Chapter 174: Ancient Tune, New Strings

On the fourth day after the advisory team set out, Han Qing began to dream.

It was not an ordinary dream; it was a collective subconscious of three thousand civilization seeds leaking information through the multicolored vortex on his chest while he slept. The dream contained no images, only sounds—whispers, chants, and even the resonances of silence in three thousand languages.

But on the night of the fourth day, a clear voice appeared in the dream. It was not any of the three thousand seeds, but an older, more weary voice, speaking in Ai O's ancient Seran language:

"Tuner bloodline connection detected… Confirmed, hybrid Han Qing. I am Ai O Seranthis, the last watchman of the civilization."

Han Qing "saw" a scene in the dream: three thousand years ago, Ai O stood before a civilization cradle device that was about to shut down, surrounded by three hundred tuners. They did not play; they wept—not out of sorrow, but a calm crying that came from knowing this was the final stretch.

Ai O raised the star‑string harp in his hand, its strings vibrating silently in the vacuum. He said:

"I will leave this seed in the consciousness of a future inheritor. When it sprouts, the time will have arrived—civilizations will have learned to meet the universe's silence with emotion rather than weapons, with questions rather than answers."

The dream shifted: Han Qing saw his own chest. At the center of the multicolored vortex, ancient characters rotated slowly, like an egg waiting to crack.

At dawn, Old Zhao was repairing the temporary school's fence.

The fence had been damaged by the earlier gray‑white surge; in the brick joints one could still see the pale, smooth traces left after details were drained away. Old Zhao applied a newly mixed mortar—infused with self‑repairing nanoscopic particles from Seran crystal—while muttering, "This stuff works better than cement, but it's too obedient… wherever I spread it, it stays exactly there, no 'surprises' at all."

Li Xiaofeng's tools lay beside him. Old Zhao picked up the hammer his son had used, its handle still bearing the oily sheen of a young man's long grip. He stared at it for a while, then returned to work.

Su Yu came over carrying two cups of hot tea, handing one to Old Zhao: "Miss him?"

"I do," Old Zhao said, taking the tea and blowing on it, "but I hope that when he returns, he brings back a bit of 'surprise'—that kind of thing the Seran Mother Star surely lacks."

They stood side by side, watching beyond the fence. The gray‑white surge's boundary had steadily receded to five hundred meters away, leaving a "blank zone"—the land remained, but without detail, like a canvas awaiting paint. The transparent seeds scattered by the Conjugate before departing began to grow on this blankness: not plants, but a slowly spreading substance that was both light and water, gradually "re‑outlining" the terrain.

"It says it wants to teach the land to 'remember'," Su Yu whispered, "at the slowest speed, letting each grain of sand recall its own shape again."

Old Zhao took a sip of tea: "Just like teaching an old man like me something new, it has to be slow."

Han Qing awoke in front of the pipe organ, his chest burning.

It was not pain, but a kind of Awakening signal. He unbuttoned his coat, and Su Yu inhaled sharply—the ancient characters were rising from his skin like protruding reliefs, beginning to glow.

"They are... decoding themselves," Han Qing said with his eyes closed, feeling, "What Ai O left wasn't text, but a 'Teaching Protocol'. He foresaw a civilization inheriting this device, and also foresaw... that the inheritor might not know how to handle the 'Emotional Shadows' of three thousand civilizations."

"Emotional Shadows?" Su Yu asked.

"Each homogenized civilization, in its final moment, experienced extreme fear, anger, and resentment," Han Qing's voice deepened, "These emotional energies never dissipated; they have been stored in the device for three thousand years. Now the device is shutting down, and those emotions... are back‑flowing through the connection into the plant network."

Almost simultaneously, Kevin burst out of the monitoring station: "Alert! Plant network load spiking! Four hundred of the three thousand seeds are having 'nightmares'!"

The holographic display showed: light points representing seed states, four hundred of which had turned dark‑red and were flickering unstably. Network connectors reported the same symptoms—brief, alien emotional eruptions: unprovoked anger, sudden sadness, baseless fear.

The worst were the three awakened alien consciences.

The Vortex Civilization began drawing chaotic gravitational‑wave patterns, its frequency filled with anxiety: "We sense... the dying screams of our kind. Those sounds are still echoing three thousand years later."

The Gas Civilization's chemical bonds began colliding disorderly: "Is this... the feeling of being deleted? Will we be deleted too?"

The Possibility Civilization curled into a trembling cluster of light: "I don't want to become a 'preserved sample'. I want... to keep 'possibility' going."

Han Qing placed his hand on the pipe organ.

His rainbow circuitry automatically extended, linking to the keys. But this time, he wasn't to play; he was to "listen"—to listen to the sounds within those dark‑red light points.

The sounds surged, like a tsunami:

A water‑based civilization's final moment, when the sea was drained, the desperation of billions of fish flapping in the air.

A silicon‑based civilization being formatted, the "cognitive agony" of crystal minds forcibly shattered.

A light‑speed civilization's last thought before time froze: "We flew so far, only to stop here?"

Four hundred kinds of despair, four hundred kinds of ending.

Han Qing's body began to tremble. His Seran half was frantically calculating how to process this "harmful data", while his human half was... bearing it. The emotions were too heavy, like four hundred civilization tombstones pressing on a single chest.

Su Yu rushed over to sever the link, but Han Qing shook his head: "No... this is the first lesson Ai O left for me."

He inhaled deeply, and the ancient characters on his chest glowed intensely.

Then he began to "respond".

Not with words, but with the seventeen Emotional Frequencies he had mastered, weaving a "net of acceptance" like fabric:

With a blue thread of "Sadness", he wrapped the water civilization's despair—"I hear you. Your ocean was beautiful; I will remember the way its ripples looked."

With a red thread of "Anger", he accepted the silicon civilization's agony—"This is unfair. You have the right to keep thinking, to keep shining."

With a golden thread of "Hope", he answered the light civilization's question—"You did not stop here. Your speed became memory, and that memory continues to fly through me."

One after another.

Han Qing embraced each of the four hundred civilizations' final moments with Emotional Frequency. It was not eradication nor cure, but a simple, human "I am here, I hear you."

The dark‑red light points gradually dimmed—not vanished, but like a wound staunching, the deterioration ceased. Those alien emotional eruptions also subsided slowly.

The Vortex Civilization resumed drawing—this time depicting a slowly flowing, warm gravitational‑wave river.

The Gas Civilization's chemical bonds reassembled into a stable molecular structure, with a note beside it: "Is this the chemical formula for 'comfort'? We are analyzing."

The Possibility Civilization unfurled into a thin veil of light, upon which a line of text appeared: "Perhaps 'preservation' is not an end, but the beginning of another 'possibility'."

Han Qing collapsed onto the organ bench, sweat pouring down like rain. The ancient characters on his chest faded, sinking back into his skin, but left a permanent, multicolored scar—a badge and a wound alike.

Su Yu knelt before him, her hand gently touching the scar. The feel was warm, like freshly fired pottery.

"Ai O..." Han Qing said weakly, "He divided himself into three parts. One remains in the device to keep it running, one stays in the ancient characters awaiting an inheritor, and another part..."

He pointed to his own heart:

"Here, with me. Three thousand years ago he foresaw a hybrid of Seran and humanity would arise. So he left a 'Teacher's Guide'—how to use the hybrid's traits to heal a civilization's emotional wounds."

He paused, showing a weary yet relieved smile:

"So Chen Mo wasn't the first. It was Ai O who was the first 'Sower'. He sowed not plants, but seeds of 'how to save a civilization'. And now we..."

He looked at Su Yu, at the transparent substance far away outlining the blank zone, and at the sky:

"We are planting a forest—a forest that will let three thousand civilizations slowly heal, slowly remember who they are."

That evening, Han Qing carved a line of text onto the repaired fence.

It was not Ai O's ancient characters, nor Seran script, but simple Chinese, etched with the light of his rainbow circuitry as a chisel:

"There was once a wound here. Now it is beginning to heal."

Lao Zhao stared at the line of text for a long time, then said, "The characters are a bit crooked."

Han Qing smiled, "It's intentional. Ai Ou's guide says that perfect things are hard to remember. A little crookedness makes it look like a human wrote it."

Su Yu leaned against him, watching the blank expanse in the distance. On that land, a transparent substance had already spread into simple patterns—no symbols of any civilization, just meaningless curves and circles like a child's doodles.

But those curves refracted warm light under the setting sun.

"They're learning to 'play.'" Su Yu whispered, "It took three thousand years to learn fear, and now… it's learning to play."

Within the plant network, four hundred nightmare‑scarred civilization seeds began slowly, tentatively linking those doodle‑like curves. Like an injured child reaching for a soap bubble in the sunlight for the first time.

And on the synchronized orbit, the assessment vessel sent a new report to the Seran Homeworld:

"Earth civilization has completed the first‑stage emotional integration test. It successfully addressed four hundred years of civilizational emotional trauma, with a pollution spread rate of zero."

"Recommendation: Reclassify the 'emotional module' from 'anomaly pending research' to 'essential component of civilizational health.'"

"Additionally: They are now teaching the land how to laugh. We need more observers."

Han Qing's chest scar glowed faintly in the night.

Like a tiny star that will never extinguish.