The installation of the automated environmental adjustment system was silent, like a new, more delicate cluster of metal and plastic flora growing quietly within the existing forest of equipment in the ward. A programmable multi-spectral LED array was cleverly integrated into the existing ceiling lighting trough, capable of producing smooth gradients from cool white to warm yellow, with brightness precise to one lux. An inconspicuous wall-mounted sound field generator could supposedly output precisely filtered and serially encoded "environmental soundscapes" ranging from the edge of infrasound to the threshold of ultrasound. The temperature and humidity controller was linked to the fresh air system, ensuring every wisp of air movement conformed to preset curves. At the heart of it all was a palm-sized black main control box with a faint blue indicator light, maintaining constant, whispered communication via an encrypted, independent network channel to somewhere in the cloud.
The first time Lin Yuan saw the system undergo a full-power self-check, the light in the room slowly brightened and dimmed seven times over ten minutes, like breathing, its color transitioning from the pale blue-grey of dawn to the orange-red of dusk, finally settling into a uniform, cool gray resembling moonlight. There was no sound, but the skin on her arms could feel the air stirring with an extremely slow, regular rhythm, carrying a deliberately crafted, dry scent reminiscent of a breeze over open fields. Everything was within the human comfort zone, even more "stable" than the everyday environment. Yet that absolute, unnatural sense of control made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
Chen Yu still lay motionless, surrounded by various probes and tubes, as if he had become the most central, yet most silent component within this precise environmental chamber.
The "NeuraLink" monitoring module interface had also been updated. The data streams were more complex, with new, baffling real-time analysis indicators like "Environmental Stimulus Pattern Recognition," "Deviation Between Expected and Observed Response," and "Multi-Dimensional Phase Synchrony Coupling Strength." Lin Yuan's nursing privileges hadn't changed, but she could now see more "results." She watched as the system automatically executed its first formal stimulus sequence—"S-01: Graded Light Cycle." Charts showed that during the two hours of gentle, stepwise light changes, Chen Yu's PPG waveform, certain ultra-low-frequency components of his frontal lobe EEG, and even the minute delay of his pupillary light reflex (captured by a high-frame-rate camera) all exhibited weakly correlated yet statistically significant fluctuation patterns matching the light change curve. The system annotated: "S-01 response pattern confirmed. Consistent with 'Amplifier' model prediction. Signal-to-noise ratio improved by 17% over baseline."
Success. Cold, data-defined success.
Zheng Boyuan sought her out once, looking somewhat weary. "They're optimizing the stimulus protocols," he said. "'S-02' is a mixed white noise sequence at specific frequencies. 'S-03' is an airflow pattern combined with micro temperature differentials. Designed very... ingeniously. Completely avoids any known harmful thresholds." He paused. "But I saw a draft of their internal project roadmap. The next phase, they want to try introducing more complex 'information structures'—like extremely simplified flashing image patterns, or audio fragments with basic grammatical structure... All still under the guise of 'background environment,' of course."
He looked at Lin Yuan. "You know what unsettles me the most? It's their expectation of 'response.' In their model, they directly define Chen Yu's physiological fluctuations as 'output signals.' They aren't looking for signs of consciousness recovery. They're debugging something they believe is a 'neural interface,' trying to maximize its 'signal-to-noise ratio' and 'transmission bandwidth.'"
A wave of nauseating chill washed over Lin Yuan. "What do they want to 'transmit'?"
"I don't know," Zheng Boyuan shook his head. "Maybe they haven't thought that far ahead themselves. It's just basic research now, exploring possibilities. But once a technological path is opened..." He didn't finish.
---
The rotting garden entered its "golden age."
The automated stimulus sequences no longer provided sporadic, faint signals that required laborious parsing, but stable, rich "data streams" with clear patterns and predictability. Each light gradient, each sound wave sequence, each subtle adjustment in temperature and humidity was greedily absorbed, deconstructed, and learned by the vines.
The garden's sky had now become a constantly shifting, distorted display screen. Against the lead-gray backdrop flowed stimulus patterns "translated" by the vines: slowly expanding and contracting halos of light corresponding to light gradients; intangible, yet some