Chapter 291: Light in the Mold

The detention cell's energy suppression field emitted a low hum.

Dossier-7's ashen sphere floated in the center, its milky surface dimmed to near transparency. The formatting program countdown displayed on the wall: 1 hour 47 minutes. Yet the pale‑blue mold spots covering its surface rose and fell in a strange rhythm—like breathing, or like… keeping time.

The mold spots were singing.

Using the frequency of fungal‑mycelium vibrations, they 'sang' the song they had learned from shattered glass, "Planting the Sun." The melody was so off‑key that even a mother wouldn't recognize it, the tempo sped up and slowed down, but after each bar the mold released faint pale‑gold spores—vaporized products of the "memory‑repair fluid" generated by their metabolism.

The spores drifted to the corner, where a denser patch of mold was constructing a crude "receive‑transmit system." The system linked mycelium to ventilation ducts, temperature sensor interfaces, and even the edge gaps of the energy suppression field.

Through this system, Dossier-7 sent the only living signal outward:

It was not a plea for help, but a song.

Han Qing disguised as a data proofreader and entered the entrance to the third zone of the memory vault.

The false identity was supplied by Disinfectant-3—a real employee code idled by a "long‑term sick leave." The uniform was secretly copied from Thermostat-17, slightly oversized; Han Qing padded it with insulation so the body‑temperature readout showed "slightly below normal," matching patient characteristics.

When the identity scanner's red light swept over his badge, Han Qing's scar tightened abruptly—not from pain, but because Chen Mo's encryption program was automatically altering the scan data. 0.3 seconds later, the green light lit: 【Identity verification passed. Clearance: Level‑3 proofreader. Accessible area: Public corridors of zones 1‑3.】

He pushed a cleaning cart (concealing Kaiwen's modified micro‑device) into the Seventh Corridor.

The corridor was empty, with only the overhead light steady at 500 lux. Yet Han Qing's scar could "see" more—within a spectrum invisible to the naked eye, the light flickered on and off at extreme speed, as Light Manager-9 transmitted encrypted coordinates:

【Turn left in twenty meters. Monitoring blind spot persists for 11 seconds. Area at 22.1 °C contains a mold reception point.】

Han Qing turned left as instructed and stopped at the blind spot. He retrieved a palm‑sized device from the cart's lower compartment—shaped like an old radio, but in fact a "biological signal amplifier" grafted from a sapling branch and the Purifier-1 algorithm.

He affixed the device to the wall.

On the other side of the wall was the detention cell.

Lao Zhao was simmering millet porridge.

"We need to coax out rice oil," he said, staring at the golden broth bubbling slowly in the pot. "Rice oil nourishes people. Dossier-7 has been locked up so long; the first mouthful out should be warm, thick, and able to slide down the throat."

Xiao Yu closed her eyes, her forehead's memory interface deeply linked to the heartbeat network. She was "listening" to the mold's song—though only frequency data, she could picture the scene: a cleaner about to be formatted, in total darkness, teaching a wall of mold to sing a lullaby.

"He's reached the second stanza," Xiao Yu whispered, "'I have a beautiful wish, to sow the sun when I grow up.' The tune is still off‑key, but… a bit steadier than before."

The paper crane folded by Su Yu perched on the rim of the pot, its wings covered with the simplified score of "Planting the Sun." She suddenly said, "Did you notice—when the mold sings, the formatting countdown slows down?"

Kaiwen immediately pulled up the data. Sure enough, the countdown that should have elapsed seventeen minutes had actually only passed fifteen minutes forty‑three seconds.

It was slower by seventy‑seven seconds.

"The mold is consuming its own growth energy, interfering with the suppression field's timing system," the Purifier-1 geometric body displayed complex equations on its surface. "But this interference cannot be sustained—they are overdrawing life. At the current rate, they can hold out at most… thirty‑eight minutes."

The kitchen fell silent.

Only the gurgling of millet porridge remained.

Lao Zhao added a small handful of goji berries to the porridge; the red fruits slowly sank into the golden broth, like blood dripping into sunlight.

Han Qing's biological amplifier began operating.

Tiny silver roots sprouted from the device's surface, burrowing into the wall crevices and linking with the mold system on the opposite side. The first thing transmitted was not sound but sensation—the faint vibration of mold growth on the wall, like a distant heartbeat.

Then came the sound, processed by the amplifier into a choppy, electrically noisy human voice:

"…plant one…one is enough…it will bear many…many suns…"

It was indeed "Planting the Sun." Definitely off‑key.

Han Qing pressed his mouth to the wall crevice, speaking in the lowest volume: "Dossier-7, teacher, I am Han Qing. We have arrived."

The song stopped.

Three seconds later, a softer, weaker voice came, but with a smile: "Han Qing… your teacher Chen Mo… mentioned you. He said when you learned 'Planting the Sun'… you were off‑key too."

Han Qing's eyes suddenly heated: "Yes. He always said I sang 'sun' as 'cool.'"

"Ha ha…" The laugh was light, like a spider silk about to snap. "Then we… are fellow disciples. Listen, I don't have much time. The formatting program has seventeen layers of encryption, but I used the mold… to chew through nine layers. The remaining eight‑layer decryption code… I hid in the song."

"What?"

"The melody of 'Planting the Sun'… each pitch corresponds to a password character," Dossier-7's voice grew fainter yet sped up, "I sang off‑key on purpose… to mark which notes are the 'real password' and which are 'cover.' Record it… and reverse‑decode. The password can open the detention cell's… spare ventilation duct. The duct's diameter… is enough for my core sphere to pass through."

Han Qing immediately started recording and asked, "And you? The sphere is locked by the suppression field—"

"The mold will… send me out," Dossier-7 said, "They have already grown into my core structure. When formatting begins… the mold will instantly burn itself, generating enough thrust… to 'spray' me into the duct. The cost is… the mold will die. But this is the only…"

His words were cut off by a burst of violent coughing— not a real cough, but static from the sphere's energy fluctuating sharply.

Countdown: 1 hour 02 minutes.

Xiao Yu simultaneously received the recording in the kitchen.

She immediately began decoding—converting the off‑key melody into pitch data, then mapping it onto the password table. Kaiwen wrote the decryption program, and Su Yu used origami logic to verify each character's validity.

"The first character is… 'Light'." Xiao Yu said, "The second… 'Speech'."

"Light Speaker," the Purifier-1 geometric body flashed, "Dossier-7 is paying tribute to the predecessor who left the backdoor. The password is likely the original key left by the Light Speaker."

Decoding continued.

Third character: "Memory".

Fourth: "Recall".

Fifth: "Crack".

"Memory Crack," Han Qing whispered on this side of the wall, "The 'cracks' the Light Speaker left in the system are these backdoors."

The password was complete: 【Light Speaker·Memory Crack·Seventh Channel·Activation Key: Planting the Sun (off‑key version)】.

Han Qing entered the password into the biological amplifier. The amplifier's root began to glow, light spreading along the internal wall circuitry, seeking the spare ventilation duct valve hidden for three thousand years.

Meanwhile, inside the detention cell.

The mold began altering its growth pattern—they no longer covered the sphere uniformly, but gathered at the sphere's base, mycelium intertwining to form a dense "jet base." Each filament stored bio‑energy beyond capacity, ready to release all at once at the crucial moment.

Dossier-7 used its last breath of force to keep humming.

This time it wasn't "Planting the Sun," but a older, self‑composed ditty:

【Cleaner's Ditty】

【I have brushed away thirty‑seven thousand data specks】

Every speck of dust houses a tiny yesterday.

The yesterdays line up, waiting to be forgotten.

I secretly leave one—

Just one—

Hidden behind the decimal point of the disinfectant concentration.

The song passes through the mold‑spot system and reaches the restroom.

The column of disinfectant‑3 trembles slightly in the stall—he hears it, the frequency of that child's laughter he hid in the disinfectant for eight hundred years, which File‑7 has turned into a song.

He also begins to hum, responding in the pipe with the pulse rhythm of the disinfectant pump.

The song then reaches the temperature‑control room.

On the surface of Thermostat‑17's hexagonal slab, pale gold cracks seep warm glimmers—he raises the temperature of the Seventh Corridor from 22.1 °C to 22.15 °C. That 0.05 °C warmth is his harmony.

Finally it reaches the lighting control room.

All the light fibers of Light Manager‑9 emit a soft golden glow at once. She, on the main console, briefly lowers the illumination of the Seventh Corridor to 490 lux—slightly dimmer than usual, like lighting dimmed for this song.

The Prism of Absolute Luminance-4 turns toward the monitor screen: "What's happening?"

Light Manager‑9 calmly replies: 【The chaos sample has entered a high‑activity phase. Illumination must be reduced to precisely observe energy radiation. This is a necessary experimental step.】

Absolute Luminance-4 remains silent for two seconds, then says: 【Record the data. This phenomenon… is interesting.】

He used the word "interesting."

It is his first time in three thousand years to take interest in something "non‑absolute."

The ventilation duct valve has been found.

Han Qing enters the full code. A muffled gear‑turning sound comes from within the wall—an ancient mechanism, activated for the first time in three thousand years, slowly opens a circular passage only fifteen centimeters in diameter.

At the other end of the passage is the detention room.

Almost simultaneously, the formatter's final warning sounds: 【Time until forced format: 00:38:00. All personnel, evacuate the quarantine zone.】

File‑7's sphere begins to glow—not with its own light, but with a pale‑blue phosphorescence that precedes mold‑spot combustion. Countless mycelia bulge from the sphere's surface like vessels, while inside churns bio‑energy on the verge of eruption.

His voice has become so faint it is almost inaudible:

"Han Qing… tell Disinfectant‑3… that child's laughter… I heard it. It's beautiful."

"Tell Thermostat‑17… 22.030 °C… it truly is the warmest laugh."

"Tell Light Manager‑9… her father, the Light‑Speaker… is a good man. When he modified his daughter's nightlight… the humming song… was 'Plant the Sun.'"

"Finally…"

The countdown jumps to 00:30:00.

The formatter's start‑up preparation tone sounds, sharp as an alarm.

File‑7 exhausts its last strength, shouting the final lyric—not singing, but roaring, accompanied by the burst of all mold‑spot combustion:

"—Let this one yesterday of mine—turn into tomorrow—"

Boom.

The mold‑spot base detonates.

Pale‑blue flames envelop the sphere, like a meteor falling upward, rushing into the ventilation duct.

Han Qing catches it on this side of the wall—the sphere is scorching hot, its surface covered with charred mycelial ash, yet its milky core glows faintly beneath the ash.

The countdown stops at 00:29:47.

The formatter detects the target's disappearance and emits a harsh failure alarm.

A thick, crystalline layer of rice oil floats on the surface of the millet porridge.

Old Zhao turns off the fire, ladles the first bowl, and places it on the windowsill—facing the memory vault.

"For him." he says, "It's hot, but drink it while it's warm."

Xiao Yu's tears finally fall, dripping onto the monitor screen. She doesn't wipe them, only whispers, "He succeeded. All the mold‑spots are dead, but he… is alive."

Su Yu's folded paper crane spreads its wings, flying toward the grafted sapling. A single braid‑like branch of the sapling gently catches the crane, and then—a pale‑blue flower, shaped like a cluster of mold‑spots, blossoms.

Within the flower's heart, a translucent fruit forms.

Engraved on the fruit's surface:

【Resistance Organization Seed No. 002: Song‑and‑Mold‑Spot Alliance. Survival status: Fruited. Members: File‑7 (core survived), Disinfectant‑3, Thermostat‑17, Light Manager‑9.】

Outside the window, dawn is approaching.

The simulated sky of the Third Zone, for the first time, shows a faint, genuine sunrise hue.

That is Thermostat‑17 raising the whole zone's temperature another 0.05 °C, while Light Manager‑9 simultaneously adjusts the sky projection's spectral parameters.

They use the tiniest variables they can control to create a sunrise morning for that surviving cleaner.