The door opened a crack, and a man wearing glasses stood in the doorway, the edges of the printed paper in his hand already curled up a bit.
Chen Hao was still sitting on the small stool, with an empty water bottle beside him. He looked up at the person who had come, then looked down at the highlighter in his hand, as if he had just pulled himself out of some emotion.
“The art group used to be here,” he said, “but it’s been converted into a study room now.”
The man paused, glanced at the unlit projector in the room, then at the paintings and metal plates covering the walls, and asked hesitantly, "You... you're not painting anymore?"
"You have to use your brain after you finish drawing." Chen Hao said vaguely, biting the pen cap in his mouth. "That pile of doodles was quite lively, but the planet won't actually get warmer just because we drew a sun."
Susan pulled a sealed box from the filing cabinet and dusted it off: "We need to look at something more substantial now."
Nana stood beside the projector, the light spots still flickering on the wall, but the content had changed—a complex energy cycle diagram slowly rotated, the lines intersecting, the colors chaotic, like someone had tangled up a circuit board and plant roots.
Carl closed his old notebook and picked up a new one with the title "Ecological Record" on the cover.
The man didn't come in, but instead leaned his head further back: "Is this... studying?"
"Sort of." Chen Hao rubbed his temples. "We want to figure out how this planet actually lives."
The man nodded, slowly closed the door, and left.
The room fell silent.
Chen Hao stared at the image on the projector for a minute, then suddenly raised his hand and pressed pause.
"Who can understand this thing?" he muttered. "Mycelial networks connect to geothermal veins, and then supply energy to surface plants through weathered rock layers? It sounds like a concept copied from a science fiction novel."
Susan opened the sealed box and took out a stack of yellowed pages: "Because this is not the conclusion, it is the process. What you see is the result of the puzzle, but what we are missing are the original pieces."
She spread a hand-drawn cross-section diagram on the table. Although the lines were not as precise as the digital diagram, the annotations were dense, and even the changes in surface temperature at different times were distinguished by color.
“This is what I brought back from the eastern rock formations last time,” she said. “I jotted down some data on the spot, and I never thought it would actually come in handy.”
Nana walked over, the optical scanning module was activated, and page after page of data was quickly entered into the system.
“Information matching in progress,” she said. “There are 37 relevant entries in the existing knowledge base, but the logical chain is broken.”
“I know it’s broken.” Chen Hao pointed to a node on the map. “It says that underground bacteria will release spores in response to micro-vibrations, but no one explains why it has to be a micro-vibration and not heavy rain or wind. It can’t just start working when the rock sneezes, can it?”
Carl turned to the middle page of his notes and drew a simple flowchart: "The current assumption is that the vibration frequency triggers some kind of resonance mechanism."
“Then you have to prove that the mycelium has ears,” Chen Hao said.
“They don’t need to listen.” Nana pulled up a waveform comparison chart. “The data shows that surface fluctuations at specific frequencies closely match the peak values of spore dispersal. It’s not sound, it’s vibration transmission.”
“But we don’t have any observation equipment that can be stationed in that area long-term.” Susan frowned. “The few existing records are all short-term samples, so we can’t confirm the periodic pattern.”
Chen Hao leaned back in his chair and looked up at the remaining confetti on the ceiling. "So it's stuck now?"
“It’s not completely stuck.” Susan turned to the last page of the data. “I recorded one nighttime monitoring session. Just before that micro-earthquake, the surface humidity suddenly dropped, and then the mycelial fluorescence reaction increased threefold.”
"The humidity has decreased?" Chen Hao sat up straight. "Shouldn't they grow faster when it's humid?"
“Normally, that’s the case,” she said, “but this batch of bacteria may have adapted to the drying signal as a prerequisite.”
Nana immediately retrieved the environmental parameter model from the database and input the new variables.
On the screen, a new simulation curve begins to generate, but it suddenly stops at a certain node, and a red prompt appears: "[Insufficient data, unable to extrapolate the complete path]".
"Here we go again," Chen Hao sighed. "The robot knows everything that happens in the world, but it doesn't know anything about this one."
“My database is based on records of known civilizations,” Nana said. “And the way this planet’s ecology operates is marked as an ‘unclassified sample’ in the database.”
"In other words, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves." Chen Hao picked up a pen and scribbled on the paper. "When others write down the answers, it's called learning. What we're doing is creating questions on the spot."
Susan chuckled softly: "But at least we have a lead now."
“It’s more than just clues.” Karl closed his notebook, stood up, and walked to the projector. “These notes mention three similar phenomena, with an interval of about forty-six days. If the pattern holds true, the next activation period will be in ten days.”
“We can set up monitoring points.” Chen Hao’s eyes lit up. “We can take sensors down and record the entire process in real time.”
“The problem is who will go down,” Susan cautioned. “The eastern rock formations are unstable; last time I went, I was lucky enough to avoid a landslide.”
“I’ll apply,” Carl said.
“You can’t do it alone.” Chen Hao waved his hand. “At least two people are needed, and someone needs to be up there to receive the data.”
Nana immediately responded, "I can remotely control the monitoring equipment and analyze the transmitted information simultaneously."
“Then you stay.” Chen Hao pointed at her. “Karl and I will go down.”
“You?” Susan glanced at him. “Last time you climbed a 30-meter-high slope, you had to rest four times in the middle.”
"That time it was because my shoes slipped!" Chen Hao argued. "This time I can wear non-slip shoes."
"You even brought your water bottle to use as a hiking stick," Susan couldn't help but laugh.
“That’s auxiliary equipment!” Chen Hao retorted. “Besides, if I don’t go up there, who will capture the historic moment? ‘Humanity witnesses the awakening of extraterrestrial microbes for the first time,’ what a sensational headline that is.”
"Are you planning to take pictures with your phone?" Carl asked.
"I didn't bring my phone," Chen Hao honestly admitted. "But I can draw."
The room fell silent for a moment.
Then Susan lowered her head and smiled, and Carl's lips twitched slightly.
Nana said, "I recommend bringing an image recorder, as hand-drawing is less efficient."
"Hey, at least my drawing is recognizable as a circle!" Chen Hao protested. "Unlike some people, who make up a picture like there's an electrical fault."
Nana didn't refute, but silently organized the latest entered notes into a timeline and projected it onto the wall.
Susan pointed to one of the lines of text: "It says here, 'Twelve hours before a micro-earthquake, a brief negative pressure zone appears on the ground,' which we have never measured before."
“It’s probably because the instrument isn’t precise enough,” Carl said. “Ordinary barometers can’t detect these subtle changes.”
“Then we’ll have to use high-sensitivity probes.” Chen Hao stroked his chin. “Are there any spare ones in the base’s warehouse?”
“We have two spares,” Nana replied, “but they need to be calibrated.”
"Then get on with it." Chen Hao stood up and stretched. "Start preparing tomorrow. In ten days, we'll be watching with our own eyes how these mushrooms—no, mycelia—hold their meetings."
Susan put the documents back into the box and gently closed the lid.
“Actually, I’ve always been worried,” she said. “Are the paintings and activities we do too superficial? Are they just expressing emotions without truly understanding this planet?”
“Understanding also starts from scratch.” Chen Hao picked up a highlighter and wrote on the paper, “Micro-vibration + humidity -3% → spore release?” Then he drew a big question mark.
"Aren't we moving forward right now?"
Carl turned to a new page in his notebook and wrote the first line of the title: [Draft Ecological Monitoring Plan for the Eastern Rock Strata Region].
Nana has begun disassembling the old sensor modules, preparing to modify them into portable data acquisition units.
Watching the three of them busy at work, Susan suddenly felt that compared to the colorful works on the wall, the sketches, formulas, and discussions on the table at this moment seemed to be another kind of creation.
Something unseen, yet truly growing.
The lights are very bright.
The sound of pages turning continued incessantly.
Chen Hao was circling suspicious data points in the document with a red pen, muttering to himself, "The temperature here is 15 degrees Celsius, but it was freezing cold that day, like being in a refrigerator..."
He looked up at Nana: "Check the weather log for that day, is it recorded incorrectly?"
Nana's eyes flickered slightly as she retrieved data.
Susan's finger stopped on a page of handwritten notes.
She read it aloud in a low voice: "...micro-tremors on the ground at night may trigger the activation of mycelial networks."
The moment she finished speaking, Nana's projection changed its image.
A new waveform emerged, completely overlapping with the record in the journal.
Karl stopped writing.
Chen Hao raised his head.
All four people's eyes fell on that curve at the same time.
It's not as smooth as machine-generated ones; instead, it carries traces of human correction, like someone crouching in the wild, trembling as they record their real heartbeat.
“Found it,” Susan said.
Chen Hao grabbed a pen and wrote forcefully in his notebook: [Evidence 1: Double verification of handwritten notes and data].
He looked up at the others: "Next step, we'll prepare to go into the mountains."
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