223: Chapter 222 The Complete Divination, The Second Choice and the Last Bowl of Hot and Sour Noodles
Medical Center Special Care Unit, the thirteenth hour of Zhou Zhe's coma.
Monitoring instruments showed his vital signs were stable, but his brainwaves exhibited a form never before recorded—not sleep, not a coma, nor even any known state of consciousness. β-2 described it as 'consciousness undergoing some kind of overloaded self-reorganization.'
Lin Shen kept watch by the bedside, silently observing the shifting patterns of brainwaves on the screen that looked like living hexagrams. The Sixty-four Hexagrams had cycled through countless times within twelve hours; with each rotation, Zhou Zhe's Poem Markings dimmed a bit, as if those ancient images were being 'stripped' from his consciousness and transformed into something more fundamental.
“He is ‘resetting’.” Stardust's orb of light quietly emerged, its tone carrying a rare gravity. “The Sixty-four Hexagrams of the i ching are humanity's highest understanding of ‘change.’ After contacting the Hive's core, he is ‘reducing’ these understandings back to the more primal ‘change itself.’ This process is extremely dangerous—one wrong move, and his consciousness will completely dissipate, merging into the ‘Sea of Change,’ never to coalesce into the person ‘Zhou Zhe’ again.”
“What can be done?” Lin Shen's voice was hoarse.
“We can only wait. Wait for him to find the ‘road back’.” Stardust sighed. “Or, wait for him to decide for himself whether he still wants to ‘return’.”
And within that indescribable “Sea of Change,” Zhou Zhe was undergoing a “journey” he could not describe in any language.
He “saw” the true nature of the Hive.
It was not a weapon, not a predator, not even “life”—it was a “left-behind program.” Eons ago, a civilization even more ancient than the Reapers, before its demise, encoded its “final will” into the fundamental structure of the universe, turning into countless “guardian programs” similar to the Hive. Their mission was singular: when “Order Extremists” like the Reapers began sweeping the universe, to provide a “second choice” for those “civilizations worth preserving.”
The Hive's “eye” gazed at him, no longer cold, but with a deep, almost compassionate “waiting.”
“What... are you waiting for?” Zhou Zhe's consciousness fluctuated.
The Hive's response entered his core consciousness directly; it was a sequence of “images” that transcended language—
It “showed” the demise of countless civilizations. Those civilizations judged “unqualified” after the Reapers' “pre-trial” were erased bit by bit from the universe's network of meaning in the light of “conceptual deletion.” Their history, art, love, and dreams all turned to void, as if they had never existed.
Then, it “showed” a tiny, almost ignored detail: in the final moments of some civilizations, a “guardian program” like the Hive would quietly appear, showing the core consciousness of that civilization a hidden “escape route”—not a physical escape, but an “escape of meaning.” They would condense their civilization's essence into a “seed of meaning” and entrust it to the guardian program, letting it carry this “final testimony” across time and space, waiting for the day it would be discovered, decoded, and remembered by another civilization.
“You... preserved the memories of those erased civilizations?” Zhou Zhe's consciousness shuddered violently.
The Hive's “eye” fluctuated slightly, as if nodding.
Then, it showed Zhou Zhe something even more startling—deep within its core, among those countless hollow chambers, a “preserved” essence of civilization slept in each one. Some were like a soft glow, some like an eternal melody, some like a wordless poem. They came from different galaxies, different eras, and different modes of extinction, but they shared one commonality—before being erased by the Reapers, they chose to “leave a testimony.”
And the Hive itself was composed of these countless “testimonies.” The things he had mistaken for “digested civilization wreckage” were not wreckage, but “entrustments.”
“What we wait for is not a command.” The Hive's imagery came for the last time, carrying a tranquility that transcended time. “What we wait for are ‘successors’ worthy of entrustment. You proved with your potato field that you possess a structure of meaning that ‘cannot be digested.’ You are qualified to know the truth, and qualified to make the ‘second choice’—before being erased by the Reapers, entrust the essence of your civilization to us. Or, choose to resist, and prove you are worthy of ‘living’.”
Then, Zhou Zhe was pushed away from that “Sea of Change” by a gentle force.
He snapped his eyes open, sat up, and gasped for air.
Lin Shen, Stardust, and the projection of β-2 were all gathered around the bed.
His Poem Markings had completely changed. The once interwoven pale gold, tender green, indigo, and silver-white had all vanished, leaving only a pure “all-white” like fresh snow. It wasn't a loss, but a “return to one”—after the Sixty-four Hexagrams had been fully played out, they returned to the original point of “change” itself.
“I... I know.” He said hoarsely, his eyes carrying an indescribable weight and clarity. “The Hive is not the enemy. It is... a gravedigger. And... a keeper of testimonies.”
He slowly recounted everything he had seen.
A long silence fell over the special care unit.
Hive Perimeter Monitoring Outpost.
Ashes stared at the latest data, and for the first time, an emotional fluctuation akin to “shock” appeared in her pitch-black eyes.
The “heartbeat” inside the Hive changed the moment Zhou Zhe woke up—from once every 6 seconds to once every 6 seconds, but with a faint “echo” after each beat. It was as if a trace of... “warmth” had been injected into that cold mechanical rhythm.
And those newborn “tentacles” no longer pointed toward the Oort Cloud; instead, a tiny strand branched off, pointing extremely subtly toward... the direction of the Mars potato field.
“It is responding to Zhou Zhe's contact,” Ashes murmured. “Not as an enemy, but as... a witness.”
Zhao Yan stood beside her, unable to speak for a long time.
In the Collective Unconscious Tracking Laboratory, the 47 Perceivers all reacted at the moment Zhou Zhe woke up.
Some jerked their heads up, looking toward the medical center. Some clutched their chests, murmuring “He's back.” Some shed tears without knowing why. The youngest Perceiver, that programmer, said tremblingly: “I ‘saw’... so much light. So, so much light. Not light from our world. It was... light from a long, long time ago. In that light, there were... people?”
Their brainwaves achieved an unprecedented synchronization in that instant—not the previous “multi-band resonance,” but a deeper “unification” that seemed to touch the core of consciousness. That state lasted for less than a second, but the impact it left shocked all the psychologists.
Most of the 47 people “perceived” a part of what Zhou Zhe had experienced in that moment—those preserved civilizations, those “testimonies,” and that waiting for “successors” that had existed for billions of years.
The lab director tremblingly wrote down the record: “We may be witnessing the first ‘empathy’ between human consciousness and the ancient memory of the universe.”
The Cafeteria.
Old Zhang, a logistics maintenance worker in his fifties, sat in a corner slowly eating a bowl of hot and sour noodles.
He didn't know Zhou Zhe, didn't know about the Hive, and didn't understand the Reapers. He only knew that today was his last day working at the Cradle. His retirement paperwork was finished, and tomorrow morning, he would take a shuttle back to Earth, back to that small southern county town to look after his grandson with his wife.
He ate very slowly, chewing every mouthful for a long time, as if trying to remember the taste of this place a little longer.
Great Strength walked over with a bowl of newly prepared soup and sat opposite him: “Old Zhang, I heard you're leaving. Drink this bowl of ‘Returning Maiden Soup’ on me. I wish you a happy reunion at home.”
Old Zhang was startled, took the bowl, and had a taste. It was slightly sweet with a hint of sourness, and the aftertaste was a warm, grounded feeling. Suddenly, his eyes turned red.
“Master Wang, tell me, I've spent thirty years fixing equipment in my life, and I haven't done anything big. Does it count as... living for nothing?”
Great Strength was silent for a few seconds, then pointed to the wall covered in notes: “Go look at those notes. Are there any about great achievements? Any about getting rich or promoted? No. They're all about whose child, who made what meal, or something someone said. Old Zhang, you fixed equipment for thirty years, allowing so many people to work in peace, ensuring so many experiments didn't fail, and letting so many children grow up in a safe environment. This isn't any smaller than the stories on those notes.”
Old Zhang looked at that wall, silent for a long time. Then he stood up, walked to the wall, picked up a pen, and neatly wrote a line in the blank space at the bottom:
“My name is Zhang Yougen. I fixed equipment for thirty years. Going home tomorrow to look after my grandson. This life was worth it.”
He stuck the note on the wall, turned and smiled at Great Strength, picked up his unfinished bowl of hot and sour noodles, and continued eating slowly.
Late night, Medical Center Special Care Unit.
Zhou Zhe stood by the window, gazing at the starry sky. His Poem Markings was all white, but his eyes held a “serenity” that had never been there before—the serenity of returning to “one” after the Sixty-four Hexagrams had been exhausted.
Lin Shen walked to his side and asked softly, “The second choice—which one do we pick?”
Zhou Zhe was silent for a long time before slowly speaking: “The Hive gave us a ‘way out’—before being erased, entrust the essence of our civilization to it, letting our meaning be preserved forever in the depths of the universe in the form of a ‘testimony.’ This is the final dignity of countless extinct civilizations.”
“But we are not them.” He turned to look at Lin Shen, his all-white Poem Markings glowing slightly. “Our potato field is still singing. Our Perceivers just ‘saw’ those ancient lights. In our cafeteria, Old Zhang just posted a note saying ‘This life was worth it.’ We haven't reached the point where we need to ‘entrust our testimony’ yet.”
“So?”
“So, we choose a third path.” Zhou Zhe's eyes were firmer than ever before. “Not ‘entrusting testimony after being erased,’ nor ‘luckily passing the pre-trial.’ But letting the Reapers ‘see’—see our potato field, see our Perceivers, see Old Zhang's note. Let them know that there is a kind of civilization that doesn't exist within their defined ‘order,’ yet is still worth existing. If they can't understand, then... let them understand slowly. We have 50 years. No, we have countless 50 years.”
Lin Shen looked at this researcher who once needed protection, this young man who now had stars, hexagrams, and testimonies of countless civilizations in his eyes. He was silent for a long time, then patted him hard on the shoulder.
“Then, let's give them a good look.”
Outside the window, the starry sky remained profound. The Hive's “heartbeat” continued, but that echo every six seconds seemed to be waiting for an answer too.
The cafeteria lights were still on. The nearly two thousand notes on that wall breathed quietly in the night. On the brand-new note at the very bottom, the three characters for “Zhang Yougen” were written neatly.
Tomorrow, he would be going home to look after his grandson.