Silent Ark

Chapter 55: Number 0

In the corridor.

Yao Chong and Liu Pan walked side by side.

Liu Pan's expression was not good.

"4200 meters," he said. "The deep sea, a region locked by physical constants, and something that isn't a sovereign entity is approaching."

"Um."

"What do you think it is?"

"have no idea."

"you do not know?"

"If I had known, I wouldn't be sitting here."

Liu Pan glanced at him.

Are you scared?

Yao Chong did not answer.

He walked to the end of the corridor and pushed open a door.

The outside is the stairwell.

He stopped.

"Liu Pan".

"Um?"

"In Professor Chen Dunli's letter, there is a set of decay curves, with the initial condition being infinity."

"I know, you told me yesterday."

"Professor Zhou Muyuan has been guessing for three years but still can't figure it out."

"so what?"

Yao Chong looked at the wall in the stairwell.

Gray concrete, the cold white light of fluorescent lamps.

"If that locked area—"

The one at a depth of 4200 meters—

"Wasn't it formed naturally?"

Liu Pan frowned.

"You mean—"

"I didn't say anything." Yao Chong turned and continued walking. "I just feel that there are too many coincidences."

"What coincidence?"

"The field team just discovered the anomaly in the locked area."

The connection was lost just as data was being transmitted.

It just so happens that the boat belongs to Wang Xindong.

"What happened to Wang Xindong?"

"He studied quantum physics and superconducting materials."

The superconducting materials he developed can significantly reduce power loss.

Yao Chong's voice was very flat.

Do you know the physical essence of reducing power loss?

"...Reduce resistance?"

"It reduces the scattering of electrons with the crystal lattice."

When electrons move within a superconductor, they do not interact with the crystal lattice—they move as freely as if they were in a vacuum.

He paused for a moment.

What is the essence of the physical constant lock region?

It means that the interactions between all particles are 'pinned' to the state before the whale fall.

He looked at Liu Pan.

"Superconductivity and locking, at the physics level, describe the same direction—"

Reduce or eliminate abnormal interactions between particles.

Liu Pan remained silent for three seconds.

"You mean Wang Xindong's superconducting technology is related to that locked region?"

"I'm not talking about a relationship," Yao Chong said. "I mean—"

If anyone wants to study locking mechanisms, Wang Xindong is one of the most suitable candidates on Earth right now.

He continued walking.

"And his ship just happened to be there."

Liu Pan quickly followed.

"You suspect him?"

"I don't doubt anyone."

Yao Chong pushed open the door to the stairwell.

"I just feel that I should know more before I set off."

……

Tianjin Port.

Four o'clock in the morning.

The sea breeze is cold.

There were no boats at the dock.

Yao Chong stood on the breakwater, looking at the empty berth in front of him.

Liu Pan stood next to him, his scarf wrapped below his nose, and the white breath he exhaled was torn into horizontal lines by the wind.

"Where's the boat?" Liu Pan asked.

Shen Qingci did not answer.

She looked at her watch.

4:03.

At the end of the dock, there's a concrete runway—no, that's not a runway.

That was a dock, but its surface had been repaved, with a layer of dark black material covering the gray concrete, extending to the edge of the sea.

Then Yao Chong heard the sound.

It's not an engine.

It's not a propeller.

It is a very low-frequency, continuous humming sound.

It comes from underground, from under the concrete, and from changes in air density.

He looked down at his feet.

The black material on the concrete is vibrating.

It was very faint, but he could feel it on the soles of his feet—

A uniform, high-frequency vibration, similar to the vibration mode of a mobile phone.

Then it appeared.

From the darkness above the dock.

There were no lights, no navigation lights, and no traditional aircraft markings.

It just suddenly appeared there—

Like a piece of the night sky that has been cut off, it is darker, denser, and heavier than the surrounding darkness.

Yao Chong tilted his head back.

He couldn't make out its outline.

It's not because it's far away—

It's because its surface doesn't reflect light.

All the light was absorbed.

It hangs about thirty meters above the dock, motionless as if nailed to the sky.

But its size—

"This is..." Liu Pan's voice changed.

"Silent Ark - Unit Zero," Shen Qingci said.

Yao Chong stared at that thing.

It is not a ship.

It's not an airplane.

It was not any vehicle he had ever seen before.

Its shape—

He tried to make out—it looked like a flattened olive, pointed at both ends, wide in the middle, with no seams on the surface.

There are no windows; at least, you can't see anything from the outside.

There is no hatch.

There was only a rectangular opening at the bottom that was slowly opening, through which a cold white light shone.

The lighting is exactly the same as the lighting in the corridor of the Ninth Department.

"A scaled-down prototype," Shen Qingci said. "It is 62 meters long and 24 meters wide at its widest point."

The design capacity is forty-seven people, and this mission will carry fifteen people.

She paused for a moment.

"Equipped with a warp drive beta version and a nuclear fusion power source."

Duration of a field-like effect —

Six hours.

Six hours.

Yao Chong did some mental calculations.

The straight-line distance from Tianjin to the target coordinates in the central Pacific Ocean is approximately 7,000 kilometers.

He didn't know the speed of the warp drive, but there was a six-hour window—

"Is six hours enough?" Liu Pan asked the question he hadn't asked before.

"It will take about ninety minutes to reach the target coordinates because the jump is still in the testing phase and the accuracy needs to be adjusted," Shen Qingci said. "The remaining four and a half hours will be used for sampling and search and rescue."

"Then?"

"Then the locking field fails, and the physical constants begin to drift."

All equipment on board malfunctioned within 45 minutes, forcing the ship to retreat to the flooded area to recharge.

She looked at them.

"Including life support."

Liu Pan's lips moved slightly, but he didn't speak.

Yao Chong was still looking at that thing.

Unit-00 hovered overhead, silent and enormous, like a sea monster with its eyes closed.

"So this isn't about rescuing people," he said.

Shen Qingci did not correct him.

"This is a gambling trip."

……

The interior of Unit 00 was not what Yao Chong had imagined.

He thought it would be like a spaceship—

Metal walls, pipes, dials—the kind of industrial aesthetics often seen in science fiction movies.

No.

The interior is white.

The walls, floors, and ceilings are all made of the same matte white material.

There were no seams, no rivets, and no visible pipes.

The light seeped from the ceiling; there was no source of light, only the ceiling itself was emitting light.

It's like standing inside a giant egg.

"After the warp drive is activated, the internal gravity is maintained at 0.97g." Shen Qingci walked ahead, his voice as flat as the corridor. "The locking field covers 1.2 meters outside the outer shell."

Do not touch the bulkhead.

"Is there any explanation?"

"At the boundary of the locked field, the gradient rate of change of the physical constants is on the order of 10 to the power of 8 per centimeter."

Your finger will be torn into two different physical states, starting from the first atom.

Liu Pan withdrew his hand from the bulkhead.

The command module is located at the front of Unit 0.

Fifteen seats face forward, with a narrow aisle in the middle.

In front of me is a curved screen—currently black.

Shen Qingci sat in the front row.

Her field team of six was already in position, dressed in dark blue uniforms, facing forward, and no one spoke.

Yao Chong and Liu Pan sat in the third row.

Wang Xindong has not arrived yet.

Yao Chong glanced at his watch.

4:11.