The countdown has 59 hours and 58 minutes remaining.
Chen Hao stared at the numbers in the lower right corner of the screen, his fingers tapping lightly on the table. His right foot still wasn't quite on his own; walking felt like stepping on someone else's leg. He tried walking quickly, and almost tripped over the tool rack. Now he only dared to move slowly, testing the ground with each step.
Nana stood in front of the terminal, her optical lens scanning the rows of green lights. The modular system was running smoothly, with no abnormal alarms or signs of unauthorized restarts. She packaged yesterday's data logs into the quantum storage area and updated the access authentication protocol as she did so.
"How long do you think this can last?" Chen Hao asked.
"Seventy-two hours is the testing cycle."
"I'm not talking about time. I'm saying... if we keep patching things up like this, won't the outside just collapse one day?"
"The structural load-bearing capacity is currently normal."
"I'm just giving an example."
"Metaphors are not in my response priority."
Chen Hao rolled his eyes and was about to speak when the alarm went off.
The sound wasn't loud, just a normal buzzer, three short beeps followed by one long one, indicating that the infrared surveillance system on the base's perimeter had been triggered. A thermal image popped up on the screen, showing a dark green ring spreading along the protective wall, as if someone had used a brush dipped in fluorescent paint to draw a circle on the ground.
"What is that?" He leaned closer to look.
“Plants.” Nana brought up the enlarged image. “Vines, growing at a rate of 1.8 meters per hour. Their roots have invaded the wall joints, causing localized stress shifts.”
"How can it grow so fast?"
"Its metabolic rate is seventeen times the normal value, and it exhibits active drilling behavior."
"It can still move?"
"It's not animal-like movement. It propels the body through directional expansion of cells."
Chen Hao paused for two seconds: "So it crawled into the wall by itself?"
"yes."
"Then it needs to be pulled out."
After he finished speaking, he turned around to get his tools, but Nana stopped him as soon as he took a step.
Manual removal is not recommended.
Why?
"Infrared spectroscopy revealed that its surface is covered with a layer of translucent secretion of unknown composition, but it has high reflectivity and may be flammable."
“Then we need to deal with it even more.” He walked around the robot and took a flamethrower from the wall. “I’ll burn a bit and see.”
"Risk assessment not completed."
"By the time you finish the assessment, it will have already climbed onto the roof."
He dragged his right leg as he walked out, his movements clumsy but resolute. Nana didn't stop him anymore, but instead activated the external monitoring system to track him and simultaneously put the cooling system on standby.
Chen Hao arrived at the wall. The vines had grown to his calves, twining around the metal frame like a layer of damp green mold. He squatted down and smelled it; it tasted a bit like fermented soybean dregs mixed with lemon peel.
He pressed the ignition button.
Flames erupted, licking the vines. At first, they were merely charred and curled, but seconds later, the slime suddenly ignited, emitting pale blue flames that rapidly spread along the vine network. The fire instantly doubled in intensity, yet the temperature remained low, instead making the air humid and stifling.
"Something's not right." He stepped back.
Before the words were even finished, a main vine exploded, spewing out even more viscous liquid that formed a fine mist in the air. This mist ignited upon contact with fire, turning the entire area into a low-temperature inferno. Flames climbed up the sheep pen fence and then surged towards the resin storage pile.
"Nana! Put out the fire!"
"Traditional methods are ineffective. We are activating the deep cooling system."
Inside the control room, Nana activated the liquid nitrogen storage valve and released it fully. The underground pipes vibrated, and cold mist gushed out from the boreholes around the perimeter of the enclosure, rapidly lowering the ambient temperature. Within thirty seconds, the temperature at the center of the fire dropped to minus fifty degrees Celsius. All the burning vines froze, the flames went out, leaving only twisted branches encased in a layer of ice.
Chen Hao coughed a few times, his mask blackened by the smoke. He leaned against the wall, panting, "This thing can even set off fireworks?"
“It’s not fireworks,” Nana’s voice came through the earpiece. “It’s a defense mechanism. The high temperature causes the glands to burst, releasing volatile gel and triggering a chain reaction of combustion.”
"That sounds even harsher than my ex."
"Unrelated comparisons do not affect the current processing procedure."
"I know you don't talk nonsense."
He looked at the circle of frozen vines, the branches still trembling slightly, as if they weren't quite dead.
"It's still moving?"
"Life activities have not stopped. Cells are still undergoing low-frequency division."
"Then what should we do? Let it thaw and then cook it again?"
Repeating the same operation will not change the result.
"So, do you have a plan?"
Nana didn't reply, but instead opened the knowledge base search interface. She entered the keywords: rapid growth, root drilling, low-temperature combustion, acoustic resonance.
Three seconds later, a long-forgotten record was activated—an accident report from an ecological experimental station three hundred years ago: "The X-7 type acceleration vine, due to mistakenly receiving agricultural growth-promoting sound waves, proliferated uncontrollably, ultimately ceasing its activity through reverse frequency interference."
“Found it,” she said.
"What method?"
"This plant relies on sound waves of a specific frequency to maintain a high metabolic rate. By sending the opposite frequency, we can disrupt its internal resonant balance and force it into dormancy."
"You know how to tune a radio?"
"I am not a radio."
"Then hurry up and broadcast a channel."
Nana connected to an agricultural voice-controlled array, an old device originally used to regulate the rhythm of crop photosynthesis. It wasn't very powerful, but it had a wide coverage area. She analyzed the target frequency based on sample data, wrote a reverse interference program, and set it to a cyclic transmission mode.
“Ready to start,” she said.
"Wait a minute." Chen Hao suddenly remembered something. "Last time you turned on the 3D projection, the cucumbers almost died of thirst. Don't connect the wrong cable again this time."
"This operation only involves the audio module, which is physically isolated from other systems."
“When you say that, it always makes me more worried.”
"Concerns do not affect execution efficiency."
She pressed the confirm button.
The sonic device activated, causing a slight vibration in the air, like someone tapping a tin bucket in the distance. The ice along the wall began to crack slightly, and the frozen vines slowly stopped wriggling, their main stems contracted, their leaves closed, and finally they came to a complete stop.
Thermal imaging showed that the metabolic rate dropped from seventeen times to 0.3, approaching a dormant state.
“It works,” Nana said.
"It's really stopped?"
"Temporarily suppressed. Not eradicated."
"Should we keep playing music?"
"Frequency will be continuously output; set to automatic cruise mode."
Chen Hao breathed a sigh of relief, took off his mask, and was immediately choked by a sour, rotten smell that made him cough. He took out his water bottle, rinsed his mouth, and spat it on the ground. The water was quickly stained pale green by the remaining mucus.
“Make a note of it,” he said.
"Record the event?"
"Hmm. 'Don't burn plants you don't recognize, they might explode.' Write it in your notebook."
Nana accessed her electronic log and added a new entry under the "Ecological Threats" category. Simultaneously, she collected a sample of vine tissue and sent it to an analyzer for gene fragment analysis, thus establishing a preliminary database.
"If this kind of thing happens again, will we be able to detect it in advance?" Chen Hao asked.
"A bio-radar scan can be set up to monitor abnormal vegetation signals."
"It sounds like a science fiction movie."
"It's already a reality."
"That works too. At least next time I won't have to rush up and start the fire myself."
"I suggest not to."
"You still remember the time I used the electric shock?"
"All accidents are documented."
"I knew it."
He limped back to the control panel, accidentally bumping his hand on the armrest of the chair as he sat down—a dent left by the robotic arm when it gripped him last time. He glanced at the mark, said nothing, simply turned to a new page in his notebook, and wrote:
1. Regularly clean up junk files; don't wait for them to rebel on their own.
2. Don't reach out to fix machines.
3. Don't burn unfamiliar plants; they might explode.
After finishing writing, he looked up and asked, "What's next?"
"Continuously monitor external dynamics and optimize the accuracy of suppression frequency."
Can I take a break?
"You can rest. I'll take over the system."
"When you say that, I can't sleep."
"This is not my problem."
"It's a problem with your tone."
Nana didn't respond, but instead slightly adjusted the intensity of the sound interference by 0.7 Hz, and the waveform on the screen changed accordingly.
Chen Hao leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The low hum of the equipment running filled his ears, along with the faint sound of dripping water in the distance. He thought he should be able to fall asleep, but images kept flashing before his eyes—frozen vines, blue fire, the moment slime splattered.
He opened his eyes and looked at the surveillance screen.
Everything was quiet.
The vines stopped moving.
The frequency is stable.
The green light is on.
Just as he was about to close his eyes again, he suddenly noticed a small detail in the corner of the screen.
There is a small crack in the ground of agricultural area group B.
It's very short, less than five centimeters.
But a sliver of tender green tip peeked out from the crack.
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