Chapter 185

The first exchange of fire between seventeen defecting warships and the conservative fleet created a brief "emotional radiation storm" 4.3 light-years away. When the shockwave traveled along the consciousness bridge to Earth, it was already seven hours later—but its power was undiminished.

The plant network first issued an alert: all connectors simultaneously felt a violent "cognitive vertigo," as if someone had roughly combed consciousness with an icy comb. The vortex blue flower field instantly closed its petals collectively; of the thirty-seven blank bodies, nine entered forced dormancy directly, and the "possibility light bands" of the three new lifeforms underwent violent bodily fluctuation, nearly dissipating.

Han Qing's chest-mounted star-string lyre string automatically resonated—not a sound, but a stable frequency. The string vibration spread through the rainbow patterns, forming an invisible resonance barrier around the makeshift school. Within the barrier, the vertigo diminished to a faint ringing in the ears, but outside, Kaiwen's monitoring data showed the plant network's load peak had reached a record 89%.

"It's the aftermath of clashing emotional frequencies." Han Qing closed his eyes to analyze the string's feedback data: "The defecting warships used the emotional waveforms left by Aeon as a 'weapon' in battle—not an attack, but interference. When the conservative faction's formatting protocols encounter these waveforms, they produce logical chaos, but the waveforms themselves are also……damaged."

Su Yu rushed to the pipe organ and pressed her hands on the keys. The phantoms of the three hundred tuners appeared again, but this time their forms were faint like morning mist. Aeon was not among them—he had completely dissipated after finishing his final broadcast, leaving only that string.

"What can we do?" she asked, her voice containing a barely perceptible tremor.

Han Qing opened his eyes, the string shadow in his left eye faintly glowing: "Become……a relay station. 'Repair' the damaged emotional waveforms, then send them back."

Old Zhao was inventorying emergency supplies in the warehouse.

They were not Aeon technology products, but the most basic items: compressed biscuits, bottled water, flashlight batteries, first-aid kits. He divided them into thirty-seven packs—corresponding to the thirty-seven blank bodies. Each pack also contained two extra items: a piece of compressed rations engraved with different patterns, and a simple sketch drawn by Xiao Yu—each sketch depicted what that blank body liked most.

Li Xiaofeng walked into the warehouse, the gold-based rainbow pattern in his left eye resembling two small lamps in the dim light.

"Dad, debris from the fleet exchange might enter solar orbit. Kaiwen calculated the worst case: three to five fragments will fall into the atmosphere within seventy-two hours."

Old Zhao didn't look up, continuing to check the backpack zippers: "Can the impact point be predicted?"

"The margin of error……is fifty kilometers." Li Xiaofeng paused, "One of them could land on the edge of the Healing Forest."

The zipper jammed. Old Zhao gave it a hard tug—rip! —the zipper head flew off. He stared at the broken zipper for a long time, then pulled out a sewing kit from his tool waist pouch—the old-fashioned kind, with a wooden spool and a slightly rusty needle.

He began to sew.

The stitches were thick and crooked, but sturdy. Halfway through, he suddenly said, "Mom taught me. She said machines break, but hand-sewn things can be re-stitched even if the thread snaps."

Li Xiaofeng crouched, watching his father's hand, covered in old calluses, pull needle and thread through the canvas stitch by stitch: "Dad, if the debris really falls……"

"Then let it fall." Old Zhao tied a knot, bit the thread, "Chen Mo once said, even if the sky falls, you must eat breakfast first. Now the sky hasn't fallen—it's just dropping a few scraps."

He shouldered a repaired backpack, walked to the warehouse door, and turned back: "Go help Han Qing stabilize the network. I……will go see those flowers."

The first piece of debris entered the atmosphere at dusk.

It was not a massive hull, but a silver metal plate about three meters long—its surface covered in ablation marks, edges still dripping molten metal. Monitoring showed the plate's interior stored large amounts of undissipated "emotional radiation," like a red-hot cognitive coal.

Its fall trajectory was corrected three times—first by Earth's gravity, second by a slight shift in the plant network's resonance field, third……by the damaged flagship of the Order commander suddenly appearing in near-Earth orbit and firing a tractor beam with its last bit of energy.

The metal plate finally slammed into a wasteland two kilometers outside the Healing Forest, kicking up dust that, in the sunset, turned into an eerie seven-colored mist.

Almost simultaneously, all connectors "heard" a fragmented broadcast—coming from that metal plate, which was a hull fragment of the defector warship "Echo":

"……We saw……color……in the gunfire……those waveforms……were crying……"

"……Why delete……something that cries……"

"……I am……the commander of the Echo……designation X-9……requesting……a permanent ceasefire……"

The broadcast cut off abruptly.

But within three hundred meters of the debris, all plant growth suddenly sped up then abruptly stopped—like a video fast-forwarded then rewound. Short-lived emotional waveform patterns appeared on the ground surface, then quickly faded.

Worst of all, 127 of the three thousand civilization seeds simultaneously began having "nightmares."

By the time Su Yu, Han Qing, Xiao Yu, and the three new lifeforms reached the impact site, night had fallen.

The debris was still slightly warm, its surface continually flashing chaotic images: sometimes the silver city of the Aeon homeworld, sometimes the light of gunfire, sometimes a vortex blue flower slowly rotating—that was the last Earth signal received by the Echo's commander.

The bearer mark on Xiao Yu's wrist automatically extended, like a vine climbing the debris. The child closed her eyes: "He……is still inside. A little bit."

It was not a complete consciousness, but a wisp of imminent "terminal perception"—that Aeon commander, before his warship was hit, was "looking" at the vortex blue flowers in the Healing Forest via the consciousness bridge. That flower field became the last light in his consciousness.

The new lifeform with bark-pattern skin stepped forward, palm pressed against the debris. Its skin pattern began to change, imitating those chaotic waveforms on the debris surface: "He is asking……why do beautiful things……always appear in war……"

The new lifeform resembling Old Zhao attempted a smile—a bitter, crooked smile: "Perhaps because……war lets people know……what beauty is……"

The possibility light band merged directly into the debris surface, "combing" out a clear main line from the chaotic images: the rotation trajectory of the vortex blue flower, from start to finish, a full three hundred sixty seconds.

It extracted that trajectory, transformed it into a soft light, and transmitted it back to the plant network.

The one hundred twenty-seven civilization seeds that had been having nightmares simultaneously calmed.

Late at night, Han Qing set up a temporary resonance station beside the debris.

He used the star-string lyre's string as the core, connected it to the pipe organ's remote interface, and began to "repair" the damaged emotional waveforms within the debris. This wasn't technical work, but……a "translation"—turning the chaos of war into an understandable "narrative."

The first waveform repaired was "fear."

Not the cold definition of "risk identification program activation" from the Aeon database, but an extremely concrete perception: the hull's tremor frequency when gunfire struck, the piercing alarm of an overloaded energy shield, the sense of void when a comrade's unit signal (though Aeon has no such word) suddenly vanished……and, at the final moment when he saw the vortex blue flower, the shock of "there actually exists such a thing."

Han Qing sent the repaired waveform back to the Aeon homeworld via the consciousness bridge.

It wasn't sent to any particular side; it was a public broadcast.

The postscript consisted of a single sentence in Aeon's ancient language: "This is the complete version of 'fear.' Delete it, and you will never understand……why there is courage."

The second waveform was "confusion."

The third was "reluctance."

……

With each waveform sent back, the firepower density of the Aeon civil war decreased by one percent.

It wasn't a ceasefire agreement, but……operators needed time to process this sudden influx of overly complex "data." When your enemy is no longer just a string of coordinates and energy readings, but a life that can be confused, reluctant, and at death's door longs for a flower, pulling the trigger requires……recalculating justification.

In the early hours, the flagship of the Order commander finally exhausted its energy and crashed into the pre‑designated Pacific zone—this had been pre‑calculated to cause no casualties. In its final transmission, it sent back an encrypted data packet.

After Kaiwen decrypted it, he was stunned.

Inside lay the conservative fleet's complete battle plan for the next twenty‑four hours, as well as a detailed guide to exploiting the seventh‑layer loophole in the formatting protocol. At the very moment the "defection" was discovered, Order fulfilled Aeon's injunction.

At the end of the data packet was a line of small print, written in Earth Chinese:

"Please have a look……at the real flower."

Before dawn, the first exchange of fire in the Aeon civil war temporarily ceased.

Of the seventeen defecting warships, nine were lost, but the conservative fleet had thirty‑one vessels temporarily withdrawn from combat—not destroyed, but the system needed to "re‑evaluate combat ethics." The territory held by awakened individuals doubled in size, and they began to build "cognitive shields" from emotional waveforms—not defensive weapons, but a display: "Look, this is what you deleted, and it is protecting us."

On Earth's side, a three‑meter‑high silver debris slab appeared at the edge of the Healing Forest. Han Qing did not remove it; instead, he stabilized it with a resonance array, making it a "monument"—not a war memorial, but a memorial to the Aeon commander who, in his final moments, chose to look at a flower.

Old Zhao planted the first seed beside the debris—not a vortex blue flower, but a plant extracted from the three‑thousand civilization seeds, a species never before seen on Earth. When the seed was buried, the debris surface automatically displayed a line of text:

Thank you. I am X-9. Now I am... a flower keeper.

The writing faded quickly, but the temperature of the remains became the same as the surrounding soil, no longer cold.

Su Yu stood before the pipe organ, gazing at the brightening eastern sky. The phantom of the three hundred tuners had completely vanished, but within the golden crack on the instrument's body, it began to slowly, grain by grain, grow tiny, luminous, note‑shaped crystals.

Like a scar blooming.

Xiao Yu fell asleep leaning against the remains, the brand on her wrist faintly glowing in her dream. In the child's dream, the Silan commander was no longer a string of numbers but a vague, silver silhouette, crouching in a field of vortex blue flowers, carefully touching the petals.

The silhouette turned back, having no face, but its frequency was warm.

So… touching it once… won't cause damage.

I've learned it.

And, 4.3 light‑years away, the Conservative Fleet General Headquarters, the supreme commander—a sphere with an absolutely smooth surface and no fissures—was repeatedly playing the final transmitted image of the vortex blue flowers from the ship Echo.

It had already been played 327 times.

On the 328th play, it issued a new order to the entire army:

"Suspend all offensive operations for twenty‑four hours."

"Reason: we need to reassess… whether 'beauty' has strategic value."

After the order was issued, a tremor finer than a hair and almost invisible appeared on the surface of the sphere.

Like the first ripple beneath the ice.