Chapter 161: The Scale of Civilization

The assessment ship neither fired, nor landed, nor even approached the atmosphere.

It simply hovered in synchronous orbit, like a cold, silvery newborn star. Then it projected three beams of light—not attack beams, but some kind of hologram—each landing over Pure Land, Anvil Town, and the Reservoir Shelter.

The projection showed the same image: a massive scale calibrated to six decimal places.

In Pure Land's control room, Kaiwen stared at the live feed: "It is scanning all data from the past seven years for the three communities—resource consumption, production efficiency, population growth rate, survivor emotional fluctuation curves… Then it quantifies the data into an 'efficiency value' and places it on the left pan of the scale."

The left pan of the scale began to sink, pressing down heavily.

"What about the right pan?" Han Qing asked, his left hand already fully silver, tightly bound with bandages around the wrist. The pain was fading, which made him more alert—Serlan's formatting is a gradual stripping, starting with peripheral senses.

"The right pan is…" Kaiwen pulled up the translation of the Serlan script, "'Ideal Serlanized Civilization Simulation Value.' It means, if we had accepted formatting three years ago, deleting the emotional module, what our efficiency would be now."

The right pan rose slowly, stopping at a position 47% higher than the left pan.

A cold synthetic tone rang over the three communities, not the voice of a researcher but a more ancient, indisputable timbre:

"Earth civilization, emotional modules cause a 47% efficiency loss. First test: within 24 hours, reduce the efficiency gap to within 20%."

"Method unrestricted. If time expires or the gap widens, the formatting protocol will be activated."

In the underground space, Su Yu's chest‑bound rainbow seed throbbed violently.

She "heard" the three communities' responses—not words, but emotional frequencies:

The children of Pure Land felt fear, their frequency a trembling D minor;

Lao Zhou of Anvil Town angrily hammered the anvil, frequency a raging B♭ minor;

The elder at the Reservoir knelt on the dam to pray, frequency a mournful E minor.

And Han Qing—his frequency was becoming smooth and monotone, like a string stripped of vibrato. Nanounits had already eroded to his shoulders; his heartbeat steadied at exactly 72 beats per minute, the Serlan standard physiological parameter.

"Captain…" Li Xiaofeng tried to inject him with a painkiller.

Han Qing pushed the syringe away: "Hold back. When I'm fully converted, this drug can save others." He turned his head toward Su Yu, the silver already spreading to his chin, "What's your plan?"

Su Yu's hand rested on the organ: "The efficiency gap… isn't just a number. Serlan is forcing us to choose—whether to sacrifice emotion for efficiency, or …"

"Or prove that emotion can create a 'different kind of efficiency' that Serlan cannot comprehend." Lin Shouzhuo interjected. The elder was sorting a pile of yellowed notes, "Aeon's records mention this test. The Serlan homeworld conducts a 'civilization health assessment' on peripheral cultures every millennium; efficiency is the sole metric."

He turned to a page and read the Serlan script: "'Efficiency is a civilization's thermometer, but not a diagnostic report.'"

The ground trembled.

It wasn't an attack, but an 'efficiency retrofit'—under the projection over Anvil Town, several silver‑white devices materialized out of thin air, automatically reworking the town's defenses: replacing the iron fences stamped with personal marks with standardized honeycomb alloy panels; repainting the children's colorful‑sun walls into the highest‑reflectivity pure white; even the iron box Lao Zhou treasured, containing his daughter's photo, was flagged as 'nonessential décor' and recommended for removal.

Lao Zhou blocked his body in front of the iron box: "This is my home! Do you even know what 'home' means?!"

A calm reply came from the projection: "A home is a survival unit. Decorations reduce attention concentration by 11%; removal is advised to improve work efficiency."

Meanwhile, an emergency transmission from the Reservoir reported: the dam was flagged as 'structurally over‑redundant,' and Serlan devices were dismantling the excess reinforcement layers, claiming to 'optimize material utilization.'

The one‑eyed woman roared in the mine: "They're going to seal off Tunnel 3! They say its output is only 8% of the total, but the miners like to rest and chat there—'non‑productive social time' must be eliminated!"

Efficiency. Efficiency. Efficiency.

The left pan began to rise slowly—because emotion‑related 'inefficient behaviors' were being forcibly removed.

But the right pan also rose, since Serlan's ideal value is calculated on the basis of 'complete formatting.'

The gap was narrowing, but the way it narrowed was… erasing humanity.

Su Yu's hand trembled.

Through the plant network she could sense what each community was losing: Anvil Town's children no longer played the "Sower Game," because the game was flagged as 'non‑productive entertainment'; the Reservoir's elders no longer sat on the dam to chat, since 'idle talk reduces patrol efficiency'; miners no longer shared family photos during breaks, as 'emotional projection consumes cognitive resources.'

And the scale's gap: 47%… 43%… 39%…

"They're winning," Kaiwen's voice rasped. "At this rate, the gap will drop below 20% in 18 hours. We will 'pass the test,' but the way we pass is …"

"Become them," Han Qing said. Below his neck he was all silver, only his head still human. He looked at Su Yu, his gaze still clear: "We can't pass like this. Chen Mo wouldn't agree, Geometry wouldn't agree, those who died to keep the color… wouldn't agree."

Su Yu closed her eyes.

Deep within the rainbow seed, Chen Mo's final melody began to echo. It wasn't a complete piece, just a few shattered notes, as if asking her: What will you choose?

She recalled seven years ago, Chen Mo's words in front of the Stardust Cradle: "Civilization is not a machine; civilization is a story. A machine's value is efficiency, a story's value is… to be remembered."

She opened her eyes, her fingers pressing the keys.

What she played was not a piece to boost efficiency.

She played 'Waste.'

First note: Lao Zhou of Anvil Town spent three hours polishing a small iron sword for his son— the sword had no practical use, but its hilt bore the word "Brave." Efficiency value dropped 0.03%.

Second note: The Reservoir elder spent half a day repairing a discarded music box— a keepsake from his wife; fixing it would not increase food yield. Efficiency value dropped 0.05%.

Third note: The one‑eyed woman in the mine let the miners leave an hour early, because that day was the birthday of a miner's son who had died in sacrifice. Efficiency value dropped 0.12%.

Fourth note: Xiao Yu of Pure Land, cradling a rainbow sunflower, explained the colors to every passerby— delaying the greenhouse watering schedule. Efficiency value dropped 0.08%.

One "waste" note after another traveled through the plant network to all communities.

People froze.

Then they acted—not in rebellion against the Serlan devices, but by continuing those 'meaningless things': mothers spent five extra minutes telling stories to their children, elders slowly finished a cup of tea, friends added three seconds to their embraces, children stared at the sky, imagining cloud shapes.

The left pan ceased rising and began to descend slowly.

Gap: 39%… 41%… 44%…

Rising again.

The synthetic tone in the projection paused for the first time: "Detected irrational behavior deliberately reducing efficiency. Explain."

Su Yu lifted her head, the rainbow seed in her chest emitting a warm glow: "Because efficiency isn't the goal. The goal is… the feeling of being alive."

The assessment ship remained silent for a full minute.

Then the three beams changed simultaneously: no longer projecting the scale, but three massive, slowly rotating geometries—each geometry composed of countless light points, each point an individual of the Serlan civilization.

There was no sound, yet everyone "understood": this was the Serlan homeworld's "civilization panorama." Over three thousand standard cycles, their efficiency curve had been a perfect, continuously rising straight line. Beside that line lay another curve—the one that had abruptly stopped three thousand years ago.

Those were the 'Art Creation Curve,' 'Music Composition Curve,' 'Poetry Birth Curve,' and 'New Philosophical Thought Curve.'

All reset to zero on the day the emotional module was removed.

The projection shifted, displaying Earth's curve: the efficiency curve fluctuated wildly, with peaks and troughs. But the emotion curve, art curve, and social connection curve beside it—though tiny—never dropped to zero.

The synthetic voice sounded again, but this time its timbre seemed to carry… an extremely subtle fluctuation:

"Second test: prove that your emotion curve is worth the cost in efficiency."

"Proof method: within the next Selan Standard Cycle (Earth time 72 hours), create something that Selan civilization cannot create."

"Begin."

The light pillars vanished.

But the three geometric bodies remained in the air, beginning to slowly rotate—they would record, analyze, and evaluate everything throughout.

Underground, Han Qing suddenly dropped to his knees.

Silver had already spread to his temples.

He lifted his head, and with his last human voice told Su Yu: "I might… not be able to see what you create. So now tell me—what will it be?"

Su Yu crouched down and grasped his silver hand.

Her palm was warm.

"It will be…" she whispered, "something that will remind you that pain is also a feeling of being alive."

In the distance, toward the drilling platform, seventeen gray‑white light pillars suddenly rose.

That was the final signal of the Faded:

"We return. With our last human memories, help you create."