Chapter 354

Zhao Jianguo sat on the doorstep, his back against the door frame, his fingers unconsciously picking at the dust in the wood cracks. The sky had lightened a bit; in the courtyard the sweeping sound was soft, the swish of Wang Shen's bamboo broom over the blue bricks especially clear. He didn't move, his eyes fixed on the old cabinet on the west wall, its paint still peeling in a few spots, the enamel jar half‑filled with water, perfectly still.

But he knew, it was not the same.

Last night, that "self" that walked out of the cabinet at midnight left behind a tube of blue liquid, a card with frayed edges, and those words—global rifts, parallel worlds, extraterrestrial life swallowing "possibility"… enough to make one's head ache. He didn't dare ask more or think too much then; he just slipped the card under his pillow and left it at that. What's urgent now isn't pondering those grandiose cosmic matters, but the work that's just cropped up at home.

On the main hall table lay a palm‑sized object, dull black, like a burnt walnut shell or a piece taken from an old radio. Its surface was covered in fine grooves, twitching now and then as if breathing. Zhao Chen crouched before it, his nose almost touching the thing, holding a needle‑like probe in one hand and fiddling with the small instrument he carried with the other.

"Dad, I need to activate the biological module," he said without looking up.

Zhao Jianguo grunted, shifted to the edge of the table and stood. He knew this was a function of the check‑in system; before it could only test whether food had spoiled or soil contained insect eggs, at most judge which bricks had too much alkali. But after Chen Jianguo's visit last night, the system interface suddenly gained a gray option box labeled "Biological Module – Inactive." Zhao Chen fiddled with it all morning and managed to activate it.

"Don't blow it up," Zhao Jianguo warned. "We've got no spare fuses in this house."

"Relax, it's simpler than fixing a light bulb," Zhao Chen said lightly, but his hand was steady; as he pressed the start button he even lowered his breath.

The instrument hummed, the screen glowed green, and the probe tip exuded a drop of clear liquid that lightly touched the artifact's surface. Instantly the pattern on the black casing shrank as if scalded, then slowly unfolded, its color shifting from dark brown to dull gold.

"It's reacting!" Zhao Chen's eyes lit up. "It recognizes this enzyme!"

Zhao Jianguo leaned in for a look, but understood nothing; he only felt the thing seemed alive, a sheen of oil spreading over its surface like melted lard spread in a bowl. He instinctively put his hand on his son's shoulder: "Take it easy, don't rush."

"I'm not in a hurry, but it might be," Zhao Chen said low. "Look here—" he pointed to the jumping waveform on the screen—"its metabolic frequency is rising, showing it's trying to self‑repair, but missing material has jammed the structure. I need to help it patch the broken link."

He switched modes, calling up "Microscopic Activity Adaptation." The instrument began simulating a process akin to cell division, releasing microcurrents through the probe to guide synthetic protein growth along the grooves. Meanwhile the black casing kept trembling slightly, occasionally emitting a faint "click" like an old desk clock ticking.

Zhao Jianguo stared for five minutes, his eyelids sore. "Your mother never mended socks with this much care."

"Mending socks is threading yarn; this is a life‑or‑death effort," Zhao Chen said, pressing his lips. "It's not a machine; it's a tool—or even an organ—crafted by some kind of living thing."

Zhao Jianguo didn't respond. He didn't grasp the idea of an "organ‑level tool," but he trusted his own son—the kid who could recite the multiplication table in elementary school and make it flower—now tinkering with these oddities, surely he knows what he's doing.

Time ticked by; the sweeping outside stopped, the chickens fell silent, and the sun climbed onto the eaves. Zhao Chen's forehead beaded with sweat, his hand beginning to tremble slightly. The system suddenly flashed a red warning: 【Non‑standard life‑signal interference, operation failure rate 78%】

"What's wrong?" Zhao Jianguo asked.

"The shell's too hard; direct seepage would trigger its defense," Zhao Chen gritted his teeth. "If we force it open, whatever's inside might self‑destruct."

"Then don't force it," Zhao Jianguo said, patting his shoulder. "Your mother once jammed a needle in her sewing machine—nothing gets done in one go. Try bit by bit."

That sounded rough, but Zhao Chen laughed instead. He switched to the "Gradual Permeation Method," dividing the enzyme liquid into seven parts, injecting only a trace each time and waiting three minutes to observe the reaction. The first two tries produced nothing; the third brought tiny bubbles on the surface, and the fourth made the black casing click open a hairline crack.

"It worked!" Zhao Chen's voice changed tone.

The crack widened until the whole lid flipped open, revealing a silvery‑gray mesh‑like structure inside, with a bean‑sized crystal at its center blinking on and off.

"Is this the core?" Zhao Jianguo leaned in to look.

"Right, the power source is still there, just dormant," Zhao Chen said, carefully adjusting the probe angle and feeding a data stream into the interior. "I'm now sending it a wake‑up program; if all goes well, basic functions should return within ten minutes."

Zhao Jianguo said nothing, silently walked to the door and pulled the main switch. The lights went out, but the instrument kept running on its backup battery. He did this purely out of instinct—as a boy watching an electrician rewire, he always cut the power first for peace of mind.

Three seconds later, the instrument screen suddenly went all white, then a low‑frequency vibration rose from the tabletop, Zhao Chen froze, his eyes blinking rapidly as if he'd gone blind. Zhao Jianguo grabbed his arm, and at that moment a strange sound rang in his ears—not human speech, not machine noise, but like several people humming a tune together, each note off‑key.

It lasted about three seconds, then everything returned to normal.

The screen lit up again, and a green prompt popped up: 【Detected cross‑civilization relic repair complete, unlock specialty skill tree—​【Interstellar Protection Specialty】 (Lv. 1)】

Zhao Chen rubbed his eyes, panting: "I… I thought I heard it speak just now."

"Who?"

"That thing." He pointed at the artifact. "It wasn't heard with the ears; the meaning popped into my mind, saying I 'meet the conditions.'"

Zhao Jianguo didn't utter a sound, but his heart gave a sudden thump. He wasn't afraid of high technology, nor of aliens; he just feared these things would silently slip something into people's heads. He walked over, picked up the repaired artifact, and it felt warm in his hand, like a stone freshly sun‑baked.

「Can't keep it at home. 」 he said.

「I know. 」 Zhao Chen nodded, 「This kind of thing, we can't control it, nor can we hide it. Sooner or later someone will come knocking. 」

Zhao Jianguo placed the artifact into a lead box, sealed it with three layers of tape, and set it on the table. He glanced out the window; a siren sounded in the distance, drawing nearer, turning a corner, then fading away.

「Getting ready to go out? 」 Zhao Chen asked.

「I have to go to the district. 」 Zhao Jianguo put on his coat, 「This thing needs to be handed over to someone in charge. 」

He said nothing more and didn't turn back. In the Main Hall, the instrument screen remained lit, green light casting on the wall, flickering on and off, as if breathing.

Zhao Chen sat at the table, propping his chin with his hand, staring at the lead box.

Outside the door, the sound of sweeping began again.