The communicator was lit up, and the figure on the screen remained motionless, raising and lowering his hand as if waiting for a response.
Chen Hao pressed the call button.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The man outside didn't speak, but gently placed the metal box he was carrying on the ground, raised both hands to his chest with palms facing outwards, his movements slow but clear. Then he pointed to his ears, then to the ground, and finally tapped his chest, repeating the gesture he had just made.
“He’s saying he’s not carrying any weapons,” Nana said. “His vital signs are stable, his temperature is 36.8 degrees Celsius, and his heart rate is 72 beats per minute.”
Susan stood in front of the monitoring station, her eyes fixed on the environmental readings in the corner of the screen. "The wind speed outside is normal, and there are no other heat source signals."
Carl had one hand already on the toolbox, and the other hand was touching the stun gun at his waist. "Make him speak, don't beat around the bush."
Chen Hao stared at the screen for five seconds, then turned to Nana and said, "Turn on the external microphone and record all the sounds."
After the audio connection was established, a slight gust of wind could be heard. The person finally spoke, their voice low but clear: "I need to speak with your manager alone."
“I’m in charge now,” Chen Hao said. “I can hear everything you say.”
“This matter cannot be made public.” The man looked directly at the camera, his eyes unwavering. “I know there’s an area in the deep sea that no one dares to go to, and no one ever comes back. But I went there, and I came back.”
The room was silent for a few seconds.
"So you escaped?" Susan asked.
“I’m back to deliver a message,” the man said. “There’s something there, not resources, not technology, but a structure—it moves on its own.”
Carl sneered, "You don't even bother to draft your stories."
Nana spoke up at this moment: "The 'self-moving structure' he mentioned has theoretical model records in the database. It belongs to the phenomenon derived from abnormal crustal activity, but there is currently no empirical evidence."
"Look!" the man suddenly raised his voice, "Someone knows this isn't nonsense."
Chen Hao waved his hand, signaling Nana to stop talking. "If you really came out of there alive, how will you prove it? You can't just fool us with your words."
The man looked down at the box at his feet, bent down, and unlocked it. The lid was half open, revealing an irregularly shaped crystal inside, its surface shimmering with a faint blue light, flowing slowly like ripples on water.
“This was peeled off the rift valley wall,” he said. “It is unaffected by magnetic fields, weighs 60 percent less than a rock of the same volume, and… it absorbs sound.”
Chen Hao frowned: "Absorb sound?"
“Yes.” The man nodded. “If you shout into it, the recording equipment won’t record anything. But it will vibrate internally at a fixed frequency.”
Nana immediately brought up the scanning program. A laser beam shone down from the ceiling, passed through the glass dome, and landed on the crystal sample. A few seconds later, the terminal displayed an analysis report.
"The material is unknown, and the energy radiation value is extremely low, but it is persistent. The sound wave absorption rate is 98.3%, and the reflection is almost zero."
No one spoke inside.
Chen Hao glanced at Susan, then looked at Carl: "What do you guys think?"
“What a coincidence,” Susan said. “We just got our internal processes sorted out, and then we get a mythologist sent in.”
Carl crossed his arms: "I'd rather it be a robber; at least the motive is clear."
“But he didn’t lie,” Nana said. “His physiological data showed no fluctuations due to stress, his pupils were normal, and his speech was logically coherent.”
“We can’t let him in,” Carl insisted. “Who knows if this thing is a signal transmitter? Or worse—a trigger.”
Chen Hao paused for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed: "Alright, let's compromise."
He walked to the control panel and pressed the button for the isolation room. "Go to the observation room on the east side. I'll lock the door. The glass is double-layered and bulletproof, and there's an air filtration system inside. It can last for six hours even without power. I'll talk to you inside, and the three of them will be watching outside. They'll break down the door when they hear me say 'overturn.'"
The person did not object.
Ten minutes later, the visitor stood in the center of the observation room, a metal box at his feet. Chen Hao, wearing a miniature recorder, walked in, and the door clicked shut behind him.
“Let’s begin.” Chen Hao leaned against the wall. “You said there are moving structures in the deep sea. Who built them?”
“I don’t know,” the man said, “but I’ve seen it swallow a submarine. Not sink it, but… it opened up and then engulfed it, like a living creature feeding.”
"Then what?"
“I escaped using an emergency buoy, and I had this crystal with me. It saved me once—when my sonar failed, I relied on it to guide me.”
"Why are you only arriving now?"
“I’m looking for someone who can understand.” He looked up. “You’re different. Others build bases to survive; you’re rebuilding the rules. That shows you’re not afraid of change.”
Chen Hao grinned: "You're quite the flatterer."
“I’m not praising you,” the man said calmly. “I’m taking a gamble. If you don’t dare listen, I’ll turn around and leave, and find the next one.”
The two stared at each other for a few seconds.
Chen Hao suddenly stood up, walked to the glass, and knocked twice. "Nana, can we make more of this thing?"
“Theoretically, the material structure can be replicated,” Nana’s voice came over the radio, “but at least three samples are needed for cross-comparison. Currently, we only have one, so reverse engineering is not possible.”
"So, this thing is unique?"
"At present, yes."
Chen Hao turned back: "What do you want? Don't tell me you're here to do good deeds."
"I need a place to stay," the man said. "Three days. Enough for me to organize all my memories into a diagram. After that, you can choose to believe it or destroy it."
"You're not going to state your conditions?"
"Even if I asked, you wouldn't give it to me." He smiled. "I know my own worth."
Chen Hao stared at him for a long time before finally opening the door and walking out.
“Agreed,” he said. “But you have to stay in the observation room, your food will be delivered via a pass-through, you’ll get ten minutes of fresh air each day, and you’ll be under the camera’s view.”
The man nodded.
Chen Hao returned to the command center and found all four of them staring at the whiteboard. He picked up a marker and wrote a few words in the blank space: **Mysterious Deep-Sea Area**.
A question mark was drawn below.
"What do we do now?" Susan asked.
"Inspect the goods first," Chen Hao said. "Nana, split the crystal sample data into three parts, run each part with a different algorithm, and see if there is any hidden information."
“It’s already being processed,” Nana replied.
"Karl, check all the wiring in the observation room. Don't let him secretly connect anything."
Carl snorted: "We've been investigating for a while now."
Susan opened her new journal: "I'll organize his oral history and see if there are any inconsistencies."
Chen Hao sat down and rubbed his face.
"I thought I could finalize the tool permission table today, but then this guy came along telling underwater legends."
"Do you think he's real?" Susan asked.
“I don’t believe in supernatural forces,” Chen Hao said, “but I do believe that people don’t take risks for no reason. If he’s a fraudster, the price is too high.”
"What if what he said is true?" she pressed. "Are we really going to a place like that?"
“No,” Chen Hao shook his head. “But we need to know it exists. Just like back then we didn’t know the storm warning system could save our lives until the first time the roof was blown off.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Nana suddenly said, "A weak pulse signal was detected from the crystal, with a period of once every seventeen seconds and a duration of three milliseconds."
Everyone looked up.
"Direction?" Chen Hao asked.
“It’s pointing southeast, at a 43-degree angle to the coastline,” Nana said. “The signal strength is extremely weak, but it’s increasing.”
The room was silent for a few seconds.
“He’s lying.” Carl jumped to his feet. “This thing is a beacon!”
“Not necessarily,” Nana said. “The signal pattern doesn’t match the characteristics of active transmission; it’s more like… resonance.”
“Resonance?” Susan frowned.
“It’s like two tuning forks,” Nana explained. “When one vibrates, the other vibrates even from a distance. This crystal may be responding to some source.”
Chen Hao slowly stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and stared at the question mark.
“So it’s not crying for help,” he said softly. “It’s being summoned.”
The night was dark outside the gate, and the wind whistled through the wall.
The visitor in the observation room sat in a chair with his back straight and his eyes closed, as if he were asleep.
But his left hand was gently tapping his knee, at a rhythm of once every seventeen seconds.
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