56: Morse code profanities

"Raise the passive sonar out of the water and activate full-band atmospheric acoustic monitoring."

Jiang Ran stood before the main console, his hands crossed over his chest, his gaze locked onto the rolling expanse of steel ruins along the shore.

Since the underwater clues had gone cold...

If that old man was still alive, he had to be in some corner of this industrial zone.

As the command was issued, the multi-functional mast atop the black iron slowly rose.

A set of petal-like parabolic reflectors and receivers unfolded into the air, greedily capturing every sound within a five-kilometer radius.

"Establishing voiceprint model... Background noise is too high."

An irritating cacophony immediately burst from the speakers.

This wasn't the bustle of a busy market, but the mournful wail of dying steel.

The river wind howled through the riddled factory buildings.

It swirled through countless broken pipes, letting out a sob like the wailing of ghosts and howling of wolves.

Massive sheets of iron swayed precariously in the wind, rhythmically striking the steel frames with a dull "clack-clack."

In the distance, perhaps a cable from some long-neglected crane had snapped; a heavy hook swung in the high air with the wind.

Every time it scraped against the rusted tower, a series of sharp, ear-piercing metal grinding sounds erupted.

The entire Wan River Industrial Zone...

...was like a giant set of wind chimes, completely out of tune from years of neglect, playing a chaotic symphony of death in the wind.

"This is impossible to listen to."

The First Mate covered his ears in pain. "There's noise from scrap metal everywhere; it's way too loud."

"This is the best cover."

Jiang Ran remained expressionless, his eyes still sharp.

"If you want to hide someone, the best way isn't to bury them in the ground, but to throw them into the noise."

The acoustic spectrum on the screen was a tangled mess.

Countless red peaks rose and fell, representing high-decibel noise coming from all directions.

To distinguish a man-made signal in this environment...

...was no less difficult than searching for a specific piece of driftwood on a storm-tossed sea.

"zero, filter out all non-regular natural sounds."

Jiang Ran calmly adjusted the parameters. "Wind, waves, the sound of metal fatigue and snapping—block them all."

"What I'm looking for is rhythm, logic, a man-made frequency—even if there's only a one-in-ten-thousand chance."

As zero's computing power went into full gear...

...the maddening background noise in the speakers began to peel away layer by layer.

The wind died down, and the clanging of scrap metal grew distant.

On the acoustic spectrum that had been like a tangled mess, most of the noise was forcibly flattened into a smooth line.

In the midst of this man-made silence, a green ripple as thin as a gossamer thread suddenly began to pulse.

Ding... ding... ding—

The sound was extremely faint; if not for the thousand-fold signal amplification, it would have been easily drowned out by the buzzing of a mutant fly's wings.

But this sound possessed a shivering penetrative power.

It wasn't rusted iron plates feebly rubbing against each other in the wind.

It was the high-frequency impact of two high-hardness metals over a very short distance.

The force of each strike was strikingly consistent.

The tone was crisp and cold, carrying a sense of absolute resolve.

Jiang Ran's pupils constricted slightly as his gaze locked onto that pulsing ripple.

"This isn't a natural sound."

Su Qingyu pressed her fingers to her headset, her eyes sharpening. "The wind can't produce a frequency like this."

"Someone is tapping."

Ding, ding, ding. Ding— Ding—

The rhythm changed.

It was no longer a monotonous repetition; distinct long and short intervals appeared.

Short like raindrops, long like sighs.

Between every pause, there seemed to be an invisible breath controlling the tempo.

"The frequency is constant at 4400 Hertz; this is the echo of some high-manganese steel alloy striking a hollow steel pipe."

zero's analysis report popped up simultaneously: "The tapping source is extremely stable, with no rhythmic irregularities caused by fatigue or emotional fluctuations."

In this chaotic, savage industrial ruin filled with disordered destruction...

...this tapping sound, filled with mathematical beauty and logical order...

...was like a lone lamp lit in the darkness, appearing out of place yet incredibly clear.

"It's more than just tapping."

A playful arc curled at the corner of Jiang Ran's mouth. "It's talking."

"Translate it."

Jiang Ran leaned back in his chair, his fingers lightly tapping the armrest in a strange resonance with the rhythm from the broadcast.

"Accessing standard military Morse code library... Match successful."

zero's mechanical voice had a rare pause.

"Warning: Decoded content contains a large amount of non-standard vocabulary and highly aggressive linguistic structures."

"Enable civility filter mode?"

"Play it as is."

Jiang Ran raised an eyebrow. "I want to know exactly what he's saying."

The green ripples on the screen began to transform into lines of text, scrolling in real-time.

At first, the First Mate and Su Qingyu held their breath, expecting to see desperate pleas for help like "Help," "I'm at XX location," or "My leg is broken."

However, as the first line of text jumped out, the atmosphere in the cockpit turned strange.

"...To that group below, products of genetic defects caused by inbreeding, idiots whose cerebral cortices are smoother than single-celled organisms..."

The First Mate's eyes widened, and he nearly choked on his own spit.

The text on the screen continued to scroll.

The imprisoned old man had clearly turned Morse code tapping into a form of artistic creation.

"...The way you're trying to relight the blast furnace with that pile of rusted junk is like a group of monkeys trying to repair a space shuttle with banana peels."

Listen, you idiots who drink coolant like wine, you want me to refine high-purity uranium for you?"

"Dream on."

"...If you have the guts, come up and kill me; I've had enough of your nauseating dialect anyway."

By the way, my regards to all your direct female relatives, though I highly doubt your IQ is high enough to tell whose offspring is whose..."

There was no fear, no pleading, only a continuous, brilliantly written, and logically tight stream of—

...insults.

Using the most standard military communication frequency...

...and the most rigorous tapping technique, he was broadcasting his contempt for his kidnappers' intelligence and bloodline to the entire world.

"He's certainly got spirit."

Jiang Ran looked at the profanities on the screen, which almost never repeated, and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Even while imprisoned and possibly facing torture...

...to maintain such a vigorous desire to fight and express himself—this old man's bones were harder than the black iron's keel.

"It seems there's no need to confirm his identity."

Jiang Ran stood up and adjusted his tactical gloves. "Aside from that legendary 'The Stubborn Old Man'..."

"...I can't imagine anyone else who would have the leisure to write such a 'call to arms against scoundrels' in Morse code at a time like this."

"optical targeting system online. Tracking sound source: three o'clock position, distance four thousand two hundred meters."

As Jiang Ran's fingers slid across the touchscreen...

...the long-range reconnaissance lens atop the black iron, like a waking hawk's eye, rapidly rotated and focused.

The image on the screen pierced through layers of haze and exhaust, bringing the scene on the distant shore before their eyes.

It was an industrial behemoth from the old era—

Blast Furnace No. 1 of the Third Steel Plant.

Although it had been abandoned for years...

...its outer walls covered in reddish-brown rust and withered creepers, it still maintained an awe-inspiring height.

Thick exhaust pipes coiled like blood vessels around the hundred-meter-tall furnace body, piercing the clouds.

The lens zoomed in further until it locked onto the maintenance platform at the very top of the blast furnace.

There, a thick crane jib extended horizontally into mid-air.

And at the end of the jib hung an object swaying violently in the wind.

It was an iron cage crudely welded from steel bars.

The iron cage hung over a hundred meters above the ground, with the earth below littered with sharp scrap metal.

One slip and a fall would turn anyone into a puddle of mush.

However, the person in the cage seemed completely unconcerned.

The image clarity was adjusted to the maximum.

Jiang Ran saw the man inside clearly: an old man with hair as messy as a bird's nest and a scruffy beard.

He wore a set of overalls so greasy their original color was unrecognizable, slumping against the bars of the cage.

In his hand, he held a flat hip flask that had already been drained.

And in his other hand, he held something that glinted coldly in the sunlight—

...a stainless steel rice bowl.

This was likely his only private possession in this wasteland world, and at this moment, it was the instrument in his hands.

The old man's eyes were half-closed, looking like he hadn't yet slept off a hangover, but the flick of his wrist was terrifyingly precise.

He used that stainless steel bowl as a drumstick.

Strike after strike, he hit the solid steel bars of the cage, producing that crisp, distant "ding-ding" sound that echoed throughout the entire industrial zone.

He was performing this symphony of insults with his very life.

Even in a desperate situation, he used this method to proclaim his pride to the ants below.

"Cussing people out with a steel rice bowl."

Jiang Ran looked at the stubborn figure on the screen, a hint of admiration flashing in his eyes. "This old fellow is quite interesting."

Jiang Ran jerked the camera view downward, his gaze falling from a hundred meters high to the ground at the base of the blast furnace.

On that black earth soaked in slag and waste oil gathered a group of freaks who looked like they had crawled out of hell.

There were at least a hundred of them, each smeared with thick engine oil and coal ash, their skin covered in hypertrophic, twisted burn scars—

...which weren't medals of honor from battle, but rather seemed like some kind of morbid totemic worship.

They were bare-chested.

Heavy gear necklaces hung around their necks, and old welding masks covered their faces; they were like a pack of scavenging hyenas dancing around an industrial corpse.

Several bulldozers, modified beyond recognition, were roaring.

Pushing piles of scrap tires and low-quality coal toward the air intake at the base of the blast furnace.

Flames surged upward.

Billowing black smoke shot up the ventilation pipes into the sky, just as it engulfed the iron cage hanging at the top.

"Cough, cough... You bunch of... cough... bastards whose kids won't have assholes! Make the fire bigger! I'm cold!"

Through the loudspeaker came the faintly audible, smoke-rasped but still vigorous cursing of Old Chen, accompanied by that unchanging sound of tapping the bowl.

On the ground, a burly leader with half his body encased in a crude exoskeleton was holding a flamethrower.

He roared maniacally toward the sky:

"You old thing!"

"If you don't spit out the password soon, I'll melt this chain and let you fall and turn into a puddle of mush!"

The surrounding thugs erupted in beast-like cheers, banging steel pipes and wrenches, feverishly shouting the name "Furnace."

This was the Furnace Gang.

A pack of lunatics on the wasteland who had gone completely mad, worshiping the dregs of industrial civilization as gods.

They understood nothing of technology, only the violent aesthetics of fire and explosions.

Jiang Ran watched the reveling thugs on the screen, his eyes devoid of any emotion.

He didn't care whether these people believed in God or the blast furnace, nor did he care about the grudges between them and the old man.

In his eyes, these people were merely obstacles blocking him from obtaining critical parts.

"zero, calculate the load-bearing limit of the blast furnace's top structure."

Jiang Ran stood up and coldly issued orders as he walked toward the equipment room.

"Since they love fire so much, let's add some fuel."

He didn't need to negotiate with these lunatics, nor did he need to reason with them.

The old man locked in the cage was now the black iron's only lifeline, an extremely precious "humanoid maintenance plug-in."

Since he was a plug-in, he would just go and snatch him back to plug him in.

"Prepare for airdrop."

Jiang Ran's voice echoed in the silent cockpit, carrying an unquestionable dominance. "Today, we're going to be the unwelcome guests."