Free Web NovelChapter 1303: Chapter 502: Hunting the Threatening Gaze
The speed of the Infinity began to slow down on the track, and Lin Xian came to Car No. 2 at this time, his eyes first seeing numerous screens decoding different things.
Only the screen in the middle had a string of binary code that remained still.
01110000, 01101111, 01110111, 01100101, 01110010
"What is this?" Lin Xian frowned, looking at KIKI.
"I removed the repetitive loops, then regardless of 64 or 10, I tried loop code, mapped encoding, differential encoding, Morse code, and then..."
KIKI, sucking on a lollipop, then, under Lin Xian’s gaze, gently tapped on the keyboard with a finger, and the binary code immediately converted into five ordered English characters. As the characters appeared, Lin Xian’s pupils immediately focused on those five characters!
P——O——W——E——R
"Power?"
"This is the only answer that is translatable and readable, the rest are gibberish." KIKI looked at Lin Xian seriously and said, "Okay, now the question is, what does this mean? Power? Electricity? Strength? Ugh, I hate English..." freewёbnoνel.com
Lin Xian’s eyes reflected the faint light of the screen and he said in a deep voice: "And we don’t know the context, to whom it was said, just like..."
As he spoke, he looked at KIKI, and they both got a tacit understanding from each other’s eyes.
"Don’t resist the South Heavenly Gate?"
Lin Xian nodded, puzzled: "The information from the South Heavenly Gate is Chinese, but this is English. Could it be sent by different entities?"
"Not necessarily, it might involve transmission efficiency issues." KIKI smiled slightly and explained earnestly to Lin Xian, "Chinese characters are stored in two bytes in computers. Two Chinese characters are converted from hexadecimal to decimal and then each byte’s decimal value is turned into 8-bit binary. You have to divide by 2 to get the remainder, arrange in reverse order, and the conversion process is more complex. This 64 is already abstract enough, and adding so many steps, even an immortal couldn’t imagine it..."
"Moreover, the South Heavenly Gate is outside the Heavenly Veil, and it was decoded through the dark matter particle fluctuations of the PandaX-4T Liquid Xenon Detector, and then using gravitational waves. I reckon there is a difference, but then again..." frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
KIKI looked at Lin Xian speechless: "Aren’t Chinese and English both our Blue Star human civilization?"
"That’s true... So you’re saying the message wasn’t meant to be mysterious, but rather it’s just too complex?" Lin Xian said.
KIKI took a breath and looked at the screen: "Whether it’s mysterious is hard to say, but logically speaking, if two civilizations are very far apart and need to convey information precisely, it isn’t simple. Don’t think these are just a few codes. At least with our current human technology, the Milky Way is an insurmountable mountain."
Lin Xian’s expression was mixed, feeling that the riddle of the metal die was finally about to be solved. Yet, he felt an unknown fear and curiosity, not just for the characters before him, but also for the civilization that sent them.
Thud thud!
A whirling sound of wind came from outside, Lin Xian activated the visual interface of the Power Armor, with the Sentinel System showing the external view of the Infinity 360. They seemed to have reached the edge of a city, radar systems scanned the outline of a ruinous cluster of buildings.
"This should be Uparla, a medium-sized city in Costa Rica."
KIKI opened a holographic map, zooming in: "Here! Hmm... It’s probably a Dead City for a long time. The main force from the Dawn Center made a brief stop here because just ahead is Lake Nicaragua, and we have to cross it quickly. The Pacific Ocean is on the left and a big lake on the right, definitely a place where big things might show up."
Lin Xian looked grave, glancing at the time: "It’s getting dark, we need to stop and observe tonight, we’ll head into Mexico tomorrow."
"Okay." KIKI nodded.
At 18:30, the Infinity slowly halted outside a city of rubble and ruin, its iron wheels grinding over the concrete fragments and steel rods on the tracks, stopping amid the screeching of metal, the armed train quietly resting under a shroud of scarlet mist.
Hundreds of defense drones circled the whole train like silent night owls, the static electric field protection net was activated, drones pulling up an infrared alert isolation, enveloping the whole train in an invisible warning perimeter. The weapon station hatches on the roof quietly opened, the cold gun barrels of the anti-aircraft gun, the honeycomb muzzle of the 1130 Close Defense Cannon, and the slender rail of the G3 Electromagnetic Rail Cannon rose in succession. Plasma high-temp beam flowed along the train body’s outline as molten gold streaks. All heavy defense weapons except the missile launch unit entered a silent standby mode.
Inside the carriages, light-blocking steel plates gradually descended, as Lin Xian and KIKI separated to inspect the train from front to back, checking the dining, living, green plant, and supply cars. Without the Heterogeneous Rubik’s Cube, Lin Xian always felt a lack of security.
At night, eerie howls echoed in the scarlet mist outside, the dim cold light of Car No. 6 on the Infinity gave off a soft glow, a scent of food wafting in the air.
KIKI used the Telekinesis Wave to slowly sweep within a kilometer of the train, finding no unusual creatures approaching for now.
"Even without markers, staying in this damn scarlet makes one feel uneasy..."
KIKI leaned on the sofa, peering outside through a slit in the light-blocking plate, seeing only intense blackness and scarlet, as if they were stuck thousands of meters deep in the ocean.
