I'm doing engineering in the instance.

Chapter 25: Information Has a Price

Mr. Qian returned twenty minutes later.

He didn't emerge from the crowd, but from a narrow path at the edge of the square—a path Xie Chengzhou hadn't noticed before. It was no more than a meter wide, lined with the backs of stalls on either side, and the light was dimmer than in the square. Old Qian emerged from there, walked back behind his stall, placed a small metal box on the counter, and then looked up to see Xie Chengzhou.

He didn't speak, but simply nodded to Xie Chengzhou, then opened the metal box and began putting things inside.

Xie Chengzhou walked past the pillar.

"Where did you go just now?" he said.

"Purchase goods," Mr. Qian said without looking up.

Xie Chengzhou stood in front of the stall and waited for a while. After Qian Lao finished putting the items down and closed the metal box, he looked up at him.

"You have questions to ask," said Mr. Qian, not in a question form.

"Yes," Xie Chengzhou said, "what's the price of the information you have here?"

Mr. Qian placed his hand on the table, glanced at him, and asked, "What kind of information do you want to buy?"

"I'm not sure," Xie Chengzhou said. "I want to know the pricing logic first."

Mr. Qian paused for a moment, then turned the whiteboard over and pointed to the back. Several lines of text were written on the back, the characters smaller than on the front, but equally neat:

Basic rules information: Billed per item, 5-20 Source Coins per item, price depends on verification status (verified/pending verification). Cross-copy rules: Billed per set, 50-200 Source Coins per set, price depends on the number of copies covered. Information source verification: Not provided.

Xie Chengzhou read through those lines.

"Who decides whether something is verified or pending verification?" he said.

"Me," said Mr. Qian.

"What are your criteria for judgment?" Xie Chengzhou asked.

Old Qian glanced at him, this time for a little longer than before, and said, "How many instances have you entered?"

"Two," Xie Chengzhou said.

"Two," Mr. Qian repeated, "and then you come and ask me about the pricing logic."

"Yes," Xie Chengzhou said.

Mr. Qian removed his hand from the table and placed it back on the metal case's fasteners. "Most players will buy information after two dungeons," he said. "They're buying 'how to survive the next dungeon.' You're asking 'how to price the information itself.'"

Xie Chengzhou did not answer, because what Qian Lao said was true and did not need confirmation.

"You're building the database yourself," Qian said.

"Yes," Xie Chengzhou said.

"#001 and #002," Mr. Qian said, "how many did you compile?"

"Thirty-one," Xie Chengzhou said. "Twenty-four have been verified, and seven are pending verification."

Mr. Qian's fingers on the table twitched slightly, not tapping, but a slight movement as if he were calculating something. "Thirty-one articles, two copies," he said. "What is your classification method?"

Xie Chengzhou explained the classification framework: prohibited behaviors, time windows, environmental protection, threat entity perception, and periodic patterns.

After listening, Mr. Qian remained silent for about four seconds.

"Your periodic patterns," he said, "have a few."

“Three,” Xie Chengzhou said, “all from #002.”

"#001 has no periodic pattern," Qian said. "How do you explain that?"

"#001 is a single-player scenario," Xie Chengzhou said. "The threat entity is the factory supervisor, and the behavior pattern is the patrol route, not a periodic trigger. #002 is a group scenario, where the fluid anomaly is triggered periodically, at intervals of about eleven minutes, with an error of ± two minutes. My hypothesis is that the periodic pattern appears in the scenario with the fluid system, and is not a universal characteristic of all scenarios."

"To be verified?" Mr. Qian said.

"To be verified," Xie Chengzhou said.

Mr. Qian turned the whiteboard back to the front and tidied up the things on the table. "Your database," he said, "do you know how much it's worth?"

Xie Chengzhou did not answer immediately.

It wasn't because he didn't know, but because he was judging the direction of the question: Was Mr. Qian asking him "Are you aware of the value of your data?" or "Have you considered selling it?"

"I never thought about selling," he said.

“I know,” Qian Lao said. “I’m telling you: the thirty-one records you have now, according to my pricing logic, are worth about four hundred to six hundred source coins.” He paused for a moment. “Your collaboration bonus in #002 is one, and your source coin earnings are one hundred and eighty. Your speedrun bonus in #001, according to the bulletin board records, is about one hundred and fifty.”

"Three hundred and thirty," Xie Chengzhou said.

"Three hundred and thirty," Qian said, "your database is worth more than your current total revenue."

Xie Chengzhou memorized the number and then marked it next to the text: "To be verified: Is Mr. Qian's pricing standard accurate?"

"You're telling me this," he said, "because you want to buy my data."

"No," Mr. Qian said, "it's because someone wants to buy it."

Xie Chengzhou glanced at him.

"Who," he said.

Mr. Qian placed his hand on the table. “You know, there’s a type of player in Yuan City who doesn’t enter the instance themselves, but maintains operations by collecting rule information from other players,” he said. “They’re not individuals, they’re a structure.”

"Structure," Xie Chengzhou said.

"Some people are responsible for collecting, some for organizing, some for pricing and selling, and some for maintaining the operation of this market," Mr. Qian said. "They have been in the source market for a long time, longer than any individual player I have ever seen."

"What are their sources of information?" Xie Chengzhou asked.

"Buy," said Mr. Qian, "or take."

Xie Chengzhou paused on the word "take".

"Take it," he said, "what does that mean?"

"Some information," Qian said, "was not sold voluntarily by the players."

He spoke in the same tone as he did when he said this, but Xie Chengzhou noticed that after he finished speaking, Qian Lao looked away, towards the other side of the square, and then looked back.

Xie Chengzhou mentally noted this detail: "When Qian Lao mentioned 'taking,' his gaze shifted for about a second, then returned. Reason: Unknown. Possible explanations: ① He himself had experienced it; ② He knew the person whose information was 'taken'; ③ He was judging whether to continue."

"What do they want now?" Xie Chengzhou said.

"Cross-copy rules," Qian Xuesen said, "especially regarding the assumption that 'whether there is a unified design logic for copy rules.'"

Xie Chengzhou remained silent.

This is precisely the core content of his DB-001.

"How did you know I was building data in this direction?" he said.

"I don't know," Qian said, "but it's not hard to deduce what direction the data will be generated after two copies of the 18-minute and 47-second record."

Xie Chengzhou paused on this statement. Qian Lao said "it's not hard to deduce," not "I have a source of information." There's a difference between these two things; he needed to determine which one was true.

"You've seen people with that kind of reasoning ability," he said.

"I've met them," Mr. Qian said, "not many."

"Where are they now?" Xie Chengzhou said.

Mr. Qian was silent for a moment.

"Some are still here," he said, "some are gone."

He didn't explain what "gone" meant. Xie Chengzhou didn't ask either, because he had already heard Lao Zhao say something like that once—"Someone told me, but that person is no longer here"—he knew that "gone" had more than one meaning in Yuan City.

He added this message to the "pending verification" queue.

"Tell me all this," Xie Chengzhou said, "what do you want?"

Mr. Qian glanced at the words on the whiteboard, then looked back at Xie Chengzhou. "I want the cross-copy pattern you found in #003," he said, "if you find it."

"I haven't entered #003 yet," Xie Chengzhou said.

"I know," Qian said, "so I'm telling you this now to establish an exchange framework in advance. You go into #003, you organize the patterns, and you bring them to me for exchange. I'll exchange the information I have here."

"What do you have here?" Xie Chengzhou asked.

"Regulation records from #004 to #007," Qian said, "Source: I have personally reviewed them, or collected them from sources I consider trustworthy. Verification status: I have marked them, but I do not guarantee their complete accuracy."

Xie Chengzhou mentally reviewed the framework.

Professor Qian provided information from #004 to #007, which was preliminary data for him, reducing information blind spots before entering these replicas. The trade-off was that he needed to provide Professor Qian with the cross-replica pattern analysis results for #003.

"After you get my data," Xie Chengzhou said, "which organization will you sell it to?"

Mr. Qian glanced at him and said, "Not necessarily."

"Not necessarily?" Xie Chengzhou repeated, "This is not an answer that can establish a framework for exchange."

Mr. Qian was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I will not sell your serial number and your data together."

Xie Chengzhou paused for a moment after saying that.

Qian Xuesen said he "wouldn't put the numbers and data together," not that he "wouldn't sell the data." This is a precise boundary, not a broad promise.

"Why do you make this distinction?" he said.

"Because," Qian Xuesen said, "knowing that 'C-0047 is building a cross-replica pattern database' and knowing that 'someone is building a cross-replica pattern database' are two different things in terms of that structure."

Xie Chengzhou went over the sentence in his mind and then wrote it down: "Professor Qian: Distinguish between 'number + data' and 'anonymous data.' Logic: Exposing the number means it can be accessed in a targeted manner. He is protecting my number, but not promising to protect the data itself."

"Why do you want to protect my identification number?" Xie Chengzhou asked.

Qian took his hand off the table and pushed the metal case to the edge. "Because," he said, "you're the only person I've ever met who's still asking about 'pricing logic' after two copies."

He paused for a moment, then added, "There aren't many people like that, and I don't want them wasting their time on unnecessary things."

Xie Chengzhou paused for a few seconds on this sentence.

"You've met a few," he said.

"Three," Mr. Qian said, "including you."

"The other two," Xie Chengzhou said.

"One," Qian said, "is still here. The other is gone."

After he finished speaking, he flipped the whiteboard back over, lightly ran his finger over the lines of text indicating the pricing, and then flipped it back over. "Think about it," he said. "Give me an answer before #003."

Xie Chengzhou nodded. "I'll consider it," he said.

He took a step back, ready to leave, then stopped. "That structure," he said, "does it have a name?"

Mr. Qian was tidying things up on the table without looking up. "Some people call them the 'inspection team'," he said, "but that's not what they call themselves."

"They call it whatever they want," Xie Chengzhou said.

"I don't know," said Mr. Qian. "Or rather, not many people know, and even fewer are willing to talk about it."

Xie Chengzhou noted down the words "Acceptance Team" in his memo, marked it "Pending Verification," and added a line of parentheses next to it: "(This is Qian Lao's terminology, not official. Function: Collection/organization/sale of rule information. Structured existence, not personal. Acquisition method: Purchase or take.)"

He closed the memo and walked towards the center of the square.

The noise of Yuan City swirled around him: voices, the sounds of transactions, someone loudly discussing the export conditions of a copy somewhere, the clanging of metal somewhere, someone speaking in hushed tones somewhere, the content of which he could not make out.

He paused in the center of the square, mentally reviewing the conversation and extracting four key pieces of information:

First, there is a structural information monopoly organization in Yuan City whose function is to collect, organize, and sell rule information. It has existed for a long time and its operation includes "taking".

Second, this organization currently has a clear need for information such as "cross-copy patterns".

Third, Qian Xuesen was aware of the organization's existence and had some contact with them, but he did not explicitly state whether he belonged to the organization.

Fourth, Qian Xuesen met three people who "continued to ask about the pricing logic even after two copies were made," one of whom is no longer with us.

He paused below these four points, then added a fifth:

"Fifth, Qian Xuesen chose to tell me these things instead of waiting until after I finished #003 to exchange information. He was building up the background information for me in advance. The reason: he believed that I needed to know these things to make an accurate judgment, or he believed that not telling me would cause a greater information asymmetry."

He glanced at that page of the memo and then closed it.

"#003," he hadn't been inside yet.

But he now knows that when he entered #003, he wasn't just validating the hypothesis about cross-copy patterns—he was also deciding something: whether his database should be his own or part of the market.

He walked toward his personal space, focusing his attention on the number on his wrist.

Before switching, he mentally summarized today's information in one line:

Information has a price. Data has a price. Judgment has a price.

Then he added a line, which he mentally reviewed twice before confirming:

"Not selling doesn't mean it's worthless."

The space has changed.

At his workbench, he opened his memo app and added a new entry at the bottom of the "Pending Verification" section:

"Acceptance team; information monopoly structure; existence of source city; confirmation of cross-copy pattern demand; acquisition methods include coercion. Confidence level: Qian Lao's first-hand information, medium to high credibility."

He paused next to this line, then added a line in parentheses: "(The person who is 'gone': the one who used to 'ask about pricing logic after two copies.' What was in his database, Qian Xuesen didn't say.)"

He closed the memo and placed his hands on the worktable.

The countertop is cool and dry.

He mentally recalled the assessment preparation framework for #003 and added a new observation dimension to it:

"Active verification: #003 Has any artificially implanted information reappeared?"

"Actively observe: Are there any players in #003 engaging in information gathering behavior, and are they connected to the 'Acceptance Team'?"

He wrote these two points in, and then stored the framework in the consciousness archive.

The next event awaits him.

He knew what he was waiting for.