Chen Hao's fingers were still pressed against the rock surface, his fingertips wedged in the narrow groove. He didn't move or speak, but slowly pressed his other fingers down as well, sliding them along the groove for a short distance. It was cool, but not wet, as if someone had drawn a line down into the groove with something, without the slightest hesitation.
"Did you see that?" he asked without looking up.
Nana stood half a step behind him, blue light shining from her eye sockets, slanting across the rock wall. The light and shadow flickered, and she took a small step forward, the mechanical neck joint making a slight clicking sound.
“An anomaly in surface texture has been detected,” she said. “Scanning is in progress.”
Chen Hao withdrew his hand and shook it, as if he had just touched something he shouldn't have. He took a step back, leaning against the other side of the rock wall, breathing even more heavily than when he was climbing the slope.
“Let me tell you, if anyone has actually been here, they should at least have left a Wi-Fi password.” His voice trembled slightly as he tried to laugh. “They just carved a few lines and left without even leaving a note. That’s so unethical.”
Nana ignored him. The scanner scanned the engraving three times, finally stopping at the clearest section in the middle. Her head was slightly tilted, as if receiving internal data.
"Preliminary assessment," she began, "is that the scratch is 0.3 centimeters deep, uniform in width, and has no signs of chipping or weathering at the edges. It is consistent with the characteristics of scraping with a metal tool, and the probability of it not being formed naturally is 87.6%."
Chen Hao was stunned for a moment, "Wait—you mean, this was done by a person?"
“No biological residues or organic components were detected.” She paused, “but the physical traces are highly consistent with artificial processing.”
"So that means... someone used a tool to make a cut in this rock?"
"The logic holds true."
Chen Hao stared at the parallel lines and suddenly felt the air in the cave become heavier. He subconsciously touched the propulsion suit on his right leg; that thing had long since given up and was now like a scrap metal frame strapped to his leg, not even making a sound.
“But we’re not the first ones here, are we?” he said, lowering his voice. “Didn’t the records say that not even an ant has been registered on this planet?”
“The interstellar travel database shows that there are no records of any intelligent life activity in this star system,” Nana answered steadily. “The most recent survey was 213 years ago, with no one landing and the terrain mapping was completed solely through orbital remote sensing.”
"That means no one has ever been here."
"That's theoretically true."
"But what's with this line?" Chen Hao reached out and touched the engraving again, this time gently scratching it with his fingernail. "It can't be that the stone itself is itchy and scratched itself three times with a knife, can it?"
Nana was silent for two seconds.
Such silence is rare for a robot. She usually either gives the answer directly or says "insufficient data," but she never gets stuck.
“The system cannot explain this phenomenon,” she finally said. “However, the existing data does not support the hypothesis of ‘civilization’s existence. I suggest marking the location for review by a higher-authority unit.”
"What happens next?" Chen Hao laughed. "I don't even know if I'll be able to get back alive. Now you want me to make a mark, do you expect me to teach you how to carve stone with stone?"
“You can use your own tools to leave numbered marks on the nearby rock surface,” she said. “For example, ‘xh-26’ represents the twenty-sixth record of an anomaly being discovered.”
"I haven't even digested the wild fruit scraps I ate yesterday, and I'm already starting to number them?" He rolled his eyes. "Given our current state, even writing 'I was here' would be considered over-planning."
Nana didn't reply, but simply moved the blue light deeper into the cave. The light was swallowed by darkness less than five meters away, and the remaining space looked as if it had been soaked in ink, its depth indiscernible.
Chen Hao rubbed his face, feeling the mud dry and form a hard crust. He licked his lips, his mouth still tasting of the sourness of wild fruit from a few hours ago. Now his stomach felt strangely empty, but his mind was even emptier.
"Do you think... someone else might have crashed here?" he suddenly asked. "Just because it's not registered doesn't mean it wasn't here. Maybe someone secretly ran away, the spaceship exploded, the person died, and all that's left is a skeleton, and this carving mark?"
“It’s a possibility,” Nana said, “but there’s a lack of evidence to support it. If there were indeed remains, they should have been detected within a 100-meter radius.”
"What if it gets buried in the ground?"
"There are currently no signs of the ground becoming unstable."
"What if it gets dragged away by a wild animal?"
No traces of large predators were found.
"What if..." he paused, "...what if he doesn't want to be found?"
Nana turned her head, and the blue light fell directly on his face.
“You’re starting to make up stories,” she said.
“I’m not making this up, I’m reasoning,” Chen Hao muttered. “When people see something that can’t be explained, they have to find a way to make it work, otherwise they can’t sleep at night. You don’t understand, you robots don’t need to close your eyes when you sleep.”
“I don’t need sleep,” she said, “but I understand that humans have compensatory narrative impulses when they experience cognitive dissonance.”
"Huh?" He glared. "You're calling me a delusional person?"
"I'm just stating the facts."
"You're really gentle." He snorted, slowly standing up while supporting himself against the rock wall. The right leg of his propulsion suit made a muffled thud, as if some part inside had completely given up the struggle.
He walked up to the engravings, squatted down, and reached out to touch the starting points of the lines.
“Look,” he said, “it wasn’t just drawn randomly. Three lines, equidistant, all the same depth, from top to bottom, in one continuous stroke. It’s not a distress signal, nor is it scribbling. The person was very calm, even… a bit ritualistic.”
Nana took a step closer, and the blue light focused on the beginning of the engraving.
“The pressure is slightly higher at the beginning and gradually decreases at the end,” she analyzed. “This indicates that the person applying the force is holding the tool in their right hand, and their movements are stable, without trembling or hesitation. The tool should be a sharp metal object, at least fifteen centimeters long.”
“So he’s right-handed, calm, and has a knife,” Chen Hao murmured. “And he’s not in a hurry.”
"The logical deduction is reasonable."
"The question is—why did he only carve this? No words, no drawings, no arrows pointing in a direction? Just three lines?"
"unknown."
"Don't you think this is a bit like some kind of... test?" Chen Hao looked up at her. "Like, right after landing, checking if the tools are working properly, casually scratching the wall a few times?"
Nana's eyes flickered slightly with blue light, as if an internal program was retrieving some data.
“Similar behavior has been recorded in early human colonization,” she said. “After settling in a new environment, it is common to use tools to mark the environment for psychological anchoring or path recognition.”
“Psychological anchoring?” Chen Hao grinned. “You mean, he drew these lines to tell himself—I’m not crazy, I can control things?”
"Possibly."
"Can I make a cut now?" He took out the multi-tool from his toolbox, snapped the main blade out, and slashed hard at the rock wall next to him.
Sizzle—
A short, crooked white mark appeared on the stone, much shallower than the other three, with cracks at the edges.
“Look,” he sheathed his knife, “this is called panic, trembling hands, and loss of emotional control—standard signs of impending death.”
Nana glanced at it and said, "Your scratches are 0.08 centimeters deep, the angle is off by 12 degrees, and the pressure is unstable. This definitely reflects a poor physiological condition."
"Thanks, it's good that you can also give me a diagnosis." He sat back down on the ground, leaning against the rock wall. "I can't even draw a proper line anymore, how long do I expect to live?"
“Running out of energy doesn’t mean the end of life,” she said. “You still have the ability to breathe, your heart beats, and you can speak, so you are in a recoverable state.”
"Recoverable? I can't even stand up right now. My propulsion suit is destroyed, all the power is gone, I only have half a pack of energy bars left, and it's thundering outside like a firework. You think I can recover?"
"Statistically, your chances of survival are still higher than five percent."
“Wow, it’s almost in the safe.” He rolled his eyes. “I thought you were going to say something like ‘Don’t give up hope.’”
"Hopefully, this is not within my scope of calculation."
"I knew it."
The rain was still pounding outside the cave, the muffled sound carrying in like someone drumming in the distance. Occasionally, lightning would strike, its light cutting in from the cave entrance, illuminating the dust and moisture for a fleeting moment.
Chen Hao looked up at the dimly lit entrance and suddenly asked, "Do you think... it's possible that one of our people took shelter from the rain here? And then he saw these three lines, got terrified, and ultimately didn't survive?"
Nana did not answer immediately.
Her scanner turned toward the hole, seemingly calculating the frequency and intensity of the rain.
“There is no evidence that anyone else has entered this cave,” she said. “There are no multiple footprints on the ground, no overlapping carvings on the rock walls, and no old metabolic residue in the air.”
“But these three lines must have a beginning, right?” Chen Hao said in a low voice. “It couldn’t have been here on the first day. There must have been someone who carved it for the first time.”
Nana paused for a few seconds.
Then she slowly turned her head back, and the blue light fell on the three lines again.
“You’re right,” she finally said. “Every trace has a first person who made it.”
Chen Hao was taken aback.
He never expected the robot to say such a thing.
He opened his mouth, about to say something, when he suddenly heard a very faint sound from above.
It felt like a stone that had been bumped.
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