Silent Ark

Chapter 20: Daily Talk

The Decameron, Night Two: The Altar of Reality.

In the CERN underground security analysis room.

The emergency light source cast a distorted shadow on the lead wall.

The sounds of impacts from the ground had thinned out, replaced by an unsettling hum, like the simultaneous whispers of countless people, seeping through the ventilation ducts.

The four sat around the central data terminal. The holographic projection no longer displayed physical formulas, but rather files rescued from the collapsed global network, labeled as "key resonance events in the social consciousness field."

Having confirmed the coupling mechanism between the "evil frequency band" and the collective consciousness field of humanity, tonight they will examine real-world cases that were already raging before the disaster and now appear to be offerings to the "god of chaos."

The topic for the second night was: Algorithms, Lies, and the Silent Sacrifice.

Liu Pan spoke first, pulling up the first file titled "Kuaishou's 'Carnival' with Oxford Street": "2023, London. A half-joking 'Robbing Oxford Street' challenge launched on the short video platform 'Kuaishou' spread virally through algorithm recommendations."

"It precisely targets young users who seek thrills and have potential conflicts with social norms. What is the result? Not online jokes, but real riots, property damage, and police paralysis. The platform later claimed it was 'just a tool,' but its algorithm is like a sophisticated emotional distiller, refining and amplifying scattered mischievous thoughts into actionable impulses of collective destruction."

Elena's voice tightened slightly: "This reminds me of the 'targetless malice' band we detected before the LHC experiment. It wasn't anger directed at any specific person or thing, but a pure, gratifying desire to see order crumble."

"Did the algorithm of 'Kuaiying' inadvertently provide a ready-made, low-dimensional 'action script' for this primal impulse of 'rage and burning tide'? Did it allow chaos to find a concrete path?"

Rajeev nodded and pulled up another set of data: "It's not just about violence. Look at this, the 'lovestruck programmer' incident from 2024. A personal emotional tragedy was quickly labeled as an extreme contrast between a 'lovestruck man' and a 'gold digger' under the 'traffic logic' of algorithms."

"Truth is powerless in the face of an emotional tsunami. Why do algorithms favor this kind of narrative? Because anger, contempt, and a sense of moral superiority are the most efficient 'interaction fuels.' It creates a perfect 'information cocoon'—people inside are immersed in a single, extreme perspective, completely isolated from external facts and empathy."

Yao Chong used a laser pointer to circle the model of the "information cocoon": "This is the perfect incubator of 'self-centeredness' in the digital age. Algorithms create a cognitive universe for you where you are the only one, all dissent is noise, and all complexity is betrayal."

"When hundreds of millions of such 'isolated universes' constitute the overall consciousness field of a civilization, the social consensus and communication foundation maintained by the 'weavers of ritual' are completely dismantled."

"Without consensus, where does reality come from? When reality itself becomes questionable, it is not surprising that the 'laws of certainty' in the physical world begin to loosen."

Liu Pan pulled up a third file with a shocking title: "The Disappearance of Pink Hair" and the cyberbullying industry chain: "This is not an isolated case. In the early 2020s, a series of suicides caused by cyberbullying occurred—a mother who was slandered, a girl who was attacked because of her hair color, and a woman who was 'judged' because of the amount of money she received as a reward."

"Platforms profit from traffic, while irrational and malicious comments generate high engagement, leading to continuous algorithmic recommendations and pinning of them, creating a vicious positive feedback loop."

"What does this resemble? Doesn't it resemble a kind of blood sacrifice in the digital age? The sacrifice is the dignity and life of an individual, and the 'traffic' gained in exchange, on some level that we cannot understand, has become a low-dimensional energy that nourishes 'Jealousy Thieves' and 'Wrathful Tide of Incineration'?"

Elena covered her mouth, her face deathly pale: "Those comments... I've seen them. That wasn't debate; it was pure, unadulterated desire to destroy any trace of the other's existence. If the 'Frequency of Evil' feeds on extreme human emotions..."

Rajeev continued heavily, "So, every successful cyberbullying, every instance of social panic caused by rumors, may be a small-scale 'sacrifice,' weakly but definitely increasing the 'manifestation weight' of those chaotic laws in our dimension."

Yao Chong pulled out the fourth case, titled "AI Rumor Factory": "By 2025 to 2026, the use of AI tools to generate and spread rumors in bulk has become an industry."

"Some organizations can generate thousands of fake news articles a day and operate hundreds of accounts, specifically to incite conflict between doctors and patients, gender, and the rich and poor."

"They can even use AI to forge 'police reports' and graft disaster videos. This is not just fabrication; it is systematically polluting the source of information and destroying the foundation of the 'anchor of trust and contract'—trust and facts."

"When people can no longer trust any information, society becomes a paradise for 'gluttons and molten beings,' where all boundaries are dissolved, including the boundary between reality and fiction."

Liu Pan pulled up the fifth file, which was about "data predators": "Take a look at this one. For years, it has become commonplace for tech giants to collect and abuse user data without permission—from continuously uploading information while the phone is on standby, to the manual analysis of voice assistant recordings, to the illegal scraping of hundreds of millions of resumes to build databases."

"This is not just a privacy violation. It's turning human emotions and behaviors into 'data resources' that can be endlessly exploited, traded, and manipulated."

"What does this resemble? Doesn't it resemble the projection of 'Greed and Eternal Hunger' into the digital realm? Eternal hunger, eternal devouring, reducing living people to predictable and controllable 'data points,' stripping them of their subjectivity and unpredictability—and the latter may be the last bastion of life against entropy."

Rajeev pulled up the final and most extensive series of files, titled "A Torn Nation": "Finally, look at this macro sample: the United States. The Capitol Hill riots of 2021, the political assassination of 2024, the 'Death of Goode' and nationwide protests of 2026."

"Political polarization has penetrated to the bone marrow. The two parties regard each other as enemies, and any event quickly becomes a tool for partisan struggle, creating the spectacle of 'one event, two realities.' Social trust has collapsed, and national identity has fractured. This is not merely a political failure. It is a symphony of multiple frequencies such as 'arrogance,' 'jealousy,' and 'rage' on a civilized scale. The collective consciousness of the entire nation has become a huge, unstable, chaotic reactor full of opposing energies."

Yao Chong juxtaposed the "social emotion entropy increase index" curves of all these cases with the "local physical constant perturbation" curves monitored by CERN.

Multiple curves fluctuate on the timeline, but the trends are surprisingly consistent.

Yao Chong: "Look. Every major social upheaval, every algorithm-driven emotional tsunami, every collapse of the trust system... its peak values ​​are strongly correlated in time with the tiny physical anomalies we later observe. The error is in the milliseconds. This is not a coincidence."

He turned off all the projectors, plunging the safe room into even deeper darkness.

"We used to think that physics was physics and society was society. But now it seems that, on a higher dimension, they may be different patterns of the same 'fabric'."

"We tear holes in this 'fabric' with lies, hatred, greed, nihilism, and violence. We think that only the pattern of 'society' is injured. But in reality, we may be damaging the 'background fabric' that carries the pattern—the fundamental laws upon which this universe exists."

"The LHC experiment may not have been the 'cause,' nor was the accident at our Eye of the Abyss. It was more like a magnifying glass that suddenly made us see the cracks that were already densely packed on this 'substrate' and were being widened by our own actions. Then, the 'cracks' began to breathe on their own, expand... until they devoured everything."

A long silence.

The whispers in the ventilation duct seemed clearer, as if echoing Yao Chong's conclusion.

Elena murmured almost inaudibly, "So...those people on the streets outside...those former colleagues, neighbors...they didn't 'turn' into monsters. They were just...the first 'fruits' to grow on this 'scorched earth of consciousness' that we all created together?"

No one can deny it.

No one could provide an answer.

The second night ended in silence.