Chapter 156: The Tide of the Faded

When the three ships docked, there was no sound.

It wasn't that there were no engine noises— they were equipped with modified electric motors, whose low hiss sounded like a venomous snake spitting venom. It was the absence of human sounds: when the silhouettes on board moved, their joints made no friction noise, their breathing produced no airflow sound, and even the footfalls on the deck were absorbed by some invisible force.

"All personnel, defend!" Han Qing's voice rang inside the mining community's wall, his seven years of combat instinct snapping him into state. "Lao Zhou, have your people hold the western breach! One-eyed, prepare the explosives in the tunnel!"

Su Yu stood on the Watchtower, holding that piece of coral in her hand. The coral pulsed faintly in her palm, each pulse transmitting fragmented images: Chen Mo standing on a drilling platform, the seawater blue, the sky an orange‑red sunset, and he holding another piece of coral, "storing" color into it.

"The storage method is emotional Resonance," she whispered to the Kaiwen beside her. "Chen Mo recalls specific color‑linked emotional experiences to the coral— for example, 'blue' corresponds to the sense of freedom when he first saw the sea, 'red' corresponds to... my scarf."

Kaiwen swiftly operated the mobile terminal: "So how do we use it? Play the color onto the Faded?"

"Let's try."

Su Yu closed her eyes, sinking her consciousness into the coral. Golden patterns lit up, and she "saw" the first record Chen Mo had left—

"Blue: Summer 1997, my father took me to Qingdao. The seawater's salt mixed with the sweetness of an ice pop. He said, 'Beyond the sea is still sea,' I replied, 'How boring.' Now I know, beyond the sea is 'possibility'."

She opened her eyes, aiming at the first ship's disembarking Faded.

The silhouette was entirely gray‑white, like a figure cut out of a black‑and‑white photograph. As he walked, the grass within three meters around him began to fade, green turning to gray, yellow earth turning to gray soil.

Su Yu raised the coral, projecting that "blue memory" outward.

It wasn't a beam, but a certain frequency. The air began to vibrate, emitting a low rumble of waves. A pale blue halo materialized in the air, like a water droplet spreading on rice paper.

The Faded stopped.

His gray‑white eyes fixed on the blue halo, his head tilting to one side— the gesture still bore a hint of humanity. Then he lifted his hand, the gray‑white fingers reaching to touch the blue.

The moment his fingertips made contact, the blue halo burst.

It wasn't a blast, but a color explosion: blue split into countless tiny specks of light, piercing the Faded's body. His skin began to show mottled patches— first light blue, then deep blue, finally a hue bordering on purple.

He opened his mouth wide, but no sound came. He merely fell to his knees, clutching his head with both hands, his body shaking violently.

The people from the second ship began to charge.

They bore no weapons, merely spreading their arms as if to embrace something. Yet wherever they passed, color was drained: the wall's red bricks turned gray, the green on Han Qing's camouflage uniform turned gray, the metallic sheen of Lao Zhao's wrench turned gray.

"Don't let them touch!" the One-eyed woman shouted, miners raising their pickaxes but hesitating— though these people had faded, their outlines were still human.

Li Xiaofeng suddenly rushed out, holding the signal gun Lao Zhou had given him. He didn't fire at people, but launched a flare into the sky.

The orange‑red light burst in the air, like a fire tree growing upside down. The radiance fell, illuminating the Faded, and their charging speed noticeably slowed.

"Light still has color!" Li Xiaofeng shouted, "Color can disrupt them!"

Lao Zhao looked at his son, this veteran miner who had rescued three coworkers in a mine twenty‑seven years ago, and for the first time felt his son had grown up. He raised another signal gun: "Everyone! Throw out anything that has color!"

The miners began tossing items: work gloves dyed blue, red headscarves, children's colorful crayon drawings, and even someone flung a can of paint left over from before the disaster— the green paint burst in the air, dousing two Faded in it.

Those two Faded immediately fell to their knees, their hands clawing at the green skin, as if scratching an itch that didn't exist.

The third ship remained silent.

At the bow stood a tall, thin figure; he did not disembark, merely watching everything. Su Yu noted that his gray‑white tint was the lightest— the original dark‑green outline of his uniform was still discernible, and even the metallic insignia on his shoulder epaulet reflected a faint glow.

"A commander‑ranked Faded," Han Qing whispered, "still retains some cognitive function."

The tall, thin figure raised his hand. All the Faded simultaneously halted, stepped back, and reformed into formation. Then they began performing the same motion: hands clasped in front of the chest, fingers forming a complex gesture.

"They're..." Kaiwen stared at the terminal screen, "building some kind of 'Faded Field'. Frequency analysis shows this field can accelerate the color‑stripping process—not from an object's surface, but directly from memory!"

Before the words finished, Su Yu felt a wave of dizziness.

The images in her mind began to fade: Chen Mo's face shifted from color to black‑and‑white, the golden light in his eyes turned gray, and the fire‑lit clouds in the sky at his sacrifice became lead‑gray storm clouds.

"They're eating my memory colors!" she gritted her teeth, steadying herself.

Han Qing's complexion also went pale— the battlefield memories in his mind were fading: comrades' blood shifting from red to dull gray, explosion flames from orange to pallid, his wife's photo's red scarf turning into...

"No," he growled low, drawing his gun—not at the Faded, but firing continuously into the sky. The muzzle flash briefly tore the Faded Field's frequency, but it was quickly covered again.

Xiao Yu suddenly ran out from behind a cover.

The child clutched the potted sunflower "Xiao Yang"— because the greenhouse was sealed, she had been secretly keeping it with her. The sunflower's head was golden, dazzling in the gray‑white world.

"You must not eat the colors!" she shouted at the Faded, her voice trembling with tears, "Yellow is the sun! Green is the grass! Blue is the sea! Red is... is Uncle Chen Mo's blood!"

She set the pot on the ground, both hands embracing the sunflower's stem.

A miracle occurred.

The sunflower's golden radiance began to spread, rippling like water. Wherever the light reached, the Faded Field was briefly pushed aside. The miners felt the colors of their memories return, faint yet undeniably back.

The tall, thin figure showed a noticeable reaction for the first time. He turned his head toward Xiao Yu and the potted sunflower, a faint— almost imperceptible— flicker of confusion flashing in his gray‑white eyes.

"Child..." he began, his voice like sandpaper scraping metal, "Color... pain. No color... no pain."

"You're lying!" Xiao Yu sobbed, "No color means no joy! No color means no love! You just... just forgot how to cry!"

Su Yu seized the opportunity.

She pressed the coral to her forehead, sinking her consciousness into the deepest record— the final color segment Chen Mo had left:

"Gold: not the color of gold, but the light in Su Yu's eyes when she first successfully linked the plant network. It rained that day, yet the light in her eyes illuminated the entire greenhouse. I asked her, 'What did you see?' she said, 'I saw possibility.' Gold is the color of 'possibility'."

This time, she did not project.

She "became" gold.

The scar on her chest erupted with unprecedented light, not a pallid glow but a warm golden radiance. The light burst outward from her, like a waterfall flowing upward toward the sky, then cascading down, drenching every Faded.

The gray‑white skin began to fissure, and colors seeped through the cracks: one person's face revealed a bronze hue, the shade of years of sea‑breeze; another's hand regained a deep brown, the calloused color from gripping an oar; another's eyes turned black again—not pure black, but a black tinged with a hint of brown, the typical Asian black.

The tall, thin figure stepped back.

His uniform began to revert to dark green, the golden insignia on his shoulder epaulet flashing anew. He lowered his head, watching his hand as the faint cyan of the veins beneath his skin resurfaced.

"I..." he began, his voice no longer raspy, "I am... Zhao Haisheng. East Sea Fleet... Captain."

After saying that, he fell straight backward, crashing onto the deck.

The Faded collapsed one after another. Not death, but unconsciousness—the sensory overload from colors returning caused their brains to temporarily shut down.

Han Qing led people forward to secure the scene. Lao Zhou examined the unconscious, looking up and saying, "They're still alive. Heartbeat and breathing are normal, but their brainwaves are like deep dreaming."

Su Yu collapsed onto the ground, the coral slipping from her hand. Her complexion was frighteningly pale, the scar on her chest no longer glowed but seeped fine threads of blood— the backlash of overusing Resonance.

Kaiwen rushed over and injected her with a stabilizer: "You can't use coral anymore! If you do it again, your nervous system will be permanently damaged!"

"How much time is left?" Su Yu asked, her eyes looking south.

"34 hours." Ji He's voice suddenly became clear—the researchers' signal blockade had been briefly disrupted by the golden burst just now—but Chen Mo's lips… are now completely transparent. Only his eyes and forehead still have substance.

Just then, the unconscious Captain Zhao Haisheng suddenly opened his eyes.

His eyes were normal black, but deep in his pupils, something silvery white flickered.

He sat up, looked at Su Yu, and spoke in a completely flat tone belonging to Seran.

"Phase one testing is complete. The 'Color-Emotion Anchoring' efficacy verification has passed. Phase two: test whether you can still retain 'humanity' after losing all color."

"Countdown: 10 minutes."

The sky began to fade.

It wasn't clouds blocking the sun; the sky itself turned from blue to gray, then from gray to pure white. Then the white spread downward: the green of the mountains faded, the brown of the land faded, the red bricks of the walls faded.

The world was turning into a blank sheet of paper.

At the edge of that blank paper, the researchers' silver projection slowly emerged, revealing its full form for the first time—

It looked, surprisingly, a bit like Chen Mo.