The moment the elevator came to a complete stop, Chen Hao saw the seal peel open even wider due to the vibration. A corner of the ceramic jar was exposed, and the gel that had been encasing it was gradually drying, with tiny cracks appearing on its surface.

"Don't open the box." He raised his hand to stop Karl. "Turn off the airtight valve first."

Carl paused for a moment, then quickly realized what was happening and turned to turn the knob on the control panel. Susan immediately put the scanner away, and Nana's voice rang out at the same time: "An expansion of the air contact area has been detected. We recommend activating the protection program immediately."

“You don’t need to tell me.” Chen Hao stared at the dehydrated gel. “If this thing is really ruined, we won’t even be able to piece together an antique vase.”

They pushed the shock-absorbing box into the artifact preservation chamber. This chamber, originally used to store biological samples, has been temporarily converted into a temperature and humidity-controlled environment to simulate deep-sea pressure and gas composition. Nana brought up the operating interface, entered a series of parameters, and inert gas was slowly injected, causing the light inside the chamber to become somewhat grayish.

"The temperature is stable at four degrees, the humidity is 97 percent, and the oxygen concentration is below 0.3 percent," she said. "Now we can repackage it."

Carl put on gloves and carefully removed the ceramic jar. This time, he used a new sealing bag pre-filled with an improved gel that could automatically seal any gaps. Once the bag was closed, the internal pressure was slightly higher than the external pressure, creating a reverse seal.

"It's done," he said, letting out a sigh of relief.

“Don’t get too excited.” Susan pointed to the scanning screen. “Look here—there are fine scratches on the edge of the can opening, probably from being handled. Although the structure isn’t broken, it will affect the stability in the long run.”

Chen Hao leaned over to take a look and nodded: "Next time, put a 'fragile' label on it, and whoever breaks it will have to pay for it."

"What are you going to use to pay me back?" Carl muttered. "You can't even save up your salary for three days."

“I can write an IOU,” Chen Hao grinned. “Write down ‘Owes 10,000 units of energy for cultural relic restoration,’ put on a fingerprint, and pass it on to the next generation to continue paying it off.”

Nana has begun operating a non-contact laser scanner. The beam sweeps across the surface of the pottery jar from different angles, generating a 3D model in real time. Stone carvings and inscriptions are also being brought in one by one and recorded.

“The symbol extraction is 32 percent complete,” she said. “No direct link to known civilizations has been found so far.”

“So nobody knows him,” Carl said, leaning against the wall. “All for nothing.”

“It wasn’t a wasted effort.” Susan stood in front of another terminal. “Look at the spacing of these slashes—three in the first group, five in the second, eight in the third, and thirteen in the fourth.”

"The Fibonacci sequence?" Chen Hao tilted his head. "You mean the ancients also knew mathematics?"

“It’s not just mathematics.” She zoomed in on the image. “The whole arrangement looks like a periodic record. If this is a time marker, then it might correspond to some kind of astronomical phenomenon.”

"For example, draw one line for each full moon?" Chen Hao laughed.

“It’s more complicated than that,” she said. “I suspect they’re tracking the trajectories of celestial bodies or the patterns of tidal changes.”

Carl rolled his eyes: "So we dug up an ancient calendar?"

“If it’s true, it means they have long-term observation capabilities.” Susan ignored him. “They didn’t just carve a few lines for fun.”

Chen Hao stroked his chin: "So, these people know how long they've lived, and they want future generations to know?"

"Pretty much," Susan nodded. "It's a kind of tradition."

Nana suddenly interjected: "The metal nameplate scan is blocked. A weak electromagnetic interference source has been detected, located in the interlayer on the back of the nameplate."

"There's a mechanism too?" Chen Hao became interested. "Let's take it apart and see."

“We can’t disassemble it,” Nana said. “The structure is fragile, and forcibly separating it may result in data loss. I have already tried to shield against interference signals, and I suggest that Karl cut off the surrounding power supply.”

Carl sighed, walked to a corner, and pulled down a few switches. The lab lights flickered, activating the backup circuit. He then opened the signal shielding box, which was covering the nameplate.

“Give it a try,” he said.

Nana restarted the scan. This time, the image was much clearer. The inside of the nameplate showed fine lines, like some kind of alloy particles arranged in a specific order.

“This is not naturally occurring,” she said. “The particle distribution conforms to coding logic, suggesting it may be an artificially embedded information carrier.”

"Wait a minute." Chen Hao's eyes widened. "You mean there's a USB drive hidden inside this thing?"

“The analogy holds true,” Nana said, “but it relies on a specific physical environment for reading, and under current conditions, it cannot decode the specific content.”

"Then let's leave it," Chen Hao decided. "We'll do it when we have the resources later. Let's finish what we can do now."

They began organizing the data. Each artifact was uniquely numbered, and the scanned data was simultaneously stored in the main system. Nana created a new folder and named it "Preliminary Study of Deep-Sea Sites".

Chen Hao reviewed the analysis report of the residual liquid inside the ceramic jar. The composition showed that it contained stable organic dyes, which were highly corrosion-resistant and could be preserved for many years in extreme environments.

“This stuff can be used as a marker,” he said. “From now on, we won’t have to worry about the marks fading when we make them on maps.”

"You're already thinking about how to use it?" Susan looked up. "This is something from thousands of years ago."

"People thousands of years ago also wanted to save trouble," Chen Hao laughed. "If I were them, I would also try to find a way to prevent the characters from getting blurred."

“You’re just like the ancients,” Carl said. “You’re too lazy to use your brain.”

“It’s different.” Chen Hao shook his head. “They left things so that future generations could understand them. I left things so that others could do the work for me.”

Susan printed out the symbol charts and pasted them one by one on the wall. She then accessed an astrological database and compared the positions of celestial bodies at different times. The angles and lengths of certain symbols seemed to match the planetary alignments of specific years.

“If this assumption holds true,” she said, “then they are not only recording time, but also prediction.”

"Predict what?" Carl asked.

“For example, when the tide comes in, when an earthquake occurs,” she said. “It could even be the timing of some kind of ritual.”

"It sounds like fortune telling," Chen Hao said.

“It’s science,” Susan corrected, “it’s just that we don’t fully understand it yet.”

Nana was running multi-threaded analysis in the background. Her body was slightly warm, and the indicator lights were working at a faster frequency, indicating a high processing load.

"What are you doing?" Chen Hao asked.

"We are comparing three thousand seven hundred ancient script evolution models at the same time," she said, "to look for similarities in basic structural units."

"Any results?"

“No match has been found yet,” she said. “But the combinational logic of some symbols is close to that of early counting systems and could be used for resource statistics or event logging.”

"So it really is bookkeeping?" Chen Hao laughed. "I knew it, sacrificing three fish in exchange for two stones."

“That possibility cannot be ruled out,” Nana said. “Many civilizations’ earliest writing systems originated from practical needs.”

“Have you ever thought about this?” Susan suddenly spoke up, “Why did they bury these things? They built walls, installed drainage systems, and used corrosion-resistant materials… but they were still covered by silt.”

"Crustal movement," Chen Hao said.

“Maybe not,” she said. “Maybe it was hidden on purpose. Just like how we lock important documents in safes now.”

"Then what are they afraid of?" Carl asked.

“I don’t know,” Susan shook her head. “But one thing is certain—they knew they might disappear, so they wanted to leave something behind.”

The room was silent for a few seconds.

Chen Hao looked down at the data stream on the terminal. The symbols were arranged silently, devoid of emotion, yet they seemed to be speaking, only no one could understand them.

“No wonder you call this a legacy,” he said. “They can’t live to see us and know they exist, so they can only communicate through these things.”

“We’re listening right now,” Susan said.

Nana said softly, "Whoever built them, they lived, thought, and communicated on this planet. What we see here is proof of their existence."

Carl didn't speak, but silently walked to the corner to check the signal jamming device. He reconnected a cable, confirmed that the voltage was stable, and then sat back down in his chair.

“I’ll move things myself from now on,” he said. “I don’t want the old straps to cause any more problems.”

"Do you remember who threw the box last time?" Chen Hao laughed.

“That was an accident,” Carl glared at him. “This time is different.”

Susan continued comparing the symbols with the star chart. She discovered that the tilt angle of the seventh set of symbols corresponded precisely to the direction of a comet's return in a certain millennial cycle.

“This mark…” she murmured, “wasn’t drawn randomly.”

Chen Hao stood up and walked to the wall, looking at the drawings that covered it. He suddenly felt that these lines were not like words, but more like a reminder.

A reminder to those who come after us: We were here. We remember. And we hope you will remember too.

“Nana,” he said, “make a backup of all this data.”

“We have already completed three rounds of redundant storage,” she said, “including offline hard drives and encrypted cloud storage.”

“Make another one,” he said. “Burn it onto a CD and put it under my bed.”

"Why?" Susan asked.

“In case the system crashes one day,” he said, “at least there’s a fat guy who knows where to hide.”

Carl snorted: "When you're dead, who'll remember there's something under the bed?"

“So I need to have more children,” Chen Hao laughed. “I’ll have them memorize the family tree from a young age, and the first sentence will be ‘My dad hid a CD.’”

Nana didn't laugh, but her eyes lit up.

Susan shook her head and continued taking notes. Her pen paused for a moment, then she wrote a sentence on the paper:

"These symbols may not be language, but rather the fingerprints left by time itself."

After setting up the equipment, Carl casually opened the real-time monitoring interface of the nameplate. Faint signal fluctuations danced on the screen, like some kind of rhythm.

He stared at it for a few seconds, then suddenly frowned.

"This frequency... it's kind of like a heartbeat."