Silent Ark

Chapter 33: 9 Subjects

"This is not an escape. This is the continuation of the species."

"The Ark of Silence is not a ship. It is a civilization's last gamble."

Yao Chong put down the paper.

His hands were shaking.

When did Chen Dunli write this?

"Two weeks before the Decameron began," Shen Qingci said, "he predicted the Decameron event would happen. He predicted the laws of physics would collapse. He even predicted—" She paused, "he predicted his own death."

"So he gave you the plan ahead of time."

"right."

"You believed it?"

Shen Qingci glanced at him.

There was something very complex in that look—it wasn't mockery, nor was it pity.

It's a kind of helpless feeling of "You asked a stupid question, but I know you're not really stupid."

"Yao Chong," she said, "the day pi was calculated to its limit, the emergency protocols of the Ninth Division were activated. We knew this would happen a few years earlier than you, but the data could verify it. Chen Dunli wasn't giving a warning; he was confirming it."

silence.

"Is the plan feasible?" Shen Ruozhi asked.

"The theoretical basis for the warp drive exists," Shen Qingci said. "The Acubier metric was proposed in 1994. The concept of the Black Zone—"

"This is a science fiction concept from Liu Cixin," Liu Pan said.

"Yes, but those are all theories. The engineering implementation requires far too many things: energy, materials, technology—each hundreds of times more advanced than humanity's current capabilities."

"Then why are you still doing it?"

"Because there are no other options."

Silence again.

Yao Chong leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

Chen Dunli, the man who was writing formulas on the blackboard just two months ago.

The cane is engraved with words I can't understand, and when he speaks, he always pauses for two seconds, as if waiting for his brain to catch up with his mouth.

He died on the tenth night. He could have held on for just one more day, but in order to protect his prized student and a faint hope for all humanity, he died in front of Yao Chong.

But he had written his will in advance.

It's not for my family.

It was given to an official institution he had never met.

The suicide note did not contain "I'm sorry" or "I love you all".

It is a plan to save species.

This is Chen Dunli.

Yao Chong closed his eyes.

A grayish-white sky.

A suspended sovereign entity.

Grid.

node.

He opened his eyes.

"I'll join," he said.

"Me too," Liu Pan said.

Shen Ruozhi did not speak.

She stared at the handwritten note for a long time.

"Me too," she finally said.

Shen Qingci stood up.

Her expression remained unchanged—no emotion, no relief.

He simply nodded, as if confirming a name on a list.

"Someone will pick you up at nine o'clock tomorrow morning," she said. "The location—"

She stopped.

Because Yao Chong was looking at her.

It's a very complex way of looking at someone—like recognizing changes on the face of someone you haven't seen in a long time, or like recalling a moment from long ago.

"You've gained weight," Shen Qingci said.

Yao Chong was taken aback.

"You said... that was the first thing you'd say when we met?"

"It's fine if you lose weight," Shen Qingci said. "It's one of the two."

Yao Chong did not respond.

Shen Qingci shifted her gaze from his face to a spot to the side, where she paused for two seconds.

"That jar," she said, her tone unchanged from when they were talking about work, "do you still keep it?"

"That star-shaped jar?" Yao Chong said, "The one you gave me on the day I graduated high school."

Shen Qingci's lips twitched slightly, but it wasn't a smile; it was something more complex.

Yao Chong's expression remained unchanged.

But his fingers twitched—a very small movement, as if he subconsciously reached into his pocket for something.

"Keep it."

"Has it been opened?"

"no."

Shen Qingci nodded.

"I'll go back and look for it."

Shen Qingci looked at him for three seconds.

Then he turned around and walked towards the door.

"No need to look anymore," she said.

Her voice returned to its usual flat tone, as if to say, "I'm smarter than you."

But there was a slight—very, very faint—tremor at the end of the note.

"The contents have expired."

She pushed open the door and went out.

There was no turning back.

"No, you haven't told us where we'll meet yet."

After the door closed, the conference room remained quiet for a long time.

"What kind of jar?" Liu Pan asked.

Yao Chong did not answer.

He was thinking about something—on the day he graduated from high school, Shen Qingci handed him a glass jar.

The jar was filled with folded little stars.

Colorful.

It seems like there are words written inside each one.

"Go back and look at it later," she said. "Don't open it now."

But he never opened it.

The jar should still be on the bookshelf in his BJ apartment.

It has been covered in dust for six years.

He suddenly had a strong urge to go back.

It wasn't to see the stars.

It was to confirm whether the thing folded into paper six years ago had really expired.

The headquarters of the Ninth Division is located in the western suburbs of Beijing, hidden beneath an abandoned military factory.

It's not a metaphor.

It really is down there.

The ground is covered with rusty factory buildings and overgrown playgrounds, looking like any forgotten remnant of the Third Front construction.

But if you know where to go—go through the third workshop, lift up a metal plate that looks no different from the ground, and go down seven floors of an unmarked staircase—you will reach an underground space of about two thousand square meters.

Shen Qingci arrives at 8:15 every morning, scans his fingerprint at the entrance, and walks through a 50-meter-long corridor. The walls on both sides of the corridor are gray and have no decorations. There is a light every three meters, and the light is a cool white with a constant brightness and no fluctuation.

She likes things that are calm and undisturbed.

Her office was the second to last one at the end of the corridor, with a sign that read "Field Team Three".

Inside, there was only a table, a chair, a metal cabinet, and a white wall.

A map of China was pinned to the white wall, with seventeen locations marked on it with red thumbtacks.

Seventeen abnormal events reported at the edges of water stains.

The most recent example is from three days ago in Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province, where a herdsman reported that his flock of sheep suddenly stopped during their migration. All the sheep faced the same direction at the same time, stood there for a full forty minutes, and then continued on their way.

The herdsmen said that direction was "a place without grass."

Shen Qingci pulled the thumbtack out and looked at the back, where her handwriting was written: "October 23, Haixi, Qinghai. Sheep flock stopped moving, lasting 40 minutes. No casualties. To be confirmed."

She put the thumbtack back in.

Then someone knocked on the door.

"Enter."

The door opened, and there was Lin Xiaohe.

Lin Xiaohe is an assistant to Zhou Muyuan, the director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, wears thin-rimmed metal glasses, and always has her hair tied up neatly.

She's the kind of person who never seems out of place in any situation—not because she has a low profile, but because she knows exactly how she should present herself in every situation.

"Captain Shen, Director Zhou has arrived. Section Chief Lin wants you to go to conference room number three."