The Broken Phone and the Broken Mind

Su Wanqing numbly clutched the phone, cold and dead like a brick, the chill from her fingertips seeming to freeze her blood. The panicked cries of Xiao Lin and Ling Ye's icy words – "So noisy" – seemed to still echo in her ears.

The company hacked, data stolen, the warning picture a mere ice cream spoon... The "Shadow" organization's revenge, like an invisible giant net, had spread from the real world into cyberspace, suffocating her. And now, her only means of communication, right before her eyes, had been casually turned into scrap metal by a powerful being because it was "noisy."

What should she do?

What should she do now?!

An overwhelming sense of helplessness and panic, like a cold tide, washed over her again. She looked at Ling Ye, who seemed to have fallen back asleep on the sofa. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Ask for help? Would this powerful being care about the fate of an ordinary person's company? His earlier actions had said it all – it wasn't as important as his sleep.

A surge of resentment and a hint of anger welled up uncontrollably, but were immediately suppressed by a deeper fear. She didn't dare complain, didn't even dare show any dissatisfaction.

Just as she was sinking into the mire of despair, lost and bewildered—

Her gaze, once again uncontrollably... fell upon the Chaos Green Lotus basin in the corner.

Within the basin, the swirling chaotic mist seemed more active than before, flowing slowly. The strange, fleeting light that flashed when it devoured the corpse seemed like an illusion, yet it also felt like something was quietly brewing in the depths of the basin.

An even more absurd, bolder, even downright insane idea, like vines growing in the darkness, quietly wrapped around her heart.

This basin... could devour and decompose corpses, suppress earth veins, be used as a foot basin, or a diluter for flower fertilizer... then could it...

Su Wanqing's heart pounded wildly, a single word flashing frantically in her mind: Signal! Network signal!

When the "Shadow" assassin's corpse was devoured earlier, she thought she glimpsed a strange light, like electronic interference, flash within the basin! Did that mean... this basin could also devour, interfere with, or even... reverse-track certain "information imprints" or "signal characteristics" carried by invaders, or even projected by their organization through network connections?!

This idea was too far-fetched, challenging all the foundations of modern science!

But... compared to the other bizarre things happening around the powerful being, this seemed... not so outrageous?

Might as well try anything! There was no worse outcome anyway!

A look of desperate resolve flashed in Su Wanqing's eyes. She scrambled back to the corner, picking up the incredibly heavy Chaos Green Lotus basin.

This time, her target wasn't the corpse, but... the phone Ling Ye had turned into a brick!

She dragged the basin to the coffee table, looked at the cold "brick," then at the bottomless Chaos Green Lotus basin, gritted her teeth, and with trembling hands... carefully placed the phone into the basin!

The phone sank into the swirling chaotic mist without a sound, like a pebble dropped into a deep pool.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

There was no reaction from the basin. The phone lay quietly at the bottom, gently enveloped by the chaotic mist, unchanged.

Failed?

Su Wanqing's heart sank, a wave of immense disappointment and self-mockery washing over her. As expected... was she just daydreaming? How could a basin possibly interfere with ethereal network signals?

She gave a bitter smile and reached out to retrieve the phone.

However, just as her fingertips were about to touch the mist in the basin—

"Zzzt—!"

An extremely faint, yet incredibly clear, electrical current sound suddenly emanated from the bottom of the basin!

Immediately after, the slowly swirling chaotic mist, as if doused with cold water on a red-hot iron, began to boil and churn violently!

Within the mist, countless tiny, strange points of light, resembling code fragments and flashing with the glow of 0s and 1s, frantically flickered in and out of existence, intertwining and colliding! It was as if an invisible torrent of data was fiercely clashing within the basin!

The originally restrained chaotic radiance on the basin's surface suddenly flared, becoming dazzling! Countless more profound, more complex, twisted runes appeared and flowed within the light, emitting a terrifying aura of suppression, decomposition, and consumption of all things!

The entire basin seemed to transform into a chaotic furnace, refining all the miscellaneous information and disordered energy in the world...

Su Wanqing flinched back from the sudden phenomenon, retreating rapidly, staring in horror at the boiling "data furnace"!

She could see the cold casing of the phone at the bottom of the basin becoming transparent and ethereal at a visible rate! It was as if it was being assimilated and decomposed by the chaotic mist!

What stunned her even more was that amidst the churning mist and data fragments, faint phantoms of warped, constantly changing virtual IP addresses and encrypted communication protocols flashed and disappeared! There was even an extremely blurry identifier of a shadow server, as if hidden in the deepest recesses of the network, struggling like a startled fish before being completely engulfed and crushed by more chaotic mist!

This basin... was actually... processing information?! Devouring and even counter-attacking at the network level?!

This was completely beyond Su Wanqing's limit of understanding!

The process lasted for about ten seconds.

Finally, all the anomalies receded like a tide.

The boiling mist returned to its calm flow, and the dazzling radiance and runes faded. At the bottom of the basin, the phone still lay quietly, but its casing was no longer transparent. Instead, it looked brand new, as if it had just come out of the factory, its screen even more crystal clear.

The golden "essence" liquid beads and the subtle scent left after devouring the corpse had also completely vanished, purified. The entire basin appeared more ancient and restrained, as if it had undergone a deep cleaning.

Su Wanqing looked at it all with disbelief and trepidation, her heart still pounding. She hesitated, then cautiously reached out, her hand entering the warm mist, and retrieved the phone.

The phone felt warm in her hand, its body free of any water stains or smudges. She instinctively pressed the power button—

"Buzz..."

The phone screen instantly lit up! The familiar startup logo appeared, and it quickly entered the main interface! Full signal bars! Wi-Fi automatically connected! The operating speed even felt faster and smoother than before!

It was as if... the previous breakdown and the subsequent "data refining" had never happened? No! It wasn't just restored! Su Wanqing keenly felt that this phone seemed... different somewhere? An indescribable sense of transparency, as if "empowered"?

With trembling fingers, she immediately dialed Xiao Lin's number.

The call was connected almost instantly, and Xiao Lin's voice, choked with tears and disbelief, came through: "President Su?! Is that you?! Oh my god! The sudden disconnection just now scared me to death! And... and a miracle happened! Just now! The company's network attack... suddenly stopped! All illegal connections were severed! It was like... like the enemy's base was suddenly blown up! Data leakage also stopped! The firewall logs are blank, as if those attacks never existed! What... what on earth happened?!"

Su Wanqing clutched her phone, listening to her assistant's incoherent report. She stood frozen, as if struck by lightning, speechless for a long time.

It succeeded...

That pot... it actually...

After the immense shock and elation came a bone-chilling awe. She looked at the seemingly ordinary pot in the corner again, her gaze completely changed.

How could this be a pot? This was clearly... the hand of God on the internet?!

And just then, on the sofa, Ling Ye's nose twitched involuntarily. His eyes were still closed, as if he had smelled something in his sleep.

His brow furrowed slightly, with a hint of displeasure at being disturbed. He mumbled incoherently in his sleep:

"...What's that smell... messy... signal... noisy..."

Before he finished speaking, his hand, casually resting by the side of the sofa, very naturally... swept towards the Chaos Green Lotus pot in the corner... casually...

As if in his sleep, he felt the pillow was a bit lumpy and just casually pushed it aside.

There was no light, no energy fluctuations.

But the moment he waved his hand--

"Buzz..."

The Chaos Green Lotus pot vibrated extremely faintly. The mist flowing calmly within the pot seemed to be smoothed by an invisible hand, and all the residual, extremely subtle "data refining" aura fluctuations were instantly and completely erased, returning to absolute "stillness."

The pot was still the same pot.

It was as if the earth-shattering cyber warfare that had just occurred was truly just Su Wanqing's hallucination.

Ling Ye smacked his lips, his brow unfurrowed, and he slept even more soundly.

Su Wanqing: "..."

She looked at her phone, which had returned to its original state (or even better), then at the pot that had instantly "played dead," and then listened to Xiao Lin excitedly reporting the "miracle" of the crisis being resolved over the phone...

She suddenly felt that she might... never truly understand the operational logic of this Big Shot, nor the "daily necessities" around him.

Her cognitive framework had, today, declared itself completely and permanently... obsolete.