"The Bridge Protocol" did not magically dissolve all friction. It was a tool, not a spell. But it provided a new syntax for their disagreements, a way to translate ideological clashes into structural problems that could be co-designed around. The clay sculpture, now dried and lightly glazed by Maya, sat on a shelf in their office—a silent, lumpen arbiter.
The immediate application was their paper. The "Ethical Watershed" chapter took shape, becoming a robust, bracing piece of writing. Qinghe, with her command of philosophical discourse, outlined the epistemological stakes of their method—the transformation of subjective experience into quantifiable topology. Xiaoyang, drawing on his industry experience, drafted blunt scenarios of potential misuse, from targeted political advertising to corporate "relationship wellness" surveillance. Together, they wove these threads into a call for "context-locked" applications: the tool's power must be matched by the user's consent, comprehension, and a clear therapeutic or exploratory intent.
It was a strong, principled stance. It also felt, at times, like building a beautifully reasoned sandcastle against a rising tide of institutional ambition.
The institute's director, Professor Vogel, requested a private update on their progress. They presented their findings, including the "Garden Lost" case study and the "Dynamic Anchor Tracking" method. Vogel, a sharp woman with a background in the history of science, listened intently, her fingers steepled.
"Compelling," she said when they finished. "You've given us more than a method; you've given us a new category of question. 'The Ghost in the Machine'… it's evocative. It will be the theme of our closing symposium." She paused, her gaze shifting between them. "I understand you are also drafting significant ethical considerations. Prudent. However, for the symposium, I would ask you to foreground the methodological breakthrough. The provocative insight. The ethics…" she offered a thin, professional smile, "…can be the nuanced discussion afterward. We must first capture the imagination."
It was a gentle but firm editorial directive. Sell the sizzle, not the steak's potential to cause indigestion. On the walk back to their office, the old tension flickered.
"She's optimizing for impact," Qinghe analyzed, her voice neutral. "The symposium is our primary output metric for the fellowship. A provocative, 'sexy' presentation increases the institute's prestige and our own professional visibility."
"And downplays the part where we say 'handle with care, this is basically emotional uranium,'" Xiaoyang muttered.
"The 'Ethical Watershed' will be in the full paper, which will be published. The presentation is a highlight reel. It is a standard practice."
"That doesn't make it right." He stopped walking. "This is exactly what we worried about. The tool gets separated from its warnings. The ghost detector gets showcased, and the manual on how not to become haunted gets filed in the appendix."
Qinghe faced him. "Do you propose we defy Professor Vogel's guidance and deliver a dry, caution-heavy presentation that fails to engage the audience? That would be an inefficient use of the platform and a disservice to the work itself."
"I propose we don't let them turn our 'ghost' into a party trick!" The words came out louder than he intended, echoing slightly in the marble corridor. A passing post-doc gave them a curious look.
Qinghe's expression tightened. "Your emotional response is clouding your strategic assessment. We are not 'letting' them do anything. We are navigating a complex professional environment with multiple stakeholders and objectives. Our paper contains the full, balanced argument. The presentation is a gateway."
It was the same divide, wearing a different mask. Impact vs. Integrity. Reach vs. Responsibility.
"Bridge Protocol," Xiaoyang said, the words a sigh. They were both too tired, too entrenched, for clay right now. "Tonight. We'll protocol it."
But the universe, it seemed, had its own ideas about applied ethics. That evening, as they were reheating leftovers in their Vienna apartment, Xiaoyang's phone rang. It was Chen Yuexi, on a video call. Her face filled the screen, but her usual dramatic energy was replaced by something raw and shaky.
"Xiaoyang. I need… I need to ask you something. About your ghost."
Behind her, he could see the familiar chaos of her indie game studio, but it was dark, empty. She was alone, late at night her time.
"Yuexi? What's wrong?"
"It's Mark." Her voice cracked. Mark was her longtime boyfriend, a calm, steady sound engineer who had always been the anchor to her typhoon. "We had a fight. A bad one. Not dramatic, just… quiet and terrible. He said he feels like he's living in the 'special features' section of my life's movie. That the main plot is always my work, my drama, my… everything. And he's just… supplemental audio."
Xiaoyang's heart sank. Qinghe, drawn by the tone, came to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder at the screen.
"I'm so sorry, Yuexi," Xiaoyang said, utterly inadequate.
"No, listen." She wiped her eyes fiercely. "I was so mad. I ranted, I cried, I wrote a whole mental soliloquy about unsupportive partners. And then… I remembered your 'Garden Lost' thing. The anchor shift." She took a ragged breath. "What if… what if my 'anchor' has always been 'The Grand Narrative of Chen Yuexi'? And his is… 'The Quiet, Shared Reality'? And they're not just different… they're incompatible? What if our lines crossed years ago and I've just been… orbiting a dead star?"
The raw, real-time application of their academic abstraction was a sucker punch. This wasn't a Victorian poet. This was Yuexi. Their friend. Crying, alone in a dark studio, using their research to vivisect her own heart.
Xiaoyang was speechless. It was Qinghe who leaned closer to the mic, her voice soft but clear.
"Chen Yuexi. The tool models patterns in recorded correspondence over long durations. It is not a diagnostic for a single emotional event. A fight is a system perturbation, not necessarily a permanent change in gravity."
"But what if it is?" Yuexi whispered. "How do you know? How does anyone know, until it's too late?" She looked directly at them, her vulnerability terrifying. "You're the experts on the ghost. Tell me how to see it. In my own life. Before my garden is just… gone."
The plea hung in the air, a devastating indictment of the gap between their elegant models and lived human agony. They had built a sensor for historical ghosts, and now a living, breathing person was asking them to point it at her own present, with no idea what the radiation might do.
Xiaoyang looked at Qinghe. Her face was pale, the scholar's detachment utterly shattered. This was the "context-locked" ethical boundary, and a friend was begging them to blow the lock off.
"You don't use the tool, Yuexi," Xiaoyang said finally, his own voice rough. "The tool is for… archaeologists of feeling. What you need is… a conversation. The real, messy, inefficient kind. You tell him you heard him. That his 'supplemental audio' line gutted you. And you ask him what a 'main plot' you both star in would look like. You don't map the garden. You… you water it. Together. Even if you're not sure what's growing anymore."
It was terrible, unscientific advice. But Yuexi listened, her tears flowing silently now. She nodded, a tiny, broken movement. "Okay. Okay. Water the garden. Even if it's just weeds." She managed a watery, shaky smile. "Sorry. I just… you made the ghost feel so real. I got scared I was already haunted."
After the call ended, the silence in the Vienna apartment was profound. The ethical quagmire was no longer an abstract debate in a marble institute. It was the salt on their friend's cheeks.
"We published a diagram of a landmine," Xiaoyang said to the quiet room, "and then were surprised when someone asked if they were standing on one."
Qinghe didn't argue. She walked to the window, staring out at the city lights. "Our 'Ethical Watershed' is a container for theoretical runoff," she said, her voice hollow. "It does not stop the rain from falling on someone who is already drenched."
They didn't need the Bridge Protocol that night. The shared shock, the visceral weight of Yuexi's pain, had already forged a new, terrible understanding between them. The ghost wasn't just in the machine of the past, or in the potential misuse of their tool.
It was in the living room of the present, in the fear their knowledge could create. They had wanted to build a lighthouse to warn of shipwrecks. They hadn't considered that the light itself might terrify the sailors into jumping overboard.
The symposium presentation no longer mattered. The paper's elegant caveats felt like legal fine print. They had been so focused on building a responsible map of the haunted house, they'd forgotten that for some people, simply knowing the house was haunted was the trauma.
They went to bed not speaking, lying back-to-back, each haunted by the same living ghost: the chilling realization that some truths, once quantified and released into the world, could not be contained by any protocol, no matter how well-designed. They had found the ghost's timestamp. Now, they had met its echo in a friend's voice, and they had no idea how to make it stop echoing.