Chapter 7
Jin Zhaoxuan carried the tin box, which was heavier than the ancestral tablets, and ran all the way back to the old house. On the way, he was almost reported by an old lady who was returning home late, who mistook him for a thief who stole a manhole cover.
"Huff... Huff... Teacher Yin! Old Yin! I got your 'urn' back!" He kicked open the door, slammed the box onto the table with a loud crash, and the table legs trembled three times.
His eyes immediately fell on the wireless charging pad—the black power bank on it looked as serene as a meditating monk, its indicator lights completely black, even more empty than the pie in the sky his boss was painting.
"Yin Shaoqing!" Jin Zhaoxuan shouted at the mirror, his voice echoing in the empty room, "Come out! I know you're home! You've got the guts to play hide-and-seek, but you've got the guts to open the door!"
The mirror only showed his face, which seemed to say "I am a great victim," and a few strands of wild grass stuck to his head, giving him a very bohemian look.
Undeterred, he grabbed the power bank and began a brutal rescue attempt: plugging it into a wall charger, then into the power bank itself (a series of similar attempts), and even dug out the jump starter he'd kept for his electric scooter during the Lunar New Year, shoving its thick clip onto the power bank's port—
Sizzle!
A small wisp of smoke rose up, carrying with it the smell of burning.
"Holy crap!" Jin Zhaoxuan exclaimed in shock, quickly letting go of the power bank, which fell onto the table with a "thud," still lifeless, but its casing seemed even darker. "I'm so sorry! Teacher Yin, I didn't mean to! I was trying to save you!"
The power bank expressed its contempt for the quack doctor through silence.
Jin Zhaoxuan slumped down, wiping his face. It was over; the guide NPC had probably really been killed by his own clumsy actions. His gaze fell on the rusty metal box, recalling Yin Shaoqing's faint, dying words before he vanished: "The box... open it and see..."
"Alright, let's try anything, let's open the blind box!" He grabbed his toolbox and started hacking at the old lock of the box, his movements as rough as if he were unpacking a package.
The box was opened.
There was no glittering gold, no secret manual being revealed, only the "smell of history"—a mixture of old paper and rust—that hit him, making him sneeze.
"Achoo! This has a long shelf life."
The box contained few items, neatly arranged, with a layer of oil paper on top. Jin Zhaoxuan peeled back the oil paper, revealing the following treasures:
1. A stack of yellowed drawings: the title is in Japanese, interspersed with Chinese characters: “Blast Furnace Hot Blast Stove System Improvement Proposal, Showa 18”.
Jin Zhaoxuan flipped through it, his eyes filled with lines and symbols he couldn't understand. "Good heavens, this is like a book of heaven to me, and a book of heaven written in classical Chinese at that."
2. Several old photos: These are group photos of Engineer Takahashi and various Chinese technicians, their expressions serious, with huge steel equipment in the background. One of them has the following inscription on the back: "Discussing the overhaul plan for Blast Furnace No. 3 with Mr. Liu Fusheng, Showa 16 (1941)".
Jin Zhaoxuan nodded: "Yes, it's definitely Master Liu's grandfather, no doubt about it."
3. A thin notebook
—The cover is blank, like a silent gourd.
4. A small item wrapped in a silk handkerchief
—The handkerchief has turned yellow, but you can tell that it was made of good quality when it was first made.
Jin Zhaoxuan's curiosity was piqued by the small package. He carefully untied the somewhat brittle handkerchief—
Inside was an old pocket watch. The brass case was oxidized like an unearthed artifact, and the crystal was cracked in several places, showing signs of age.
"A pocket watch? Those were considered luxuries back in the day." He tried to open the watch case; it was very tight. He gave it a sharp pry—
"Clatter!"
The watch cover popped open, and the hands on the dial remained permanently stopped at 8:14.
Inside the watch case was a small black-and-white photograph. In the photo, a young boy named Yin Shaoqing, dressed in a neat school uniform, smiled shyly at the camera. The edges of the photograph were yellowed and curled.
Jin Zhaoxuan's heart felt as if it had been gently struck by the stopped pocket watch. He put down the watch, took a deep breath, and picked up the seemingly ordinary blank notebook.
The first page is written in neat Japanese.
"Well, another foreign language," Jin Zhaoxuan complained, but didn't stop. He quickly took a picture with his phone and opened a translation app to scan it.
The translation software worked sluggishly, the text appearing on the screen intermittently, interspersed with recognition errors, but the core meaning gradually became clear, like breaking through ice:
"The night of August 13, 20th year of Showa"
To my son, Shaoqing:
"By the time you read this letter, I may no longer be alive. There are some things you must know..."
Jin Zhaoxuan held his breath, his fingers swiping across the screen, his eyes quickly scanning the somewhat awkwardly translated, yet weighty, text.
Shinsuke Takahashi, the adoptive father who ultimately "betrayed" Yin Shaoqing in his memory, left behind a completely different story in the letter.
The other box, sunk into the water tower, contained data on weapons-grade steel that the military had mandated be destroyed. But what he entrusted to Liu Fusheng was their true labor of love—improved technology belonging to Anshan and intended for civilian use.
The military's suspicions, the trap that threatened Yin Shaoqing's life, the desperate, life-or-death "fake silencing" plan—the glimmer of hope hidden in the secret air chamber beneath the water tower.
"Shaoqing, the thing I regret most is dragging you into this mess..."
"If I choose to resist, we will both die immediately..."
"The only way I can think of is to make you 'disappear' from their sight..."
"I have attached the location map to the letter."
"If you do not see this letter, then the plan has failed, and I... I have no face to ask for your forgiveness."
Jin Zhaoxuan's hand holding the phone trembled slightly, and his throat felt dry. This script... it's too heart-wrenching! More dramatic than an eight o'clock soap opera!
It wasn't murder; it was the clumsiest yet most desperate rescue plan a tech-savvy father could think of under the shadow of war. He was willing to risk everything, including the risk of being forever hated by his son.
But clearly, the plan had a fatal flaw.
Yin Shaoqing didn't receive the strategy guide (letter and blueprints), so he was disconnected (drowned) and stuck in the server (water tower) for eighty years, filled with resentment that "I was sold out by my teammate (adoptive father)".
As for Shinsuke Takahashi, after staging this "child killing" drama, he most likely didn't escape the clutches of the military and was "committed suicide."
"What is all this about..." Jin Zhaoxuan rubbed his throbbing temples, feeling a headache coming on. He flipped to the end of the letter and sure enough, there was a hand-drawn sketch of the inside of the water tower, a work that could be described as a work of a soul artist. It marked a tiny, almost negligible "air chamber," and next to it was a note in Chinese: "After entering the water, dive down to the right for about two meters, feel around on the wall, there is a hidden clasp."
If Yin Shaoqing had seen this back then, he probably wouldn't have become a bound spirit.
“Yin Shaoqing!” Jin Zhaoxuan spoke to the air, his tone complex, “Your adoptive father… that stubborn man… he wanted to save you, although his methods were rather… hardcore.”
Only his echo and the cold reflection of the pocket watch on the table filled the room.
"No, you have to know the truth! You can't just lie there and pretend to be dead!" Jin Zhaoxuan got excited and looked at the "culprit," the power bank, again. The indicator light was still completely black.
He recalled that Yin Shaoqing had mentioned that obsession and memory were his "anchor points" and "energy".
"I've got it!" Jin Zhaoxuan rushed to the computer and frantically connected the specially made AR glasses and projector—this was originally the last silly project the company took on before it went bankrupt, meant to provide holographic teaching for square dancing aunties, but unexpectedly it ended up being used here.
He quickly imported footage from Yin Shaoqing's previous live streams and created a simple virtual scene in the center of the living room, replicating the old house's living room. Then he placed the virtual images of the letter (enlarged from a photograph) and the pocket watch (a 3D scanned model) on the virtual table in the center of the scene.
"Teacher Yin! Engineer Yin! Comrade Yin Shaoqing!" Jin Zhaoxuan shouted like a charlatan at the empty living room, "Whether you're frozen or in hibernation mode, try receiving a signal! The Wi-Fi password is your birthday! No, it's the truth of history!"
He started the projector.
The virtual scene lit up, and the letter and pocket watch floated in the light and shadow, looking clearer than the real objects and with a touch of science fiction.
Images alone aren't enough; we also need an audio package! Jin Zhaoxuan took out his phone, turned on the recorder, cleared his throat, and began to read the translated letter aloud in his most heartfelt (and awkward) broadcasting voice:
"...Beneath the water tower lies a tiny air chamber that I secretly modified years ago..."
"...This is a gamble with a slim chance of survival, but at least there is a glimmer of hope."
"...I have no face to ask for your forgiveness."
He read it until he got goosebumps, but he insisted on finishing. Finally, he even "opened" the cover of the virtual pocket watch, so that the photo of young Yin Shaoqing was facing forward.
“Yin Shaoqing,” he put down his phone, his voice returning to its usual tone, but with a rare seriousness, “your adoptive father, Takahashi Shinsuke, didn’t intend to kill you. He’s a tech geek, not good at palace intrigue, so he could only come up with this terrible idea… even though it really screwed you over.”
In the living room, only the low hum of the projector and the buzzing of the computer's cooling fan could be heard.
The power bank remained silent.
Jin Zhaoxuan waited for five minutes, but it felt like five centuries. Just as he was about to give up and consider whether he should go to a temple to find a master to perform an "electronic exorcism"—
He suddenly felt that the hairs on his arms seemed to stand up a little.
It wasn't just psychological; there really was a slight chill, like someone gently blowing a breath of ice-cold cola onto his neck.
Immediately afterwards, on the wireless charging pad, the power bank, which was even more silent than a brick, had its indicator light flash—extremely weak and barely at all!
The light was so faint it was like a firefly farting, but Jin Zhaoxuan could see it clearly!
"There's hope!" His heart pounded, and his eyes widened like saucers.
It flashed again! The interval was long, and the flashes were perfunctory, as if to say, "Don't bother me... I just turned on... Loading my soul..."
Then, the surface of the dressing mirror rippled as if someone had gently touched the surface of water with their finger.
A faint outline, almost blending into the background, began to materialize with great difficulty in the mirror. The image was blurry, sometimes appearing and sometimes disappearing, like a video call with a very poor signal, or an old photograph that was out of focus.
“…Mr. Jin…”
A faint, high-pitched, static-filled voice, like a long-distance call from Mars, rang directly in his mind, startling him.
"Yin Shaoqing! It's me! Can you hear me? Do you see the projection of that letter? And the pocket watch!" Jin Zhaoxuan rushed to the mirror, almost pressing his nose against it.
The "snow-like image" in the mirror flickered, unable to solidify, and the intermittent brainwave voice came again, filled with immense confusion and a CPU-overload-like lag:
"...Air...chamber? What...air chamber?"
“Yes! A hidden air chamber! The safe house your adoptive father left you! The blueprints are on the back of the letter! He told you to hide inside!” Jin Zhaoxuan spoke rapidly, as if he wanted to directly cram the information into the other person’s “brain.”
"No...it's impossible..." The voice became even more fragmented, mixed with painful hissing sounds, "I fell in...it was all water...it was dark...I can't find him...he pushed me..."
"That was an act! It was for the military! He had no choice!" Jin Zhaoxuan scratched his head anxiously. "The letter is right here! He wrote it himself! The pocket watch is also a keepsake he left for you! The hands are stopped at 8:14, which is the time you fell into the water!"
"Pocket...watch..." The fog in the mirror tried to "rotate" towards the direction of the virtual projection, and the indicator light on the power bank flickered rapidly, as if it were panting.
"I...I'm so confused...I can't see clearly...I can't understand..." The voice grew weaker and weaker, almost drowned out by the electrical noise.
"Stop thinking about it! If you keep thinking about it, you'll get a blue screen again!" Jin Zhaoxuan had a sudden inspiration and started frantically throwing out "wake-up keywords," "Think about Xiulan! Little Xiulan! She said spring is here, so there's no need to be afraid of setting off firecrackers!"
The ripples on the mirror surface subsided slightly.
“…Xiulan…”
“Yes! And there’s Technician Liu, Liu Fusheng! The person your adoptive father trusts most! He entrusted all his real skills to him! Three generations of the Liu family have never forgotten to look for you!” Jin Zhaoxuan continued, “And the live stream! Your fans are waiting for you to come back and talk about how to repair the blast furnace! The ‘Eldest Son of the Republic’ team even gave you ‘faith power’! Director Zhang of the museum said that the new exhibition won’t open without your explanation! I… my lousy company is counting on you as a technical consultant to revive it! You can’t just abandon it like this!”
He practically shouted out the last sentence, with a sense of absurd reality.
The "snow screen" in the mirror, after a period of violent expansion and contraction that resembled a signal struggle, finally managed to maintain a very faint, human-shaped outline, although the edges were still becoming increasingly jagged. The power bank's indicator light began to flicker weakly at a very slow but relatively stable rhythm, like someone in the ICU whose monitor still had waveforms.
"I... need... time..." Yin Shaoqing's voice was still distant and weak, but it was at least somewhat coherent, with less background noise. "Let... let me... process this..."
"No problem! Take your time to digest it! You can digest it for eighty years! Just don't crash!" Jin Zhaoxuan breathed a sigh of relief, only then did he feel his legs were a little weak and his back was chilly, covered in sweat from the rush he had just made.
He dragged a chair over and plopped down in front of the mirror, staring intently at the faint shadow that seemed about to vanish at any moment, and the faint glow on the power bank that indicated "soul online".
Outside the window, the night was so dark it seemed impenetrable, and all was silent.
That night, Jin Zhaoxuan didn't dare close his eyes.
He's like a network administrator guarding a server that could crash at any moment, like a nanny looking after a newly picked-up, extremely poorly maintained electronic pet, and like a ghost programmer from eighty years ago who has just learned the epic blunder that "my dad didn't want to kill me but wanted to save me, but his operation was too bad and sent me to my death," leading to a complete reorganization of his worldview and an overload of his soul.
On the table, the virtual letter and the stopped virtual pocket watch gleamed unrealistically in the projected light.
Beside it, real letter paper and a real pocket watch lay quietly under the lamp, old and heavy, filled with the clumsy, failed, yet genuine love of a technical father.
It turns out, the most painful truth is not that you hate the wrong person.
Instead, I discovered that all the hatred could have been avoided.
These repair patches make one feel both bitter and bloated, and even a little urge to curse.
Jin Zhaoxuan yawned, looking at the barely visible reflection in the mirror, and muttered to himself:
"Teacher Yin, in the future... can we not play so aggressively? My heart can't take it."
The reflection in the mirror seemed to ripple very faintly.
It's unclear whether this is a response or simply due to an unstable signal.
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