dmims Chapter 32 - Leaving
Chapter 32 - Leaving
Thirty minutes into the construction, Xu Kai walked over to Xie Chengzhou.
Xie Chengzhou waited for the surge, his feet on the edge of the concrete area, holding one of the last two planks in his hand, waiting to place it at the end of the passage. He felt Xu Kai's footsteps approaching—his steps were light, he had completely adapted to the rules of this platform, and each step he took was controlled within the range of minimal vibration.
"Fang Yuan," Xu Kai said.
Xie Chengzhou didn't turn his head. "Speak."
"His ankle injury," Xu Kai said, "you saw it. He slipped on the edge of P1 earlier today and sprained his right ankle. He walks with a limp and an uneven gait."
"I saw it," Xie Chengzhou said.
"After the passageway was built," Xu Kai said, "his uneven gait while walking on it would increase its instability. The passageway is made of wood, which does not transmit vibrations, but the fixed joints of the passageway are metal anchors, so uneven impact loads will be transmitted to the steel structure."
The surge is coming.
Xie Chengzhou stepped out, placed the springboard in position, stepped back, stopped, and waited for the gap to pass.
"Have you calculated this load?" he asked.
"There is no precise data," Xu Kai said, "but it makes sense logically."
"Logically it makes sense," Xie Chengzhou said, "but it's not the same as verified data."
"When you were building this tunnel," Xu Kai said, "you didn't have precise data, you only had estimates."
Xie Chengzhou did not answer that question because Xu Kai was right.
"My suggestion is," Xu Kai said, "that Fang Yuan stays in P1 and waits for the passage to be built. The rest of you can go through first, and we'll figure out a solution later."
"The condition for the end of the adventure is that all players reach Phase 3," Xie Chengzhou said. "If Fang Yuan does not reach Phase 3, the adventure will not end."
"The condition for ending the adventure is retrieving the target item," Xu Kai said. "Rule No. 2 does not state that all players must reach P3."
Xie Chengzhou went over those words in his mind.
He is right.
The original text of Rule 2 is: "The target object is located inside the main structure of node P3 and needs to be retrieved." It does not say that everyone must enter or that everyone must pass the level; it only says that the object needs to be retrieved.
However, the epic's settlement mechanism—which he experienced in both #001 and #002—is that all players within the epic are settled simultaneously. If someone remains in Phase 1, they will be deemed "incomplete" at the end of the epic, meaning they will not complete the adventure, will not be settled, will not receive rewards, and will not leave the epic.
He didn't know what the price of "incompleteness" would be.
"You don't know the price of staying," he said.
"You don't know either," Xu Kai said.
There was a moment of silence.
"My suggestion," Xu Kai said, "is not based on morality, but on efficiency. Fang Yuan stays in P1, the rest of you clear the stage, the event is settled, and then—"
"And then what about Fang Yuan?" Xie Chengzhou asked.
Xu Kai remained silent for about three seconds.
"I don't know," he said. "It's an unknown variable."
"You put the unknown variable on Fang Yuan," Xie Chengzhou said, "and then tell me that this is an efficient solution."
---
Fang Yuan sat about five meters behind them on the edge of the concrete area, his right foot flat on the ground, not bent.
It wasn't that he didn't want to bend, but bending would put pressure on his ankle joint. That dull pain, coming from deep within the bone, would spread from the ankle towards the knee, and then to the calf muscles, reducing the control of the entire leg. He had worked in logistics for three years and had twisted his ankle before. He knew that this kind of injury was tolerable for the first two hours, but after the third hour, the swelling would compress the joint's range of motion by half again.
He has been gone for three hours.
He listened to them the whole time without saying a word.
He heard Xu Kai say, "Fang Yuan will stay in P1."
He heard Xie Chengzhou say, "You're putting the unknown variables on Fang Yuan."
He sensed something from those two sentences: he was at the heart of the argument, but no one had asked him.
"I'll stay," he said.
Both of them turned to look at him.
"I'll stay," he repeated, "you all go."
Xie Chengzhou looked at him. "In my plan," he said, "you don't need to stay."
"Your plan," Fang Yuan said, "is your plan." He paused for a moment, "I know the state of my feet better than you do. I know that I can't guarantee evenness in every step I take on the passageway."
"A wooden passageway," Xie Chengzhou said, "doesn't transmit vibrations—"
"Mr. Xie," Fang Yuan interrupted him, "I'm not talking about vibration, I'm talking about myself."
He shifted his gaze from Xie Chengzhou, glanced at the sea, and said, "I've worked in logistics for three years, moved goods, driven forklifts, fallen, twisted my ankle," he added. "I know what that kind of injury feels like. On that passageway, I would be the one who makes everyone stop and wait for me. I don't want that."
When he said this, Xie Chengzhou noticed that his right hand was on his knee, his fingers gently pressing on the inside of his knee. That spot wasn't the injured area; he was just looking for a place where he could exert force, something for his hand to do.
"That's not a reason," Xie Chengzhou said.
"That's my reason," Fang Yuan said.
Xie Chengzhou looked at him and remained silent for about five seconds.
He went through all the counterarguments in his mind: Fang Yuan's judgment might be inaccurate, his assessment of his injuries might be too pessimistic, the vibration isolation effect of the wooden passage had been verified, and he could definitely pass through.
But Fang Yuan had already made his decision.
Xie Chengzhou recognized that expression; he had seen it on construction sites, on workers who had made decisions, on people who knew what they were doing—that expression wasn't despair, it wasn't giving up, it was a very clear-headed, very calm decision based on a very accurate understanding of one's own situation.
"Then stay in the concrete area," Xie Chengzhou said. "Don't step on the steel plate."
"Okay," Fang Yuan said.
Xie Chengzhou went over the word "good" in his mind, wanting to say something, but didn't say it out loud.
He turned around and continued to wait for the surge, for the fixed window of the last plank.
---
The passage was completed in the thirty-eighth minute.
Twenty wooden planks were laid on the crane boom, extending from platform P1 to platform P2, about sixty centimeters wide and about fifty centimeters away from the steel structure surface. The fixing nodes were completed in the concrete area, and the anchors were embedded in the concrete rather than the steel structure.
Xie Chengzhou walked through the passageway and felt it: the vibration did not penetrate into the steel structure, and when his footsteps landed on the wooden planks, the sound was that of wood, not metal, and he did not feel any vibration transmitted outwards from the soles of his feet.
The steel maggots did not respond.
"You can go," he said.
He arranged the order as follows: Wu Ming first, Qin Gong second, Lao Chen third, Hu Jian fourth, Dr. Cao fifth, Liu Feng sixth, Xu Kai seventh, and Xie Chengzhou last.
Fang Yuan sat in the concrete area, watching them step onto the passage one by one.
Xie Chengzhou was the last one. Before he walked into the passage, he looked back at Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan raised his head, glanced at him, and nodded without saying anything.
The angle of that nod was very small; it wasn't a solemn, ceremonial nod, but the kind of nod one person gives to another on a construction site, saying, "You go, I'll keep an eye on things." It's the kind of nod that only someone who has made a decision gives, a nod that needs no explanation.
Xie Chengzhou stepped into the passageway.
---
When they reached the P2 platform, Xie Chengzhou glanced back towards the P1 platform.
Fang Yuan was still sitting there, in the concrete area, with his back against the crane's base and his feet flat on the ground.
He looked calm.
Xie Chengzhou turned his attention back and began to assess the route from P2 to P3: the pier from P2 to P3 was shorter than that from P1 to P2, about twenty meters, but the density of steel maggots on the P2 platform was higher than that on P1—there were more scratches and more corrosion marks on the edges of the steel plates, indicating that there were more steel maggots here and the aggregation threshold might be lower.
Just as he began his first wave test, Wu Ming whispered to him, "The wave cycle has changed."
Xie Chengzhou planted his feet firmly on the ground and said, "Give me the numbers."
"The seventeenth surge," Wu Ming flipped through his notebook, "4.9 seconds. The eighteenth, 4.7 seconds. Just now, 4.3 seconds." He paused, "The average has dropped from 6.2 seconds to—I'm still calculating."
Xie Chengzhou mentally reviewed the number.
4.3 seconds.
From 6.2 seconds to 4.3 seconds, the cycle shortened by about 30%, the vibration amplitude increased, and the impact force of the surge increased—this means that the surge impact on the P1 platform is also increasing, and the edge of the concrete area will be hit by a larger surge, requiring Fang Yuan to retreat to a more inward position.
However, the concrete area is only about four meters deep.
He mentally reviewed Fang Yuan's position: back against the crane base, about two meters from the edge of the concrete area. With the swell cycle shortening, the impact range of each swell would expand; would a two-meter buffer distance be sufficient? He didn't know; he didn't have precise data on the swell impact range of the P1 platform.
"Keep recording," he said, "report the numbers each time a surge occurs."
"Okay," Wu Ming said.
---
They waited on the P2 platform for about ten minutes, using the surge window to gradually verify the passage plan from P2 to P3 trestle.
The swell cycle continues to shorten: 4.3 seconds, 4.1 seconds, 3.9 seconds.
Wu Ming would report the numbers each time, and Xie Chengzhou would remember them each time, then continue to adjust the steps and pace of the plan.
Just as Xie Chengzhou was about to begin his first actual pass at the end of the tenth minute, he heard a voice.
From the direction of P1, across the sea breeze and the surging waves, at a distance of about thirty meters, a voice came.
It wasn't a scream, not a buzzing sound, it was... he couldn't quite put his finger on it, it was that kind of very short sound that a person makes at a certain moment, interrupted by something, not a cry for help, not despair, just a sound, half a second, and then nothing.
Then the surge came and drowned out all the sounds from that direction.
Xie Chengzhou planted his feet firmly and waited for the surging waves to recede.
The surge receded, and the area around P1 became quiet.
He mentally went through all the possibilities of that sound, and built a model in his mind of the physical process corresponding to each possibility:
The surge period shortened to 3.9 seconds, and the vibration amplitude increased by approximately 40%—the impact range of the surge at the edge of the concrete area expanded. Fang Yuan, with his back against the crane base, was about two meters from the edge. During one large surge, it hit his position. He retreated inward, injuring his right ankle and unable to move quickly. He didn't retreat fast enough, and at one point, he stepped out of the concrete area and onto the steel plate.
The aggregation threshold of steel maggots has been triggered multiple times on the P1 platform. Their perception has become highly sensitive. If a person steps onto the steel plate, even just one step, even just half a second, is enough.
This is the most likely process.
Not definitely, but most likely.
He mentally constructed the process and then suppressed it.
He didn't look back in the direction of P1.
He knew looking back was pointless—he was in P2, Fang Yuan was in P1, and the passage from P1 to P2 was one-way. He had come over, but he couldn't go back. Even if he looked back, he could only see that concrete area thirty meters away, not Fang Yuan, not any details. Looking back would only be a waste of his energy.
He turned his gaze back to the pier in front of him.
"Let's begin," he said. "The first surge, Wu Ming goes."
His voice was calm; he heard the calmness in his own voice. He knew what that calmness was—not indifference, but the calmness of having suppressed something and freed up his hands to continue working. It was the calmness of the construction site, the calmness of not being able to stop until things were finished.
He went through Fang Yuan's name in his mind once, just once, and then put it down.
Wu Ming stepped onto the pier.