Chapter 521

The Infinite’s speed began to slow on its track; Lin Xian arrived at Car 2, and his gaze immediately fell on numerous screens each performing different decodings.

Only the central screen displayed a string of binary code, motionless.

01110000, 01101111, 01110111, 01100101, 01110010

“What is this?” Lin Xian frowned, his eyes turning to Kiki.

“I removed the repeated cyclic terms, then tried every encoding I could—64-base, 10-base, cyclic code, mapping code, differential code, Morse code—and then…”

Kiki sucked on her lollipop, then, under Lin Xian’s gaze, tapped a key lightly; instantly, the binary string transformed into five ordered English characters, and as the characters appeared, Lin Xian’s pupils locked onto them.

p——o——w——e——r

“Power?”

“It’s the only answer that makes sense to us; everything else is garbage,” Kiki said seriously, looking at Lin Xian. “Now the question is: what does it mean? Rights? Electricity? Power? Ugh, I hate English…”

Lin Xian’s eyes reflected the screen’s faint glow as he said quietly: “And we don’t even know the context—who it’s for, like…”

He glanced at Kiki; both understood the unspoken answer in each other’s eyes.

“Don’t resist, South Heaven Gate?”

Lin Xian nodded, puzzled: “South Heaven Gate’s messages are in Chinese characters; this is English. Could it be from a different entity?”

“Not necessarily,” Kiki smiled faintly, explaining seriously to Lin Xian. “Chinese characters are stored as double-byte in computers. Two Chinese characters become hexadecimal, then decimal, then each byte converted to 8-bit binary—divide by two, take the remainder, reverse the order. The process is far more complex. Sixty-four-base was already abstract enough; adding all these steps? Even a god wouldn’t think of it…”

“Also, South Heaven Gate is beyond the Celestial Veil, using the Pandax-4T liquid xenon detector to sense dark matter particle fluctuations, then decoding via gravitational waves. I suspect there’s a difference here—but then again…”

Kiki stared at Lin Xian, speechless: “Aren’t Chinese and English both part of our Blue Star’s human civilization?”

“True…” Lin Xian said. “So you mean the message isn’t cryptic for show—it’s just too complex?”

Kiki took a breath, staring at the screen: “Hard to say if it’s cryptic, but logically, if two civilizations are far apart and want to transmit information accurately, it’s never simple. These are just a few codes—but with our current human tech, the Milky Way is still an insurmountable mountain.”

Lin Xian’s expression shifted between doubt and dread; on one hand, he felt the metal die’s puzzle might finally be cracking, but on the other, an unknown fear and curiosity gripped him—not just about these characters, but about the civilization that sent them.

Whoosh!

Outside, a gust of wind whirred; Lin Xian activated his powered armor’s visual overlay. The Sentry System’s 360-degree exterior view filled his sight: they had reached the outskirts of a city, radar scanning the silhouette of a ruined urban sprawl.

“This should be Uppala, a mid-sized city in Costa Rica.”

Kiki opened a holographic map, zooming in: “Here! Hmm… it’s been a dead city for a while. The Dawn Center’s main force stopped here briefly, because ahead lies Lake Nicaragua—we must cross it fast. Left is the Pacific, right is the great lake; clearly a place where big things might appear.”

Lin Xian’s face darkened as he checked the time: “Night’s coming. We must stop. We’ll observe tonight, enter Mexico tomorrow.”

“Alright.” Kiki nodded.

At 18:30, the Infinite slowed to a halt on the outskirts of the ruined city. Iron wheels crushed concrete shards and rebar debris, grinding to a stop with a screech of metal, the armed train resting silently within a thick crimson fog.

Hundreds of defense drones circled the train like night owls, silent. The electrostatic shield activated; drones extended infrared alarm perimeters, enveloping the entire train in an invisible cordon. Roof weapon stations opened silently; anti-aircraft gun barrels, the honeycomb muzzles of the 1130 CIWS, and the long rails of the G3 electromagnetic railgun rose in sequence. Plasma high-temperature beam nets flowed along the train’s outline like molten gold. Except for missile launchers, all heavy defensive weapons entered silent standby.

Inside the cars, armored shutters descended section by section. Lin Xian and Kiki split up, checking each carriage one by one—the dining car, living quarters, greenery car, supply car. Without the Hetero-Cube, Lin Xian always felt a lack of security.

Night fell. Strange howls echoed from the crimson fog outside. The cold light in Car 6 glowed softly, the air carrying the scent of food.

Kiki used her psychokinetic waves to sweep the area within a one-kilometer radius around the train, finding no abnormal lifeforms approaching.

“No markers, but being stuck in this damn crimson fog… it just gives me the creeps…”

Kiki leaned back on the sofa, peering through a crack in the shutter. All she saw was thick, pitch-black crimson—as if they were trapped deep beneath thousands of meters of ocean.

Click~

Lin Xian pried open a can of beans and beef. Greasy meat slid into the heating pot, sizzling as it boiled. He set up a soup pot, tossing in chopped tomatoes and cabbage leaves. The greenery car held enough tomatoes and cabbage for two people to waste; he made a simple soup. As the broth bubbled, the loneliness softened slightly.

Kiki leaned over, sniffing the aroma, staring at the tomatoes: “Such good tomatoes—if only we could fry an egg…”

She looked at Lin Xian: “Aren’t you always wanting to build an animal husbandry car? Now the only living things left are the Polar Phoenixes—and oh, right, Silent City has some too.”

Lin Xian watched the gentle bubbling of the soup, not hearing Kiki. His mind churned: “Power… strength, authority, electricity… what does it mean?”

“Strength sounds most like the answer.”

Kiki used psychokinesis to press tomato slices into the soup; red juice bled like blood. She turned, leaning against the stove: “But the word’s too vague… meaningless.”

Cold light pinned their shadows to the armored bulkhead. Lin Xian scooped up a spoonful of meat broth with beans, tasted it, then said: “What about electricity? From my mechanical ability’s perspective, I’d lean toward that—electricity, energy. Maybe it signifies something…”

He looked at Kiki: “Has the number changed?”

Kiki shook her head: “It’s not real-time. It keeps looping. Maybe the message differs at different times.”

Lin Xian paused: “Alright. At least we found a breakthrough. Maybe more data will reveal what it means.”

“What if it’s from the Tower People?”