Damping coefficient

Jiang Mo brought the silver USB drive back to the hotel. Like a scalding piece of ice, it sat on the coffee table, a stark contrast to the vibrant "Lu Gen" beside it. She didn't immediately check its contents. Shen Zhiyan's roundabout, almost condescending "gift of knowledge" stirred a ripple of humiliation within her. He seemed to be telling her in this way: Your complexity exceeds my current model; therefore, please learn this language yourself and then prove your legitimacy.

This realization made her chest tighten. She went to the balcony, the night breeze carrying the hustle and bustle of the city. The traffic on the street below wove into a river of light, but standing here, she felt trapped in an invisible maze constructed of data and algorithms. The man who handed her the USB drive was both the designer of the maze and its only guide—provided she was willing to follow the rules he set.

Before the recording the next day, Jiang Mo arrived at the lab early. She needed some time to resolve a "legacy issue" without the cameras and the gaze of others. She went straight to the 3D scanner that had caused her trouble the day before, her gaze falling on the intricately designed Z-axis fixture.

“Damping coefficient…” she repeated softly the word Shen Zhiyan had relayed through Researcher Zhou. Recalling the diagram in the manual, she reached out, her fingertips carefully touching a tiny adjustment knob on the side of the clamp. The cool metallic touch. She held her breath and, extremely slowly, turned it less than five degrees to the left.

"Click." A barely audible sound.

Just then, the laboratory door was pushed open. Shen Zhiyan walked in, carrying his thermos. He seemed surprised to see someone so early, his steps faltering slightly as his gaze swept over her and her hand, which hadn't yet withdrawn from the clamp.

Jiang Mo's heart skipped a beat, and she subconsciously wanted to pull her hand back, but then forced herself to steady herself, made the final subtle adjustments, and then naturally lowered her arm and turned to meet his gaze.

"Good morning, Ms. Shen." Her tone was calm, as if she had just performed a routine equipment check.

Shen Zhiyan's gaze lingered on her face for a moment, then fell on the Z-axis fixture, before returning to her face. His eyes were expressionless; he simply nodded slightly. "Good morning."

He didn't ask what she was doing, nor did he comment on her behavior. He went straight to his workstation, put down his thermos, and turned on his computer. The whole process was natural and smooth, as if that brief eye contact was just an insignificant step in his daily routine.

But Jiang Mo keenly noticed that the moment his gaze shifted away, his eyelashes behind his glasses drooped almost imperceptibly. It wasn't avoidance; it was more like... acquiescence. Acknowledgment that she had caught his indirect hint from yesterday and was capable of independently completing this subtle calibration.

This is a silent, professionally-based recognition that carries more weight than any words.

The morning's recording tasks were demanding, involving the real-time collection and preliminary analysis of a large amount of data. Jiang Mo discovered that the scanner, after some tweaking, was indeed much easier to operate, and the success rate of data collection had significantly improved. She could even spare some attention to observe the silent figure in the main control area.

He seemed unusually busy today, with researchers constantly coming to him for signatures or to discuss things in hushed tones. He processed problems extremely quickly, speaking steadily and giving clear instructions. But in a brief pause, Jiang Mo saw him raise his hand and pinch the bridge of his nose, a subtle gesture that betrayed a hint of fatigue that was carefully concealed.

During her lunch break, she deliberately lingered until the very last to leave. As she passed Shen Zhiyan's workstation, he was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, seemingly taking a nap, or perhaps deep in thought. Morning light streamed in from the window to his side, casting a small shadow beside his high, straight nose. His left hand, resting on the desk, was unconsciously clenched, the tip of his index finger tapping lightly on the surface with a steady rhythm, like some kind of encrypted beat.

Jiang Mo didn't stop and walked straight over. But the tired silhouette of him tapping on the table lingered in her mind. He wasn't a precision instrument that never stopped; he also got tired, and he also had moments that were "human" and couldn't be quantified.

In the cafeteria, she unexpectedly saw Xiao Chen eating alone in a corner. She walked over with her tray and naturally sat down opposite him.

"Teacher Chen, are you alone?"

When Xiao Chen saw her, he was flattered and quickly swallowed the food in his mouth: "Miss Jiang! Yes, Professor Shen asked me to bring him a sandwich back. It seems he's rushing to finish a project report again."

Jiang Mo poked at the salad on her plate with her fork and asked casually, "Are all of you researchers like Professor Shen, pushing yourselves so hard?"

Xiao Chen pushed up his glasses and sighed, "Professor Shen... especially. He sets such high standards for himself. Sometimes I feel like he's not competing with others, but with himself." He lowered his voice, "I heard from senior students from a few years earlier that Professor Shen almost went to MIT's School of Architecture and Urban Planning with a full scholarship... I don't know why he stayed in China and changed his focus, plunging headlong into data science."

Architecture...MIT...

These two words were like a key, instantly unlocking the floodgates of Jiang Mo's memory. The award-winning collection in the archive, "Swallows Return to Their Nests," the swallow badge... all the fragments were connected at this moment by Xiao Chen's unintentional revelation.

So, why did that "swallow," which should have flown to a wider sky, ultimately choose to return to its nest, imprisoning itself in the cage of data and algorithms? What kind of "damping coefficient" is hidden behind this, hindering its original trajectory?

During the afternoon recording, Jiang Mo was somewhat absent-minded. Her gaze kept drifting uncontrollably towards Shen Zhiyan. He remained calm and efficient, handling various technical issues. But looking at him now, she seemed to be able to see through that rational shell and into the suppressed turmoil of another soul beneath.

During a group discussion, the director asked each guest to summarize their takeaway from the day in one sentence. When it was Jiang Mo's turn, she looked at the camera, or perhaps through the camera at Shen Zhiyan not far away, and slowly began to speak:

"The most important lesson I learned today is that both machines and people have their unique 'damping coefficient.' Finding it, understanding it, and adjusting it may not make everything perfect immediately, but at least... it can make operations smoother and reduce unnecessary internal friction."

Her words were subtle, carrying the packaged philosophical undertones typical of variety shows. The other guests and staff assumed she was simply summarizing her experience operating the equipment.

But after Jiang Mo finished speaking, she looked at Shen Zhiyan with clear and unwavering eyes.

He was writing something down, his pen gliding across the paper. The instant her gaze fell upon him, his writing paused almost imperceptibly. It was only for a moment, less than half a second, before he resumed his smooth writing.

He didn't look up.

By the time work was finished, night had fallen. Jiang Mo was the last to leave the laboratory building. The crisp, cool air invigorated her. Standing on the steps, she gazed at the city lights in the distance, Xiao Chen's words echoing in her mind, as did the almost imperceptible pause in Chen Zhiyan's pen.

She seemed to have finally touched upon the true "damping" beneath his tight defense system.

Just as she was about to leave, her phone vibrated. It was a new WeChat message from the profile picture she thought she would never communicate with directly again.

The file sent by Shen Zhiyan contained no text, only a solitary, enormous compressed file being transferred, its progress bar slowly climbing. The filename was a cold string of code: 【CognitiveDissonance_CaseStudy_JM_Prelim】

Cognitive dissonance? Case study? Her initials?

Standing in the early winter wind, Jiang Mo stared at the file on the screen that was being transmitted, a file with her as the subject of her research. She felt a chill slowly rising from the soles of her feet.

What he gave her was never a key, but rather a preliminary analysis report of herself as a "special case".