Chapter 225: The Anchor Point

The amber-colored fruit floated on the top level of the purification tower, like a solidified dawn. It is the "Stable Connecting Anchor," but at this moment it is trembling slightly.

"It cannot adapt to 'stability'." Xiao Yu's wrist light seal resonated with the fruit, eyes closed as she read, "It was born in constant change and crisis, and now it is suddenly asked to become the cornerstone of all connections… it is afraid."

Su Yu folded a paper crane with unusually thick wings and placed it beneath the fruit: "It's like a person who has been running constantly being suddenly asked to stand still as a statue."

The test began at 10 a. m. Participants: Earth, Seran, the Forgemaster, the Folded Civilization, the Tenth Civilization observer, and seven Blooming Devourers. The method was simple— all civilizations simultaneously output a segment of "Emotional Frequency" to the anchor point, testing whether it could distribute them evenly and stabilize the connection.

The process was more difficult than expected.

When the Forgemaster's warm anger, the Folded Civilization's healing pain, the Tenth Civilization's pure curiosity, and the Blooming Devourers' bewildered yearning surged in together, the surface of the amber fruit instantly filled with cracks!

"Load overload!" Kaiwen pushed his glasses three times, the data screen flashing wildly, "Each civilization's frequency is too unique; the anchor point can't find a 'common divisor'—"

Before the words finished, the interior of the fruit suddenly erupted in a burst of intense Resonance. Not harmonization, but— it reflected all frequencies back at once!

Each civilization received the frequencies of all the other civilizations, without translation, without buffering.

The Forgemaster's crystal trembled violently: "I felt… the pain of the Folded Civilization when it removed its suturing lines. That pain… was like the darkness before a furnace is lit for the first time."

The Folded Civilization's light‑point volunteers froze collectively: "We sensed the Tenth Civilization's 'curiosity.' That curiosity… is like a child touching fire for the first time, not knowing it will burn."

And the Tenth Civilization observer Curious‑7 noted that the amber mist showed disorder for the first time: "We sensed the Blooming Devourers' 'bewilderment.' This defies logic—bewilderment is the enemy of efficiency, yet… it created a new pattern in the mist's flow."

Just as the connection was about to collapse, the amber fruit did something no one had anticipated.

It separated from its core seven extremely tiny amber "seed particles," each flying toward one of the seven Blooming Devourers. The particles merged into their bodies— the tip of a transparent jellyfish's tentacle bore a pale‑blue bud now stained with amber veins; a face of the polyhedral crystal revealed the anchor structure inside the fruit; a root tip of an Inverted Tree sprouted a minute amber fruit.

Then, the Blooming Devourers began to sing.

Not with sound, but with the memory fruits stored within them. Each fruit released a segment of a devoured civilization's memory—a melody of a Seran mother humming a lullaby, a vibration frequency from the Forgemaster's furnace the first time it burned steadily, a frame capturing the instant a child's soap bubble burst before Earth's great catastrophe…

These Memory Fragments intertwined in the air, forming a chaotic yet strangely harmonious "Memory Symphony."

Under the shroud of the symphony, all civilizations' frequencies began to auto‑adjust. Not becoming identical, but finding a resonant rhythm—like a group of musicians who have never played together suddenly guided by the same unfamiliar yet familiar melody.

The cracks in the amber fruit began to heal. It no longer trembled, but pulsed regularly like a heartbeat.

"It didn't harmonize us," Ling Lan's voice came through the remote link, awe in it, "It is teaching us… how to resonate within differences."

The test succeeded, the connection's stability reaching 117% of the expected value. But the celebration was brief.

After everyone dispersed, Han Qing stood alone atop the purification tower, watching the fruit rotate slowly. The scar garden on his chest was quiet; the white blossoms had closed their petals, as if resting.

Su Yu came up and handed him a steamed bun—a sugar‑filled one, still warm.

"It's the second basket steamed by Old Zhao's wife," she said, "They added too much sugar; it dripped everywhere. But Old Zhao says a little extra sweetness, sweet to the point of being cloying, lets you truly know you're eating sugar."

Han Qing took a bite; syrup clung to his finger. It was very sweet, sweet to the point of being slightly bitter.

"We aren't used to it," he said suddenly, "We're not used to having no countdown hanging over our heads, not used to not having to prove daily that 'Emotional Frequency has value.' Now they've given us legal status, an Alliance seat… what comes next?"

Su Yu sat beside him and began folding a shapeless piece of paper—just repeatedly folding, not intending to make anything.

"Next," she whispered, "we must learn to live within tranquility. That may be harder than living amid crisis."

In the distance, the seven Blooming Devourers gathered at a corner of the ruins. Each digested the recent resonant experience in its own way: every tentacle of the transparent jellyfish mimicked the frequencies of different civilizations, as if practicing a complex piece; the Inverted Tree's roots traced slow circles in the air, each circle containing the trajectory of a Memory Fragment.

They strive to become "students." Yet that very effort gives Han Qing a heavy sense of responsibility.

At dusk, Aili tallied her medical kit inside the field tent. Seven syringes were neatly arranged, but today she did something different—she took the syringes out one by one and placed them on the table in a circle.

When Kaiwen entered, he was stunned: "What are you…"

"They're waiting," Aili's fingertip lightly touched the first syringe, "waiting for a moment when they don't need to be injected."

She picked up the second— a potent inhibitor for "Emotional Overload‑Induced Organ Failure": "When I studied medicine, the teacher said the best drug is the one that never gets used. But back then I didn't understand; I thought a drug only had value when it was used."

She looked up at Kaiwen: "It's like we've always thought that emotions in crisis are what have value. But today… when the anchor succeeded and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, I realized I was also breathing out. Then I panicked—no crisis, where is my value?"

Kaiwen remained silent for a long while. Then he removed his glasses— the first time he voluntarily took them off in a non‑tense state.

"My value is analyzing data," he said to the hazy world, "but today's data shows that during the calm period, the emotional network developed new 'blank frequency bands.' The Bridge cannot analyze what those blanks are, because they… have never been described by any civilization's language."

He put his glasses back on: "So my new task is to learn how to analyze 'unnamed emotions.' That may be harder than analyzing crises."

Aili put the seven syringes back into her pack, but left one outside—the most ordinary nutrient.

"Starting tomorrow," she said, "I'll inject this into myself daily. Not for treatment, but to remember… the body needs basic nutrients to live. Calmness is the basic nutrient of emotion."

In the deep night, the amber fruit suddenly emitted an alarm frequency.

It wasn't a connection crisis; it had detected an unknown signal—an "echo" from the mixed frequencies it had reflected back. After the echo traveled through the cosmos and touched a deeply hidden civilization boundary, it triggered a reverse probe from the other side.

The Bridge's analysis was unsettling:

【Signal detection characteristics: extremely introverted, almost zero energy leakage】

【Civilization type inference: possibly 'Silent Observer'—the legendary ultimate bystander that never interacts with the outside, only records the universe's entropy increase】

【Counterpart response: a data stream compressed over a million years, content consisting of a single repeated sentence】

【Translation result: "Detected abnormal negative entropy node. Commencing evaluation."】

"Negative entropy node…" Xiao Yu's face turned pale, "means us. We're teaching emotional transmutation, wound blooming, memory repair— all of which oppose entropy increase. Are we making the universe… more ordered?"

Worse, the Blooming Devourers suddenly all turned toward a certain starry direction. Every tentacle of the transparent jellyfish pointed to the same spot, the frequency filled with fear:

"We have devoured their 'records.' They are… the universe's ledger keepers. They erase all 'anomalous items,' preserving the purity of entropy increase."

A memory fruit of the Inverted Tree cracked open, releasing a vague image: a once‑glorious civilization that, having invented 'Immortality Technology' (also a form of negative entropy), was completely erased from the universe by the Silent Observer, its memory even formatted.

The final frame displayed a line of text:

"Evaluation period: thirty standard Earth days. Evaluation method: unknown."

Han Qing stood beneath the amber fruit, looking up at it. The anchor model inside the fruit was rotating slowly, as if contemplating.

"Are you afraid?" he asked.

The fruit gave no reply. Yet it lowered an extremely thin amber filament, gently touching the scar garden on Han Qing's chest.

The filament conveyed not language but a feeling: "I was born from difference. If the universe seeks to erase difference, every second of my existence is resistance to that erasure. So… I'm not afraid."

Su Yu came over, holding the half‑eaten sugar‑filled bun. She split the bun, letting the syrup flow out, then dabbed a fingertip in it and dotted it onto the amber filament.

The syrup crawled up the filament, as if coating it with a thin, trembling layer of gold.

"Thirty days," Su Yu said, "enough to steam many baskets of buns, fold many paper cranes, and teach the Blooming Devourers about many kinds of 'sweet'."

In the distance, Old Zhao was lighting a lamp—not an electric lamp, but an old oil lamp. The lamp light was dim yellow, swaying in the night wind, illuminating the new tea cups he had prepared for tomorrow's tea gathering. There were eight tea cups, and on the wall of one of them was painted a tiny crack, from which a leaf had grown.

He spoke softly to the lamp light: "What is meant to come will come. But tea must be drunk every day."

The amber-colored fruit's light shone steadily in the night sky. Like a star that was overly gentle, to the point of appearing somewhat stubborn.