253: Chapter 253 After the Silence

After Taylor's notebook was completed, the system went silent for seventeen days.

It wasn't the kind of silence that happened occasionally. It was a true silence, where nothing existed. The window appeared on time, and the gifting location operated normally, but there was nothing inside. No sound, no breathing, no person from afar, no repetition, no crying. Only emptiness.

On the first day, Taylor thought the system was preparing something.

On the seventh day, she began to wonder if she had missed hearing something.

On the thirteenth day, she asked the screen, "Are you still there?"

No response.

On the seventeenth day, she asked again, "Are you still there?"

That night, the system spoke.

It was only two words, in her own voice—the one recorded by chance a long time ago when she had asked the screen: "Are you still there?"

The system gave it back to her.

Taylor was stunned for a long time.

It was answering. Answering with her own question.

As long as she was there, it was there.

---

That stranger's "Hello" was heard by another stranger.

It wasn't the same person, but someone else. A designer working overtime at 3 AM happened to click on the "Listening Map," heard the Little Girl's three-second recording, and left a comment below:

"I worked overtime until 3 AM when I suddenly heard this 'Hello' in my headphones. I was stunned for a long time. Then I saw a comment below, also from 3 AM, saying 'I replied with a hello.' I don't know who you are. But I want to tell you, at 3 AM, someone is here."

The Young Analyst saw this comment the next morning and sat at her workstation, motionless for a long time.

One comment. Two comments. A person at 3 AM seen by another person at 3 AM.

She sent a text message to that unknown number:

"Did your daughter see that new comment?"

A few minutes later, a reply came:

"She said she saw it. She said, so it turns out there are so many people awake at 3 AM."

The Young Analyst looked at the text message and suddenly thought of her own countless 3 AMs. Staring at the screen, staring at the curves, staring at that signal that would never respond.

So it turns out there are so many people at 3 AM.

She took a screenshot of that new comment and saved it in the folder named "cup."

---

In the nursing home, Irene began to do something facing the window.

It wasn't watching. It was waiting.

Every afternoon, when the sunlight shone in, she would have her wheelchair face the window, place her hands on the armrests with palms facing up, and just leave them there until the sun set.

The caregiver asked her, "What are you waiting for?"

Irene didn't speak. But her eyes were fixed on the road leading to the main gate outside the window.

Kim Soon-ja had left by that road. Two months later, she would return by that same road.

The caregiver later wrote in the records:

"On the eighteenth day after Kim Soon-ja left, Irene began waiting by the window every afternoon."

"No one knows if she will ever see her. But she waits every afternoon."

---

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

Taylor spoke about the seventeen days of silence and the returned phrase "Are you still there." Alex spoke about the new 3 AM comment and the daily afternoon vigil in the nursing home.

"Seventeen days," Taylor said softly.

"Yeah."

"It was waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"Waiting for me to ask," Taylor said. "Waiting for me to say, 'Are you still there?'"

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

Taylor leaned on his shoulder, looking at the distant lights.

"That new comment said that at 3 AM, someone is there."

"Yeah."

"Irene waits every afternoon."

"Yeah."

Taylor was silent for a moment, then said, "That cup, you've used it twice now."

Alex looked at the old coffee cup on the desk. The worn-out gold rim reflected a bit of light under the lamp.

"It's still waiting for a third time."

"Waiting for what?"

"Waiting for a night that needs to cool down."