The blue light in the sampling bag flashed, and Chen Hao froze, thinking he was seeing things.
He put his backpack on the control panel, and the bag brushed against the metal corner, flashing again. This time, even Susan saw it.
"Is it still reacting?" She walked over, her gloves still on.
“Didn’t we say it was sealed?” Karl frowned, and casually turned on the main light in the lab. The light bulb hummed before it was fully lit.
Nana had already stood in front of the detector, the lens pointed at the sampling bag. "The sample was not stimulated by external factors, and the emission frequency was consistent with yesterday's field observations, suggesting it was a spontaneous energy release."
“So it really can generate electricity.” Chen Hao grinned. “Last night I was worried it was just a last gasp before death.”
"Don't celebrate yet." Susan pulled up the record board. "We need to test the output value to see if we can extract it stably."
"No big deal." Chen Hao pressed the start button. "It's just connecting to electricity. I could turn on the light bulb in my dorm room when I failed a course in college."
The machine hummed as current flowed into the reaction chamber. The waveform on the display screen, which had just begun to fluctuate, suddenly oscillated violently, and the red line surged to the top.
"No!" Karl reached for the power cord, but it was too late.
With a muffled thud, a plume of white smoke billowed from the side of the instrument, carrying the smell of burning plastic.
Chen Hao turned off the main switch, and the room became quiet, with only the vents still blowing air.
"It exploded?" He looked at the smoking interface. "This thing is even more irritable than the cafeteria lady."
“It wasn’t an explosion.” Karl crouched down to inspect the wiring. “It was the recoil current that damaged the voltage regulator module; it almost burned into the main control system.”
Nana scanned the residual data and reported a set of numbers: "The input voltage is normal, but the ore generates a reverse pulse the moment it is powered on, and the intensity exceeds the design threshold by three times."
"It slapped us in the face?" Chen Hao scratched his head.
“To be more precise, it doesn’t accept our rules.” Susan pulled up a spectrum and pointed to a distorted curve. “Look here, the standard ionization process only applies to a single ion structure, but this ore has at least four silicon-based intercalations inside, like a jigsaw puzzle that has been forcibly put together.”
"Who has nothing better to do than collect ore?" Chen Hao leaned over to take a look.
“It wasn’t pieced together.” Karl scraped a small amount of residue off the inner wall of the reaction chamber. “These are traces of corrosion, very acidic. It releases byproducts when energized, directly eroding the alloy coating.”
"So, we're trying to charge it, but instead it's starting to produce sulfuric acid?" Chen Hao took a half step back. "This isn't energy; it's a chemical weapon."
“The existing extraction model is completely invalid,” Nana concluded. “There are no matching cases in the database.”
The air was filled with the smell of burning and the metallic fumes of coolant; no one spoke.
Susan looked down at her notebook, her pen hovering in mid-air. Carl tossed his tools into the tray with a crisp sound. Chen Hao leaned against the counter, staring at the bag of stones that were still faintly bluish.
“I thought I brought back a key,” he said. “But I got a lock that bites.”
“Maybe it’s not an energy source at all,” Karl suddenly said. “When we evacuated three years ago, the base conducted a high-energy experiment, and after it failed, a batch of radioactive waste was sealed up. The fact that this stuff glows doesn’t mean it’s usable; it might just be residual decay.”
“But it flashed across the wasteland yesterday.” Susan looked up. “And there’s no external power supply in the wild; it’s spontaneous.”
“Spontaneous doesn’t mean controllable,” Carl shook his head. “We don’t even know how it works yet, and we’re already starting to purify and channel energy? That’s too risky. What if next time it’s not just burning out equipment, but igniting the entire power supply network?”
Chen Hao didn't refute. He opened the sampling bag and poured a crystal into a glass dish. The blue light reflected on the table, like a small puddle.
“It’s moving,” Nana suddenly said.
The group drew closer. The point of light rippled slightly, like breathing.
“It’s not an illusion,” Susan said softly. “Its emission frequency has changed. It was seven times per second just now, but now it’s six and a half times per second.”
"Temperature effect?" Karl touched the glass dish. "The room temperature didn't change."
"Let's try something else." Chen Hao took out his phone and shone the flashlight on it. The light flashed twice and then immediately went dark.
"It's afraid of strong light?" Susan noted this down.
Nana activated the backup analysis module, and the screen lit up, but the image was blurry. "The accuracy has dropped by forty percent, and it can only provide a rough component ratio."
"That's enough." Chen Hao waved his hand. "Anyway, we're not trying to build a rocket right now, we just want to figure out what it is."
He turned to the three of them: "One task each. Susan, continue monitoring the spectral changes. Carl, check the composition of the corrosion products. Nana, browse the database to see if there are any records of similar mineral processing. I'll write an observation log so I don't forget it might bite again tomorrow."
"Aren't you going to fix the equipment?" Carl asked.
“It can’t be repaired.” Chen Hao pointed to the spectrometer. “The main sensor is broken, and the coolant pipe is leaking. These kinds of old parts are long gone. We can only wait for it to cool down on its own and then try to restart it.”
"Then what's the point of conducting the experiment?"
“Don’t do extraction, do observation.” Chen Hao picked up his pen. “In the past, when I didn’t know how to write the answers to exams, I would just copy the questions first to get some points. It’s the same now. Let’s figure out when it lights up and when it goes out each day, how it reacts to water, and how it reacts to heat. Eventually, we can figure it out.”
Susan nodded: "We can create behavioral profiles to record temperature changes, light exposure, and electromagnetic responses."
“Yes.” Chen Hao drew a table on the paper. “Let’s call it ‘The Daily Life of a Glowing, Bad-Tempered Stone’.”
Carl sighed, but still opened the dismantling kit. "I'll see if I can remove the corrosion residue, at least to save the reaction chamber."
"Don't work for nothing," Chen Hao reminded him. "Wear double gloves. This thing just bit the machine yesterday, and it might want to taste people too."
Nana accessed the historical database and searched for the keyword "nonlinear energy carrier". The progress bar slowly climbed, and a few scattered records appeared.
"Three related theories were discovered: first, the release of transient particle streams from deep crustal phase transitions; second, silicon-based crystals generate self-excited oscillations under specific stress; and third, the formation of energy accumulation through resonance between unknown substances and background radiation."
"It's all incomprehensible nonsense," Chen Hao said, scoffing. "Has anyone tried feeding it?"
“No,” Nana replied. “All the cases remain at the theoretical stage and have no practical application.”
“No wonder.” Chen Hao leaned back in his chair. “Even the most advanced civilizations are stuck at this step. It’s not shameful for us to fail.”
“But their failures were for different reasons.” Susan looked at the spectrum. “These theories assume extreme environments, such as high-pressure, low-temperature zones. Our ore, however, can glow at normal temperature and pressure.”
"Does that mean it's more advanced?" Chen Hao raised an eyebrow.
“Or even more unstable.” Carl wiped the circuit board. “The more abnormal it is, the more likely something will go wrong.”
As they were talking, the main control computer suddenly alarmed, and the red light flashed.
"The precision spectrometer cannot be calibrated," Nana read the message. "The core sensor is malfunctioning; the system recommends disabling it."
"Did you just hear a 'beep' sound?" Susan asked.
“Hmm.” Carl looked up. “It sounds like the coolant pump has stopped.”
They inspected the pipes and found a thin crack at the bend, from which a pale green liquid seeped out and pooled on the floor.
“It’s aged and cracked.” Carl pinched the tube. “This tube is older than me.”
"Change it?" Chen Hao asked.
“No spare parts.” Karl shook his head. “The inventory list says ‘awaiting resupply,’ and it hasn’t arrived in three years.”
“Then we’ll have to use the backup module.” Susan closed the recording panel. “Although the accuracy is lower, at least we can get a general idea.”
"And it can't be used for long," Carl added. "The heat dissipation can't keep up, and it has to be shut down after less than two hours."
Chen Hao was silent for a while, then suddenly laughed.
“Have you noticed?” he said, “we’re like a bunch of bicycle repairmen who suddenly found a fighter jet and are trying to start it up.”
“But at least we know it’s not a bicycle,” Susan said.
“Yes.” Chen Hao stood up. “Others don’t even know where the engine is, but at least we saw the spark.”
He walked to the workbench, resealed the crystal, and affixed a new label: "First observation sample - bad-tempered, will bite back, suspected of having dreams."
"What do we do next?" Susan asked.
“Stop extracting,” Chen Hao said. “Switch to long-term observation. Record it three times a day, morning, noon, and evening, and see if there are any patterns. At the same time, have Nana screen all the obscure theories in the database, even those that seem like nonsense.”
"Then what?"
“Then we’ll wait.” Chen Hao sat back in his chair. “Since it can light up, it must have a switch. If we can’t find the key, we’ll just squat by the door and see when it opens by itself.”
After wiping the last circuit board, Carl didn't say anything, but neatly stacked the tools back into the box.
Susan turned to a new page in her notebook and wrote the first line: **Day 754, Morning, Sample continuously glowed at a frequency of 6.8 Hz, briefly extinguished upon exposure to strong light, recovery time approximately 12 seconds.**
Nana projected "Recommendation to initiate a long-term observation protocol" onto the main screen, and a list of to-do items was automatically displayed below.
The sound of airflow from the vents suddenly stopped.
The crystal on the table flashed without warning, much brighter than before, and blue light swept across the wall like a signal.
Chen Hao raised his hand to block the light.
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