The Damaged Recorder

By the time they returned to Room C, dusk was falling. No lamp was lit inside. Wang Shuo shut the door and leaned against it, panting, his knuckles white around the cloth bundle in his hand.

"That was... close today." His voice was dry.

Lu Yuan said nothing. He walked to his bunk and sat down, using the last of the twilight to check his sleeve. After the Blue Silver Grass had withdrawn, only a few almost invisible marks remained on his skin. He had used little Soul Power, but the precision required to control it was high. He closed his eyes and silently ran through the basic guidance method once.

Wang Shuo stood by the door for quite a while before moving over to his own bunk. He stuffed the cloth bundle under his pillow and pressed down on it.

"Lu Yuan." He suddenly spoke, keeping his voice very low. "Will Zhang Hao and the others... come after us?"

Lu Yuan opened his eyes. "Yes."

Wang Shuo's shoulders twitched.

"But not right away." Lu Yuan's tone was calm. "A deacon just caught them red-handed, and they're in the spotlight. However stupid they are, they know making a move now would be courting death. They'll wait a while at least."

He paused. "Be careful. Don't go anywhere alone, especially at night. Put your stipend away as soon as you get it."

Wang Shuo nodded hard.

"That recorder..." Wang Shuo asked quietly, "Will the deacon check it again?"

Lu Yuan looked out the window. It was completely dark.

"I don't know," he said.

In truth, he knew the chances were slim. The thing was too old. Getting the backup power slot to activate even once had been a stroke of luck. The residual Soul Power fluctuations were weak and unstable, and there was no way to read any complete information from them. It had been pure luck that the deacon had heard those fragments.

But there was no need to tell Wang Shuo that.

"Let's deal with what's in front of us first." Lu Yuan stood and lit the little oil lamp in the room. Its dim yellow glow spread. "We still have classes tomorrow."

Wang Shuo murmured assent and lay down fully clothed. He tossed and turned, plainly unable to sleep.

Lu Yuan paid him no mind. He sat at the edge of his bunk, took out his notes, and organized the material from that day's open lecture by lamplight. His pen scratched softly across the paper.

The night wore on.

The following afternoon, in the warehouse district.

Lu Yuan and Wang Shuo had been assigned there to continue sorting the scattered parts they hadn't finished with yesterday. It was part of their punishment.

The work wasn't hard, but it was fiddly. Wang Shuo remained on edge, looking up and glancing around from time to time.

"Stop looking." Lu Yuan lined up a bundle of rusty iron bars. "They won't come today."

Wang Shuo sheepishly looked away. As they spoke, footsteps sounded from the warehouse's side door.

Both of them looked up at once.

It wasn't Zhang Hao and the others, but the young deacon from yesterday. He had changed into a dark gray academy deacon's robe and carried a ledger, his face serious. The older deacon followed behind him.

The screw in Wang Shuo's hand clattered to the ground.

The young deacon walked to the middle of the open space, his gaze sweeping over the area, most of which had been sorted, before turning to the old recorder in the corner. He went over, crouched down, and brushed off the dust.

"This thing," he said, his voice flat, "stopped on its own again after it was activated yesterday."

Lu Yuan put down the iron bars and straightened up.

The older deacon stood a little farther away, his hands clasped behind his back, studying Lu Yuan's face.

"The Soul Power residue in the backup power slot is very unstable," the young deacon continued, pressing a finger against the side of the recorder. "We tried several times, but couldn't read it again. By all rights, this thing is already scrap."

He stood up.

"But someone made a suggestion." He looked at Lu Yuan. "They said that, using the frequency decay and interference patterns of the residual Soul Power fluctuations, we could work backward to determine the intensity and approximate locations of Soul Power activity in this area not long ago. Have you heard of that?"

The open space fell quiet.

Wang Shuo went pale and edged behind Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan's heart sank slightly. He hadn't expected the deacons to actually inspect it, much less for someone to suggest that kind of technical analysis. It was beyond the knowledge of an ordinary academy deacon.

Whoever had said it likely knew a great deal about Soul Tools.

He kept his expression neutral and nodded. "There were indeed Soul Power fluctuations around here during yesterday's conflict. If the residual traces can be analyzed, theoretically, part of what happened can be reconstructed."

The young deacon stared at him. "Theoretically?"

"Yes." Lu Yuan's voice was steady. "As Soul Power fluctuations decay in the environment, they leave behind distinct frequency characteristics and interference patterns. Soul Power of different strengths and attributes has different decay curves, and causes different disturbances in the environmental Soul Power field. If there's still a faint residue in the recorder's core, you can use a specific method to stimulate and capture those traces, then combine them with decay models and interference analysis to roughly infer the intensity level and attribute tendencies of the Soul Power released, and perhaps even pinpoint an approximate location."

He said it all in one breath, his wording precise.

The young deacon was stunned.

He clearly hadn't understood all of it. Terms like "frequency characteristics," "decay curves," and "environmental Soul Power field disturbances" had combined into an analytical framework entirely unfamiliar to him. He instinctively looked at the older deacon behind him.

The older deacon's face remained expressionless, but his gaze grew more intent.

"Where did you learn all that?" the young deacon asked.

"I read it in books," Lu Yuan answered quickly. "Some old Soul Tool maintenance manuals and texts on basic Soul Power theory. The Nuoding City library has books on the subject."

That was half true. The library did have books on basic theory, but they would never go into detail about techniques for analyzing residue in damaged Soul Tools.

The young deacon frowned but didn't press further. Instead, he asked, "Then, from what you're saying, can this recorder still be used?"

"No." Lu Yuan shook his head. "The residue is too weak and unstable. Forcing it to activate would most likely make it dissipate completely. Even if you managed to capture it, the data would be severely incomplete."

He paused. "But perhaps... you could try selectively stimulating a few of the core's sensitive nodes, capturing only residual disturbances in a particular frequency band. That would minimize consumption and give you a somewhat better chance of success. But it would require very precise Soul Power control and an understanding of the recorder's internal structure."

The young deacon fell silent.

He looked down at the ledger in his hands, then glanced at the dusty iron box in the corner. After a long while, he closed the ledger.

"As for what happened yesterday, each side has its own story." His tone returned to one of official business. "Zhang Hao and the other two insist you provoked them first. You say they extorted you."

He looked at Lu Yuan. "The recorder can't provide complete evidence now. But your conduct yesterday, and what you just said..." He paused. "They make me more inclined to believe your version."

Wang Shuo jerked his head up, hope appearing in his eyes.

The young deacon continued, "However, without conclusive evidence, the academy can't impose a heavy punishment on them alone. Yesterday's punishment has already been carried out, and the matter ends here."

His tone turned cold. "But let me remind you, and Zhang Hao and the others as well: the academy forbids private fighting, and bullying fellow students is even more strictly prohibited. If anything similar happens again, both parties involved will be severely punished, regardless of whether there's evidence. Understood?"

Lu Yuan nodded. "Understood."

Wang Shuo quickly nodded along.

The young deacon gave them one last look, then turned and left. The older deacon, however, didn't leave immediately. He stood there for a few seconds, his gaze on Lu Yuan's face, as if he wanted to say something. In the end, he merely shook his head and followed.

Their footsteps faded into the distance.

Wang Shuo's legs went weak, and he nearly sat down on the ground. He braced himself against the wall, gasping for breath.

"I-it's over?" His voice trembled.

"For now," Lu Yuan said.

He went to the corner, crouched down, and examined the old recorder carefully. Its metal casing was covered in scratches and rust. He reached out and lightly pressed a finger against an inconspicuous groove on the side-one of the external testing points for the core power circuit.

A little Soul Power probed inside.

The response was faint and chaotic, like a dying candle in the wind. But there were indeed traces of residual fluctuations, their frequency characteristics matching the pattern of Soul Power bursts during yesterday's conflict. They were simply too scattered to piece together any complete information.

He withdrew his finger, frowning slightly.

This recorder's design... is too crude. The power circuit had redundant repetitions, and the Soul-conducting metal wasn't pure enough, making Soul Power transmission inefficient and causing extremely rapid decay. The layout of the core sensing nodes was even less optimized.

A waste.

The scrapped units of the same model he had dismantled in his previous life had been even worse inside. Soul Tool technology in this era was still at a very primitive stage-it pursued nothing beyond basic functionality, with no consideration at all for efficiency, stability, or maintainability.

Knowledge was monopolized, and technological development was slow.

Wang Shuo came over and asked cautiously, "What are you looking at?"

Lu Yuan came back to himself and stood up.

"Nothing," he said. "Let's finish sorting what's left and head back early."

Wang Shuo murmured assent and turned to pick up the last few screws, his movements much lighter.

Lu Yuan glanced at the recorder again.

Dusty and dull, it lay in the shadows of the corner, like a forgotten witness.

But maybe... it can still be put to some other use.

He looked away and bent down to continue sorting the parts on the ground. As his fingers brushed a rusty piece of iron, a thin Blue Silver Grass vine quietly emerged from his fingertip and touched the metal surface ever so lightly.

A faint, cool sensation reached him.

He withdrew the vine without a change in expression.

The setting sun cast their shadows long. In the open space behind the warehouse, only the faint sounds of parts being picked up remained.

The wind passed through the fence, carrying the chill of early autumn.

The first day at the academy truly wasn't over yet.

But some things had already begun to change.