252: Chapter 252 After Hearing and After Leaving

The moment Taylor Allison closed her notebook, it was raining outside the window.

It wasn't a downpour, but that kind of very light, almost inaudible rain.

She looked out the window and suddenly realized that this was the first time she had noticed the rain outside while organizing those sounds.

Two hundred and fifty-three entries. Two hundred and fifty-three recordings.

From the breath in entry No. 1 to entry No. 253—which the system had just generated yesterday—a three-second silence.

She wrote underneath: Entry No. 253, 3 seconds, as if saying goodbye.

She didn't know if the system was really saying goodbye.

Perhaps it was just another random generation.

But she wrote that word.

"Goodbye."

When Alex came in, he saw her place the notebook on the table and look out the window.

"Finished writing?" he asked.

"For now," she said. "I'll write more when it says something new."

Alex walked to the window and watched the rain with her.

"Will it say anything new?"

Taylor Allison thought for a moment: "I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe it will say a lot."

The rain was light. It tapped against the window, making almost no sound.

Taylor Allison suddenly said: "I listened to that three-second silence a dozen times."

"Did you hear anything?"

"I didn't hear anything," she said. "But every time I listened, I felt like it was waiting for something."

Alex didn't speak.

The rain continued to fall.

The Little Girl's recording was heard by a stranger for the first time.

Not the Young Analyst. It was someone she didn't know at all.

That night, she was working overtime as usual, analyzing data as usual, and staring at that slightly downward-sloping curve as usual.

After eleven o'clock, her phone vibrated. It was that unfamiliar number:

"Someone left a message."

She froze for a moment. A message? What message?

"That point on the map. Your daughter's voice. Someone left a message."

She remembered the "Listening Map." The page she helped maintain but hadn't checked in a long time.

The Little Girl's voice was on there too—her mother had uploaded it for her, only three seconds, just that one "Hello."

She opened the map, found the light point, and clicked it.

Below it was a new message from an unknown account:

"I was working overtime until three in the morning when I suddenly heard this 'Hello' in my headphones. I sat frozen in the office for a long time. Then I replied with a 'Hello.' I know you won't hear it. But I wanted you to know that someone replied."

The Young Analyst stared at the message and didn't move for a long time.

She sent a text message to that unfamiliar number:

"Did you tell her?"

A few minutes later, the reply came:

"She said she knows. She said thank you."

The Young Analyst looked at the screen, suddenly remembering what she had been doing all these years.

Waiting for a signal that would never respond. Waiting for a system that would never speak.

But someone had replied to the Little Girl's "Hello."

Even if she couldn't hear it.

In the nursing home, the first morning after Kim Soon-ja left.

Irene sat in her wheelchair, facing the window as usual. The curtains were drawn, and there was nothing outside.

When The caregiver came in, they saw her hand resting on the wheelchair armrest, palm facing up.

That was where Kim Soon-ja usually placed her hand. Now it was empty.

The caregiver walked over and said softly: "Irene, it's time for breakfast."

Irene didn't move. Her eyes were still fixed on the curtains.

The caregiver waited for a moment, and just as they were about to call out again, they suddenly saw Irene's other hand slowly rise.

It rose very, very slowly. It stopped in mid-air. Then, it slowly lowered and landed in the hand that was resting, palm up, on the wheelchair armrest.

It wasn't just placing it there. It was holding it.

That hand was holding her own hand.

The caregiver stood there, not moving for a long time.

Later, they wrote in the records:

"The first day after Kim Soon-ja left, Irene learned to hold her own hand."

The rain stopped.

That evening, Alex and Taylor Allison stood on the balcony.

Taylor Allison talked about the three-second silence, the stranger's message, and the hand holding itself in the nursing home.

"She learned to hold herself," Taylor Allison said softly.

"Mhm."

"That stranger said 'Hello' to the air."

"Mhm."

Taylor Allison was silent for a moment, then said: "The system's three-second silence might be saying it to itself as well."

Alex looked at her.

"Saying goodbye," Taylor Allison said. "After saying it, it continues to wait."

A siren wailed in the distance—long-short long-short, long-short long-short.

Taylor Allison leaned on his shoulder without speaking.

The old coffee mug sat on the desk, reflecting a bit of light.

The night breeze was very light.