226: Chapter 226 Tie Zhu proposes improvements, including the addition of an anti-Cthulhu device.

The door of the Artifact Refining Workshop swayed in the wind, the edges of the sheet metal curled, emitting a long "creak."

Chen Wuwang stood at the entrance, not entering immediately.

He raised his hand to press his left eye—the Mechanical Prosthetic Eye automatically calibrated its focus, and a string of data appeared in his field of vision: furnace temperature 427 degrees, the concentration of sulfurized Spiritual Qi particles in the air was high, and the wrecks of three old mechs were slowly releasing residual energy waves.

Inside, the clanging was constant; the rhythm of the hammer striking metal was as steady as a heartbeat.

He stepped inside, his boot soles hitting the steel plate with a sound deeper than it had been in the plaza just now. It wasn't fatigue; it was the weight of carrying a burden.

Chen Tiezhu sat with his back to the door, crouching in front of a dismantled mech, holding a carving knife in his hand, scraping something on the Spiritual Qi circuit board.

Hearing the footsteps, he didn't even turn his head, only saying: "You're here?"

"Yeah." Chen Wuwang walked to the console and tapped his fingers on the surface, and three floating light screens instantly expanded.

The first was the battle record from last night: the oscillation frequency curve of that whispering core inside the chest armor of the Moyuan mech showed irregular spiral fluctuations, with an abnormal peak repeating every twelve seconds.

The second was the analysis map of the purple light encoding from the head of the Sentry Bug during its withdrawal; the signal structure was complex, carrying a certain recursive nested characteristic.

The third was the synthesized image of the swarm's retreat trajectory; all individual movement paths were highly synchronized, with an error of no more than 0.3 meters.

"You're still looking at this?" Chen Tiezhu finally turned around and wiped the sweat from his face; his cuffs were worn out, revealing the dark silver prosthetic interface underneath.

"They aren't retreating." Chen Wuwang stared at the data. "They are recording."

Chen Tiezhu stood up, walked to another terminal, and entered a string of passwords.

The screen lit up, and an encrypted folder popped up with the title: "Seven Records Regarding Abnormal Mental Fluctuations Interfering with Spiritual Qi Circuits."

He clicked the mouse and pulled up the first record.

"Three years ago, the Beipo Liu Clan sent over a damaged mech, claiming it was smashed by a Yao Beast. But when we inspected it, we found a strange audio residue in its main control chip, like... someone was chanting something, but the words couldn't be heard clearly."

Chen Wuwang's eyes narrowed. "Continue."

"The second time was last winter; a patrol team from the Zhao Clan of Xiling went missing en masse. When they were found, they were all insane, repeating 'He is about to wake up' in their mouths."

"The black box of the mech they were piloting recorded a low-frequency vibration, and it is... nearly eighty-nine percent close to the frequency on your screen right now."

He opened the third entry. "Last month, while we were repairing an old model scout mech, we found its sensory module had been contaminated by an unknown signal."

"As soon as it started, it would automatically emit directional pulses toward the Void Realm. We traced it back and found that the pulse pointed to the deep underground of the Eastern Wastelands—the insectoid activity zone."

Chen Wuwang was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly asked: "How did you handle it at the time?"

"Melted it." Chen Tiezhu said bluntly. "Threw the whole core board into the furnace and burned it at high heat for three hours. But do you know what the weirdest part was?"

"Tell me."

"When it was halfway burned, the furnace fire changed color, from red to purple, and laughter came out. It wasn't a human voice, nor a beast roar; it was just... laughter. I made everyone leave, and I guarded the furnace myself until it returned to normal."

After he finished speaking, he looked down at his hands; the knuckles were large and covered in calluses, but they were trembling slightly.

"I've never believed in these supernatural things. Artifact Refining relies on heat control, Materials, and technique, not some dream-talk prophecies. But these recent events... they don't add up."

Chen Wuwang didn't respond, instead pulling up his own set of data and projecting it onto the central light screen. Three sets of waveforms were displayed side-by-side: the Moyuan whispers, the Sentry Bug encoding, and the swarm synchronization rate.

"This is not a coincidence." He said. "This is learning. They are using our System to reverse-engineer our weaknesses. Physical attacks are just the appearance; what is truly dangerous is this—"

He tapped his fingertip, enlarging the oscillation details of the Moyuan mech's whispering core: "It is attempting to invade the consciousness level, destroying the stability of the Spiritual Qi circuit through resonance."

Chen Tiezhu stared at the waveform for a long time, then suddenly spoke up: "I have an idea."

"Speak."

"Add a layer of shielding to the mech." He walked to the whiteboard and grabbed a pen to draw. "Not the kind that defends against shells, but one that defends against 'sound.' Use a reverse Formation array to bounce back those messy mental fluctuations, or block them directly. Just like... just like a soundproof wall."

Chen Wuwang looked at the sketch he drew, his brows gradually relaxing. "You saw it." He said.

"What?"

"You don't just want to make an anti-interference module." Chen Wuwang stepped closer. "You want to specifically deal with this kind of thing—Cthulhu."

Chen Tiezhu's pen tip froze. He didn't move, nor did he look up, but his shoulders tightened.

"I don't dare to say that name." He said in a low voice. "I heard the elders mention it before; whoever says the true name will hear someone talking in their ear at night. My mother went crazy because of this; she always said she could hear the 'whispers behind the door'."

He paused for two seconds, took a deep breath, and slammed the pen heavily onto the table. "But it's different now. I have seen it with my own eyes, burned it with my own hands. I know it is real. So..."

He turned to face Chen Wuwang, his eyes bright: "I suggest installing a layer of 'Silent Shield' in the Spiritual Qi hub of all main mechs, using a reverse Formation array to cancel out that... that whisper that drives people insane."

He paused, gritting his teeth to say the last few words: "We will call it—the Anti-Cthulhu Device."

Chen Wuwang stood still. But, his right index finger began tapping the edge of the console. Once. Twice. Three times. The rhythm was steady, like the prompt sound when code compiles successfully.

Then he smiled. It wasn't a manic laugh, nor a cold sneer; it was just a smile where the corners of his mouth lifted and his eyes lit up.

"Well done, Tiezhu." He said. "I like that name."

The two immediately leaned in toward the light screen and began sketching the preliminary structure.

"Base it on the 'Sound Isolation Array' left by Ling Zhenzi in his early years." Chen Wuwang pulled up an old blueprint. "But we have to modify it. The original Formation could only isolate Spiritual Qi fluctuations and is ineffective against mental pollution. We need to add electromagnetic damping principles to build a multi-frequency filtering System."

"I can etch nano-scale runes into the three-layer alloy sandwich panels." Chen Tiezhu said quickly. "Fill the middle with liquid magnetic Spiritual Ore; when it encounters fluctuations of a specific frequency, it will automatically solidify to form a physical barrier."

"Good. Add a self-destruct mechanism." Chen Wuwang added. "Once high-intensity mental intrusion is detected, immediately detonate micro-rune mines to burn out the connection lines directly."

"Okay. The power supply can be drawn from a separate line from the main reactor to avoid being traced back."

"Leave the control System to me." Chen Wuwang pointed to the side of his head. "My Mechanical Prosthetic Eye can monitor the battlefield environment in real-time, and I will activate it immediately upon detecting abnormalities."

The faster they spoke, the denser the sketches on the light screen became.

Silent Shield, multi-layer filtering, automatic response, emergency cutoff, independent power supply... one module after another was labeled, connecting into a complete System.

Sweat appeared on Chen Tiezhu's forehead, but his voice became steadier and steadier: "As long as we can install this thing, the next time we encounter that kind of 'whisper,' our mechs won't be paralyzed."

"It's not just about not being paralyzed." Chen Wuwang stared at the diagram. "We want to make it interfere with them in return. Let their mental attacks become our source of intelligence."

Chen Tiezhu grinned. "You want to use them as a signal source?"

"Yes." Chen Wuwang nodded. "The harder they try, the more they expose."

The two fell silent for a moment. It wasn't because they were tired; it was because they were thinking of the coming battle. It wasn't man against man, nor mech against insectoids. It was reason against madness, order against Chaos.

"Draft a proposal first." Chen Wuwang said finally. "I want to hear a report at tomorrow's morning meeting."

"Understood." Chen Tiezhu sat back in the control chair, placing his hands on the keyboard. "The first version will be out tonight."

Chen Wuwang glanced at him and turned to walk toward the door. Behind him, the sound of typing on the keyboard immediately rang out, pattering like a heavy rain falling on a tin roof.

He pulled open the door, and the wind rushed in, blowing a corner of his cloak. The distant horizon was turning white, and the stars had not yet faded.

He stopped and looked back. The Artifact Refining Workshop was brightly lit, and the light screens reflected on the wall, illuminating two moving figures. One was sitting and typing rapidly, while the other stood beside him, pointing at the screen and drawing a circle.

Chen Wuwang withdrew his gaze and raised his hand to press his left eye. In the corner of his field of vision, the countdown ticked: [family rise system update time remaining: 05:18:42]