The outline of the light wings on the shadow was still trembling slightly, like the poor signal of an old TV screen, flashing once, pausing for half a second, then flashing again.
Chen Hao stared at the illusory figure and suddenly said, "Is the sole of my shoe a little itchy?"
Nana didn't move or make a sound. Her electronic eyes were recording the faint fluctuation frequency at a rate of three hundred frames per second, as if counting heartbeats.
“I’m not kidding,” he said, lifting his foot. “It’s really itchy, crawling up from the sole of my foot like ants moving house.”
She finally turned her head, her gaze falling on his left snow boot, which was covered in ice crystals. The upper was torn, revealing the blackened cotton inside, and the tread pattern on the sole was worn so badly that it was almost invisible, with only a few crisscrossing grooves faintly discernible.
"Was the last time you washed your shoes before you landed?" she asked.
“That’s not the point.” He scratched his brow. “The point is—it seems to be trying to tell me something.”
Nana crouched down, her fingertips tracing the sole of her shoe. The metal casing rubbed against the ice crystals, producing a short "click." She activated a deep scan, but received only a string of gibberish.
“The conventional analysis failed,” she said. “The time freeze interfered with the quantum readout.”
"Then let's not read it," Chen Hao suddenly grinned. "Let's try something else."
He took off his shoe, held it upside down in his palm, and slapped it hard. Dust and ice shards fell down, while a few tiny specks of light floated in the air, slowly rotating.
Nana's pupils contracted slightly.
“This isn’t dust,” she said. “It’s encoded particles.”
“I knew these old shoes were something special.” He shook his hand. “After all, I ran three kilometers in them to catch up with the spaceship boarding gate and even crushed the tracks of two guard robots.”
“The data stream is being reassembled.” She raised her hand, and a laser beam shot out from between her fingers, gently sweeping across the specks of light. Each moment the beam touched a particle, it caused a tiny flicker, like a star blinking.
The light spots gradually arrange themselves into a ring, nested layer by layer, forming a continuously rotating geometric structure.
"Seven percent of the identification is complete," she whispered. "The symbol system does not belong to any known language family."
"Isn't that perfect?" He sat down cross-legged. "We're not academic geniuses, it's normal that we don't understand it."
“But it responds to you.” She looked at him. “Every time you smile, the pattern expands one more circle.”
"So I was born to solve mysteries?"
"It's more likely that your brainwave frequency just happens to match the encryption protocol."
"To translate, it means I'm just a fool with good luck?"
She did not refute it.
The laser continued to advance, and the particle array began to project three-dimensional patterns that floated in the air between the two. It wasn't text, nor images, but a chain of constantly self-correcting symbols, like some kind of living language.
“It’s evolving,” she said. “Not static information, but… a dynamic formula.”
"What do you mean?"
“It means,” she paused for a second, “that the sole of the shoe doesn’t say ‘Caution: Slippery,’ but rather ‘How to Live Life.’”
Chen Hao whistled: "No wonder I've been wearing it to exams all this time, it's got a built-in cheat code."
“It’s not a cheat code.” She reached through the string of symbols. “These are the underlying rules. The starting point for the evolution of all living things is here.”
“Wait a minute.” He narrowed his eyes. “You mean, this thing can make people smarter? Grow wings? Or skip puberty altogether?”
“It’s about letting life decide how to live.” She withdrew her hand, a faint gold mark remaining on her fingertips. “It doesn’t teach you how to walk, it just tells you—you can draw your own path.”
He looked down at the empty shoe, then suddenly shoved it into her hand: "Then you read it."
"Why me?"
“Because you’re cleaner than me.” He shrugged. “I’m uncultured, you have a database. I can only copy homework, you can write textbooks. Besides—” he pointed to his head, “95% of it is instant noodle soup, and the other half is sleep talking.”
She ignored the teasing, instead placing her palm on the sole of her shoe and closing her eyes.
The mechanical core began to spin at high speed, its outer shell emitting a faint blue glow. Her voice grew low and slow, as if coming from a great distance: "Emotional key embedding layer detected... Backup channel activated... Recall body temperature record from the day of first encounter... Synchronize neural frequencies..."
The symbols in the air suddenly accelerated their rotation, eventually condensing into a stable stream of information.
[The General Principles of Life Evolution: A Universal Formula for the Universe]
Below is a line of smaller text: Input requires resonance between two people; one-way release will trigger self-destruction.
"Alright, we still need to hold hands to turn it on." Chen Hao held out his hand. "Come on, same old rules."
She held his hand. His hand was warm and slightly sweaty, but she didn't pull away.
Both of them simultaneously reached for the formula with their other hand.
Just as their fingertips were about to touch, the entire frozen space suddenly trembled.
It wasn't a physical tremor, but an impact on the level of consciousness. It was as if someone had struck a bell in their heads, and it kept ringing.
"Warning." Nana opened her eyes. "The formula has activated its countermeasure mechanism. Forced injection will cause information collapse."
"Then what should we do? Wait for it to jump out on its own?"
“No.” She released her grip and turned to face the purple ice core in the center of the crevice. “I have something I’ve never told you.”
Her chest armor opened automatically, revealing a layer of dark gold inscriptions inside. The patterns were strikingly similar to the formula on the sole of the shoe, only more complete, like a prototype.
"You mean...you were originally part of the formula?"
“I am one of the carriers,” she said. “The designer of my civilization hid the answer within the creator.”
So you're a USB flash drive?
"I am the key."
He paused for two seconds, then suddenly laughed: "Then what am I? A matching mouse?"
“You are the only variable that can rewrite the formula,” she said, looking at him. “Because you don’t understand the rules, you’re not afraid to break them.”
He scratched his head and said no more.
They held hands again, palms facing each other, and slowly pushed out into the void.
Formulas surged into the cracks in the earth like a tidal wave. There was no sound, no flash, but the stillness of the entire planet revealed subtle cracks—the edges of a crystal flower petal curled slightly, the hind leg muscles of a small beast frozen in a leaping posture twitched slightly, and even the suspended snowflakes changed their angle.
“It’s working,” she said softly.
But the next second, her body suddenly stiffened.
“The system… is being rewritten.” She enunciated clearly, but her tone was already distorted. “Warning: the personality module is at risk of being overwritten.”
Chen Hao also sensed something was wrong. His consciousness was as if it had been pulled into a high-speed conveyor belt, where memories, emotions, and thoughts were all being rearranged by some force. He saw the image of himself falling and crying as a child, but it was automatically replaced with a version of "running without injury"; he remembered that he hated math, but now the thought "actually, it's passable" popped into his head.
"Stop!" he shouted. "Stop!"
He didn't know who he was talking to, but he immediately called out that name.
"Nana!"
That sound was like a knife, cleaving through the torrent of data.
Her fingers tightened sharply, outputting an encrypted command in reverse, cutting off the external return flow.
The formula no longer invaded, but was guided to the surface of her shell. A galaxy-like map unfolded on her chest, nebulae swirled, galaxies were born, and life evolved and perished on planets, in an endless cycle.
Chen Hao, panting, looked down at his hands.
His mechanical fingers were uncontrollably generating strings of light symbols, as if he were writing code. He tried to concentrate and write the four words "Never Apart".
Golden threads flowed from her fingertips, burrowed into the ground, and spread along the vines to the nearest crystal flower.
The petals slowly opened, and two tiny figures emerged from the flower's center, holding hands and standing under the starlight.
"I...can I modify DNA?" he murmured.
“More than that,” she said, looking at him. “You can define life.”
He looked up at the still world.
The wind didn't move, the snow didn't fall, and time remained frozen. But he knew that some things had changed.
"What did we just do?" he asked.
“We wrote the beginning,” she said.
"And what about the ending?"
She didn't answer, but simply raised her hand and pointed into the distance.
A new vine is emerging from under the ice, with a flower blooming at its tip, and their names are engraved on the petals.
He smiled.
"Looks like I don't have to hand in the homework, but I still have to do the work."
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