allendalepharm Page 163
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The screen began to shake violently. Lin Wang's mech was traversing the red nebula when Wen Wan's voice came through the communicator, crackling with static: "Lin Wang! Your energy shield is down to 30%! Return to base immediately!"
"Look, Wanwan." Lin Wang's voice was steady, and the creaking of mecha parts could be heard in the background. "The light strip in front, doesn't it look like the scarf you knitted?"
Wen Wan's voice suddenly choked up: "I'm telling you to turn back! Lin Wang!"
“The contract is signed, there’s no going back.” Lin Wang chuckled, and his hand suddenly appeared in the shot, holding a bronze bell in his palm, with green patterns spreading along his fingertips. “You said that when the bell rings, it’s where your heartbeat can reach.”
"That was a lie!" Wen Wan's voice trembled. "I miscalculated the radiation level; you'll die..."
"Wen Wan." Lin Wang's voice suddenly became clear, as if it were right next to her ear, "Remember to give the chip to your descendants. Tell them that the hardest thing in the universe is not the mecha shell, but something that can connect heartbeats."
The screen suddenly exploded. Not with the flames of an explosion, but with countless tiny specks of light, like stardust scattered by the wind. The patterns of the bronze bell flowed within these specks of light, finally coalescing into a green light trail that stretched from the Gap of Ends all the way off the screen.
The heartbeat continued.
Lin Xiaoman's eyes were a little red, and she tugged at Xiao Li's sleeve: "Uncle Lin Wang... has he turned into a star?"
“It has turned into a star trail.” Xiao Li brought up the star map, and the route from the Gap of the End to the Mars base was marked in green, exactly the same as the light trail on the screen. “His mecha core energy resonated with the Heart of the Universe, which is equivalent to carving a path in the universe.”
Zhao Lei suddenly stood up and pointed to the newly popped-up window on the holographic screen: "Look! Real-time footage of the Rift of the End!"
The window on the right side of the screen lit up: the Heart of the Universe floated in a dark purple nebula, its light a hundred times brighter than in the image, like a beating green heart. Hundreds of shuttle ships were moored around it, some with silver-gray hulls, some covered with biological carapaces, and even one spaceship that looked like a giant jellyfish, but without exception, all of them were engraved with bronze bell patterns on their hulls.
“That’s the ‘Tide Surge’ from the Zeta system.” Little Li pointed to the jellyfish-shaped spaceship. “Their chieftain brought thirty children to the Mars base three years ago, saying they wanted to learn ‘heartbeat resonance’.”
"And that one!" Su Xiaoxiao ran over, holding up a mecha model. The model's wing was right in front of a black warship on the screen. "It's the 'Night Falcon' from the Shadow Civilization! My dad said they never cooperated with alien civilizations before, but now they've engraved bell patterns on their flagship!"
Xiao Li's camera pans to the corner of the screen. A young man in a dark gray exploration suit stands before the Heart of the Universe, his palm pressed against the flowing green light. He has a pale green mark on his forehead, shaped exactly like a child's sticker, only lighter, as if it were naturally grown on his skin.
“Lin Shen, the 103rd generation descendant of Lin Wang.” Xiao Li’s voice softened a bit. “He started preparing three months ago, listening to that heartbeat audio for two hours every day.”
Lin Shen seemed to sense the gaze and suddenly looked up and smiled at the camera. He raised his hand to touch the mark on his forehead, said something into the communicator, and his voice came through the holographic screen, clear as if it were coming from inside the room: "Xiao Li, please tell the kids at the base that there might be a new bell waiting for us at the end of the star trail."
"Did you hear that? Did you hear that?" Lin Xiaoman jumped up, pulled out a silver chip from her pocket, and held it high. "It's the same as Aunt Wen Wan's!"
The star coordinates on the chip's surface were flashing, the green light echoing the cosmic heart on the screen. Each child took out their chip, and a dozen green lights flickered in the morning light, like a string of small lanterns.
"What can this chip do?" The youngest boy, Dou Dou, held up the chip and almost dropped it. "My brother said it can locate me, but I pressed it for a long time and nothing happened."
“We need to inject heartbeat energy.” Xiao Li picked up Dou Dou’s chip, and when his fingertip touched the surface of the chip, the green patterns suddenly lit up. “Like this…” He placed the chip on Dou Dou’s chest. “Can you feel the vibration? This is recording your heartbeat frequency. When you grow up, the chip will guide you to find a matching star orbit.”
DouDou's eyes widened: "Then can I find Uncle Lin Wang's star trails?"
“Of course.” Lin Shen’s voice came from the screen again as he bent down to climb into the exploration ship. “My grandfather said that everyone with a bell mark is part of the star trail.” He paused in fastening his seatbelt, then suddenly took out a bronze bell from his pocket and shook it gently.
Ding
A crisp sound came through the holographic screen, and the chips in the children's hands suddenly lit up at the same time, even the stickers on their foreheads were getting hot.
"The bell is ringing!" Su Xiaoxiao screamed. "Aunt Wen Wan wrote in her diary that the bell only rings when the heartbeat resonates!"
Suddenly, a string of code flashed across Xiao Li's optical lens, as if triggering some old program. The image on the screen began to rewind, returning to the last moment before Lin Wang turned into stardust. In addition to Wen Wan's crying, a softer voice suddenly came through the communicator... It was Lin An, who was only twelve years old at the time, crying out, "Brother! You said you would teach me how to pilot a mecha!"
"When you can make the bell tattoo on your palm glow," Lin Wang's voice came through the noise, "remember, the contract isn't written on paper, it's engraved in your blood. When your heartbeat can light up the Heart of the Universe, that's when you should set off."
The image freezes on the moment Lin Wang raises his hand, the bell pattern on his palm perfectly overlapping with Lin Shen's mark off-screen.
"A bloodline contract..." Zhao Lei murmured to himself, then suddenly pushed up his glasses, "So Lin Shen's mark is innate?"
“It appeared when he first came into contact with the Heart of the Universe.” Xiao Li pulled up Lin Shen’s records. “When he was ten years old, he went to the Gap of the End with the exploration team. He just touched the energy shield and a mark appeared on his forehead. At that time, the instruments detected that his heart rate was exactly the same as Lin Wang’s.”
On the holographic screen, the exploration team's shuttle began to move. Ten silver-gray ships lined up in an arrowhead shape, with Lin Shen's "Inheritor" at the very front. The flames spewed from the stern drew emerald trails in the dark universe, perfectly coinciding with Lin Wang's route a thousand years ago, down to the exact angle of the turns.
"Look at the light trail!" Lin Xiaoman suddenly grabbed Zhao Lei's arm. "It's getting longer and longer following the light from the Heart of the Universe!"
The green light of the Heart of the Universe was indeed spreading along the flight path, like an ever-growing vine, intertwining the past and the present. The "Tide Surge" of the Zeta system suddenly emitted a low-frequency hum, as if bidding farewell; the "Night Falcon" of the Shadow Civilization lit up its navigation lights, three short and one long, a universal interstellar blessing signal.
"How long will they be gone?" Dou Dou asked, her voice muffled as she held the chip. "Will they turn into stars like Uncle Lin Wang?"
Xiao Li bent down and patted his head, his metallic hand carrying a simulated warmth: "Lin Wang didn't become a star, he became a road. Those light trails are actually the echoes of his heartbeat in the universe. Lin Shen and the others went to carry those echoes even further." He paused, the optical lens shifting to the shuttle gradually disappearing into the distance on the screen, "Just like Wen Wan left the chip to future generations, not to remember the past, but to let those who come after know..."
"What do you know?" the children asked in unison.
"Knowing that love can become light."
Suddenly, Lin Shen's communication channel lit up again. This time it wasn't his voice, but a clearer audio message—Wen Wan's, tinged with amusement, as if she had just won a battle: "Lin Wang, listen up. I've entered your star track data into all public databases. From now on, anyone who can make the bell pattern glow can use your flight path. I want the whole universe to know that the cup of milk tea you owe me will have to be paid back by your descendants, cup after cup."
Then came Lin Wang's laughter, mixed with the roar of the mecha: "Alright, let them come back with the bell."
The moment the audio ended, all the chips in the children's hands suddenly vibrated simultaneously, and the star coordinates on their surfaces aligned into a line, which happened to be the real-time flight path of the "Successor." When Lin Xiaoman looked down at the chip, she discovered that her own heartbeat was being transmitted through it, slowly merging with the ancient heartbeat on the holographic screen.
"It's the Eternal Heartbeat!" she suddenly realized, and ran towards the sunlight under the dome, holding up the chip. "Little Li, look! My heartbeat is connected to theirs!"
The other children followed, and a dozen green chip beams intertwined in the sunlight, like a net cast into the universe. Suddenly, a notification popped up on Zhao Lei's virtual glasses: "Energy resonance detected with the Gap of the End, intensity 87%."
Standing there, with the children's smiling faces reflected in the optical lens, Xiao Li suddenly recalled that afternoon a thousand years ago.
Back then, he wasn't a robot yet; he was a rudimentary nursing device placed in Wen Wan's laboratory. Lin Wang came in leaning on a cane, his arm still wrapped in bandages, but clutching a bronze bell in his hand.
"Record a message for me," Lin Wang said, placing the bell in front of the instrument. "For people a thousand years from now."
Just as the recording function of the device was activated, Wen Wan came in with a cup of coffee and raised an eyebrow, asking, "Record what? Your last words?"
“Record the contract.” Lin Wang smiled, picked up the bell and shook it, making a crisp tinkling sound. “Tell them that true adventure is not about how far you go, but about daring to let your heartbeat resonate with that of people from a thousand years ago. When the bell of those who come after rings, that is when our contract is still in effect.”
Wen Wan paused, leaving a soft clinking sound in the recording: "Then I'll add something too. If anyone dares to make the bell pattern fade, even if I become data, I'll crawl out of the database and knock them on the head."
The sound of the collision still lingers in Xiao Li's fragmented memories. He stares at the shrinking trail of the shuttle on the holographic screen, then at the children jumping in the sunlight, and suddenly realizes that this is probably what an unfading contract truly is...
Some carve paths into the universe, some walk forward with bells, and some wait on new planets to hear the next bell ring.
Lin Xiaoman suddenly stopped, held up the chip and pointed it at the screen: "Brother Lin Shen! We're waiting for you to bring back the new bell!"
The "Successor" on the screen seemed to sway, as if in response. The flames at the stern suddenly brightened, leaving a deeper green mark in the starry sky, like a newly stamped seal.
Xiao Li knew this was not the end.
Sunlight streamed through the dome, flowing across the children's chips, making the bell stickers on their foreheads gleam. In the distant universe, the ancient heartbeat still echoed, while new footsteps echoed along the light trails.
And the courage hidden in our blood, the covenants etched on the star trails, will shine forever, like the patterns on this bronze bell, waiting to be awakened by a new heartbeat in every corner of the universe.
Chapter 366: The Will in the Stardust
The morning mist at the Mars base carried the scent of rusting metal. The alloy doors of the archives slid open with a hissing sound, like an old friend yawning. Lin Che clutched his identification card, the bronze bell emblem on it burning hot from his body heat. This was the credential of the 103rd generation guardian, which he had just received from his father yesterday, its edges still sharp and unpolished.
"Beep... Permission confirmed."
The temperature-controlled display case lit up with blue light, illuminating the neatly arranged metal boxes on the shelves. The box numbered "LY-001" was embedded on the top shelf. When Lin Che reached it on tiptoe, the bell pattern of the star emblem on the collar of his protective suit aligned with the pattern on the box, emitting a barely audible buzzing sound.
"Be careful, this box is older than your great-great-grandfather." The robot Xiao Li's voice came from behind, its metal joints rustling as it turned. Its optical lenses were shrouded in a pale red mist, the traces of oxidation from millennia of operation. "Every microgram of the fragments inside carries Lin Wang's bio-electric waves."
Lin Che's fingertips hovered over the box lid, but he didn't dare touch it.
Inside the translucent reinforced crystal box, fragments of a bronze bell lay curled up, the largest no bigger than a fingernail. The green veins, like solidified lightning, trembled slightly in the blue light. He had secretly come here last night, and when he touched them through the glass, the fragments felt hot along his fingerprints, as if something was trying to crawl out from the veins.
"Grandpa Li, have you ever seen a complete bell?" He opened the box, and his fingertips were bounced away by a weak electric current as soon as they touched the fragments. "The information says that when it broke, the entire Rift of the End was ringing."
Xiao Li's robotic arm raised it halfway and then lowered it, producing a blurry audio clip. Hidden within the electrical noise was a crisp ringing sound, one after another, like striking a hollow metal tube.
"March 17, 2145, the Gap at the End." Xiao Li's electronic voice lowered two octaves, as if sighing, "When Lin Wang embedded the bell into the mecha's energy core, it began to crack. The last sound was exactly the moment his bio-electric waves disappeared."
Lin Che's Adam's apple bobbed as he flipped open his wrist-mounted terminal and pulled up the advance team's report from three hours ago: an unknown energy field appeared at the edge of the Andromeda M31 galaxy, with a frequency that perfectly matched the "energy-devouring body," but the fluctuation curve was unusually smooth, as if it had been drawn with a ruler.
“This is not right.” He zoomed in on the energy graph, where a green curve meandered across the screen before suddenly straightening at the end. “The energy field of an energy-devouring entity is always chaotic, like a mad dog biting indiscriminately. This one is too regular, as if it is following a rule.”
Xiao Li's optical lens flashed red, and the holographic screen lit up between the two. Real-time data from "Heart of the Universe" was refreshed like a waterfall. In the green data stream, a red dot expanded wildly at the edge of M31, and the satellite signals in its path disappeared instantly.
"Twelve hours ago, the 'Tide Surge' in the Zeta system attempted to approach, but lost contact three minutes later." Xiao Li pulled up the footage before the loss of contact: the jellyfish-shaped spaceship was enveloped by a black energy stream, and the bell patterns on the hull looked like they had been splashed with ink, quickly turning black. "The captain's last message was: 'It is mimicking our resonant frequency.'"
Lin Che suddenly turned his head and looked at the crystal dome in the center of the archives.
The silver chip floated in the green light, its surface engraved with four intersecting lines: Wen Wan's penmanship, Lin Yanzhou's knuckle marks, Lin An's teeth marks (according to the information, he used them as children), and at the bottom, Lin Wang's bio-electric wave trajectory. The four generations of marks overlapped, like a key inserted into the lock of "Eternal Heartbeat".
"Are you sure you want to move it?" Lin Che's voice was tense. "Grandpa said that once the main chip is activated, it will draw all the energy from the 'Heart of the Universe'. If the judgment is wrong, the energy shield of the Mars base will fail."
The robotic arm gently tapped the crystal dome, producing a crisp "clang." "Your father is waiting for you in the warp pod. He said the guardian's duty isn't to guard the box, but to bring the things inside to life." It displayed a holographic image; in the image, Lin Wang lay on the wreckage of a mecha, clutching half a fragment of a bell in his hand. "Look at this."
As the image zoomed in, Lin Che could see clearly that Lin Wang was channeling energy into the fragments through his fingertips. Green lines crawled along his fingers, drawing a crooked smiley face on the mecha's shell. "The radiation from the Gap of the End is too strong. He knows he can't hold on for long," Xiao Li's voice crackled with electricity. "The audio for this video was only restored yesterday."
“…Tell those who come after.” Lin Wang’s voice came through the noise, breathless, “It doesn’t matter if the bell is broken, as long as someone remembers how to make the patterns light up…” The image suddenly shook, like a mecha falling, “The real will isn’t in the chip, it’s in…”
The rest of the words were swallowed up by a violent explosion.
Lin Che's fingertips unconsciously traced his collarbone, where there was a pale blue birthmark, shaped exactly like a fragment of a bell. His mother said it was the mark of the guardians of the past, present from birth, like a stamp from God.
"What is he trying to say?" Lin Che pressed, his fingertip pressing on the crystal dome. The green light from the main chip suddenly climbed up along his fingerprint. "In his bloodline? In his memories?"
Xiao Li didn't answer, but pulled up another file. The yellowed contract had curled edges like waves, and the penmanship was strong enough to penetrate the paper. The last stroke of the two characters "Wen Wan" at the signature had a long tail, which perfectly circled the corner star map. The outline was exactly the same as the energy field distribution map of the "Heart of the Universe".
“It was scanned by a spectrometer fifty years ago.” Xiao Li tapped the back of the contract with his robotic arm, and pale purple characters appeared in the blank space. It was Wen Wan’s handwriting: “‘All encounters are debts to be repaid, and all contracts are IOUs.’”
Lin Che frowned: "What does this have to do with what's happening now?"
"The advance team detected the same handwriting in the energy field of the new ruins." Xiao Li pulled up a comparison image, and the energy fluctuation curve and the outline of the contract handwriting perfectly overlapped. "It's as if someone used energy to write this line in the starry sky."
The alloy door slid open again, bringing with it the chill of a spacesuit. Xiaoya ran in carrying a testing kit, her bangs sticking to her face with sweat, the virtual testing device perched on her nose, the red dot on the lens jumping wildly.
"Brother Lin Che! Look at this!" She shoved the data panel over, the 3D model on the screen rotating. On the massive starship wreckage, black energy flowed like blood vessels, and the bronze bell emblem on the bow was corroded to just an outline, yet it glowed faintly in the energy field. "The core radiation of this thing actually has human brainwave characteristics!"
Lin Che's gaze fell on the model cockpit. A blurry figure lay on the control panel, its hands resting on a glowing crystal. Within the black energy flowing within the crystal, countless faces could be vaguely seen, some with tentacles, some with blue skin, and one face even bearing a striking resemblance to Lin An in the data.
"What is this?" Xiaoya's voice trembled as she reached out to touch the model, but was stopped by Xiao Li's robotic arm.
“‘Resonators.’” Xiao Li’s optical lens glowed even brighter, as if on alert. “The earliest members of the Watchers suddenly disappeared five hundred years ago. The archives say they discovered they could preserve memories by absorbing the consciousness of other civilizations, but they were devoured by the energy devourers and turned into this.”
Lin Che suddenly clenched the broken bell fragments in his hand.
The fragment suddenly heated up, and an image emerged from the green veins: Wen Wan sat in the laboratory, her hair gray, drawing circles on a contract with a red pen. The camera was close enough to clearly see what she was saying; Xiao Li's database happened to have this audio recording, which now played automatically.
“Silly boys, the contract isn’t for you to stubbornly resist.” Wen Wan’s voice was tinged with laughter as she paused on the word “protect” with her pen. “It’s to remind you why you have to resist.”
As the image disappeared, the fragments became scalding hot. Lin Che didn't let go, letting the heat flow up his arm to his heart, where the birthmark seemed to be ignited, throbbing rapidly.
“I understand.” He looked up and stuffed the fragments into the inner pocket of his protective suit. “They didn’t want to destroy; they wanted to remember.”
Xiaoya was stunned: "Remember what?"
“Remember the people they love.” Lin Che walked towards the central crystal dome. Xiao Li had already unlocked the protective shield. “The essence of the energy devourers is fear, the fear of being forgotten. They absorb the consciousness of others, perhaps just to piece together lost memories.”
Xiao Li's robotic arm rested on his shoulder, rust stains rubbing against his protective suit: "Once the main chip is activated, it will trigger bloodline resonance. Your heart rate will synchronize with the fourth-generation guardian, which will put a great burden on your body."
“Grandpa said that the heartbeat of a guardian is meant to resonate.” Lin Che grasped the floating main chip, and the cold metal surface suddenly warmed up as four marks lit up at the same time. “Senior Wen Wan signed the contract to save her sister, and Senior Lin Wang went to his death to protect the flight path… They were never doing it for the sake of ‘protecting’, but to protect the people in their hearts.”
As the shuttle departed the Mars base, Lin Che leaned against the porthole.
Outside, the "Heart of the Universe" emitted a soft green light, like jade immersed in water. Father's communication signal popped up, and the man on the screen, with graying temples, smiled brightly: "When your grandfather went on his first mission, he also clung to the fragments just like you."