The tires of the patrol car rolled over the rubble of the wasteland, making a continuous dull sound like some kind of monotonous heartbeat. Feng Hao sat on the roof, his legs dangling from the rim, his mechanical prosthetic limbs hanging by his side, and his metal knuckles were stained with pale golden spots of the mixture of Lin Banxia - which had been accidentally rubbed during the inspection just now, now sparkled in the moonlight like a handful of stars.
The wind, carrying grains of sand, hit his face, but he didn't blink. The gaze passed over his sleeping companion in the carriage and fell on the undulating horizon in the distance, where the shadows seemed to hide countless eyes - the reconnaissance planes of the Iron Eagle Guards, the paper spies of the Clearsky Pavilion, and the displaced people who were cornered by the "Return to the Yuan Array".
This hand holds the secret of the Chaos Protocol. Father's dying voice suddenly rang in the ear, with the screeching of a ventilator. Feng Hao subconsciously curled up his mechanical prosthetic limb, his knuckles rubbing against the scratches on the metal shell, which were deeper than he remembered, the traces of these days' repeated resonance with the mixture and the data stream.
He felt the tassel of the sword hanging around his neck. Not the kind of silk embroidered with runes in the Qingxiao Tower, it was made of copper wire from the mecha circuit and spiritual grass fibers, with scorch marks at the thread ends - it was made last year in the mecha cemetery with father's old mecha circuit and spiritual grass picked by Lin Banxia, which was just for fun at the time, but now it was heavy, like a piece of unspoken heart.
The patrol car suddenly jolted over a larger stone. The tassels swayed in the air, and the moonlight, through the gaps in the fibers, cast a fine band of light on the mechanical prosthesis. Feng Hao's fingertips suddenly went numb, and the band of light resonated with the mixed liquid light spots on the knuckles. Pale gold and blue-purple light coiled into thin threads in the air, like two snakes conversing.
"Awake?" Lin Banxia's voice came from the driver's seat. The car window was lowered halfway, revealing her hand holding the medicine bottle. The mixture in the bottle was gently shaking, and the light spot on the bottle wall was in harmony with the sword spikes on the roof. "Yan Yuanxiu said there was a spiritual pulse fluctuation thirty miles ahead and we might have to take a detour."
Feng Hao did not turn back, but raised his mechanical prosthetic limb to make the moonlight shine more clearly on the tassel. "Look at this." His voice was blown away a little by the wind. "My dad said that the Chaos Protocol would allow psychic and data to truly coexist, but he didn't say where the protocol was hidden."
Suddenly, a strong light flashed through the tassel, not moonlight, but from itself. A bluish-purple light emerged from the copper wire weaving pattern, resonating more vigorously with the mixture in the medicine bottle, which suddenly slipped from Lin's hand but was firmly caught by Feng Hao's mechanical prosthetic limb before landing - the moment the metal fingertip touched the bottle, the light from both suddenly exploded and condensed into a half-incomplete picture in the air, like some kind of ancient contract.
"This is..." Lin Banxia pushed open the car door and stepped down from the roof, staring at the half of the picture, the mixture boiling in the bottle. "My dad's notes have a similar pattern, saying this is' the balance talisman of the previous era '."
Chen Mohen in the carriage rolled over, and the talisman slipped out of his bosom and landed on Qin Tieluo's lap. The ink on the talisman paper suddenly turned automatically and merged with a corner of the broken image in the air, revealing the two incomplete characters "Chaos". Qin Tieluo was awakened by the light of the talisman paper and muttered, "Who's scribbling again?" but when he saw the pattern, he suddenly sat up straight, "Isn't this the spiritual vein diagram left by my father?"
Yan Yuanxiu's data stream overflowed from the vehicle-mounted terminal, forming a ring of light around half of the picture, attempting to complete the missing part. The electronic voice carried a rare hesitation: "Data match 67%... The absence of key nodes may be related to 'tassel'."
Feng Hao's fingertip crossed the knot of the blade, where the fibres of the spirit grass were somewhat worn, but became soft the moment they touched the mechanical prosthesis. He suddenly recalled the scene when he was weaving the blade - Lin Banxia squatted beside him and said, "The spirit grass can gather spirit, the copper wire can conduct electricity, maybe it can become a good thing." At that time, he took it as a joke, but now he realized that some entanglements had foreshadowed from the very beginning.
The moonlight was suddenly obscured by clouds, and the patrol car drove into a shadow. The light of the tassel did not go out; instead, it grew brighter, like a tiny sun, casting half of the "balance talisman" on the roof. Looking at the interwoven patterns, Feng Hao suddenly understood what his father had said - the Chaos Protocol was never a secret hidden in mechanical prostheses; it was an answer that required psychic power, data, talisman paper, all the power of the "outliers".
Lin Banxia's medicine bottle vibrated slightly. She pressed the bottle against the tassel, and the light of the mixture merged with the tassel, and the incomplete pattern began to spin slowly, as if searching for the last missing piece of the puzzle.
"It's almost there." Feng Hao whispered, his fingertips touching Lin Banxia's hand back in the light, not speaking, but both knew - they were just one step away from the truth. And the direction of that step was hidden in the tassel on the roof of the chariot, in the faint light interwoven with moonlight and resonance.