svetikya Chapter 51 Building Hidden Rules
Chapter 51 Building Hidden Rules
The mortar took eleven minutes to solidify.
Xie Chengzhou squatted at the entrance of the corridor and scratched the sealing surface with his fingernail, leaving a shallow mark. It did not turn into powder or fall off, and its hardness had reached the basic requirement of withstanding water pressure.
It's not a permanent repair, it's a temporary seal. He doesn't know how long it will last, but at least for now, the seepage point is blocked.
He stood up and glanced at the numbers on his wrist.
5.63 meters. 2.37 meters from the warning line.
They spent nearly forty minutes in this section of the corridor.
"Let's go," he said.
Old Zhao secured the thermos and stood up. Engineer Li bent his left ring finger, all the way down, then straightened it and said, "Much better."
Xie Chengzhou nodded without saying a word and walked deeper into the top of the dam.
---
The top of the dam is wider than the corridor.
Wide enough for two trucks to pass side by side, the road surface is made of concrete with transverse expansion joints, about every twenty meters. The joints are filled with asphalt hemp fibers, most of which have aged and fallen off, leaving the joints exposed like unhealed cuts.
As Xie Chengzhou walked, he used his flashlight to scan the road surface, checking the condition of each expansion joint.
Normal aging, normal aging, normal aging, normal aging—
The fifth one is abnormal.
He stopped and squatted down.
The fifth expansion joint is wider than the others, by about three millimeters. The concrete around the joint has fresh, white cracks that have not oxidized and turned gray, indicating that the cracks were recent and occurred no more than forty-eight hours ago.
He shone his flashlight into the crack until he reached the bottom.
There was something in the crevice, not asphalt or hemp fibers, but a metal wedge inserted horizontally. The top of the wedge had hammer marks, indicating it was driven in from above.
He didn't touch it.
In his memo, he wrote: "Expansion joint, fifth joint, artificially widened joint, metal wedge, insertion depth approximately 12 cm, inference: the wedge prevents the expansion joint from closing normally, and the joint will continue to widen when the temperature changes, location: dam crest P3-02 node."
Old Zhao said behind him, "There's more."
Xie Chengzhou raised his head.
Old Zhao shone his flashlight forward, and in the beam of light, about fifty meters away on the road surface on the top of the dam, there was another expansion joint, with the same width and fresh cracks.
He stood up, walked fifty meters forward, and squatted down to look at the second path.
The same metal wedge, the same hammer marks, and an insertion depth of about ten centimeters, slightly shallower than the first one, indicate that it was driven in later than the first one, or that the force applied during driving was uneven.
He noted this detail down in his memo, then looked up and peered deeper into the top of the dam.
The flashlight beam doesn't reach that far.
But he saw something in that direction.
light.
It wasn't their flashlight.
It was another beam of light, moving about two hundred meters in front of the dam crest.
Xie Chengzhou did not speak immediately.
He turned off his flashlight.
Old Zhao and Engineer Li turned off their flashlights almost simultaneously.
The three people stood in the darkness, watching the beam of light move ahead.
Unaware of their presence, the other party continued working, the beam of light moving in a predictable pattern—shining on one spot, stopping, lowering, stopping again, and then moving to the next spot.
It is either an inspection or an operation.
Xie Chengzhou whispered in the darkness, "Follow them, don't turn on the lights, and walk quietly."
They walked forward.
The concrete road surface on the top of the dam has fine gravel, which makes a slight friction sound when stepped on. Xie Chengzhou shortened his stride, put his toes down first, and slowly pressed down with the ball of his foot to keep the sound to a minimum.
Old Zhao walked to his left, his steps steady and silent, a physical memory honed from twenty years as a plumber, walking through underground pipes.
Li Gong walked to his right, a little slower, but without making a sound.
They walked about 150 meters before the other side's beam of light became clear.
Xie Chengzhou saw it clearly.
It was a person, squatting on the road surface at the top of the dam, with a tool bag beside him, tapping the expansion joint with a short-handled hammer. With each tap, Xie Chengzhou could hear a low, metallic clang coming from the concrete, a muffled sound with a resonant cavity.
The other person was wearing dark-colored work clothes and a hard hat with the brim pulled low.
Xie Chengzhou stopped in the darkness.
They are about fifty meters away.
He mentally calculated the distance: fifty meters. If the other person stood up and turned around now, shining a flashlight, they could see them.
He did not continue walking forward.
He turned on his flashlight.
The other person immediately turned their flashlight around, the beam shining directly into Xie Chengzhou's face. Xie Chengzhou raised his hand to shield his eyes.
The other person stood up.
silence.
Two flashlights, pointing in two directions, were aimed at the top of the dam.
Xie Chengzhou lowered his hand, making his face fully visible in the light, and then moved the flashlight down to shine on his left wrist.
He rolled up his sleeves, so that the inside of his wrists faced the other person.
C-0047.
He was waiting for the other person to do the same thing.
The other person paused for about three seconds, then turned their left wrist over and brought it closer to the beam of their flashlight.
The distance was too great for Xie Chengzhou to see the number clearly, but he did see one thing clearly: there were light patterns on the other person's wrist, indicating that they were a player.
"You're here to get it fixed," the other person said.
It's not a question.
Xie Chengzhou said, "You're here to break it."
It's not a question either.
The other person paused for a moment, then said, "You fixed that crack in the corridor."
Xie Chengzhou said, "You installed five wedges for the expansion joints."
Silence again.
The wind was strong at the top of the dam, making their voices somewhat distorted, but Xie Chengzhou could still hear them clearly.
The other person asked, "How many of you are there?"
Xie Chengzhou said, "Three. And you?"
"one."
Xie Chengzhou memorized this information. Entering the dungeon solo, with a short-handled hammer and metal wedges in his toolkit—it was all prepared in advance, not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but part of a plan.
He said, "What's your name?"
The other person said, "Call me Feng Bo."
Xie Chengzhou went through the name in his mind, but couldn't recall it.
He said, "Xie Chengzhou."
Feng Bo said, "I know you."
Xie Chengzhou didn't respond, waiting for him to continue.
Feng Bo said, "C-0047, #001 speedrun record, #003 S rating. Your file is in the information market, selling for seventy source coins."
Xie Chengzhou asked, "You bought it?"
Feng Bo said, "No. I looked it up myself."
Xie Chengzhou noted this detail in his memo: "Feng Bo, player, entered alone, had investigated C-0047's records beforehand, has information channels, not an ordinary novice."
He said, "You're a geologist?"
Feng Bo was taken aback for a moment, then said, "How did you know?"
"The way you drive the wedges," Xie Chengzhou said, "with a short-handled hammer, striking at the same angle every time. That's the way someone with experience in geological drilling drives them, not the habit of a construction worker or a water conservancy worker. It's the habit of a geological prospector or a geotechnical engineer."
Feng Bo paused for a moment.
"A geological prospector," he said. "I did it for twelve years."
Xie Chengzhou nodded without saying anything.
Feng Bo picked up his toolbox, took a few steps forward, and stopped about ten meters away from Xie Chengzhou. He shone his flashlight on the ground between the two of them, not on their faces, maintaining a neutral stance.
Xie Chengzhou did not move.
Feng Bo said, "Do you know what you're doing?"
Xie Chengzhou said, "Repairing cracks stabilizes the structure and reduces the frequency of seepage."
Feng Bo asked, "Do you know why this dam has these cracks?"
Hsieh Cheng-chou said, "Part of it is natural aging, and part of it is caused by you."
Feng Bo shook his head and said, "I didn't build it, I found it." He paused for a moment and said, "This dam was going to collapse anyway, I just helped it get there faster."
Xie Chengzhou asked, "What's your logic for passing the level?"
Feng Bo said, "The rules state that settlement is triggered when the water level reaches the warning line. I made it reach the warning line faster, settle the account faster, and get out faster."
Xie Chengzhou said, "The rules say to trigger settlement, but they don't say what the result of the settlement will be."
Feng Bo paused for a moment.
Xie Chengzhou said, "When the water level reaches the warning line, it could mean either passage or failure. Have you confirmed this?"
Feng Bo did not answer immediately.
Xie Chengzhou observed the other party's reaction during this silence: he did not immediately deny it, which meant that he had not confirmed it, or that he had confirmed it but had doubts.
Feng Bo said, "#001 to #003, each instance has a core trigger condition. Once triggered, the settlement occurs. The trigger condition for #004 is that the water level reaches the warning line."
Xie Chengzhou asked, "What are the trigger conditions for #001?"
Feng Bo said, "...the factory supervisor left the core area."
Xie Chengzhou asked, "Did the factory supervisor leave the core area because someone lured it away, or because someone made it want to leave on its own?"
Feng Bo remained silent.
Xie Chengzhou asked, "Have you ever done #001?"
Feng Bo said, "I tried, but failed."
Xie Chengzhou said, "When I was doing it, what triggered the settlement wasn't the factory supervisor leaving the core area, but the entire production line returning to normal operation. The factory supervisor leaving was the result, not the cause." He paused and said, "The same goes for #004. The water level reaching the warning line might be the result, not the cause. The cause is that the dam's structural condition returned to the baseline for normal operation."
The wind blowing from the top of the dam lifted the brim of Feng Bo's safety helmet slightly, and he pressed it down with his hand.
He said, "Do you have any evidence?"
Xie Chengzhou said, "I sealed a crack in the corridor, and the behavior of the seepage participants changed. The construction behavior affected the rule response of the replicas, and that's the evidence."
Feng Bo said, "It could also be a coincidence."
Xie Chengzhou said, "Possibly. But your logic has no verification, only assumptions."
Feng Bo remained silent for a long time.
Xie Chengzhou didn't rush him, letting him think about it.
Old Zhao stood behind Xie Chengzhou, holding his thermos cup silently. Engineer Li stood to the right, slightly bending his left ring finger, stopping abruptly, then extending it again.
The wind is blowing from upstream.
Then Xie Chengzhou felt the vibration under his feet.
It's not that low-frequency, large entity; it's a different kind of vibration, denser, faster, 0.8 Hz, and getting stronger.
He said, "Stop."
Everyone stopped.
Xie Chengzhou squatted down, placed his palm flat on the road, and felt it for two seconds.
The vibration is traveling up from the road surface on the top of the dam, from upstream, at an estimated distance of about 60 to 80 meters, and is approaching.
He stood up and asked Feng Bo, "How many wedges did you drive in this section just now?"
Feng Bo said, "Five paths."
Xie Chengzhou asked, "When was the most recent one played?"
Feng Bo said, "About twenty minutes ago."
Xie Chengzhou asked, "Did the seepage creature move when you drove in the wedges?"
Feng Bo said, "Yes, but they didn't come over."
Xie Chengzhou said, "I'm here now."
Feng Bo heard the vibration beneath his feet, and his expression changed. He looked upstream and shone his flashlight, but there was nothing in the beam of light, yet the vibration continued to intensify.
Xie Chengzhou asked, "What do you have that you can use?"
Feng Bo said, "The tool kit contains a geological hammer, a chisel, metal wedges, a roll of steel wire rope, and a fixed anchor hook."
Xie Chengzhou asked, "How long is the steel cable?"
"Twenty meters."
Xie Chengzhou went through all this in his mind and then said, "Insert the anchor hook into the expansion joint, stretch the steel wire rope horizontally, and set up a tripwire on the road surface, 15 centimeters high, 30 meters away from here, upstream."
Feng Bo asked, "Can a tripwire stop it?"
Xie Chengzhou said, "It's not about blocking it, it's about slowing it down and changing its direction." He paused and said, "Have you noticed the movement of the seepage agents? They use corridors, they don't walk on the dam crest surface, unless something draws them up."
Feng Bo said, "It was triggered when you were driving in the wedge."
"When you drive in the wedges," Xie Chengzhou said, "the vibrations from the impact are similar in frequency to the rhythmic sounds of the seepage, and they interpret your actions as signals from their own kind."
Feng Bo paused for a moment.
He didn't say anything, picked up his toolbox, walked thirty meters upstream, squatted down, and began to install anchor hooks in the expansion joint.
Xie Chengzhou didn't call him; he went by himself.
Old Zhao was already looking for the anchor point on the road surface at the top of the dam. He found a rusty metal embedded part, stepped on it, and said, "It works."
Li Gong, standing next to Xie Chengzhou, asked, "What will happen if the seepage agents come up?"
Xie Chengzhou said, "We move it back towards the corridor, letting it circle around on the dam top road. After circling a few times, it will return to the corridor because the water temperature in the corridor is lower and more suitable for it."
Are you sure?
Xie Chengzhou said, "It's uncertain, but it's the most reasonable inference at present."
Engineer Li nodded and didn't ask any more questions.
With the anchor hook in place, Feng Bo hung one end of the steel wire rope on it and pulled it towards the embedded part on the opposite side. Old Zhao took the other end, wrapped it around twice, secured it, measured the height, and said, "Sixteen centimeters."
Xie Chengzhou said, "Okay."
They retreated behind the tripwire, turned off their flashlights, and waited in the darkness.
The vibrations grew stronger.
Then Xie Chengzhou heard a sound coming from the direction of the corridor—not a rhythmic sound, but a more rapid friction sound, like something was quickly passing through the narrow space, climbing from the corridor entrance onto the road surface on the top of the dam.
In the darkness, Xie Chengzhou slowed his breathing.
The crawling sound spread across the road on the top of the dam, widening and speeding up, heading in their direction.
Then came a low, thud.
The tripwire has been triggered.
The crawling sound stopped for about two seconds, then changed direction and headed towards the side of the dam's top railing. It crashed into the railing, which made a metallic resonance. Then the crawling sound began to move upstream, getting farther and farther away, and finally disappeared at the other end of the dam top.
Xie Chengzhou waited for thirty seconds to make sure there was no one else before turning on the flashlight.
Old Zhao said, "I'm leaving."
Feng Bo stood beside the tripwire, looking in the direction where the crawling sound disappeared, without saying a word.
Xie Chengzhou asked, "Do you believe me now?"
Feng Bo asked, "Believe in what?"
Xie Chengzhou said, "The act of construction influences its path selection. The tripwire is a construction act, and it avoids it."
Feng Bo paused for a moment and said, "This doesn't prove that repairing the cracks will allow us to pass the level."
Xie Chengzhou said, "No. But it proves that construction behavior affects rule responses. This is a direction that can be further verified."
Feng Bo picked up his toolbox and said, "I'm not planning to fix it."
Xie Chengzhou said, "I know."
Feng Bo took two steps toward the other end of the dam, stopped, turned around, and said, "The big one is still there."
Xie Chengzhou said, "I know."
Feng Bo said, "It's not an infiltrator; it's something else."
Xie Chengzhou asked, "Have you seen it before?"
Feng Bo said, "I've seen similar ones in other instances." He paused, then added, "In that instance, it was called 'The Dam Guardian.'"
Xie Chengzhou memorized the word and then said, "Have you experienced something similar?"
Feng Bo said, "I've been through it, and I'm out of it." He walked towards the other end of the dam, took a few steps, then stopped without turning around, and said, "Your logic may be correct, but there's one thing you haven't thought of yet."
Xie Chengzhou said, "What?"
Feng Bo said, "This dam didn't age naturally, nor was it entirely damaged by me. Part of it was part of the original state of the replica; it was part of the design."
He continued walking forward, into the darkness, the flashlight beam receding into the distance until it finally disappeared.
Xie Chengzhou stood there for a while.
Old Zhao, standing beside him, asked, "Can this person be trusted?"
Xie Chengzhou thought for a moment and said, "His information is valuable, but his purpose is different."
Old Zhao said, "That means they can't be trusted."
Xie Chengzhou said, "It's not that I don't trust you, it's that our interests are different, and we're not on the same path."
In his memo, he wrote: "Feng Bo, Geological Surveyor, 12 years, Player, Solo Entry, Completion Logic: Triggers water level warning line, Logic has a loophole (the specific result of triggering the settlement is not verified), Has experience with other adventures, Has seen "Dam Guardian" type threat entities, Provided key information: "Part of this dam was designed in," Number: To be confirmed.
Then he paused after that paragraph and added a line:
"There's a flaw in his logic, is he aware of it?"
He closed the memo.
Water level: 5.68 meters. Distance from warning line: 2.32 meters.
The wind was still blowing on the top of the dam, causing the collar of his work clothes to roll back, which he pressed down with his hand.
The low-frequency vibrations on the soles of my feet are still there, 0.1 Hz, the big one, I haven't moved yet.
Xie Chengzhou shone his flashlight forward, the beam falling on the road surface on the top of the dam, illuminating the cut of the expansion joint, the hammer marks on the wedges, and the shallow footprints in the gravel—Feng Bo's, his, and another set, earlier, in different directions.
He crouched down, held the flashlight closer, and looked more closely at the earlier set of footprints.
The sole pattern is typical of engineering boots, with a size of approximately 42 to 43. The stride is even, and the center of gravity shifts towards the forefoot when landing, a habit developed by people who frequently walk on slopes.
It's not Feng Bo's.
Feng Bo was wearing hiking boots with a different pattern on the soles.
This is the third set of footprints.
Xie Chengzhou added a final line to his memo: "A third party exists in the copy."