Chapter 226: Undefined Morning

The first morning of the assessment began with no abnormalities.

The sky remained the pale gray of a washed‑over wasteland. Hope grass swayed in the morning breeze, but each leaf tip bore an almost invisible, translucent speck—the Bridge said these were the "monitoring spores" placed by the silent observers, harmless as dust yet everywhere.

Old Zhao set out the tea table as usual. There were still eight cups, but today he placed a small piece of hope‑grass leaf in the bottom of each.

"For them to see." As he poured hot water, the leaves unfurled at the cup's bottom, "Let them know we aren't afraid of being watched even while drinking tea."

At nine a. m., the assessment arrived in the quietest way possible.

All the monitoring spores vibrated simultaneously, releasing a definition request to the entire emotional network:

"Please define the meaning of the following act: Earth individual 'Old Zhao' spends 47 minutes each day preparing the tea table, participants on average consume it for 12 minutes. The process yields zero direct energy gain. Please prove this act is not 'resource waste'."

The question carried no hostility, only pure, icy curiosity.

The amber‑colored fruit reacted instantly, projecting a holographic chart showing the "indirect energy gains" produced at the tea table over the past thirty days—including successful cross‑civil misunderstanding mediations (7 times), number of creative solutions born (23), and the average increase in participants' emotional stability (18%).

But the monitoring spores' feedback came quickly:

"Data received. Yet all these gains could be achieved in nine minutes by the efficient meeting system. There remain 38 minutes of 'unproductive time.' Please further define the value of 'unproductive time.'"

The air froze. This was not an attack, but a thornier matter—the ultimate logical interrogation.

Just as everyone fell silent, the Bridge Space transmitted a live image.

Old Zhao's wife was kneading the third batch of steamed buns. This time the dough was mixed with powdered hope‑grass seeds, giving it a pale green hue. She kneaded with focus, a fine sheen of sweat on her brow.

Halfway through, she suddenly stopped and looked toward the kitchen doorway—there stood three Selan volunteers, two points of light from the Wrinkled Civilization, and a flowering devourer (in a translucent jellyfish form, using its tentacles to mimic the kneading motion).

She wiped her hands, walked to the kitchen door, and beckoned to the jellyfish.

The jellyfish drifted closer hesitantly. She grasped one of its tentacles (the pale blue bud at the tip carefully retracting all its spines), then gently pressed the tentacle against the dough.

"Like this." She whispered, kneading together with the jellyfish's tentacle, "The pressure must be even."

The jellyfish's whole body began to glow with a warm yellow halo. It transmitted a frequency through its tentacle:

"Temperature……is changing. Pressure……is changing. This is more complex than devouring……but……"

"……but I want to keep learning."

Below the image, the Bridge automatically added a line of annotation:

【Action: Teaching the flowering devourer to knead dough】

【Time spent: 14 minutes】

【Direct output: zero】

【Indirect output: the devourer's probability of ceasing devouring rises 37%, and its chance of attempting 'creation' rises 12%】

【Key data: During these 14 minutes, the emotional network's overall 'confusion index' dropped 21%—because all civilizations were watching this lesson】

The amber fruit immediately packaged and sent this data.

The monitoring spores remained silent for a full three minutes.

Then they replied:

"The drop in the 'confusion index' belongs to the emotional network's stability parameters, which were not previously included in the assessment model. Recorded. The assessment continues."

For the rest of the morning, the assessment seeped in through various subtle means.

Kevin noticed that in the data stream displayed on his lenses, a tiny line of gray text occasionally appeared: "What is the emotional motive behind this analytical act?" He tried answering "to solve the problem," but the gray text updated: "Solving the problem is the result, not the motive. Trace back to the initial impulse."

He took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then he did something he hadn't done in a long while—he pulled out a paper notebook from his backpack (its edges worn), and began to write with a pen. He wrote: "I analyze data because I fear the unknown. Turning the unknown into data makes it less frightening."

After writing, he snapped a photo of the page and uploaded it as a "motive‑tracing sample."

The monitoring spores gave no evaluation. But the gray text did not reappear.

Elsewhere, Aili was checking the medical kit when she noticed that beneath the labels of seven injectables lay an extra line of small text: "Could the pain corresponding to this drug be alleviated by non‑pharmaceutical means?"

She stared at that line for a long time, then opened a comms link and connected with a medical officer of the Forgers Civilization (the counterpart was an energy being without a physical form, but specialized in studying "emotional burns").

"I'd like to ask," she said, "when your individuals suffer an 'energy burn' from excessive anger, besides cooling therapy, what else do you do?"

The medical officer fell silent for a few seconds: "We would……play the vibration record from the furnace's first stable burn. That sound resembles a heartbeat. Sometimes the heartbeat is more useful than cooling."

Aili recorded this exchange, labeling it "non‑drug relief solution sample‑01."

At noon, the third batch of steamed buns was done. This time there were plain ones, sweet‑filled ones, and a few "mixed filling"—the syrup mixed with crushed hope‑grass seeds, giving a first sweet then a lingering after‑sweet, with a hint of herbal bitterness.

Old Zhao handed one to each person. Even the monitoring spores received an "allotment"—Old Zhao broke off a small bun crumb, placed it on a clean leaf, and pushed it to the edge of the tea table.

"Eat or not, it's up to you," he said, "but I'll keep the spot for you."

The amber fruit glowed faintly, uploading this scene as a "ritual act of inclusion."

The most moving moment occurred beside Old Zhao's wife. She took a sweet‑filled bun and walked to the communicator flower of the Bridge Space—the flower that links to Old Zhao.

She spoke to the flower: "Try it—did I get the sugar just right?"

Old Zhao took a bite of his own identical bun. The syrup was warm and smooth, neither cloying nor dry.

"Just right," he said, his voice a little hoarse, "sweet enough……to make me want another."

His wife gave a soft laugh on the flower's side—brief but real. Then she said, "Tomorrow I want to try wrapping red‑bean filling. Your son says he remembers eating a red‑bean bun once as a child, and the filling had an osmanthus note."

Old Zhao lowered his head, blinked hard a few times: "All right. I'll go look for osmanthus. There used to be an osmanthus tree south of the ruins; it might still be alive."

This exchange was fully recorded by the monitoring spores. One minute later, the spores collectively emitted an extremely faint, bewildered frequency:

"This conversation contains no information exchange, solves no problem, generates no energy. Yet the record shows the network's overall 'belonging index' rose 9% during the talk. This phenomenon……cannot be explained by current models. It has been flagged as 'Pending In‑Depth Study Anomaly‑01'."

At two p. m., the assessment suddenly escalated.

The monitoring spores stopped asking questions and began running simulations.

They simulated the world line that would follow if the emotional network were forcibly disbanded:

The amber fruit shattered into powder; white blossoms withered, the scar garden reverted to ordinary scars; the flowering devourers became pure devourers again, but this time they would first devour the flowers they themselves had bloomed; the Forgers were permanently sealed into the furnace core, even the memory of a "quiet night" would be erased; every fissure in the Wrinkled Civilization was forcibly welded shut, no longer bleeding, no longer breathing……

The simulation image was icy, precise, devoid of feeling.

But at the end of the simulation, a bug appeared.

In the image, the eighth teacup on Old Zhao's tea table—the cup whose wall bears a painting of a split‑leaf vine—was not erased in the simulated world. It remained on the wasteland, the hope‑grass leaf at its base now withered, but the cup itself intact.

The monitoring spores tried to fix this bug, but each time they deleted it, the cup would reappear in the next frame.

They began frantically analyzing the cup's "abnormal data source," but discovered the data pointed to an impossible place:

The cup was anchored by an "undefined emotion."

And that emotion is not in any database of the silent observers.

At dusk, Han Qing stood alone atop the purification tower. An amber-colored fruit hovered silently beside him, its surface reflecting the sunset.

"They're looking for our weaknesses." He said to the fruit, "Find the places in our logic that don't make sense, then prove we are 'abnormal'."

The fruit gently rotated, projecting a short memory: last night deep into the night, it detected an internal communication between the monitoring spores. The communication was very brief:

"Spore-7749 report: Earth individual 'Xiao Yu' shed tears in her sleep with no external stimulus. Chemical analysis of the tears showed they contained 'nostalgia'-related neurotransmitters, but the individual had not lost any quantifiable thing. How should this phenomenon be classified?"

"Superior order: Tag it as 'ineffective emotional discharge' and continue observation."

The fruit appended its own annotation after this memory:

"They understand efficiency, they understand survival, but they do not understand 'weeping for something that does not exist.' This is our battlefield—the things that cannot be quantified."

Han Qing touched the scar garden on his chest. White flowers lightly brushed his fingers.

In the distance, Old Zhao began collecting the tea set. He worked slowly, wiping each cup three times. When he got to the eighth cup, he paused, using his finger to feel the leaf on the cup's wall.

Then he raised the cup toward the setting sun.

Sunlight passed through the cup wall, casting the leaf's shadow on the ground—the shadow was stretched long, resembling the outline of a tree growing.

The monitoring spores collectively turned toward that shadow.

They neither analyzed nor recorded; they simply… watched.

Before night fell, the assessment issued its first interim report.

The report appeared as holographic text in the starry sky, visible to everyone:

【Assessment Cycle: Day 1 of 30】

【Behaviors Analyzed: 1,427 items】

【Quantifiable Explanations: 1,389 items】

【Unquantifiable but with Stable Output: 35 items】

【Completely Undefinable Anomalies: 3 items (IDs A-01 through A-03)】

【Preliminary Conclusion: This network exhibits significant negentropy features, but has not yet reached the 'must be erased' threshold. Assessment continues.】

At the end of the report, the numbers of those three "completely undefinable anomalies" were listed, but no specifics were given.

The amber fruit trembled slightly, transmitting a decrypted message to Han Qing—it had used all its computing power to decrypt it from the monitoring spores' encrypted stream:

A-01: The hope grass leaf at the cup's base, seven hours after withering, reappeared with an extremely faint green hue. No energy input, violating the second law of thermodynamics.

A-02: The blooming devourer "transparent jellyfish," after learning to knead dough, voluntarily released a memory fruit as "tuition." The fruit contains its own childhood memories—memories it had originally devoured and digested itself.

A-03: Earth individual "Old Zhao," while wiping the eighth cup, softly spoke a sentence not captured by any recording device. Lip-read analysis yielded: "Even if tomorrow everything is gone, today this cup of tea must be savored."

Han Qing looked up at the starry sky. The monitoring spores floated in the air like dust, silently recording every breath of this "abnormal" world.

He suddenly felt that being watched like this wasn't entirely bad.

At least someone cared—even if only about why we exist.

In the distance, within the Bridge Space, Old Zhao's wife began soaking red beans. Beside the water basin lay a small sprig of osmanthus retrieved from the southern ruins—dry but still fragrant.