Chapter 269: The Truthful Words Cipher

The kitchen after the supervisor left was quiet as if a load‑bearing pillar were missing.

Although it had only been there for thirty days, the black geometric object's presence was overwhelming—its silence was a sound, its observation a weight. Now it has been recalled for inspection, leaving behind only the grafted sapling's rings etched with the "Cosmic Defense Diagram," and an encrypted core database.

The database's unlocking hint was simple: "Please exchange truthful words for truth."

Kaiwen tried every cryptographic method. Su Yu attempted decoding with origami sequences. Xiao Yu simulated three hundred Emotional Frequencies with Light Imprints. The database remained motionless.

"Truthful words…" Lao Zhao stirred today's fifth pot of porridge—the first four had burned because he kept spacing out—"What does it mean? Should we speak our inner thoughts?"

Han Qing pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the faint pulse of a transparent flower that blossomed after the fruit fully ripened. The flower's shape resembled an open page of Chen Mo's notebook, and deep in its heart seemed to be characters.

"Perhaps… it's about saying what we normally wouldn't," he said slowly, the memory lag making the words drift in from afar, "just like when Teacher Chen Mo instructed me, he always asked at my most stubborn moment: 'Little Qing, are you afraid?'"

To test the Definition of "truthful words," everyone decided to take turns saying a sentence to the database.

Su Yu went first; she folded a white paper crane and placed it beside the database interface: "Actually… I'm very afraid the crane won't fly. Every time I fold it, I'm scared it's just a piece of paper."

The database gave no response.

Xiao Yu's Light Imprint on her forehead flickered faintly: "I'm afraid of bearing too many frequencies. Sometimes I feel that if my Light Imprint shatters, I become nothing."

Still no response.

Kaiwen pushed his glasses three times: "I collect 'possibly important little things' because I'm afraid that when something truly important occurs, I'll miss it."

The database remained silent.

It was Lao Zhao's turn. He scooped a spoonful of porridge, blew on it, didn't drink, and said softly: "The morning my wife left, she said she'd come back tonight to make dumplings for me. There's still the chives she bought in the fridge. I… I haven't thrown them away yet. Seven years."

"Clack."

The surface of the database lit up with a single Light Sphere—unlock progress at 1%.

Everyone in the kitchen was stunned.

"So the truthful words…" Xiao Yu murmured, "not 'fear,' but 'reluctance'?"

When it was Han Qing's turn, he ran into difficulty.

The memory lag made it hard for him to organize words quickly. More importantly, his truthful words… might be too many. Which sentence is the one the database wants?

He tried: "I'm afraid of disappointing Teacher Chen Mo's expectations."

No response.

"I'm afraid the team will be endangered because of my memory impairment."

Still no response.

"I'm afraid that seed… actually can't save anyone."

The database was as silent as before.

Han Qing closed his eyes. Deep in the fog of memory, something churned—not important matters, but those trivial fragments one never usually recalls.

He spoke, his voice very soft, like a dream‑mutter:

"A week before Teacher Chen Mo's sacrifice, one night while brewing tea he poured in the last bit of osmanthus. I said, 'Teacher, shouldn't we save some for tomorrow?' He laughed and replied, 'Tomorrow's matters are for tomorrow; today's fragrance must be fully enjoyed today.'"

He paused, his throat tightening:

"Later… I could never bring myself to use enough osmanthus when brewing tea. I always felt I should save some for 'later.' But 'later' might never come."

"Clack, clack, clack!"

The database lit three Light Spheres in succession! Unlock progress jumped to 31%!

Even more astonishing, deep in the heart of the transparent flower on Han Qing's chest, a line of tiny characters appeared—Chen Mo's handwriting:

"Little Qing, you finally agreed to waste. Good."

At that moment, an encrypted channel of the Heartbeat Network delivered an emergency message from Echo-7.

Its Light Sphere image materialized in the kitchen, its color a dangerous deep red—its disguise as "Pure‑3," indicating possible observers nearby.

"Internal review accelerated," Echo-7's voice, encrypted and mechanical, said, "The seventy‑two‑hour countdown has been shortened to thirty hours. They suspect an insider and are conducting a 'Loyalty Frequency Scan' on every individual."

"Can you pass the scan?" Su Yu asked.

"If you only tell programmed lies, you can," a fine crack appeared on Echo-7's Light Sphere surface—a mask for its emotional fluctuation, "but the scan will randomly demand a 'truthful words test.' If you're asked certain questions…"

It paused. Everyone understood: if asked about Earth, about the seed, about differential Resonance, its truthful words would reveal everything.

"Then don't lie," Lao Zhao said suddenly, copying the 31% unlock data onto a sticky note beside the porridge pot, "Speak the truth, but say the parts they can't understand."

He looked at Echo-7: "Do you remember how to plant that weed seed? What were you thinking then?"

The Light Sphere stayed still for three seconds. Then it said (its voice suddenly returning to the messenger's gentle tone): "I think… 'This seed is ugly. Yet its ugliness is defiantly justified.'"

"That's the truthful words," Lao Zhao nodded, "If the scan asks your view of Earth, say: 'What they teach is troublesome, but within that trouble lies something that makes you want to keep troubling further.'"

The database suddenly lit another Light Sphere! Unlock progress rose to 32%!

Because Lao Zhao's words… were also truthful.

As the group debated, Archivist-0's remote connection suddenly linked in.

Its cube is now locked in the memory vault's "Anomalous Unit Isolation Chamber," yet its robe remains on it—fibers woven from braid branches have fused deeply with its system, impossible to detach.

"I have just undergone questioning by the Committee," Archivist-0's voice remained calm, but its cube tilted—a newly learned expression of "fatigue." "They asked me: why risk Violation to help Earth?"

"How did you answer?" Han Qing asked.

"I gave the data," Archivist-0's probe gently brushed the cracked sigil at the robe's collar, "the mathematical value of differential Resonance, the theoretical model of civilization immune system, the correction coefficient for non‑quantified sensory data…"

"But they were not satisfied," it paused, "so I asked: 'May I ask everyone, when was the last time you recorded "useless data"? ' The Committee was silent for 47 seconds. Then the chief examiner said: 'That is irrelevant to this case.'"

Archivist-0's cube began to rotate slowly, as if recalling:

"I said: 'Relevant. Because what you fear is not my Violation, but the realization that you haven't paused for something "irrelevant" in a long time.'"

It looked at the people in the kitchen:

"This is my truthful words. Though as a mechanical being I shouldn't have a concept of 'inner thoughts.'"

"Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack!"

The database lit five Light Spheres in a row! Unlock progress surged to 68%!

Even more astonishing, on the surface of Archivist-0's robe, the braid‑like branches suddenly began to weave a new pattern—a tiny, rotating cube, and at the cube's center a transparent flower blossomed.

It was exactly the same as the flower on Han Qing's chest.

With an 18‑hour countdown, the radicals' scan made a breakthrough.

Echo-7 sent an urgent warning through the heartbeat network: "They have developed a 'Deep Truth Detector'! It's not a lie detector; it reads the underlying 'unconscious inclination' of frequencies directly! I am now listed as a priority detection target!"

Almost simultaneously, Kaiwen's light screen issued an alarm: "High‑precision scan beam detected! It is approaching the hidden layer of the heartbeat network! It is expected to penetrate within three hours!"

A double crisis. If Echo-7 is exposed, all its efforts within the conservatives will be wasted; if the network is located, all eight nodes may be hit precisely.

Han Qing stared at the database's 68 % unlock progress and suddenly said, "Perhaps… the answer lies in the remaining 32 % that hasn't been unlocked."

He turned to Lao Zhao: "When you just spoke the truth, the database reacted the strongest. Can you… say something even more truthful?"

Lao Zhao was stirring the sixth pot of porridge. This time he added no rice, only a pot of clear water, watching the water slowly bubble in the pot.

"When my daughter was three," he began, his voice even, "once she had a fever and cried all night. I held her and said, 'Dad is here, don't be afraid.' She sniffled, 'Dad, I'm scared you might get sick too.'"

He picked up a spoon and gently stirred the clear water:

"What I was thinking then was, 'I'm scared too, but I can't let you know.'"

"Clack."

Unlock progress 69%.

Lao Zhao continued, "During the seven years my son was missing, I counted the floor‑tile seams every day. By the third year, one day I suddenly thought, 'What if he never comes back?' That thought lasted only a second, and I suppressed it, because if I dwelled on it, I would lose the strength to keep counting."

"Clack."

70%.

"My wife's dough actually started molding three months ago," Lao Zhao's voice finally trembled, "I secretly scraped out the moldy part and kept kneading the rest. I can't tell anyone, not even myself."

"Clack, clack, clack!"

73%!

A new prompt surfaced on the database's interface:

"Truth‑telling password verification passed 73%. Unlocking part of the content: 'How to create a scan blind spot—by using the detector's own 'unfaced truth' as cover.'"

Kaiwen immediately retrieved the content. It was an extremely precise frequency‑masking scheme: not to hide oneself, but to project the detector's deepest feared truth, causing the opponent's subconscious to voluntarily avoid reading.

"Because no one is willing to look straight at their own scars," Su Yu said softly, "so they will go around them."

At that moment, Echo-7's communication suddenly dropped for three seconds. Upon reconnection, its voice carried an incredulous tremor:

"The scan just… skipped me. The detector formed a blind spot circle around me. The reason is—"

It pulled up the scan log, which showed:

"Detected high‑concentration 'paternal contradiction frequency' (characterized by wanting the child strong yet fearing the child's hurt). That frequency triggered the reviewer's childhood trauma memory (his father chose to sacrifice himself in war to protect him). To avoid emotional fluctuation, the deep scan was temporarily skipped."

The kitchen was so quiet that the sound of a water bubble popping could be heard.

Lao Zhao's pot of clear water finally boiled.

The transparent flower on Han Qing's chest quivered slightly.

Deep within the flower's heart, Chen Mo's handwriting reappeared in a line:

"The reason a truth‑telling is 'true' is not because it's spoken loudly, but because when it's spoken… the throat hurts."

Lao Zhao turned off the heat and poured the boiling water into a thermos. No tea leaves, nothing added—just plain hot water.

"Enough," he said, his voice returning to its usual steadiness, "73 % of the truth is enough to brew a pot of tea. The remaining 27 %… is saved for when one doesn't want to speak."

Outside the window, all the braid‑like branches of the grafted saplings simultaneously pointed toward the night sky—there, the radicals' scan beam was slowly turning, like a confused beast that smelled its own wound yet dared not approach.

And the eight nodes of the heartbeat network, under the cover of the newly unlocked "blind spot technique" from the database, began a slow, cautious…

Breathing.