I'm doing engineering in the instance.

Chapter 28 Assets and Liabilities

"We need to confirm P2 first," Xie Chengzhou said, "before deciding on the route."

"P2 doesn't need confirmation," Xu Kai said. "The rules say the target is at P3, and P2 is a transit node. What's the point of confirming it?"

"The buzzing sound came from the direction of P2," Xie Chengzhou said.

"The buzzing has stopped," Xu Kai said. "You're making a decision about a vanished variable."

Xie Chengzhou didn't answer. He focused his attention on the P2 direction and sensed it—Xu Kai was right, the hum had stopped, and now there were only the sounds of surging waves and wind on the platform, no other sounds.

However, he did not interpret "stopped" as "disappeared".

He mentally went over the differences between the two words, then shifted his attention away from P2 and looked at the other people on the platform.

Twelve people stood on the P1 platform, waiting for someone to make a decision.

"Let's talk about the people first," Xu Kai said, "and then the route."

He didn't wait for Xie Chengzhou's response and spoke directly.

"Twelve people," he said. "Let me divide them up."

He scanned the platform once, then began to speak, his tone as steady and uninterrupted as when he scanned it, as if he were reading a list he had already written:

"Assets:" He paused, "You," he glanced at Xie Chengzhou, "have an engineering background and assessment skills. That female engineer," he glanced in Qin's direction, "knows how to use tools and has usable judgment. That older worker," he glanced in Lao Chen's direction, "has on-site experience and a steady footing. That one leaning against the tower crane base," he glanced in Liu Feng's direction, "has good instinctive footing and emergency response. That welder," he glanced in Hu Jian's direction, "has skills and can handle metal problems. And myself."

He paused for a moment.

"Six assets," he said, "and six liabilities."

The platform fell silent for a moment.

“Debt,” he continued, “that young man with the notebook,” he glanced at Wu Ming, “his shoulders were tense, he was under stress, and his steps were uncontrollable. That middle-aged man,” he glanced at Dr. Cao, “his first action was to confirm his own number, indicating that his priority was himself, not the scene. The one looking for the safety exit sign,” he glanced at Zhang An, “was looking for something that didn’t exist on this platform, indicating that his experience framework didn’t match the current scenario. The one standing motionless at the pier entrance,” he glanced at Lin Xiao, “his mobility is unknown, but his current state is frozen, not being assessed. The one asking about the network signal,” he glanced at Wang Bo, “no explanation needed. The one going straight to look at the sea,” he glanced at Fang Yuan, “has the ability to act, but no goal, which will consume resources.”

He finished speaking about the six people and then stopped.

"Debt is not useless," he said. "Debt is a variable that negatively impacts the team's overall efficiency at the current stage. If this variable can be managed, it is manageable debt; if not, it is a net loss."

After he finished speaking, he glanced at Xie Chengzhou.

"My plan is: the asset team will be responsible for advancing, while the liability team will wait at P1. Once the asset team reaches P3, they will retrieve the target item and return to lead the liability team to safety. This plan has a higher success rate than if everyone advances—" He paused, "at least forty percent higher."

Xie Chengzhou went through this logic in his mind.

The logic itself is sound. The classification criteria are based on evidence, the probability estimation has a framework, and the solution structure is clear.

He remained silent for three seconds.

It wasn't because he didn't refute it, but because he was confirming whether his rebuttal was valid.

"Your plan has one variable that you haven't taken into account," Xie Chengzhou said.

"Which variable?" Xu Kai asked.

"I need to confirm P2 first," Xie Chengzhou said, "before I tell you."

Xu Kai glanced at him but didn't say anything.

Xie Chengzhou shifted his attention away from Xu Kai and walked towards the east pier.

The pier was about two meters wide, made of steel plates with anti-slip texture. The vibration felt underfoot was more noticeable than on the P1 platform—the platform had a larger area, so the vibration was dispersed, while the pier had a smaller cross-section, so the vibration was concentrated. Xie Chengzhou took about three steps, then stopped, softened his steps, and felt the frequency transmitted from the soles of his feet.

Low frequency, continuous, uniform.

It's the platform's own background vibration, nothing else.

He took a few steps forward, walked to the middle of the pier, stopped, and looked down.

Below the pier is water, about three meters below the bottom of the pier. The surging waves have a cycle of about six to seven seconds, and the waves crash against the steel support columns, producing a low, regular impact sound.

He stood there for about ten seconds listening to the sound, then noticed something.

There is an uneven layer of deposits on the surface of the steel structure support columns above the waterline.

It wasn't corrosion. Corrosion grows outwards from the surface of the steel, is orange-red in color, and has a layered texture—the kind he'd seen many times before. This was different—this deposit was attached to the surface of the steel, its color alternating between iron rust red and dark gray, with irregular edges, like something was clinging to it, rather than growing out from within.

He focused his attention on the coating and felt it.

Then one of them moved.

It wasn't a large movement, but an extremely subtle, positional shift, like a sleeping person turning over and then coming to rest again.

Xie Chengzhou steadied his steps and remained still, staring at the attached object.

It came to rest again, but now he could see it clearly—flat, about thirty to forty centimeters long, extremely thin, and its shape was similar to the large woodlice he had seen, but its surface was not biologically soft; it had the metallic luster of mineralization, and under the reflection of the sea, it had a very faint phosphorescence, like the reflection of a wet sheet of iron at a specific angle, but not quite the same.

It is attached to the steel surface of the support column, almost becoming one with the steel.

If it hadn't moved, he might have mistaken it for an irregular rusted area.

He went through it in his mind: a flat crustacean, a mineralized shell, attached to a steel structure surface, visually similar to the rusted area when stationary.

Then he broadened his attention to the entire support column and scanned it again.

Not just one.

He counted them. Above the waterline of the support column, within his field of vision, there were seven or eight such attachments of varying sizes. They were all stationary, adhering to the surface of the steel and almost integrated with it.

He shifted his gaze to the adjacent support column.

There are also.

He shifted his gaze to the horizontal steel beams at the bottom of the pier.

Yes, and they are even more densely distributed, in a way that gathers in dark areas.

He mentally estimated the number: there were more than twenty within his field of vision alone.

He memorized the number, then shifted his attention away from below and glanced again at the steel plate surface of the pier.

The scratches were at his feet, the same ones he had noticed on the P1 platform. Now, looking closely, the edges of the scratches had a very thin layer of corrosion—not ordinary oxidation corrosion, but the kind of corrosion that seeps in from the surface after organic matter adheres to it. The color of the corroded area was a little darker than the surrounding steel plate, and the depth was about 0.5 millimeters.

He paused on the corroded layer for about three seconds, then mentally reviewed the information about the threatening entity:

Perception mechanism: unknown, but the fact that it did not respond immediately to the vibrations he was standing on the pier indicates that the perception threshold is not zero and there is a lower limit to the trigger.

Mobility: It can attach to steel structure surfaces, both vertical and horizontal, but the speed is unknown.

Threat method: Corrosion of steel, contact triggers adventure failure.

He went through the three points in his mind, then added a parenthesis after the "perception mechanism" point: "(To be verified: vibration transmission? odor? heat?)"

Then he slowed his pace and retreated to the P1 platform.

He walked back to the P1 platform, scanned the eleven people standing there, and then spoke.

“Threatening entities,” he said, “attached to the steel structure beneath the pier, stationary. More than twenty within my field of vision. Appearance: flat crustaceans, mineralized shells, about 30 to 40 centimeters long, visually similar to the rusted areas when attached to the steel surface. Corrosion capability: confirmed; corrosion marks on the pier's steel plates are present, about 0.5 millimeters deep. Sensing mechanism: unknown, but I stood on the pier for about two minutes and they didn't respond—indicating a sensing threshold exists, not a zero-trigger state.”

He finished speaking and then stopped.

The platform fell silent for a moment, not the kind of silence where nothing had happened, but the kind of silence where everyone was processing the information.

"So," Xu Kai said, "my classification is more reasonable. People with impaired mobility have reduced gait control under this threat, making them more likely to trigger their perception threshold. They are not liabilities, they are high-risk variables."

Xie Chengzhou glanced at him.

"Your plan has one variable that you haven't taken into account," Xie Chengzhou said. "Injured players' movements become uncontrollable under pain stress."

"That's exactly what I was saying," Xu Kai said. "So they should stay in P1."

“That’s not what I meant,” Xie Chengzhou said. “What I meant was that you left them in P1, but you didn’t account for their behavior while they were waiting—waiting itself generates vibrations. They would move around, talk, and pace about out of anxiety. Your solution assumes that ‘staying in P1 to wait’ is a state with zero vibration, but that assumption doesn’t hold.”

Xu Kai did not answer immediately.

Xie Chengzhou didn't wait for his reply. He turned his attention to the other people on the platform and saw Wu Ming walking over.

Wu Ming walked very lightly, even more lightly than Xie Chengzhou had expected—he was consciously controlling his steps. He walked up to Xie Chengzhou, opened the notebook, and handed it to him.

Xie Chengzhou took it and glanced at it.

The notebook contained a page filled with densely packed numbers and diagrams: number of trestle nodes (seven), estimated steel plate thickness (approximately five millimeters, estimated by tapping sounds), surge cycle (six to seven seconds, recorded eight times), estimated wave height (approximately half a meter), estimated area of ​​platform P1 (approximately twenty by thirty meters, measured by pacing), tower crane base dimensions (approximately four by four meters, concrete), and a line of smaller print: "The middle section of the trestle has sunk, supporting nodes, approximately two centimeters, suspected to be insufficient in load-bearing capacity."

Xie Chengzhou read through the page and then returned the notebook to him.

"When did you remember that?" he said.

"While you were talking," Wu Ming said, "I was walking."

Xie Chengzhou went through the information in his mind, then re-labeled Wu Ming: "Wu Ming. Record-keeping type, proactive in gathering information, strong sense of footstep control. Asset, not liability."

He did not state this conclusion.

Just then, the surge arrived.

The waves crashed against the steel structure at the bottom of the platform, and the vibration amplitude of the entire platform reached its maximum in an instant. Xie Chengzhou put his feet firmly on the ground and felt the frequency transmitted from the soles of his feet—about three to four times higher than the usual background vibration. It was the kind of vibration that activated the entire steel structure network, transmitting from the soles of his feet all the way to his knees.

Then he noticed something.

The low-frequency humming from the P2 direction has stopped.

It didn't gradually disappear; rather, the buzzing abruptly stopped the instant the surging waves crashed down, as if something had been drowned out by a louder sound, but not entirely—the drowning was still there, but the interruption meant it had truly stopped.

He focused his attention on the interruption and waited.

The surge receded.

The humming sound reappeared, coming from the direction of P2. It was low-frequency, even, and slightly weaker than before. It lasted for about three seconds and then stopped.

Xie Chengzhou mentally went through the process: the surging waves caused the buzzing to stop; as the waves receded, the buzzing resumed.

He added a note to the "Pending Verification" section: "The humming stops during surge impact. Mechanism: There is a correlation between surge vibration and the source of the humming. Does this mean that surges can suppress the perceived response of threatening entities? Awaiting verification with a second surge."

After he finished writing this down, he shifted his attention away from P2 and glanced at the pier after the waves had receded.

The slight subsidence of the middle section of the pier became more noticeable after the surge.

He mentally recalculated the time window—if the surge could indeed suppress the sensory response of threatening entities, then each surge would be a moving window, and the cycle of the surge was six to seven seconds. This meant that every six to seven seconds, there was a chance to walk on the pier without triggering the sensory threshold.

This window is very short.

But if it's true, then it is the core rule of the entire instance.

He didn't state this inference aloud; instead, he placed it in the "To be verified" column, adding a note in parentheses next to it: "(Confidence level: Low. Requires verification with at least three surge data points.)"

He then shifted his attention from the memo and scanned the platform.

Twelve people stood on a steel platform at sea. The threatening entity waited motionless on the steel structure below the pier. A surge of waves crashed every six to seven seconds. The buzzing sound from the direction of P2 reappeared after the surge receded and then disappeared.

Xie Chengzhou mentally reviewed the current list of variables: the threat entity's perception mechanism (to be verified), the correlation between the surge and the perception response (to be verified), the load-bearing capacity of the middle section of the pier (insufficient), the variable vulnerabilities of Xu Kai's plan (marked but not stated), Wu Ming's asset value (reassessed), and the P3 target object (location known, path unknown).

Of the six variables, two are pending verification, one has been confirmed to have a problem, and one has been marked but not disclosed.

He prioritized these six variables in his mind, and then focused his attention on Xu Kai.

"I need to verify one thing when the next surge comes," he said.

"What is it?" Xu Kai asked.

"The relationship between surges and the perceived response of threatening entities," Xie Chengzhou said, "If my inference holds true, your classification needs to be revised."

Xu Kai glanced at him but didn't say anything.

Xie Chengzhou shifted his attention away from him, firmly planted his feet, and waited for the next surge.