176: Chapter 175 The Uninvited Guest

The representative from the Arbitration Tribunal arrived ahead of schedule.

When the docking ring alarm sounded, Chu Yunshen was revising the third chapter of his statement for the sixth time.

The three holographic screens in front of him displayed: Draft A (public version), Draft B (encrypted version), and Draft C (emergency version, for the worst-case scenario of "if armed conflict occurs").

The alarm made his fingers tremble, and the rhetorical balance he had just adjusted instantly became garbled.

"Identify the signal." He connected to the command center, keeping his voice steady.

"It's an official Covenant Network identification, with the ship registered as 'Arbitration Tribunal direct light cruiser - Feather of Justice'." The communicator's tone was somewhat confused, "But this visit is not on the schedule. The other party sent an informal contact request, specifying they want to see the 'direct decision-maker of the civilization'."

Lin Shen's voice cut in from the main channel: "Let them dock at the third docking port. Initiate level two diplomatic protocol; I will be there in five minutes."

"Do you need guards?" Zhao Yan asked. He had just returned from the medical area, and the scent of disinfectant still lingered on him.

"Only bring the ceremonial guard. The other party is the Arbitration Tribunal, not an enemy—at least not yet."

Three minutes later, Lin Shen stood in the observation gallery of the docking port, watching the ship slowly berth through the high-strength glass.

The "Feather of Justice" lived up to its name. It was pure white, with a hull as slender as a feather, and pale golden energy patterns flowing across its surface. There were no weapon ports—or rather, no visible weapon ports.

When the ship came to a halt, the gangway automatically extended, fitting seamlessly with the docking port's interface, with the hiss of air pressure equalization barely audible.

The hatch opened, and three people walked out.

The leader was a tall figure wearing the standard Arbiter uniform of the Covenant Network: a silver-gray robe with a rotating geometric emblem at the collar.

His face looked like that of a human male in his thirties, but his eyes were pure crystal structures, with data streams constantly flashing through his irises.

Behind him followed two attendants, who were more robust, with the sword and scales emblem of the Executive Court on their uniforms.

"I am Seventh Seat proxy, an assistant Arbiter of the Arbitration Tribunal." The leader spoke, his voice gentle, yet using clear and standard Chinese, "By the order of the Chief Arbiter, I am conducting an informal contact before the formal hearing. I hope I have not disturbed your preparations."

"Welcome, Arbiter Seventh Seat proxy." Lin Shen nodded slightly, "I am Lin Shen, the current general coordinator of the Dragon Country Civilization. Please, this way."

He did not ask "why did you come early," nor did he show any surprise. This caused the data streams in Seventh Seat proxy's crystal-like eyes to flash faster for a brief moment.

The group walked toward the reception area. On both sides of the corridor they passed, the conduits originally exposed due to repair work had been covered by temporary decorative panels, projecting landscape paintings of the Dragon Country—dynamic, ink-colored mountains rising and falling slowly, with the occasional shadow of a crane passing by. This was the "cultural atmosphere soft furnishings" that Chu Yunshen had urgently arranged fifteen minutes ago.

Seventh Seat proxy's gaze lingered on the landscape for two seconds. "A very beautiful expression of order. A balance between dynamism and tranquility."

"We call it 'artistic conception'." Lin Shen said, "An art that manifests the infinite within the finite."

The reception room was temporarily arranged, but the details were exquisite. The central round table was made of a warm, wood-like material—actually a rapidly growing biomass material, but the texture imitated sandalwood. Above the tabletop hovered a holographic miniature model of the Cradle Node, surrounded by several key data stream windows.

Everyone sat down. Seventh Seat proxy did not bring any recording equipment, but his eyes were recorders in themselves.

"First, please allow me to express the Arbitration Tribunal's recognition of your successful completion of the trial." Seventh Seat proxy said, "The report submitted by Covenant Validator GW-018 describes your 'non-standard practices' as 'creative ethical explorations'. In the validator's evaluation system, this is quite high praise."

"But we still need to undergo a hearing." Lin Shen said.

"Yes. Because creativity itself can also imply unpredictability." Seventh Seat proxy placed his hands crossed on the table, his posture relaxed, but every word was precise, "I am here today to understand one thing: how do you define your own 'civilization responsibility boundary'?"

Chu Yunshen sat behind and to the side of Lin Shen, and upon hearing this, he took a soft breath. This was a trap question—answering too conservatively would seem cowardly, answering too aggressively would seem dangerous.

Lin Shen did not answer immediately. He pulled up the technology tree interface and quickly searched for relevant entries in his consciousness. Three seconds later, he found a matching case: ID CIV-5543, "Cassandra Mirror Civilization," which suffered internal ethical collapse due to over-extending its responsibility boundary and was ultimately subjected to "civilization hibernation" by the Arbitration Tribunal.

"Our responsibility boundary is jointly defined by our upper limit of capability and our lower limit of ethics." Lin Shen spoke slowly, "The upper limit of capability refers to what we can protect; the lower limit of ethics refers to what we refuse to do."

"Specifically?"

"For example, we currently have the capability to establish permanent settlements on Mars, but we have postponed the large-scale immigration plan because we need to first complete the total restoration of Earth's ecosystem—this is the priority determined by the upper limit of capability." Lin Shen pulled up a set of data and projected it onto the table, "And the lower limit of ethics... we rejected the 'consciousness fusion evolution' proposal put forward by the divine remains, even though that might have allowed our technological level to leap forward by three hundred years. Because the proposal required us to abandon individual independence, which touched upon our civilization's bottom line."

The data streams in Seventh Seat proxy's crystal eyes flowed steadily. "Then, what about civilizations outside the Cradle Node? For example, other low-tier civilizations currently threatened by the Dream-Devouring Shadow, do you believe you have a responsibility to assist them?"

Here it came. The real question.

Lin Shen knew that his answer at this moment would directly affect the tone of the hearing.

"Responsibility is divided into three levels." He pulled up another set of charts, "The first level, contractual responsibility: if we have signed a mutual aid agreement with a certain civilization, then we are obligated to fulfill it. The second level, humanitarian responsibility: if a certain civilization encounters a disaster within our capability range and asks for help, we should try our best to assist—but on the premise that it does not endanger the survival of our own civilization. The third level, transcendent responsibility: that is, 'save all that can be saved'. We believe that a newly born civilization should not prematurely undertake the third level of responsibility, as that would lead to responsibility overdraft and moral arrogance."

"A very rational classification." Seventh Seat proxy nodded, "But your attitude toward the divine remains during the trial—that kind of care bordering on 'excessive empathy'—seems to transcend rational classification."

"Because the divine remains is not an external civilization." Lin Shen said, "From the moment it chose to fuse its seed with our network, it became a part of our civilization. There is no such thing as 'excessive' empathy for 'one's own'."

Seventh Seat proxy was silent for a moment.

His two attendants remained standing there like statues. But Lin Shen noticed that one of them was lightly tapping a certain coded rhythm against their leg—not an attack signal, but more like recording.

"One last question." Seventh Seat proxy leaned forward slightly, "Regarding the accusation from the Pruning Faction OR-007 against you—'illegal possession and activation of a high-dimensional relic'. How do you respond?"

Chu Yunshen's heart skipped a beat. This was the core accusation of the pre-arbitration application; that Seventh Seat proxy asked directly meant there was indeed disagreement within the Arbitration Tribunal.

"First, the divine remains is not a 'relic'; it is a living entity that still retains consciousness." Lin Shen pulled up the video records from the trial, especially the emotional waveforms transmitted by the divine remains at the end, "Secondly, we never 'activated' it. It was the divine remains that, upon perceiving our attempt at empathy, proactively chose to fuse. The entire process was monitored by the Covenant Validator throughout, and the data is verifiable."

"But the original state of the divine remains is indeed a creation of a now-extinct high-dimensional civilization." Seventh Seat proxy said, "Possessing it inherently implies risk."

"Possessing any unknown technology carries risks." Lin Shen looked directly into Seventh Seat proxy's crystal-like eyes, "The difference is whether we attempt to understand it and coexist with it, or like the Pruning Faction, only think about 'destroying potential threats'."

Seventh Seat proxy suddenly smiled. It was a faint smile, but it made the inhuman precision on his face fade slightly.

"A very interesting stance." He said, "I will pay attention to your complete statement at this hearing. Additionally—" He stood up, and his attendants moved in synchronization, "As a conclusion to this informal contact, I will give you an informal reminder."

Lin Shen also stood up: "Please go ahead."

"There are nine seats on the Arbitration Tribunal's hearing panel. Three are open to 'non-standard civilizations,' two are conservative, and two are neutral. The remaining two—" Seventh Seat proxy paused, "—are 'Pruning Faction sympathizers.' They won't oppose you openly, but they will create obstacles in the procedural details. For example, they might demand you demonstrate the practical application of 'civilization value encoding' on the spot."

"Demonstrate?"

"For example, they might require you to provide an immediate encoded response to a simulated ethical dilemma in front of the Arbitration Tribunal," Seventh Seat proxy said. "They will prepare an extreme scenario, intending to force you to expose logical vulnerabilities. I suggest you... prepare a 'non-standard answer' in advance."

After saying this, he nodded slightly and turned toward the docking port. Two attendants followed closely behind.

As the ship departed, Lin Shen stood in the observation gallery, watching that pure white "feather" slide silently into the starry sky.

Chu Yunshen walked up to his side. "Why is he helping us?"

"He isn't helping us," Lin Shen said. "He is balancing. There is factional infighting within the Arbitration Tribunal, and he wants us to become 'case support' for his faction."

"Then, about the demonstration..."

"Have Zhou Zhe and β-2 prepare. Retrieve all emotional data from the divine remains seed before it entered hibernation, and build an extreme scenario response model." Lin Shen turned around. "Also, notify Zhao Yan: strengthen patrols around the Cradle's perimeter. The Pruning Faction must know about Seventh Seat proxy's early visit. They might react."

"React?"

"For example, escalating the Dream-Devouring Shadow's 'probing' into actual 'harassment'."

Countdown: 10 hours 07 minutes.

At the same time, 0.5 light-seconds outside the Cradle, in the spatial wrinkle zone.

The red ripples began to pulse again. This time, fine black cracks emerged at the center of the ripples, like the texture of ice about to shatter.

From deep within the cracks, a whisper emerged. It was clearer than before:

"Sadness... delicious..."

"But not enough..."

"Want... the core of the paradox..."

"Want... the taste of the spark..."

The ripples began to slowly advance toward the Cradle's boundary.

The speed was very slow, as if testing the water temperature.

But the advance did not stop.

Deep isolation chamber in the medical zone.

Zhou Zhe stood before the monitoring screen of the divine remains seed. The seed had entered hibernation; the golden sphere of light had shrunk to the size of a fist, its surface dim and lusterless.

But he could feel it—not through instruments, but through that eerie empathic ability he had acquired since his deep connection with β-2—that some kind of change was occurring inside the seed.

It was not death. It was a metamorphosis.

Hibernation was not the end; it was reorganizing. Reorganizing what? He didn't know.

A projection of β-2 appeared beside him. "Engineer Zhou, Director Lin requires us to prepare an ethical dilemma response model. We need to access the last segment of consciousness activity recorded before the seed entered hibernation."

"What is the content of the last record?"

β-2 pulled up the data. An image appeared on the screen:

It was a scene that had never existed. It seemed to have been synthesized by the seed itself based on human cultural memory: the ruins of a classical Chinese garden, with half of the pavilions and towers collapsed and the pond dried up. In the garden stood a dead tree, hung with wooden plaques covered in writing. When the wind blew, the plaques struck each other, making hollow clattering sounds.

Each wooden plaque was inscribed with a line of poetry. Zhou Zhe recognized a few:

"Such feelings might become memories, yet at the time, I was already lost."

"Life between heaven and earth is like a traveler on a long journey."

"Now I know the full taste of sorrow, wanting to speak but holding back."

In the center of the garden stood a small, blurred figure. The figure looked up at the dead tree and reached out a hand, as if wanting to pluck a wooden plaque, but the hand stopped in mid-air.

The figure had no face.

But Zhou Zhe knew that this was the "self" the seed was trying to imagine.

"It is learning human regret," β-2 said softly. "Not sadness, but regret. That eternal echo of 'what if I had made a different choice back then'."

"Why learn this?"

"Because regret contains responsibility," β-2 said. "Responsibility to one's past self, responsibility to the path not taken. This is a more complex ethical structure than sadness."

Zhou Zhe suddenly understood what the seed was doing.

It was preparing a weapon for humanity. Not a physical weapon, nor an energy weapon.

It was a "conceptual defense device."

Using all the regrets accumulated by human civilization over thousands of years, it wove a shield—a shield that could render the Dream-Devouring Shadow's "falsification of existence" attack ineffective. Because the Dream-Devouring Shadow's proof was built on the premise that "all order eventually returns to chaos," while "regret" was precisely "another possibility of order in imagination." It was, in essence, an emotional structure that countered the "finality theory."

"Import this data into the model," Zhou Zhe said. "Also, give me the highest authorization; I want to establish a shallow consciousness bridge with the seed."

"The risk is very high. The seed is in hibernation; forced bridging might—"

"It needs to know that we understand," Zhou Zhe interrupted her. "It needs to know that we have received the 'Shield of Regret' it prepared."

β-2 was silent for two seconds, then nodded.

The bridging program initiated. Zhou Zhe closed his eyes, his consciousness extending along the neural interface, touching that dim golden sphere of light.

In an instant, countless images flooded in:

He saw the seed imitating the loneliness of Li Bai's "raising a cup to invite the moon, making three with my shadow"; he saw it reconstructing the longing in Su Shi's "ten years of life and death, vast and distant"; he saw it trying to understand why humans would still choose to "do it" even when they knew it was "impossible to achieve."

Then, he heard a voice. It was very soft, like wind passing through the branches of the dead tree in the ruined garden:

"Will you... use it?"

Zhou Zhe responded in his consciousness: "Yes. But not as a weapon; as a proof."

"Proof of what?"

"Proof that the value of our civilization does not lie in how powerful we are, but in how much we cherish—cherishing what we have had, cherishing what we have lost, and even cherishing those 'possibilities' that we never obtained."

The seed fell silent.

After a long time, it transmitted the final piece of information:

"The shield's name... is 'The Unfinished Court'."

"When you use it... remember me."

The bridge disconnected.

Zhou Zhe opened his eyes and found his face covered in tears.

β-2 handed him a sensor tissue. "It just consumed the last 3% of its activity to complete the final encoding of the shield. It has now entered deep hibernation; the recovery time... is unpredictable."

Zhou Zhe wiped away his tears and looked at the monitoring screen.

The golden sphere of light had completely dimmed, turning into a gray, stone-like orb. Its surface was covered with fine cracks, like an ancient piece of pottery.

But the arrangement of those cracks, upon closer inspection, actually formed a line of tiny Chinese characters:

"In the courtyard grows a loquat tree, planted by my wife the year she died; now it is tall and leafy, like a canopy."

—A sentence from Gui Youguang's "Xiangji Xuan Zhi." A kind of regret spanning hundreds of years.

The shield was complete.

The price was that the sower fell back into slumber.

Countdown: 9 hours 14 minutes.

Core command ring.

Lin Shen received Zhou Zhe's report and the data packet for "The Unfinished Court" shield. He opened the preview and saw the ruined garden, the dead tree and the wooden plaques, and the faceless figure.

He was silent for a full minute.

Then he pulled up the technology tree system and created a new folder under the "Civilization Heritage" category, naming it:

[Gift of the divine remains: The Weight of Regret]

He saved the data packet inside.

At the same time, he sent an instruction to Chu Yunshen:

"Revise the final chapter of the statement draft. Add a passage about 'how civilization defines treasure.' Our argument: the most precious thing is not the technology we possess, but the values we are willing to pay a price for. And 'regret' is precisely one of the prices we pay for 'cherishing'."

Chu Yunshen replied: "Understood. Also, Zhao Yan reports that the spatial wrinkle has begun to advance slowly, and its speed is increasing. According to the current trajectory, it will reach the Cradle's boundary three hours before the hearing starts."

"Initiate Level 1 alert. But do not attack proactively."

"What if it enters the boundary?"

"Then use 'The Unfinished Court'," Lin Shen said. "It will be a good chance to let the Arbitration Tribunal see how our 'non-standard' methods are applied to defense."

Countdown: 8 hours 59 minutes.

Outside the porthole, the starry sky remained tranquil.

But everyone knew that beneath the tranquility, the Undercurrent had already begun to accelerate.

And at the source of that Undercurrent—in the distant Pruning Faction control zone—in a pure white room, three silhouettes were watching the real-time monitoring data transmitted from the Cradle.

One of the silhouettes reached out and entered a string of code into the console.

The meaning of the code was:

"Initiate Plan B: sower Awakening Protocol, Phase One."

Deep in the room, a device that had never been activated lit up its first indicator light.

The color of the light was exactly the same as the golden color of the divine remains seed.