222: Chapter 221 The Divination on the Note, the 30-Day Window, and a Bowl of Peeling and Rejuvenating Soup
The memory index wall in the corner of the cafeteria was now covered with colorful notes. From the initial dozens to nearly a thousand now, each one carried a "fragment of meaning" of an ordinary person—about love, about loss, about persistence, and about those tiny yet real "moments of existence."
Zhou Zhe stood before this wall, the hexagram ripples in his Poem Markings slowly flowing.
He used his newly acquired ability to "see" these notes, discovering with surprise that each one was not just text, but a unique "trajectory of change." Someone had written "hot and sour noodles from when I was three," which in his eyes revealed the imagery of the "Meng Hexagram"—the confusion and warmth of enlightenment, a child tasting the complex flavors of the world for the first time. Someone else had written "the last hug for my mother," which carried the dim light of "Ming Yi"—light receding underground, not disappearing, but waiting for the day of "returning to light."
He looked through them one by one, as if reading a living i ching co-written by countless ordinary people. Those grand hexagrams were given the most concrete and minute flesh and blood here.
Great Strength walked over carrying a bowl of freshly made hot and sour noodles and handed it to him: "I heard you fainted again yesterday. Nourish yourself."
Zhou Zhe took the bowl but didn't eat immediately. Instead, he pointed to a note on the wall and asked, "Who wrote this one?"
There was only one line on the note: "My grandfather said that being a person is like farming; if there's no harvest this year, try again next year. Later he passed away, but the land is still there."
Great Strength glanced at it and fell silent for a rare few seconds before saying, "A young girl. Her grandfather passed away last year. She said every time she wants to give up, she thinks of this sentence. 'The land is still there.'"
Zhou Zhe nodded and used his Poem Markings to "see" the "trajectory of change" of that note—it was the imagery of the "Fu Hexagram," where after stripping away, the single Yang returns. As long as the land is still there, the seeds are still there, and hope is still there.
He finished the bowl of hot and sour noodles, feeling for the first time that the bowl contained not just flavor, but also the people on those notes and those "the land is still there" stories.
An emergency strategy meeting was held an hour later.
Lin Shen, Chu Yunshen, Zhao Yan, Ashes, Zhou Zhe, and Beta-2 (projection) sat around the round table in the command center. On the main screen were the latest monitoring data from the Hive and keywords pieced together from broken commands: "Pre-audit advanced," "Anomaly confirmed," "Awaiting activation."
"'Advanced' could be relative to the 50-year arrival we understand, or it could be relative to some 'standard process' we don't know about," Chu Yunshen analyzed the various possibilities. "But regardless, the word 'activation' is the threat we most need to define right now."
"I'll try to 'look' with my new ability." Zhou Zhe closed his eyes, and the hexagram ripples in his Poem Markings began to flow faster. His consciousness followed the "Ji Ji/Wei Ji" hexagrams of the Hive he had perceived before, extending in that direction.
This time, what he "saw" was clearer than before.
Inside the Hive, the overlapping state of Ji Ji (Completed) and Wei Ji (Uncompleted) was undergoing subtle changes. The "Completed" part was slowly collapsing, while the "Uncompleted" part was accelerating its expansion. This meant that some kind of "preparation" had entered its final stage, and the time remaining until "startup" was only...
"30 days." Zhou Zhe opened his eyes, his face pale but his gaze steady. "Based on the flow of time we perceive, the interior of the Hive will reach a critical point in about 30 days. At that time, 'activation' is very likely to occur. I don't know exactly what will be activated, but it's certainly nothing good."
30 days. Everyone present felt a silent pressure.
"Can it be stopped?" Lin Shen asked.
Zhou Zhe shook his head and then nodded: "It can't be stopped, but perhaps it can be 'guided' or 'delayed.' If I can gain a deeper understanding of the Hive's 'logic of change' and find the 'meaning nodes' or 'energy nodes' its 'activation' must rely on, I might be able to disrupt its rhythm by interfering with those nodes."
"Like how we used the potato fields to interfere with its 'digestion' of Mars's memories?" Zhao Yan asked.
"Similar, but harder," Zhou Zhe said. "The Hive is currently in a state of 'awaiting activation' and is extremely sensitive to any external interference. A slight mistake might actually accelerate its reaction."
"Then let's put all our effort into analyzing its 'activation conditions' first," Lin Shen decided. "Zhou Zhe, use whatever resources you need. Ashes, continue tracking the changes in the Hive's internal structure and report every hour. Beta-2, establish a prediction model for the Hive's 'trajectory of change' and cross-verify it with Zhou Zhe's perceptions."
In the Collective Unconscious Tracking Lab, 47 Perceivers were undergoing their third systematic evaluation.
These 47 people, after experiencing that night's dream of "mutual penetration," all retained a certain degree of "mutual perception" ability. Some could vaguely feel their colleagues' emotional fluctuations, some could guess what the other person was going to say before they spoke, and some even began to have extremely faint "premonitions"—such as knowing a few seconds in advance that a door was about to open, or feeling that "something will be different today."
The team of psychologists responsible for tracking them was both excited and nervous. Excited because this was an accidental leap in the evolution of human consciousness; nervous because this ability could bring a mental burden—12 out of the 47 reported varying degrees of "information overload," as if several "channels" were open in their heads at the same time, making it hard to focus.
A young programmer scratched his head and said, "I can feel that Xiao Wang in the next cubicle is in a bad mood today, but I can't help him, and instead, I get frustrated along with him. This feeling... it's better not to know."
The psychologists were testing a "channel filtering training," teaching them how to focus only on the signals they needed and block out irrelevant interference, much like adjusting a radio.
More subtly, a kind of "subconscious clique" began to form among the 47 people—they would instinctively sit together at lunch, "synchronize" their search for information when encountering difficulties at work, and some even reported that they would occasionally have the same "strange thought" at the same time, such as "will there be a new dish in the cafeteria today."
When Great Strength learned of this, he silently made a note in his R&D journal: "Perceiver group, can try using 'commonly anticipated dishes' as a group anchor."
At the Hive's peripheral monitoring post.
Ashes stared at the latest data, a rare flicker of emotion passing through her dark eyes. The "tentacles" beneath the Hive, after being silent for several hours, began to glow faintly—not a bright light, but a very low-frequency, almost imperceptible "fluorescent pulsation," like the nerve endings of some giant creature transmitting signals.
What made her even more alert was an extremely faint, rhythmic "vibration" coming from inside the Hive. The frequency was about once every six seconds, as steady as a heartbeat.
"It's preheating," Ashes said hoarsely. "The preparation phase before 'activation.' These pulsations and 'heartbeats' might be calibrating the internal structure, or they might be performing a final 'synchronization' with the Reapers."
Zhao Yan clenched his fist: "30 days. We still have 30 days."
In the cafeteria.
Great Strength was trying out a new recipe in the kitchen. Inspired by Zhou Zhe's talk of "hexagrams," he decided to create a "Hexagram Series" of dishes, translating those ancient imageries into tastes that could be savored.
The first dish was "Bo Fu Soup."
The Bo Hexagram, where five Yin strip away one Yang, is a symbol of decline, stripping, and hardship. The Fu Hexagram, where the single Yang returns, is the beginning of recovery, return, and hope. He wanted to express this process through taste: a slight bitterness upon entry, carrying a hint of chill, like a bleak winter day; then slowly turning sweet, with warmth rising from the base of the tongue, like the first ray of spring sunshine.
But he had tried over a dozen recipes and wasn't satisfied with the ingredients to achieve this flavor change. Not until Beta-2 sent an analysis report: taste preference patterns extracted from the EEG data of the 47 Perceivers when they experienced "premonitions" and "confusion."
"When they 'premonish' something bad, they tend to choose bitter foods; when they 'premonish' something good, they prefer sweetness. And when transitioning between the two, their sensitivity to the complex flavor of 'bitter first, then sweet' increases by 37%."
Great Strength's eyes lit up: "Then we'll season it according to this! Let the Perceivers come for a taste test!"
The first batch of tasters was five volunteers from the 47. They closed their eyes and tasted the seemingly ordinary clear soup. At the first sip, some frowned, some pulled back—it was a distinct bitterness, carrying a hint of sharpness. But a few seconds later, the bitterness slowly faded, and a clear sweetness rose from deep in their throats, warm and lingering.
One volunteer opened their eyes, their rims slightly red: "In that moment just now, I remembered the year I failed my postgraduate entrance exam. I was squatting in my rented room eating instant noodles, feeling like my life was over. Then... then my parents called and said, 'Come back, we've made braised pork for you.' That braised pork was so sweet."
Another volunteer said softly: "I seem to have 'premonished' something... not a specific image, but a feeling: it's very hard now, but it will get better later. It's the taste of this soup."
Great Strength recorded silently on the side, then wrote a note on the recipe: "Bo Fu Soup, dedicated to everyone going through winter."
In the evening, a special little guest came to the cafeteria—a researcher's child, about seven or eight years old, sturdy and curious about everything.
He saw the wall covered with notes and asked his mother, "What are these?"
"They are stories written by the uncles and aunties."
"Can I write one?"
His mother gave him a note, and he wrote a line in crooked handwriting: "I ate an ice cream today and was very happy. I want to eat another one tomorrow."
Seeing this note, Great Strength laughed heartily and personally made a small bowl of Bo Fu Soup for him: "Try this, little one."
The child took a sip and frowned: "It's bitter."
"Wait a moment."
A few seconds later, the child's eyes lit up: "It's sweet! It's sweet after the bitter!"
He gulped it down, put the bowl down, and ran back to continue looking at the notes.
Zhou Zhe happened to walk into the cafeteria and saw this scene, the hexagram ripples in his Poem Markings trembling slightly. He "looked" at the child—that young life trajectory was in a pure "Tun Hexagram" stage, the beginning of all things, full of possibility. And the imagery of that bowl of Bo Fu Soup might be inadvertently remembered by this child on some future winter day.
He walked to the memory index wall and gently pasted the note that said "I ate an ice cream today" right in the center.
Right next to it was the line "The land is still there."
Late at night, in the command center.
The 30-day countdown had begun. The Hive's "heartbeat" was once every six seconds, steady and cold. The Reapers' "Abyss" remained distant and silent.
But Zhou Zhe stood by the window, gently stroking the Mars commemorative soil on his chest. In his Poem Markings, the phantoms of the sixty-four hexagrams flowed ceaselessly, among which the light of the "Fu Hexagram" glowed faintly.
"The single Yang returns," he murmured. "Winter will always pass."
The lights in the cafeteria were still on, and Great Strength's figure flickered in the window, likely researching some new recipe again. The nearly one thousand notes on that wall breathed quietly in the night; each one was a story of "the land is still there."