bioinnovel Chapter 421 Verification!
Chapter 421 Verification!
Zhang Yan landed in Jinghai and stayed in the supermarket for twenty minutes.
When he came in carrying two bags, Nie Qingcheng was standing in the entryway.
Wearing velvet pajamas at home, her hair casually gathered, the beauty mark under her eye was very noticeable in the warm light.
She didn't take the bag; instead, she reached out and touched his face.
"You've lost weight."
"Only two days."
"You haven't eaten properly for two days." Nie Qingcheng took the bag and walked to the kitchen. "Cook some noodles first, we'll talk about the rest after we finish eating."
Zhang Yan followed behind.
He knew she had seen the data summary sent from the plane, and also the ancient record—"Without seizing, yet leading; without breaking, yet herding."
But she didn't ask.
When the noodles were served, Zhang Yan ate half of them before putting down his chopsticks.
"The lamplighter said something."
Nie Qingcheng sat opposite her, holding a glass of water, without urging her to hurry.
"It requires me to live, to reach the seventh door."
Nie Qingcheng's finger paused on the side of the cup for a moment.
"The moment the Heart of Heaven connects with the Seventh Gate, the swarm can use the connection channel to infiltrate the entire network in reverse." Zhang Yan repeated every word the lamp had said in the spherical space, including "Don't rush to the Seventh Gate; it's waiting for you to come to it."
He didn't process, buffer, or filter the information for Nie Qingcheng.
That's it.
Nie Qingcheng put down her water glass.
She didn't say a word for a full thirty seconds.
Zhang Yan counted them.
"Let's look at the data first," she said.
Zhang Yan took out the storage device.
The lights in the underground laboratory stayed on all night.
We arrived at the stargazing location two hours later.
She was wearing a dark trench coat, glanced at the interface standard of the storage device, and said three words: "Very old."
Three hundred years of observation records.
Each generation of Gate Openers records in different ways—the earliest were handwritten transcriptions, interspersed with hand-drawn energy waveform diagrams, and only in recent decades have electronic data been produced.
The encoding methods are mixed, and some paragraphs even use ciphertext rules that are the same as those used in the early system of Guantiange.
Guan Xing was responsible for decryption, while Zhang Yan was responsible for cross-validating each piece of decrypted data by connecting it to the system.
Nie Qingcheng sat beside her. She wasn't involved in the technical aspects of the work. She was observing people.
Observe whether Zhang Yan's brows furrowed or relaxed each time he checked the data; observe the pauses when Guan Xing translated a certain record; observe whether the curves matched or deviated when two sets of data were superimposed.
At 4 a.m., the first round of verification was completed.
Zhang Yan leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
87%.
Of the 300 years of observation data, 87% matched the monitoring records in his system.
The striking frequency, maximum force, response time of directional transfer, and pressure distribution patterns between different doors—the numbers are almost identical.
The remaining 13% involves the internal behavioral patterns of the external community.
Zhang Yan's system can only monitor one side of the door, and its ability to observe the outside of the door is almost zero.
This 13% cannot be verified or disproven.
But 87% is enough.
"The observations of the gatekeepers are real." The stargazer compiled the declassified original records into a document and presented it to Zhang Yan. "At least they didn't falsify the data."
Zhang Yan nodded.
Nie Qingcheng spoke.
"The data may be true, but that doesn't mean the conclusion is correct."
Both of them looked at her at the same time.
"The lamp indicates that the community outside the gate 'does not eat living things.'" Nie Qingcheng's voice was calm, as if she were reading the risk clause of a business report. "Who set this rule? Did the community set it themselves? Or did the one who opened the gate guess after observing for three hundred years?"
Zhang Yan remained silent.
I came across some data while observing the stars.
Eighty thousand years ago.
That record was hidden in the deepest layer of the storage device, and its encoding method was completely different from other records, as if it had been transcribed from another, more ancient source of information.
Eighty thousand years ago, a non-human civilization existed on Earth.
There are no detailed descriptions, only records of actions—that civilization briefly opened the door.
The community did not invade during the period the gate was open.
"The principle of 'not eating live animals' applies in this case," Guan Xing said, pointing to the timeline on the screen.
Nie Qingcheng's gaze swept to the end of the timeline: "And then?"
"That civilization went extinct on its own within three thousand years of the door opening." Guan Xing paused for a moment. "The reason is unknown."
"Unknown?" Nie Qingcheng's tone remained unchanged. "Three thousand years is long enough."
Zhang Yan stared at that data.
The saying "not to eat live animals" may be true.
But the claim that "opening the door is harmless" is not necessarily true.
Three thousand years. That's not a short time for a civilization.
But for a community that has existed for over 100,000 years, that's just a blink of an eye. It won't eat you. You'll die on your own.
Who killed him?
Zhang Yan didn't try to guess the reason. He did something more direct.
He asked the system a question.
"What is the rate at which Earth's information density leaks out when the door is fully open?"
The system took four seconds to process, which was slower than usual.
The amount of data is too large.
The system provided the answer after substituting all the variables, including the topological structure of the seven gates, the estimated total amount of information in current human civilization, and the community's perception threshold for information density.
"Based on the current total amount of information in human civilization, once the door is fully opened, the information density will drop below the community's neglect threshold within about four hundred years."
"At that time, the technological level of human civilization will regress to—"
The system paused for a moment.
"Stone Age."
The underground laboratory was extremely quiet.
The stargazer's fingers hovered above the keyboard, not falling.
Nie Qingcheng's expression didn't change, but Zhang Yan noticed that the ring on her right ring finger spun around.
He knew that gesture. She was thinking.
Zhang Yan leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
You won't get eaten if you open the door.
But it will be drained.
Information density leaks, technology deteriorates, civilization regresses. Four hundred years, that's fast enough.
It's different in scale from that non-human civilization that went extinct 80,000 years ago—only 3,000 years ago—but the logic is the same.
The solution offered by the one who opens the door is not "salvation".
It is a form of slow suicide.
"Does the lamplighter know about this?" Nie Qingcheng asked.
"I'm not sure," Zhang Yan said. "Her data doesn't include this calculation. She might know it but choose not to say. Or she might genuinely not know."
"Then let her know," Nie Qingcheng stood up, "but not now."
She glanced at the time. 6:17 AM.
"You haven't slept for fourteen hours."
"I--"
"Go upstairs."
Zhang Yan glanced at the data still lit up on the screen, then looked at Nie Qingcheng's eyes.
He pushed the chair away and stood up.
Guan Xing wisely didn't look up: "I'll continue organizing the remaining data and send you the results."
When they went upstairs, Nie Qingcheng walked in front.
She turned around as she reached the bedroom door.
"Four hundred years."
Zhang Yan nodded.
"Then we won't open the door."
After she finished speaking, she pushed open the door and went inside.
Zhang Yan stood at the door.
The door won't be opened. The door won't be repaired.
Two dead ends.
He followed them inside, and the lights went out.
My phone vibrated on the bedside table. It was a message from Qin Xiao.
"Brother Yan, the locksmith's protocol log verification is also out. It's highly consistent with yours at 87%. He also added that when the Door Opener split off three hundred years ago, he took away the most complete original record of the door monitoring from Guantian Pavilion at that time. The data root in Dengyin's hands is on that record."
After reading it, Zhang Yan placed his phone face down on the bedside table.
Nie Qingcheng's voice came from the other side of the pillow, muffled.
"Qin Xiao?"
"Um."
"What did you say?"
"The locksmith's verification also matches."
There was silence for a few seconds.
"Then tomorrow," Nie Qingcheng's hand reached out and grasped his wrist, her fingertips pressing right on the birthmark, "what do you plan to do?"
Zhang Yan did not answer.
He thought of the face illuminated by the lamp in the spherical space. Calm, resolute, like a researcher who believed he had the right answer.
But her correct answer was the Stone Age, four hundred years later.
He thought of the thing outside the door that had existed for over 100,000 years.
It chews on doors, pushes them open, and creates panic, never using more than 32% of its strength.
It's not that it can't be broken.
We're in a rush.
Zhang Yan closed his eyes.
If two paths are blocked, then look for a third.