From American Internet Celebrity to God Among Men

182: Chapter 182 The Pieces of the Puzzle and the Decisions in the StudyThe submissions were varied and full of simple exploratory joy: someone stuck a phone to the heating pipes of an old apartment building to record the faint ”blood circulation sound” of the whole building; someone caught the dull rhythm of a train passing by, transmitted through rock like a giant’s snoring, in front of the deepest wall of a subway station; someone recorded the faint humming resonance of the building’s steel structure itself, triggered by the cheers of the crowd on match day outside a large stadium; some even used homemade seismographs (with a popular science post on the principle going viral at the same time) to try to record the micro-ground vibration waveforms caused by urban traffic...

These submissions might be rough in terms of acoustic expertise, but that curiosity and initiative to ”listen to the city’s underlying heartbeat” made Alex and the entire operations team feel very encouraged. They specifically opened an interactive page called ”City Infrasound Map” on the platform, marking the submissions (after anonymity and artistic processing) at their corresponding geographic locations. Users could click to listen and see the contributor’s brief description of the discovery. This map quickly became a fun place to unearth urban legends, attracting more media and public attention.

”It seems we have inadvertently ignited a nationwide, alternative ’urban archaeology’,” Marcus said, looking at the backend data and clicking his tongue in wonder.

”Then let’s maintain this ’archaeological site’ well,” Alex instructed. ”Invite a few urban planning and acoustic experts to do a few simple popular science livestreams or articles to guide everyone to ’listen’ to the city more safely and interestingly. Remember, the core is to stimulate curiosity and a sense of connection, not to turn it into a professional competition.”

Taylor’s EP creation entered a tight phase. She rearranged Alex’s ”pressure gradient” as the opening overture of the entire EP, naming it ”Diving In.” Following that was the complete ”deep blue waiting,” and then several new songs inspired by ”Echo Puzzle” and daily field recordings. The overall concept revolved around ”external silence and internal resonance.” She even tried using the ”emotional resonance” generation algorithm from Emily’s voice program to process a recording of rain she had made, resulting in a background track full of random beauty, which she used in one of the songs.

Alex acted as the ”first listener” and ”texture consultant” most of the time. Relying on [Information Texture Discrimination], he could keenly point out subtle dissonance between a certain synthesizer tone and the overall emotional atmosphere, or where a mix balance might obscure important emotional details. His suggestions were often precise and hit the nail on the head, saving Taylor a lot of detours in her creation. Their collaboration in the studio increasingly resembled a silent, high-precision dance.

On Friday afternoon, the ”detailed plan and risk assessment report” promised by Lin arrived on time. The data package was huge and tightly encrypted. Alex spent an entire afternoon in the study carefully studying it.

The core of the next phase of cooperation was a project codenamed ”Echo Puzzle: History Edition.” The target was not ”purely natural” anomalies like ice sheets or the deep sea, but three human historical sites that had been studied by Team K for a long time and were believed to have a high degree of spatiotemporal correlation with ”anomalous acoustic/energy events” recorded in history.

The first location was a large ancient city ruin deep in the jungles of Central America, which suddenly declined and was abandoned during the late Classic period of the Mayan civilization. Archaeological records and local legends both mentioned that for a period before the city was abandoned, there were persistent, unexplained ”underground rumbles” and ”whispers in the sky,” accompanied by non-natural resonance phenomena in some building structures.