Chen Hao tossed the marker onto the table; the cap bounced twice and rolled into the corner. He rubbed his face, leaving a few marks on his cheeks from his dusty palms.
"Alright, let's get to work." He said, bending down and pulling a canvas bag from under the tool cabinet. He shook it open with a clatter, revealing half an old rope, a rusty pair of pliers, and the leftover packaging bag of compressed biscuits from last night.
Nana glanced up and asked, "Are you planning to go scavenging for junk?"
“This isn’t scavenging, it’s recycling.” He stuffed the pliers into his side pocket and casually brushed a piece of sawdust off his trouser leg. “We’re now the scavengers of the tech world, making a living by finding gold in the scrap heap.”
She didn't reply, but swiped her finger across the terminal a few times, bringing up a yellowed floor plan. The bottom right corner of the screen was marked "b7," and the red dot flickered like a stuck, broken light bulb.
"Let's go?" she asked.
"Let's go." He picked up his bag, grabbed the flashlight hanging behind the door, and tapped it twice in his palm—the light came on, but the beam was a little crooked.
The corridor was colder than the workshop, and the paint on the walls was peeling badly, revealing rusty metal frames underneath. The two walked forward one after the other, their footsteps half-swallowed by the hum of the pipes. Chen Hao kept looking down at his bag as he walked, then suddenly pulled out the scrap of wood with the words "Water Measuring Artifact" drawn on it, flipped it over, wrote "B7 Treasure Hunt" on the back, and then stuffed it back into his pocket.
"If this instrument really hasn't been used for three years, do you think it would have been renamed 'archaeological artifact' by now?"
“No,” she said. “It is not eligible for cultural heritage status.”
"They're quite strict."
After turning two corners, an iron gate came into view. The sign above the gate frame was missing half of the letter "b," the other half broken off by someone. A musty smell of old engine oil wafted from the crack in the gate, as if someone had left the entire scrap season fermenting here for three years.
Chen Hao took a breath: "I hereby declare that this taste has officially applied to be included in the register of painful human memories."
He reached out and pushed the door, but it didn't budge.
"Is it stuck?"
“It’s not stuck.” Nana leaned closer to take a look. “It’s been wrapped with an iron chain three times and put on a lock that’s so rusty it’s about to fall apart.”
"Who's so wary of thieves?"
"Maybe they're afraid someone else will pick up the trash."
Chen Hao grinned: "Then today we're going to be the ones picking up trash."
He pulled out the pliers from his bag, tested the jaws, and snapped them into the chain. With a sharp twist, the chain made a muffled thud, like an old bone finally loosening its muscles.
The door opened a crack, and a stronger, damp smell rushed out. He shone his flashlight inside, the beam sweeping across stacked metal boxes, broken robotic arms, and bundles of cables, like an abandoned steel graveyard.
"Good heavens, this isn't a warehouse, it's a post-apocalyptic theme park."
Nana stepped inside, her boots crunching on the broken glass. Chen Hao followed closely behind, swatting away dangling wires with his hand as he muttered, "If I die here, my epitaph will read—'This man died from accidentally touching a high-voltage wire, and was trying to save a waterwheel model before his death.'"
“Your chances of dying are currently less than 0.3 percent,” she said, “unless you voluntarily lick the exposed lines.”
"Thank you for your comforting words."
They walked a dozen meters further in, and the space became increasingly narrow. A pile of scrapped sensors lay to their left, topped with a deformed cooling tower casing. To their right was a row of overturned shelves, beneath which lay several metal boxes of unidentifiable models.
"According to you, the outer shell of that thing is made of waterproof alloy?" Chen Hao squatted down, reached out and patted a dusty box, a small cloud of dust rising up. "It looks like a tin biscuit tin."
“Material analysis requires remote scanning.” Nana took two steps back, popped out a miniature device from her wrist interface, and with a gentle press, a pale blue light wave slowly swept across the area in front of her.
The data on the screen flickered, and she squinted at it for a while: "The third box on the left is a dark gray cuboid with a titanium alloy shell. It is well-sealed and has a slight energy fluctuation inside."
"Is that it?" Chen Hao sidled up and kicked aside the cable reel blocking his way. "Baby, Daddy's here to save you!"
He reached out to pull the suitcase, but as soon as he exerted force, a loose support above his head creaked and swayed, then crashed down with a thud, grazing his shoulder and hitting the ground, making his feet go numb.
"Ouch!" He jumped back two steps. "This place is no place for a human to live!"
"I recommend maintaining a safe distance." Nana walked over and reached out to check the support connection points. "The load-bearing structure is severely corroded, and some areas have lost stability."
"Then why did you make me move it myself?"
"Your action just now was an unplanned intervention and was not part of the pre-set procedure."
"So I've broken the rules?"
"It's not a violation of the rules, it just increases the risk factor."
Chen Hao took a breath, bypassed the collapsed area, and approached the target box again. This time, he first used pliers to pry open the cooling tower fragments that were pressing down on one corner, and then dragged the box out little by little. The metal scraped against the ground, making a screeching sound, like someone scratching a blackboard with their fingernails.
The box was finally freed. It was covered with a thin layer of rust, but the edges were neat and the locks were intact. There was a groove on the front, which should be the location of the touch screen. It was sealed with a piece of tape, and the word "Pending Inspection" was written next to it in marker.
"The handwriting is almost unrecognizable." He tore off the tape, revealing a dark screen. "No one has cared for me for three years. I don't know if I'll ever wake up."
"Let's try connecting the diagnostic tool." Nana took a flat device out of her bag and plugged it into the interface on the side of the box. The indicator light flashed twice and then turned into a steady green light.
"The power module still has energy storage, and the core system is in a dormant state."
"Can it still be saved?" Chen Hao's eyes lit up.
"Theoretically, it can be woken up. However, it requires external power to start."
"Then what are we waiting for?" He slapped his thigh and stood up. "Back to the workshop!"
The two of them worked together to lift the box onto the trolley. Chen Hao pushed the trolley out, and as he passed the broken door, he couldn't help but look back at the ruins.
"Do you think there might be other usable things hidden among these scrap metal pieces? Like an automatic cooking machine, or a beanbag chair?"
No relevant registration was found in the database.
"Sigh, you still have to have dreams."
Back in the workshop, he moved the box to the center of the workbench, tore off the outer dust cover, and sprayed the casing with a bottle of cleaning agent. Nana plugged in the portable power source and began to gradually load the wake-up program.
A few minutes later, the screen suddenly flashed and displayed the message: [System self-check in progress... Please do not power off].
"It moved!" Chen Hao leaned closer, his nose almost touching the screen. "Look, look, it's awake!"
"This is just a preliminary response." She tapped her fingers quickly a few times. "Three more verifications are needed before you can access the main interface."
“Then let it take its time.” He plopped down on a small stool, crossed his legs, and said, “Anyway, we’re not in a rush to get the waterwheel turning that very day.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the screen went black again.
"No way!" He almost jumped off the stool. "You just woke up and you want to go back to sleep?"
“Voltage fluctuations.” Nana adjusted the power output. “Try again after it stabilizes.”
She restarted it, and this time, the screen remained lit, the progress bar slowly advancing. Ten minutes later, the main interface finally appeared—a blue background with neatly arranged icons, and the device name displayed in the upper right corner: **Multifunctional Hydrological Sensor V3.2**.
"Found it." Chen Hao stared at the line of text and grinned. "Our ancestral graves are emitting auspicious smoke."
Nana has started downloading the driver and is simultaneously bringing up the device history. The screen scrolls through the last usage log from three years ago: **Task ID h-114, River Flow Velocity Monitoring, Data Upload Successful**.
"The functional modules are basically intact," she said. "The sensor array, pressure sensing unit, and wireless transmission port have all returned to normal."
"So, it can still work?"
"Once the basic calibration is completed, it can be put into use."
Chen Hao stood up, walked halfway around the box, and suddenly took out the marker from his bag and wrote four words on the side of the box: **No more sleeping**.
Then he stepped back, put his hands on his hips, and said, "Now, we're one step closer to getting water to properly propel the wheel."
Nana looked up at him and said, "The next step is to connect to the test environment and verify the signal acquisition capability."
“Okay.” He grabbed the power cord. “You tell me where to plug it in, and I’ll plug it in there.”
She pointed to the interface panel next to the sink: "Start with the simplest one."
Chen Hao crouched down, inserted one end of the cable into the panel, and aligned the other end with the interface on the bottom of the device. With a click, the connection was successful.
A prompt appears on the screen: [External simulation source detected. Start real-time sampling?]
Just as Nana was about to nod, Chen Hao suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist.
“Wait,” he said.
He stared at the screen, his breathing slowing for a moment.
"We need to look at this first set of data carefully."
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