Chen Hao's head bobbed up and down, almost hitting the closed laptop screen. He rubbed his eyes, his fingers still on the keyboard, having spent almost ten minutes typing the last period without deleting it.
Susan leaned back on the sofa armrest, her hair disheveled and piled on one shoulder, muttering "peak heat radiation," but her voice grew softer and softer until she finally shut up. Carl sat cross-legged on the carpet, tablet on his lap, eyes fixed on the modeling interface, but the cursor didn't move for a long time.
Nana stood up, walked up to each person, and waved her hand. No one reacted.
“I recommend stopping immediately,” she said. “Current cognitive efficiency is below 12 percent; continuing to input information will lead to memory confusion.”
Chen Hao raised his hand and waved it, "Five more...five more minutes."
“I’ve said ‘just five more minutes’ seventeen times,” Nana said. “Your physical indicators show: low heart rate, insufficient blood sugar, and excessive cortisol levels. This isn’t scientific research; it’s slow suicide.”
Susan rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. "I just don't want to sleep. All I see when I close my eyes is a stream of data, like I'm being thrown into a washing machine."
Carl finally looked up. "Aren't we being too greedy? If we report ecology and resources together, people will think we're just trying to make a fuss."
"Then what do you suggest we do?" Chen Hao muttered. "Write them separately? Wouldn't that be like contradicting ourselves?"
Nana didn't reply, but silently turned off the projector and closed all four devices one by one.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
The three of them were too exhausted to argue and dragged themselves out. The corridor lights were bright, making them feel even more tired. As the elevator descended, Chen Hao leaned against the metal wall and almost slipped to the ground. Susan steadied him, swaying slightly herself in the process.
The living room light downstairs was still on.
Chen Hao's parents were sitting at the coffee table, on which were several bowls of hot noodle soup, along with freshly stir-fried vegetables and braised eggs. Hearing the noise, the mother stood up, and the father took the heavy backpacks from their hands.
"You're back so late?" Mother asked in a low voice. "I've reheated the food three times."
Chen Hao opened his mouth as if to say "It's nothing," but only managed a dry cough.
His father patted him on the shoulder, "Eat something first, don't try to tough it out."
Susan looked down at the bowl of noodles, her eyes suddenly welling up with tears. She quickly turned her head away, pretending to look for a tissue.
Carl sat down but didn't touch his chopsticks. "We...we might have messed up."
"How did you mess it up?" the mother asked while ladling soup. "Didn't you discover that the planet 'sings'? It sounds quite interesting."
“It’s not just about singing,” Carl said with a wry smile. “We also wanted to prove that it could ‘generate electricity,’ ‘grow plants,’ or even be alive. Who would believe that?”
His mother handed him the soup, saying, "I don't understand those things, but I believe you're staying up all night to figure something out. That's enough."
My father took a sip of tea. “When I first opened a restaurant, the first day I sold steamed buns, a customer took one bite and said they were spoiled. Actually, they were very fresh. But people didn’t believe me, and no amount of explanation helped. What happened next? I got up at six o’clock every day to knead the dough, and I persisted for three months. Then, my regular customers started coming back on their own.”
Chen Hao sniffed. "But this time it's different. Someone is stealing our data."
“Then let people see it,” the father said. “The real thing can’t be hidden or stolen.”
Susan finally spoke, her voice very soft: "We're afraid of being seen as frauds. Last time during our defense, one sentence from the judges exposed us completely."
Her mother gently patted her back. "Who hasn't been looked down upon before? But haven't you stood up again now? And come back with new discoveries. Isn't that progress?"
No one spoke. Only the slurping sound of noodles slowly rose up.
After finishing his meal, Carl pushed his bowl away a little. "Maybe... we should be more conservative and only report one direction."
Nana suddenly stood up, swiped her finger, and a star map lit up the wall. The planet slowly rotated, and the blue veins and red dots of the mineral veins on the ground intertwined, as rhythmically as breathing.
“This is the model you made,” she said. “Vibration frequency, plant rhythms, and mineral vein formation are all correlated. This is not speculation, but observational results.”
She tapped it, and a low-frequency sound played, a buzzing sound, like a humming coming from the depths of the earth.
“This is ‘singing’,” Nana said. “It exists, and it will never disappear.”
Carl stared at the screen, his lips moving slightly. "But what if nobody wants to listen?"
“Then we’ll just play it a few more times.” Chen Hao suddenly laughed. “At worst, we can record it a hundred times and play it on a loop to annoy them to death.”
Susan chuckled, "You're harassing the judging panel."
"It's better than kneeling and begging them to listen," Chen Hao shrugged. "We're not going there to beg for food, we're going there to hand in our homework. Take it or leave it."
Carl looked down at his modeling sketch, his finger unconsciously drawing function lines in the air. "If we use harmonic resonance to optimize the prediction model... we might be able to lock in the energy peak twelve hours earlier."
"Then why don't you hurry up and change it?" Susan nudged him.
“Change it.” Karl nodded. “Change it first thing tomorrow morning.”
Nana stood by the window, her bright eyes flickering slightly. She didn't speak, but the system had already begun processing new data packets, titled "Preliminary Analysis of the Energy Exit of an Alien System."
Chen Hao leaned back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. "Actually, my mind is still a bit foggy. I don't even know if it will work out."
Susan sat down next to him and gently took his hand. "But you know what? While we were eating just now, I felt scared."
Why?
“Because I know someone is waiting for me to come home,” she said. “Someone leaves the light on for me, cooks for me, and listens to my complaints. That’s enough.”
Carl looked up at them. "My parents never ask me about my job. Every time they call, it's just 'Do you have enough money?' It makes me too embarrassed to tell them that the project fell through."
“That’s because they trust you,” Chen Hao said. “Like we are now, nobody mentions giving up, but nobody says we absolutely have to win. We’re just doing it like this, and it’s fine.”
As her mother cleared the dishes, she smiled at her father and said, "They can manage, they just need a place to rest."
The father nodded, "Young people have a long road ahead of them."
At three in the morning, the living room light was still on.
Nana brought up the holographic projection and marked the newly discovered energy outlet path. A pale yellow channel extended from the Earth's core to a rift valley on the surface, ending at a region of unknown minerals.
“The exit point has been located,” she said. “The next energy release is expected in 63 hours.”
Chen Hao stared at that spot, "If someone else researches this first, we won't even get a taste of it."
“Then let’s not let them take it.” Susan opened her notebook. “I’ll contact the plant sample bank tomorrow and retrieve all the records of the blue crystals.”
Carl is already modifying the model. "I'll try using a nonlinear feedback algorithm to see if I can simulate the exit eruption cycle."
As Nana watched their busy figures, her pupils flashed 0.7 seconds faster than usual.
Chen Hao stretched, making a cracking sound as he moved his neck. He smiled and looked out the window, "Our living room is practically turning into an interstellar research center."
“It’s better than spending all night in an internet cafe,” Susan said.
“And the internet speed is fast,” Carl added.
Nana suddenly said, "Abnormal signal fluctuations have been detected."
The three of them looked up at the same time.
“It wasn’t a hacker,” she said. “It was a raw data stream from a surface monitoring station. It was uploaded automatically and was unencrypted.”
"Who posted this?" Chen Hao asked.
“The transmitter number is c-7,” Nana replied. “It belongs to the National Astronomical Observatories’ peripheral observation network and should not be transmitted during this period in routine missions.”
Carl immediately took back the tablet. "Import the data stream into the model and see if there are any sources of interference."
Susan leaned closer. "Could it be a natural phenomenon? Like a geomagnetic disturbance?"
“It doesn’t look like it.” Nana pulled up the waveform. “The signal has a coded structure, repeats three times, and the intervals are precise.”
Chen Hao narrowed his eyes. "Wait... doesn't this rhythm seem a little familiar?"
Nana paused for a second, then said, "It matches the vibration frequency of the Wind Sound Cave, with an error of less than 0.3 percent."
The air in the room suddenly became tense.
Carl's finger hovered over the screen. "You mean... that place just 'sounded' by itself?"
Nana nodded. "And she took the initiative to send a signal."
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