Su Mu huddled in a relatively sheltered corner beneath the control console, wrapped in whatever worn blankets and insulation she could find, yet still shivering with cold. Spread out before her was a portable screen, its edges frosted with icicles, displaying the despairing state of the Pillar of Creation's core data pool: the water level was like the ripples of stagnant water, the effective information entropy was pitifully low, the physical storage unit damage rate was a staggering 78.3%, and redundant backups were practically completely lost. The entire system was like a critically ill patient in a state of brain death, relying solely on a few faint pulses of bioelectricity to maintain its final "vital signs."
She tried countless times. She invoked the repair protocols for the neuromechanical interface and the "Tree of Life" network, left in the deepest reaches of the database by her mother, Su Yingxue; she attempted to activate the contaminated and frozen server nodes; she even risked accessing the few physical ports that were still intact, manually injecting a weak guiding current... but all her efforts were in vain. Cold system feedback and piercing fault alarms were her only response.
"No... still no..." Su Mu muttered to herself, her voice hoarse from the cold and exhaustion. She rubbed her red, almost numb fingers, the tips of her fingers rubbed raw from repeatedly operating the cold metal interface, and the blood that oozed out instantly froze. A huge feeling of powerlessness, like an icy tide, threatened to drown her. Technology... had once been her most powerful weapon, the foundation of her survival in the ruins, the faith that had sustained her all along. But now, facing this completely collapsed core, she felt like a child facing a raging flood with only a broken bucket, small and hopeless.
She subconsciously clenched her chest. Where her mother's lily brooch once sat was now empty, leaving only a cold indentation. That brooch... along with the miniature "Tree of Life" unit contained within it and her mother's final spiritual imprint, had consumed its last shred of energy in maintaining that fragile connection three days earlier, in the life-or-death struggle against the "zero" contamination, connecting with Shen Qingli's core. It had completely turned to ash.
My mother's last relic... also disappeared. To save that cold "weapon" sister?
This thought, like a poisonous sting, pierced Su Mu's heart, bringing a sharp pain and a deeper sense of bewilderment. Should she hate Shen Qingli? Hate her for attracting the Reapers? Hate her for destroying the platform? Hate her for absorbing the base's final energy? Hate her for indirectly causing the sacrifices of Lei Gang, Zhao Qiming, and the others? Hate her for... leaving her mother without even a last relic?
But… in the hall of the Pillar of Creation, as the purple-black pollution spread crazily, about to engulf everyone, it was Shen Qingli… or rather, her sister… who forcibly suppressed the pollution and exiled the destructive energy ball, allowing everyone, including her, to survive. The exhaustion and calmness in her final words, “Su Mu… Lin Mo… live…”, gave Su Mu a heart-wrenching feeling of complexity.
Hate or not, in this desperate situation, it seems to have lost its meaning. Only the cold reality and heavy responsibility remain.
"Director Su..." a trembling voice echoed nearby. It was Xiaoling, the young nurse in charge of the seriously injured. Her face was pale, her lips purple from the cold. She clutched a soldier, whose body temperature had already gone cold. "Bed number three... Brother Li... He... He's dead..." Her voice was tinged with tears, filled with despair and helplessness.
Su Mu's body suddenly stiffened, and he slowly turned his head. In the corner, on makeshift "beds" made of tattered canvas and thermal blankets, lay a dozen seriously injured soldiers. The low temperature exacerbated their wounds, leading to infection, organ failure... lack of medical care and medicine, leaving them with only a painful, slow death. Brother Li, the young soldier who had his legs shattered by an energy cannon while covering his comrades' retreat on the last line of defense, his eyes still wide open, frozen with the final agony and desire for life, but his body was already stiff and cold.
Another one...
Su Mu looked at the young yet lifeless face, then at the other wounded in the corner, moaning faintly in pain. A wave of grief and powerlessness instantly overwhelmed her forced composure. Tears suddenly burst forth without warning, mixing with the frost on her face and sliding down hotly. She bit her lower lip tightly to stifle the sobs, but her body trembled violently and uncontrollably.
She couldn't save the Pillar of Creation! She couldn't save her severely wounded comrades! She couldn't even... control her own fate! Technology... was so pale and powerless in the face of absolute destruction and scarcity!
Just then—
Buzz...
An extremely faint, yet unusually clear vibration came from inside her personal terminal (a crude device pieced together from discarded parts) that she kept close to her body!
Su Mu's entire body trembled violently! Tears instantly froze on her face! She ducked her head and, trembling, pulled out the cold metal box. On the screen, a tiny lily-bud-shaped icon, representing a special frequency signal reception that she had long since silenced—the exclusive encrypted signal marker set by her mother, Su Yingxue—was flickering faintly, yet incredibly tenaciously...!
Mother?! Su Mu's heart stopped beating instantly! The overwhelming shock and disbelief nearly suffocated her! Mother's signal?! How could it be possible?! Didn't Mother... vanish into unknown space with the ejection of the incubator? Her "Tree of Life" chip signal had completely vanished!
Her trembling fingers could barely hold the terminal, and she used all her strength to click on the flashing icon.
There were no images, no sound. Only a very brief, severely interrupted, intermittent stream of text, composed of countless emerald green dots, struggling to be projected onto the snow-covered screen:
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