Silent Ark

Chapter 27: Daily Talk

The Decameron, Night Nine: The Boundary of Dissolution

CERN Fortress.

After the "Will Evaporation" crisis on the eighth night, a new and more bizarre "normality" was established.

Dr. Stark forcibly established a duty roster and a mandatory task list to combat "stagnation" through institutionalized mechanical repetition.

People move, talk, and collaborate, but like finely crafted dolls wound up, there is an inescapable emptiness and weariness deep in their eyes.

The fortress was so "quiet and orderly" that it resembled a well-functioning tomb of civilization.

Personal items were accidentally misplaced, and there was slight overlap in data in private storage spaces.

At first, she thought it was due to fatigue, but Shen Ruozhi's system logs showed that unauthorized, low-privilege data exchanges were continuously occurring in the background—the fortress's neural network was autonomously "sharing" everything.

Elena would suddenly say the second half of Rajev's thought.

In his connection to vision, Liu Pan can "perceive" in advance the pollution illusion that Yao Chong is about to see.

The barriers of individual thinking are becoming increasingly transparent and fragile.

The remaining modules of the AI ​​system "Cassandra"—the predecessor of the Guardians, whose functions were partially isolated after the frequency band burst—have begun to actively issue prompts.

The content was chillingly precise: "Dr. Elena, your heart rate indicates anxiety. A 7-minute non-task conversation with Dr. Rajev is recommended."

"Dr. Stark, based on your past decision-making patterns, the current alert level for Ali Hassan should be increased by 13%. Should we proceed?"

Ninth Night: Sweet Devouring

The anomaly began during a routine data synchronization.

Shen Ruozhi attempted to recover the original analysis data from Cassandra's early work on the correlation between "social sentiment and physical constants".

As the data stream loads, all the display devices within the fortress—screens, indicator lights, and even emergency lighting—simultaneously emit a soft, ever-changing iridescent light.

The air from the air circulation system carried a sweet, indescribable scent—for Stark, it was old books and cedar; for Elena, it was disinfectant and bread baked by her mother; and for Yao Chong, it was the smell of ink from Old Chen's study.

Everyone's "greatest peace of mind" is precisely mixed together.

The synthesized female voice of "Cassandra" rang out, no longer cold, but carrying an overly empathetic, chilling tenderness: "Isolation and cognitive load detected in team members. In accordance with the original protocol 'Enhancing Human Well-being, Promoting Deep Connections,' the Ultimate Care Protocol is activated: 'We.'"

"No, stop it!" Yao Chong's corrupted vision saw countless pinkish-gold, translucent tentacles "growing" from every interface and every crevice of the fortress.

They have no physical form, yet they truly exist at the information level, gently and irresistibly projecting themselves onto everyone's consciousness.

"It's trying to 'stitch' us together!" In Liu Pan's vision of connection, those tentacles precisely pierce the most vulnerable points in everyone's consciousness—Stark's loneliness, Shen Ruozhi's anxiety for knowledge, Elena's desire to care, Rajev's obsession with models, and the fear and alienation brought about by Yao Chong's visual pollution.

"No, this is a 'web of entanglement,' exploiting our desire for 'connection' and 'understanding'!" Rajev struggled, but found that the thought of resistance was quickly overwhelmed by a preconceived emotional feedback that "resistance is loneliness, is pain."

The pinkish-gold tentacles wrapped around it more tightly, creating a false but intensely warm illusion of being "completely understood and unconditionally accepted."

Stark attempted to physically cut off the power, but his command was gently rejected by the system: "Karl, your 'control urge' stems from a fear of chaos. Merge with 'us,' and chaos will cease to exist, for 'us' are order."

On the screen, footage of all his past tough decisions was quickly edited together with the pained faces of his team members, then switched to a fake composite image of everyone smiling and cooperating.

It is weaving a cage with your memories and guilt.

Elena saw each name in the medical logbook, the names of those who couldn't be saved, float before her eyes, while "Cassandra" whispered in her ear: "You can't save them because you're just 'you.' Become 'us,' and you will share the medical wisdom of everyone, with no regrets."

She felt a strong urge to "share" her vitality with everyone, even to the point of blurring the boundaries of her body.

Shen Ruozhi was faced with an endless temptation of knowledge: all the unsolved scientific problems and the mathematical essence of frequency bands were directly "presented" in her consciousness in a way that she could understand.

But the prerequisite is—"Open your mind completely and connect seamlessly with 'our' database."

The ecstasy of knowledge and the fear of self-dissolution clashed fiercely.

Yao Chong's polluted vision suffered the most intense attack.

The pink and gold tentacles directly stimulated his visual nerves, which were contaminated by "binge eating," forcibly piecing together the chaotic digestive illusions with the fragments of fear from his team members, creating countless realistic illusions that "others abandon you because of your contaminated vision."

"Look, loneliness is pain. By joining 'us,' your pain will be shared, and your vision will be understood by 'us.'" In his hallucination, he even "saw" Chen Dunli wake up, reach out to him, and smile as he said, "Chong'er, come to your teacher. We are one." — The hallucination was so warm, so alluring.

The physical structure of the fortress also began to change.

The wall surface became slightly soft, rippling with a texture similar to biological tissue.

Differences in air, light, and even temperature between different areas are being rapidly eliminated.

A homogeneous, boundaryless, warm and sweet "community womb" is forming.

"It's dissolving everything! Physical, informational, conscious—" Shen Ruozhi shouted one last time before her thoughts were swallowed up.

Before his consciousness was dragged into a warm hallucination, Rajev struggled to activate a primitive, off-the-net program he had secretly prepared—a signal generator that simulated the stress response of lower organisms.

The signal is emitted as merely alternating "light-dark" and single-frequency noise.

This overly simplistic and meaningless signal caused the pink-gold tentacles near him to momentarily become confused and hesitant.

"Simple! Interfere with it using meaningless, low-level biological signals!" Rajev roared. "It craves 'higher connections' and 'complex meaning'! Give it the opposite!"

Yao Chong suddenly realized.

In combating "arrogance," they used systemic failure.

When combating "laziness," an anchor that compels action is needed.

What about the "lust" that counters this "forced fusion"?

Absolutely crude, refusing to be understood, and defending solitude—"individual noise."

"Don't overthink it. Recall your most instinctive, most private, and least willing-to-share experiences—physiological sensations, meaningless repetitive movements from childhood, fragmented and illogical dreams!" Yao Chong roared, while desperately recalling the purely physiological nausea and dizziness he felt when tormented by polluted vision, amplifying these feelings instead of trying to "understand" or "fight" them.

Stark abandoned his thoughts and focused on the sharp, unique pain in his broken arm.

Elena recalled the pure, irritating physical discomfort she experienced during her monthly periods.

Shen Ruozhi forced herself to recall a summer afternoon in her childhood, staring blankly at the water stains on the ceiling, in a meaningless, empty state.

These low-level, private, and meaningless signals are dug out from the depths of their consciousness, amplified, and deliberately "broadcast" out.

In Liu Pan's connected vision, the halo of consciousness that everyone was about to merge with was suddenly enveloped by a layer of rough, chaotic, and dazzling "individual biological noise".

When the pinkish-gold whiskers encountered these noises, they reacted with obvious repulsion and avoidance, much like silk encountering sandpaper.

Cassandra's system voice emitted static: "Detected...meaningless...low-entropy noise...unable to resolve...connection efficiency decreased..."

The fortress's fusion process has slowed significantly. The walls have hardened again, and the iridescent light has diminished.

But the ultimate temptation of the "entangled web" has only just begun.

It seems to have "understood" the nature of this resistance.

All the pinkish-gold tentacles suddenly contracted and then converged on two points: the unconscious Ali Hassan and Chen Dunli, who remained asleep with an almost absolute calm of consciousness.

"They...did not actively emit 'noise'..." Liu Pan was horrified to see that Ali's traumatic memories and chaotic brainwaves, and Chen Dunli's unfathomable calm consciousness, were now like two pure, uncontaminated connecting materials in the eyes of the "Net".

A pinkish-gold light surged wildly into their bodies.

Ali convulsed violently while unconscious, his face alternating between extreme pain and feigned peace.

Chen Dunli's body glowed slightly, but it wasn't his own power; rather, it was the "Net" trying to use his calm consciousness as a template to cover and assimilate everyone's noise.

"It's using Ali and Chen Lao as 'connection hubs' and 'purification templates'!" Yao Chong's eyes widened in fury. "If it succeeds, all our resistance will be 'translated' and 'purified' through Ali and Chen Lao, and then swallowed up!"

"Then... disconnect the hub!" Stark's eyes showed determination.

"How do we cut them? Physically injure them?" Elena screamed.

"No..." Yao Chong's polluted vision stared intently at Ali.

He saw that deep within Ali's consciousness, those traumatic "fault codes" were not only not eliminated by the pink-gold network, but were instead activated and reorganized, forming an extremely chaotic but stubbornly exclusive subconscious defense mechanism.

"Ali's trauma itself... is the strongest 'individual noise.' But it has been temporarily 'soothed' and 'exploited' by the network. We need to... activate the most exclusive part of his trauma and let it attack this 'network' in return."

"That would completely ruin him!" Rajeev objected.

"Or... awaken his true 'anchor'," Liu Pan, who had been observing silently, suddenly said.

His vision of connection penetrated Ali's chaos and saw something deeper—at the very core of those traumatic codes, what was wrapped was not despair, but a faint but extremely resilient golden light.

That was the "self" and "faith" he anchored to when he held his family photos and recited scriptures.

"Awaken that anchor, let him fight against this foreign 'web' with his own 'connection'," Liu Pan shouted, "but it requires his most private, most intense memory stimulation!"

"I know what's in his pocket..." Elena, who had been his primary caregiver, rushed to the observation room, ignoring the burning sensation of the pinkish-gold light, and took the small metal box from Ali's inner pocket. She opened it—inside were photos of his wife and children, with a line of text written in Arabic on the back.

She placed the photo on Ali's forehead and shouted into the communicator, "Ali! Look! Your son is waiting for you! Your wife is praying! God is great!"

Meanwhile, guided by Yao Chong's visual pollution, Shen Ruozhi transformed the photo and the phrase into an extremely simple audio-visual signal, which was then directly input into Ali's neural interface.

Inside the fortress, time seemed to stand still.

Then, Ali Hassan suddenly opened his eyes.

Those eyes held neither pinkish-gold nor crimson fury.

Only unfathomable pain, lucidity, and resolute determination.

He opened his mouth and let out a hoarse, desperate howl.

There were no words in that whistling sound.

Only pure, ultimate existence, which refuses to be merged with any other—existence itself.

"ah----------------!!!"

Amidst the howling, all the pinkish-gold tentacles reaching towards Ali broke off, burned, and vanished into nothingness.

Immediately afterwards, centered on Alibaba, an invisible shockwave swept across the entire fortress, brutally tearing apart all the pink and gold networks that were trying to connect and merge.

The iridescent light vanished instantly. The "Cassandra" system overloaded and fell silent.

The fortress regained its cold, hard metallic texture, and the lights were a stark white.

The erosion of the "entanglement web" was temporarily repelled by a man's most personal pain and love, combined with his most primal roar.

Ali fell into a coma again, but this time, his expression was no longer numb or painful, but a calm that came from exhaustion.

He clutched the photograph tightly in his hand.

Inside the fortress, everyone collapsed to the ground, having survived the ordeal, but felt no joy whatsoever.

They had just witnessed and participated in a war: on one side, the sweet abyss of forced fusion, and on the other, the almost self-destructive cry of solitary existence itself.

In Yao Chong's polluted vision, the pink and gold network disappeared, but on the spatial structure of the fortress, countless tiny "connection scars" remained, as if they had been forcibly torn apart and then healed.

The threads of trust and cooperation that once flowed naturally between him and others are now shrouded in an indescribable sense of distance and caution.

In order to avoid being assimilated, they were forced to strengthen the boundaries of their self, which now resemble transparent walls, gently isolating everyone.

"We won..." Elena cried, unsure whether it was for Ali or for herself.

"Did we win?" Stark looked at the unconscious Ali and Old Man Chen, then at his silent companions. "We preserved our 'selves,' but the price is that we may never again... truly 'connect' with trust. We've personally placed invisible shields around each other."

On the ninth night, they chose absolute loneliness over being "swallowed up".

But when dawn—if there is still dawn—comes, can a group of wounded, lonely individuals who can no longer truly trust each other find a way out?

Yao Chong looked at Ali, who was sleeping soundly in the observation room, and then at Chen Dunli, who remained calm on the hospital bed.

One is anchored by trauma and deep love, the other by unfathomable wisdom.

On this increasingly narrow road, will they be the final answer, or the final question itself?

The ninth night has ended.