Attending physician Zhao Qiming frowned at the data charts on his tablet, the lines between his brows forming a deep crease. He pushed his glasses up and shifted his gaze between Lin Yuan's note of "suspected extremely minor muscle contraction" and the waveforms of skin conductance and micro-motion monitoring exported from the new multi-parameter monitor.
"Nurse Lin, your observation is meticulous," he began, his voice professionally steady. "These data fluctuations, especially the weak correlation between skin conductance and external sound, are indeed... noteworthy. They fall outside the scope of typical spinal reflexes in a vegetative state."
Lin Yuan's heart lifted slightly.
"However," Dr. Zhao's tone shifted, his fingertip tapping the "possible artifact" notation on the EEG analysis report, "all current neuro-electrophysiological evidence, including the beta wave sparks you mentioned, falls short of the diagnostic criteria for Minimally Conscious State (MCS) in both intensity and characteristic. The data from the new monitor is insightful, but it may also introduce new environmental variables and measurement noise."
He looked up at Lin Yuan. "I've communicated with the family. Explained these 'possible' positive signals, while also emphasizing their uncertainty and the long road ahead. We need more time and more systematic observation to determine if this is a precursor to consciousness recovery or merely complex, meaningless spontaneous activity of neural clusters." He paused. "As for the finger movement you recorded during the night shift and your current observations, continue documenting them. But our current treatment plan remains unchanged. The consciousness stimulation protocol will proceed as scheduled, focusing on safe, non-invasive methods."
Lin Yuan heard the subtext: remain vigilant, but avoid overinterpretation. Do not foster unrealistic hope. Science requires rigor, and medicine, when faced with vanishingly slim hope, often leans toward caution, even conservatism.
"I understand, Dr. Zhao," she nodded.
"Also," Dr. Zhao added, his tone relaxing slightly, "the family has agreed to participate in a long-term tracking study project with a collaborating hospital, which requires more intensive data collection. Starting tonight, every four hours, in addition to routine vitals, this new monitor will automatically perform a five-minute high-precision full-parameter scan. The data uploads directly to the cloud for analysis. Just keep an eye on the device status during your night shift."
"Understood."
Leaving the doctor's office did not bring Lin Yuan relief. Dr. Zhao's rational analysis was impeccable, yet that lingering sense of dissonance had taken deeper root within her. It wasn't a yearning for a miracle, but an almost instinctive vigilance toward some "abnormal pattern." The fluctuations on the monitors too closely resembled "responses" to external stimuli, not entirely random "noise."
Night fell, and the ward area returned to silence. During her rounds, Lin Yuan stopped again outside Room 7. The new monitor was running its first high-precision scan, its indicator lights flashing rhythmically, emitting an almost inaudible, high-frequency hum. Chen Yu lay on the edge of the scan's faint glow, still and silent.
She pushed the door open gently and completed her routine checks. His vital signs were stable, the IV line clear. As she was about to leave, her gaze inadvertently swept over the monitor's real-time auxiliary screen. Raw data streams scrolled by. One line, representing the "Photoplethysmogram (PPG) waveform" from his fingertip, was vibrating with a highly regular rhythm completely unrelated to normal heart rate or respiration. The intervals seemed random at first glance, but after concentrating for a few seconds, they faintly suggested a repeating pattern—short, long, short.
Lin Yuan's breath caught. This was too strange. PPG typically reflects tiny blood volume changes with each heartbeat and should follow the heart rate. What was this independent, rhythmic tremor? Instrument malfunction? Or...
She immediately looked at the PPG sensor attached to Chen Yu's index finger. The contact was good. She then checked the simultaneously displayed electrocardiogram (ECG). Heart rate: 68 beats per minute, regular sinus rhythm, perfectly corresponding to the main waves of the PPG. Yet that subtle, short-long-short tremor stubbornly persisted, superimposed on the regular pulse wave, like the ghost of a Morse code tapping against the vessel walls.
She quickly used the nurse station computer to pull up the monitor's user manual, searching for possible sources of interference or artifact descriptions. None mentioned this specific pattern. She then compared PPG waveforms from several other patients. Without exception, they were smooth curves or showed slight respiratory variation.
Only Bed 7.
Only Chen Yu.
A chill crept up Lin Yuan's spine. She recorded the finding, noted the time, and took a screenshot of the waveform segment. She didn't know what it meant, wasn't even sure if it was significant. But it existed. In a pattern unsettling in its regularity.
---
In the rotting garden, the phase of "Imitation" was deepening, evolving towards "Encoding."
The vines seemed to have lost their initial novelty regarding the jumbled "signals" received from both within the statue and the outside world, transitioning into a more efficient, colder state of "processing." The exploratory writhing diminished, replaced by a precise, synchronized pattern of "pressure" and "release."
They were no longer content with simply playing back distorted stimuli. The several nerve-cord-like tendrils that had penetrated the statue's remaining shreds of sensory perception now began actively, rhythmically attempting to modulate the statue's tenuous, residual influence over certain basic physiological reflexes—the most primitive neural circuits buried deep in the brainstem, which theoretically might have escaped most of the damage.
Their target was the peripheral circulation of the statue's real-world shell.
Thus, within the chaotic tumult of boundless agony and bizarre perception that flooded "him," a new, "implanted" rhythm was generated. Unrelated to heartbeat or respiration, it was a purely foreign, cold pulse-command, traveling along some descending pathway that the vines had forcibly "grafted" or "hijacked," attempting to influence the minuscule expansion and contraction of fingertip capillaries.
It was difficult. The barrier between dream and reality, the body's damage, posed immense obstacles. The vines constantly needed to adjust the "pulse's" intensity, timing, and entry point. In the garden, all vines temporarily slowed other activities. Like a dark, collaborative bio-computer, they focused all their "attention" and "processing power" on this precise act of intrusion.
They extracted patterns from the various "signals" previously received—the brevity and drawn-out nature of the mother's pleas, the constant frequency of the monitor's hum, even possibly the shift from light to dark when Lin Yuan dimmed the lights. They deconstructed, simplified, and reassembled these patterns, trying to find an encoding method capable of penetrating the barrier and leaving a detectable "imprint" on the real-world body.
That short-long-short PPG tremor was their preliminary, unstable "output test."
The "he" within the statue felt this unprecedented "manipulation" from within. This wasn't being consumed; it was being "programmed." On top of his pain, a deeper layer of terror was added: he was losing the "potential control," however theoretical, over the last vestiges of his own basic biological functions. He was becoming a decaying transmitter from which the darkness attempted to send encoded signals to the real world.
The vines showed no pleasure at the preliminary "success" (if that faint rhythmic tremor could be called success), only a cold, continuously optimizing "working state." Their goal clearly extended beyond this. The countless tips turned toward the "intervenor's" direction seemed to silently demand more, clearer "external input" to perfect their "encoding library" and enhance the strength and fidelity of their "signal" output.
In the real hospital room, the waveform screenshot Lin Yuan took lay quietly in her work tablet.
And in a dimension she could not perceive, those cold encodings originating from the rotting garden, attempting to use Chen Yu's body as an antenna to broadcast outward, were being captured more clearly with each high-precision scan, digitized, and silently flowing along network cables into the depths of a cloud-based data lake awaiting analysis.
The night was long. The scan indicator light pulsed rhythmically, like a single scrutinizing eye in the dark.