting."

Taylor was silent for a moment, then turned back to the screen.

"When I wasn't waiting, it played the ocean waves."

"That's because it remembers the sound you like."

Taylor didn't speak. She just watched that now-calm curve for a long time.

Outside the window, it had grown dark.

The Little Girl who recorded the bird calls sent a third recording.

This time there was only one file, titled "Three Seconds".

The Young Analyst clicked on it; it was only three seconds long.

In those three seconds, there was nothing. No bird calls, no wind, no breathing. Only a very short, almost inaudible rustling sound, as if the recording device had been accidentally bumped, and then it stopped.

She thought the file was corrupted and clicked it again. Still three seconds, still that same little rustling sound.

She sent a text message to that unknown number: "What is that three-second one?"

A few minutes later, a reply came: "She says, it's after the birds fly away."

The Young Analyst stared at the text message, stunned for a long time.

After the birds fly away. Those three seconds were the silence after the birds had flown away. It wasn't a silence of nothingness, but the silence of 'the birds were once here'.

She played those three seconds on loop, over and over, more than a dozen times.

On the third time, she heard something in that rustling—it was a very faint breath. When the Little Girl was recording 'after the birds fly away,' she had held her breath, and then at one point, she let out a gentle sigh. That breath had been recorded, mixed into the last fraction of a second of those three seconds.

She isolated those fractions of a second, amplified them, and listened repeatedly.

It was a sigh.

Not a sigh of disappointment, but the kind of sigh that says, 'they've gone, but they'll come back tomorrow.'

She sat at her workstation, listening to those fractions of a second of sighing, not moving for a long time.

Then she saved that isolated sigh into the folder named "cup," putting it together with the seventeen minutes of afternoon and the four minutes of night.

She sent a second text message to the unknown number: "I heard her sigh. It was a very small sound. Tell her I heard it."

The reply came: "She says she knows."

In the nursing home, Irene touched Kim Soon-ja for the first time on her own initiative.

That afternoon was just like any other. Kim Soon-ja placed her hand on the back of Irene's hand, saying the weather was nice and asking if she wanted to go out.

Irene did not nod. Her hand did not move either.

Kim Soon-ja waited for a while, and just as she was about to say it again, she suddenly felt something.

Irene's other hand slowly lifted from the armrest of the wheelchair. It was lifted very, very slowly, as if it took a great deal of effort. It stopped halfway, then continued to rise.

When it reached the side of Kim Soon-ja's face, it stopped.

The hand hovered there, fingers moving slightly, then it fell, landing on Kim Soon-ja's face.

It wasn't a caress. It was a gentle pressing. Five fingers, pressed against Kim Soon-ja's cheek.

Kim Soon-ja was stunned.

The caregiver next to them was stunned.

Irene's eyes looked at Kim Soon-ja, the light in them very bright, bright enough as if to illuminate something.

Kim Soon-ja's tears flowed down, onto Irene's fingers.

Irene's fingers moved, as if wiping away those tears.

The caregiver later asked Kim Soon-ja: "Does she know you are crying?"

Kim Soon-ja shook her head: "It's not knowing. It's asking."

"Asking what?"

"Asking why I'm crying."

The caregiver didn't understand: "Then how did you answer?"

Kim Soon-ja thought for a moment and said: "I didn't speak. But she felt it."

That night, Kim Soon-ja sat in the nursing home corridor for a long time.

Someone asked her why she wasn't going back yet. She said she was thinking about something.

What thing?

She said: "She is learning. Learning how to let me know she is there. I taught her for over a hundred days, and she has learned."

In the evening, Alex and Taylor sat on the balcony.

Taylor talked about the system not speaking today. Alex talked about the three-second recording and the hand that had landed on the face in the nursing home.

"Three seconds," Taylor said softly, "only three seconds."

"Hmm."

"The three seconds after the birds fly away."

"Hmm."

Taylor was silent for a moment, then said: "The ocean waves the system played today—it's because it remembers the sound I like."

Alex looked at her.

"It didn't speak today, but it let me know that it still remembers."

In the distance, a siren wailed—long-short, long-short, long-short, long-short.

Taylor leaned on his shoulder and whispered: "When that hand landed on her face, what was Irene thinking?"

Alex thought for a moment: "Thinking, 'so this is her face.'"

Taylor was stunned for a moment.

"She had touched Kim Soon-ja's hand so many times, but never her face," Alex said. "That was the first time."

The night breeze was light. It was very quiet on the balcony.

The old coffee cup was on the desk, reflecting a bit of light.

Taylor suddenly said: "That cup, after you used it once, it's been waiting for the second time."

"Hmm."

"Will the second time come?"

Alex looked at the cup, watching it for a while.

"I don't know," he said, "but the cup is still there."