A Chill Down the Spine

While Zhao Youqin was busy, everyone was watching him intently.

Yue Yuan paced anxiously back and forth on the bridge, genuinely worried. Although it wasn't confirmed yet, everyone present could generally tell that this strange signal was most likely sent by some civilization.

"Hopefully it's a signal from a distant universe," Yue Yuan thought.

The farther the better. Right now, Yue Yuan really doesn't want to encounter any more Alien Civilization, and he doesn't want to encounter anything related to Alien Civilization.

Humanity is too weak. Even if we encounter any civilization at random, we could very well face annihilation. After all, a civilization that can traverse interstellar distances is definitely beyond our ability to handle.

Although humanity has traveled 9.4 light-years to reach this point, it did so not because of space travel technology, but because of hibernation technology. A normally developing civilization would never engage in interstellar travel at humanity's current stage.

Given humanity's current travel technology, the best place to stay is our own home star system, not other star systems. Therefore, if we encounter other civilizations in the universe, their level of development is definitely higher than ours.

Just as everyone was waiting anxiously, the automatic doors of the bridge opened, and then Long Xiaolin walked in with Lu Xiaofen and Taliya Sinskaia.

"Chief, the two doctors have arrived," Long Xiaolin said softly as she walked up to Yue Yuan.

"Good."

Yue Yuan nodded, looked at the two people behind Long Xiaolin, and then pointed to the control panel not far to his left. "Doctors, I won't bother with formalities. The unknown signal information is stored over there. Go and take a look for yourselves."

"Chief Yue, we can't decipher this kind of information on our own," Talia said in a thick Mandarin before even going over to check.

"I know that Zhao Youqin will be working with you, and other experts in the fields of languages and cryptography will be arriving soon. You don't need to worry about manpower. Just ask Zhao Youqin directly for any resources you need."

After hearing Yue Yuan's words, Talia, the foreign woman, stopped talking and went straight to the control panel to get to work.

As for Lu Xiaofen, she turned and walked to the other side. She was indeed a linguist, but her work could only begin after the signal processing experts converted the unknown signal into a visual spectrum.

At this stage, there's not much she can do to help.

Just then, Zhao Youqin suddenly shouted, "Found it!"

Upon hearing this, Yue Yuan's spirits lifted, and he immediately walked behind Zhao Youqin to look at the screen. Man Yuemei and Zhu Pete, who had just entered from the door, also went over.

At this point, Zhao Youqin had already transformed the string-like signal into a visual image, specifically a star chart, so everyone could understand it.

But precisely because they could understand it, everyone was stunned. Even Zhao Youqin, who had been continuously zooming in on the image, was stunned.

Yue Yuan first felt that the stars in the image looked somewhat familiar, and as Zhao Youqin continued to zoom in on the image, he felt even more familiar with them.

When he saw Zhao Youqin use an arrow on the screen to indicate the location of the signal source, he immediately came to his senses.

Then Yue Yuan felt a chill rise from the soles of his feet, which then instantly swept upwards and rushed into his consciousness, making his hair stand on end and his back feel cold.

The same was true for the others. Zhao Youqin, Zhu Pete, Man Yuemei, Liu Miyan, and other scientists all stared wide-eyed at the screen, their eyes filled with fear.

"Are you kidding me?"

Yue Yuan took a deep breath to calm himself down, then looked at Zhao Youqin with resentment, hoping he would admit that he had miscalculated.

Zhao Youqin turned his head to look at the planet he had marked on the screen, and shook his head with difficulty as he looked at the semicircles that represented signal symbols inside.

Then, with a glimmer of hope amidst despair, he input various parameters again, causing "Tianhe Light" to recalculate.

But when the screen turned back into an image, the result was still that familiar planet.

Bang! The hot-tempered Liu Miyan slammed his fist on the workbench, his voice hoarse with tension as he exclaimed, "How could this be? Could 'Silver Mist' be sentient? I thought it had calmed down after all these years, but this damn thing is still haunting me. It shouldn't be like this, it doesn't make sense! It's illogical, if Silver Mist could send messages, why hasn't it made a move all these years?"

The Ross 154-4 Planet is the location of the signal source indicated on the screen.

When people see this planet now, they think of the terrifying 'Silver Mist', but the signal source is emanating from this planet, which makes it impossible not to make connections.

But as Liu Miyan, none of this makes sense.

If Silver Mist had this ability, there's no reason why it would take seven years to send a message now. And it's a message broadcast over and over again, roughly every thirty minutes.

Why is that?

If the signal comes from distant stars, everyone would take it for granted, since the idea of a civilization broadcasting from space conflicts with the cosmic background that humans have speculated about based on their experience, but it is also possible.

People can accept it.

Even before the signal source was located, Yue Yuan briefly imagined the cosmic background. If the signal really came from the depths of the universe, then the Cosmic Civilizations might not be in a hostile state of the Dark Forest as humans thought.

Yes, the sociologists aboard the Hope have made some guesses about the cosmic background based on humanity's own experiences, generally speculating that it is a dark universe. However, if there are cosmic broadcasts or interstellar regional broadcasts, it means that this universe is not completely dark, and that there is communication between civilizations.

Humans also tend to believe this view, but unfortunately there has been no evidence to support it.

Now, an unknown signal, resembling a broadcast, has arrived. Yue Yuan had thought that humanity could use this to peek into the universe and society, but it just so happens to come from Ross 154-4, a planet where terrifying things like the 'Silver Mist' exist. How could this not send chills down one's spine?

They said the signal had nothing to do with 'Silver Mist,' but no one on the bridge believed it.

"What is the current state of Silver Mist?" Yue Yuan asked.

As soon as he finished speaking, staff on the bridge immediately transferred satellite images to a large screen. For seven years, humanity had never relaxed its observation of the 'Silver Mist'.

"They're not making a sound?!" Manyue Man Yuemei frowned as she looked at the screen and fell into deep thought.

"That's strange. Could it be that the signal has nothing to do with 'Silver Mist'?" Liu Miyan also looked at the big screen, only to find that Silver Mist was still lying motionless on the planet's surface, just like it had been seven years ago, as if it had fallen into hibernation.

Seeing this, everyone felt much more at ease.

The worst fears of humanity did not come true; the Silver Mist did not move, nor did it show any sign of flying out of Ross 154-4.

"We have too little information to deduce anything useful, so the most urgent task is to decipher this information," Yue Yuan said slowly, gazing at the Silver Mist on the large screen, an area equivalent to a province.

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