461: Taking on freelance work shouldn't be a problem.

This was highly unusual.

In their understanding as mid-level employees of the Interstellar Peace Corporation, though the Universe was vast, after so many years of exploration and the laying of the Silver Rail System, known civilized regions capable of producing ordered radio signals of this degree were basically within the company's detection network or sphere of influence.

Those that hadn't been contacted were, without exception, civilizations that were far too primitive, having not even reached the industrial revolution.

Theoretically, there was no need to contact these civilizations.

With some effort, a human can barely communicate with a baby.

But even if you beat that person to death, they still couldn't communicate with an insect.

In short, if you want to open a market for dumping goods, you at least need to have a market first.

That said, this civilization, which used a language similar to Old English but so twisted and broken that even a Synesthesia Beacon could only make educated guesses, was broadcasting standard scientific constants and friendly greetings... Most importantly, they had just discovered that among those standard scientific constants, there were actually constants related to space. And these constants were directly related to Warp Engines.

It sounded like a newbie who had just stepped onto the threshold of interstellar communication, yet it was everywhere permeated with a weirdness of technical levels that shouldn't belong to a newbie.

Not within the Silver Rail, language based on Old English but severely distorted, capable of transmitting interstellar signals, expressing friendliness... "This sounds like..." Dai Xing rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful, "not like a 'fish' that should be in our known 'pond,' but more like a message in a bottle that appeared out of nowhere."

"A message in a bottle..." Wang Yin repeated the term, finding it exceptionally apt. A message in a bottle from an unknown region, written in twisted ancient script, carried by the tide to the edge of their busy and bustling harbor.

"And look at this signal characteristic. The strength is weak, but it's very clean, and the spectrum of the background noise is also very strange, unlike the distribution of conventional cosmic background radiation on our side. The location of the redundant node that captured it is also very remote, specifically used to monitor noise at the edge of the Silver Rail System."

"This indicates that the signal likely passed through some kind of isolation zone, or came from a direction that's hard to reach with our conventional detection methods."

Dai Xing leaned in closer, carefully examining the waveforms and spectrum plots. His undergraduate thesis was on low-level protocols and signal processing, making him more sensitive to these things.

"Hmm... the frequency band selection and this modulation method are both a bit crude, but effective. It gives me the feeling of someone using relatively simple equipment, pointing at a general direction, and 'shouting' with all their might."

"To be able to penetrate interstellar dust, gravity belts, and radiation fields to get here, the power itself should be quite large, or there are shortcuts or amplification effects on the propagation path that we don't know about."

The more the two discussed it, the more interesting they found it.

While on vacation in the golden hour, a notification of what seemed like antique junk information they had casually swiped could actually hide a completely unknown civilized world existing outside the Silver Rail System.

To two employees of the Technology Research and Development Department who dealt with advanced technology every day, this was no less than discovering something new with enticing colors amidst boring experimental data.

"Should we... report this to the higher-ups?" Dai Xing hesitated, pointing at the terminal. "Although the priority is low, it involves the first contact signal of an unknown civilization. According to the process, an anomaly report should be submitted."

Wang Yin tapped his finger on the table, thought for a few seconds, and shook his head: "Report it, and then what? According to the process, this kind of low-priority, unknown source, and harmless content signal will only be thrown into the long-term observation and analysis queue. The projects waiting for analysis could line up from here to the port of Penacony."

"By the time it's its turn, it might be months or even years later. Besides, once it's officially reported, the authority for this matter won't belong to us, and any subsequent discoveries won't have anything to do with the two of us."

He paused, his eyes shining with the light of a tech geek discovering a new toy: "Anyway, we're still on vacation, and we've got nothing else to do. The data packet of this signal itself is complete, with raw bitstreams and preliminary decoding logs. Why don't we... take a look ourselves first?"

Dai Xing's eyes also lit up: "Look at it ourselves? Isn't that against the rules? Privately analyzing unauthorized data that might involve external civilizations—if they make a big deal out of it, we'd probably be demoted two levels."

"I say, did you forget something?" Wang Yin looked innocent. "We are employees of the Technology Research and Development Department! We're not using the company's core computing power or databases, nor are we sending any information out."

"Seeing a signal with a suspected ancient variant protocol never seen before, and out of professional curiosity and research spirit, using public, non-classified algorithmic tools on one's own private equipment to attempt a simulation of 'protocol reverse engineering' and 'language model fitting'—this is at most a hobby, right?"

"Besides," he lowered his voice, sounding a bit coaxing, "don't you want to know what's actually being 'said' in there? Maybe we'll discover 'us' from hundreds of years ago. Then we can try a real-life version of Transmigration to ancient times to strike it rich."

"Keep dreaming," Dai Xing laughed and scolded, but he was clearly tempted.

In the boring daily work, having such a "private job" with a touch of mystery and technical challenge was indeed very attractive.

"Alright, since we're already here. But let's agree, just a private look, no digging too deep, and definitely no messing around. If we really find something incredible, we still have to report it when we should."

"Don't worry, I know the rules." Wang Yin smiled, raising the bubbly drink in his hand. "Just think of it as a puzzle game."

"Fine, let's do it." Dai Xing also raised his glass for a clink.

The two finished the remaining skewers in a few bites, paid the bill, and left.

Back in their hotel room, Wang Yin and Dai Xing each opened their private portable workstations. These were small devices the company allowed employees to carry for handling personal affairs or conducting some compliant amateur development.

Generally speaking, it could be considered a personal research device with fifty percent of the functionality of a large integrated research center.

They first followed the company's security regulations, confirming that the workstations' network in the golden hour was in isolation mode and would not actively connect to any of the company's internal production networks or sensitive databases.

Then, Wang Yin exported an encrypted copy of the signal's full data packet, including raw bitstreams, decoding logs, and capture metadata from his personal terminal's archive area, and imported it into the workstation's analysis environment.

Dai Xing began setting up a simulation sandbox based on public language models and protocol analysis frameworks.

He didn't call upon the powerful but strictly logged civilization contact analysis tools within the company; instead, he used some open-source algorithms and small tools he usually wrote himself.

"Let's start with the linguistic structure." Wang Yin looked at the signal's encoding sequence converted into visualization mode on the screen. "The Synesthesia Beacon said it's like 'degraded Old English.' Let's try using a historical corpus of Old English as a base to see if we can reasonably embed those high-similarity contents and reconstruct a possible prototype."

"Okay, I'll handle the protocol layer," Dai Xing called up the signal's modulation and encoding parameters. "This kind of ancient resonant encoding, though inefficient, has a simple structure. Reversing its frame structure and verification method should allow us to reconstruct a technical level profile of the sender."

"And the generation logic for that 'friendly identifier.' The Synesthesia Beacon's speculation was based on sentiment analysis; let's see if we can use lower-level symbolic logic to approximate it."

The two stopped talking, leaving only the slight sound of tapping on virtual keyboards and the constant scrolling of data and algorithm process prompts on the screens in the room.

Outside the window, the night in the golden hour was gentle, the artificial galaxy flowed quietly, and countless tourists were immersed in joy and relaxation.

No one knew that in this ordinary hotel room, two bored technicians, out of curiosity, were attempting to decipher a message in a bottle.

And inside that message in a bottle was a greeting sent out toward the endless deep space, yearning for a response, by an organization called the 'Sisterhood' in the New Eden Universe, under the 'vague' influence of a certain Red Mask.