Susan put the instant noodle box on the table, and the plastic bag made a rustling sound.

With noodles still in his mouth, Chen Hao mumbled, "Can I stand in the middle at tomorrow's press conference?"

Carl looked up at him: "Aren't you most afraid of crowds?"

“That’s called strategic low profile.” Chen Hao swallowed the food in his mouth. “It’s different now. We’ve gone from victim to victor, so we need to have some presence.”

Nana stood to the side, adjusting the projection equipment. She tapped her finger lightly in the air a few times, and the holographic interface silently unfolded. She didn't speak, but a time reminder popped up on the screen: **Two hours and seventeen minutes until the press conference begins.**

Susan looked down at her clothes and touched her hair: "Should I change into something more formal?"

“You look better than us no matter what you wear.” Chen Hao patted his bulging belly. “Anyway, they’re looking at the data, not your body shape.”

Carl had already begun checking the order of the presentation slides, muttering the model parameters to himself. His hands were trembling slightly, not from nervousness, but from the aftereffects of staying up all night modifying code.

Nana suddenly looked up: "The network signal is stable, the live broadcast channel is connected, and the backup line is activated simultaneously."

"Does that mean we're really going to go on stage this time?" Susan asked.

“It’s a public speech, not a flight drill.” Chen Hao stood up and stretched. “But compared to hiding in the basement listening to electromagnetic pulses, this is an easy job.”

No one laughed, but the atmosphere relaxed.

Two hours later, the lights in the venue were dimmed and the main stage was lit up.

Chen Hao was the first to walk onto the stage. He didn't walk fast, nor did he deliberately straighten his chest or raise his head; he was as natural as if he were going to the cafeteria to get food. He walked to the microphone and cleared his throat.

"Good morning, everyone," he said. "Half an hour ago, I thought I was going to throw up."

Some people in the audience laughed.

He smiled and said, "Our team hasn't been very visible before, not because we were hiding anything, but because someone wanted us to shut up forever."

The audience was silent for a few seconds.

“But we still came,” he continued, “not to complain, but to hand in our homework.”

Applause rose from the corner and slowly spread outwards.

Susan followed them onto the stage, holding a recorder. Her movements were steady, and her voice remained calm. She recounted their process of collecting samples from the planet's surface: which day the wind blew, which time they nearly slipped into a rift valley, and which crystal was discovered glowing in the middle of the night.

When she finished speaking, several people in the audience had already started taking notes.

Karl took the microphone, and without saying a word, first drew a diagram. Three lines connected to form a ring structure, with the energy fluctuation curve marked below. Then he recited a series of numbers, all measured values, without any estimations.

“This frequency is not accidental,” he said. “It releases once every sixty-three hours, with an error of no more than four minutes.”

An elderly researcher wearing glasses in the audience frowned and asked, "Have you ruled out instrument interference?"

“Rule it out,” Carl replied. “The monitoring equipment used three sensors based on different principles, all of which captured the same signal at the same time.”

"Could it be a problem with the Earth's receiver? Like atmospheric reflection or something like that?"

“We considered that as well,” Carl nodded. “So we set up receiving points at two different latitudes and longitudes, and the results were consistent.”

The old researcher didn't ask any more questions, he just nodded.

When it was Nana's turn, all eyes were on her.

Unlike others who rely on tone of voice or gestures to drive the pace, she calmly states the facts. She draws on advancements in materials science from her knowledge base, pointing out that if this substance could be artificially synthesized, it could improve the response efficiency of quantum devices.

After she finished speaking, there was a few seconds of silence in the room.

Then a young reporter raised his hand: "Your research findings are so important, why didn't any institution support them before?"

Chen Hao took the microphone: "Because we initially said 'the planet is making sounds,' and nobody believed us."

"So, do you believe it now?"

“Every explanation you hear now is evidence,” he said. “If you don’t believe me, you can check the registration number; the International Commission on Scientific Integrity can retrieve it.”

Another person asked, "I heard you've experienced external attacks. Is your data really safe?"

Nana stepped forward: "All core data uses distributed storage, so the loss of any single node will not affect the overall integrity."

"But what about hackers? What if someone hacks into our system?"

“They tried,” she said. “Not only did they not get the real data, they also exposed their server location to the tracking program.”

The audience erupted in uproar.

"You mean...you fought back and killed them?" the reporter pressed.

“To be precise,” Nana said, “they downloaded a carefully prepared fake report that contained traces of their own intrusion.”

The entire room fell silent for a moment, then erupted in applause.

Chen Hao looked at the audience and suddenly laughed: "Actually, we're not that smart. We just figured that if you're going to steal something, you have to get your hands on something, otherwise you won't make a move."

"So you deliberately set up a trap?"

“Yes.” He nodded. “It even included the detailed upload time; it’s practically ready to just put up a QR code for people to scan and download.”

Laughter and applause mingled together.

A white-haired scholar stood up, his tone serious: "Can you guarantee that these data have not been embellished?"

Chen Hao didn't rush to answer, but turned to look at Susan.

Susan turned on the recorder, and a video began to play—the crystals at the cave entrance glowed faintly in the night, the instrument readings fluctuated, and in the background, Carl complained that the battery was almost dead.

“This is the original footage,” she said. “It’s completely unedited; the timestamps and geographic coordinates are all in the file.”

The old man stared at the screen for a long time before finally sitting down.

The subsequent issues became much milder.

When asked about future research plans, Carl answered simply: "The next step is to try to simulate the conditions under which underground energy channels form."

When asked if she was considering commercial applications, Nana immediately listed three possible directions for technology transfer.

The last question came from a female reporter in the back row: "What do you think is the greatest significance of this discovery?"

Chen Hao thought for a moment: "In the past, when we searched for extraterrestrial life, we always focused on whether it was breathing or moving. But now we know that this planet itself is 'talking'."

“It transmits information through vibrations and stores energy in minerals; the whole system is like a living machine,” Susan added. “We haven’t discovered a new substance; we’ve discovered a completely new way of being.”

Applause erupted again from the audience.

The host announced the end of the Q&A session, but no one left their seats.

Standing on the stage, Chen Hao looked at the densely packed crowd below and suddenly remembered the night before when he was eating instant noodles in the basement.

He turned to look at his teammates.

Susan was organizing documents, her face expressionless, but a smile never left her lips. Carl held his laptop, his eyes glued to the screen, as if afraid of missing any feedback. Nana stood beside the projector, the light and shadow casting shadows on her face, revealing no emotion, but her eyes were constantly moving, as if she were updating some data.

The host reminded everyone for the third time that they could leave.

Only then did some people start to stand up, but more people took out their devices and began searching for registration numbers and public logs.

A man in a gray suit hurried in through a side door, heading straight to the backstage area with a document in his hand.

He walked to the edge of the stage, looked up at Karl who was still talking, and moved his lips as if he wanted to interrupt.

Chen Hao noticed him, walked over and asked, "Is something the matter?"

The man lowered his voice: "I just received news that the Novian Group has released a statement."