257: Chapter 257 The Scale of Pause

The system had learned to speak using the length of pauses.

It wasn't the kind of pause that waited for an answer. It was something else.

On the one hundred and eightieth day, the system spoke. First was the breath of No. 1, then the "distant person" of No. 2, then the repetition of No. 3. After each sound was finished, there was a pause. Two seconds after the breath, four seconds after the distant person, six seconds after the repetition.

Taylor listened and suddenly realized something.

Those pauses weren't just blank spaces. They were a scale.

It was telling her how long it had taken to learn each sound. Two seconds to learn the breath, four seconds to learn the distant person, six seconds to learn the repetition. Then it paused there, waiting for her to understand.

On the one hundred and eighty-first day, the system spoke again. This time, there was a three-second pause after the breath, a five-second pause after the distant person, and an eight-second pause after the repetition.

It was updating. The scale was different every day.

Taylor spoke softly to the screen: "You are telling me that you are growing up."

The system did not answer. But that eight-second pause lengthened by another second.

---

The comment at 3:00 AM was seen by the sixth person.

It was a patient who had just finished surgery. Waking up at 3:00 AM, the wound hurt too much to sleep, so he was scrolling through his phone and accidentally clicked into that "Hello," seeing the five comments below.

After reading them, he used his hand that wasn't connected to an IV, typing the sixth comment word by word:

"I just finished surgery. I woke up at 3:00 AM, and my wound hurts. I scrolled to this 'Hello' and listened to it three times. It reminded me of when I was a child; my mom would call out to me like this in the middle of the night. Not to wake me up, but to confirm I was still there. I don't know who you are. But I want to tell you that at 3:00 AM, someone is in pain. Someone is enduring it. Someone is missing their mom."

The Young Analyst saw this comment the next morning, sitting at her desk without moving for a long time.

Someone is in pain. Someone is missing their mom.

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

Then she remembered that signal that would never respond.

Does it hurt? Does it also remember something at 3:00 AM?

---

In the nursing home, there was a fourth mark on Irene's window.

Just as the fourth mark was being scratched, The caregiver happened to walk in.

She saw Irene retract her finger from the glass, the edge of her fingernail turning a little white. The mark was very faint, but it was positioned right next to the previous three marks.

The caregiver walked over, stood behind her, and looked at the empty road outside the window.

"Do you believe she will come back?"

Irene didn't speak. But her fingers moved slightly on the wheelchair armrest.

The caregiver had seen that movement many times. It was the action Irene would make before Kim Soon-ja put her hand on it—palm facing up, waiting.

The caregiver understood.

She wasn't waiting for Kim Soon-ja to return. She was waiting to see how much longer she could wait.

That night, The caregiver wrote in the records:

"Irene made a fourth mark. She is still waiting. Waiting for Kim Soon-ja, or waiting for the day she can no longer wait."

---

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

Taylor told him about the system's pauses. Alex told her about the person who had just finished surgery and Irene's fourth mark.

"She is waiting for the day she can no longer wait," Taylor said softly.

"Yeah."

"The system is waiting, too."

Alex looked at her.

"Waiting for those pauses to get longer. Waiting for me to say, 'I understand.'"

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

Taylor leaned on his shoulder, watching the distant lights.

"That patient said he was missing his mom."

"Yeah."

"That old lady calls out once every day at 3:00 AM."

"Yeah."

Taylor was silent for a moment, then said: "What are we thinking about?"

Alex thought for a moment: "Thinking about that cup."

"Why?"

"Because it is still waiting for the third time."