I'm doing engineering in the instance.

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Control Room

From the third maintenance room to the main control room, there are approximately 160 meters remaining.

Xie Chengzhou mentally reviewed the route: based on Lao Zhao's pace after his injury, it would take about four minutes, leaving him with seven minutes remaining within the eleven-minute window. The numbers were reliable. The only thing he lacked data on were the unknown variables along this route—sensors, crawlers, and other things he hadn't yet encountered.

He gripped the flashlight tightly and walked forward.

There were no unexpected events in the first sixty meters.

Two sensor protrusions appeared on the right wall. He slowed down in advance, used his stress concentration sensor to confirm a safe distance, walked around them, and continued walking. Old Zhao followed about a meter behind him on the right, his steps steady, his thermos cup in his hand, and the sound of his footsteps landing evenly.

Then they reached the seventieth meter mark. Xie Chengzhou shone his flashlight forward, the beam extending twenty meters, and then he saw:

There are crawlers in the pipes.

It wasn't just one, but a whole group. About fifteen meters ahead, they were densely packed at the bottom of the pipe. In the beam of the flashlight, their dark gray bodies almost blended into the concrete wall. Only when a few of them turned their heads could he see the reflection of their inward-curving teeth in the light.

He immediately turned off the flashlight.

dark.

He stood in the darkness, holding his breath to a whisper, taking in all the sounds he heard: the movement of the crawlers, the soft, rustling of water, coming from fifteen meters ahead; they were still in place, not coming this way.

Old Zhao leaned closer to him, lowering his voice to a whisper: "How many?"

"More than ten," Xie Chengzhou said, "blocking them fifteen meters in front."

Old Zhao didn't speak, remaining silent for about three seconds. Then Xie Chengzhou heard a faint sound—the lid of the thermos was unscrewed, then screwed back on, and then unscrewed again.

"I'll give it a try," said Lao Zhao.

Xie Chengzhou didn't ask him what he wanted to try. He waited.

Then Lao Zhao raised the thermos cup, and in the darkness, he aimed the metal body of the thermos cup at the flashlight in Xie Chengzhou's hand.

"Turn on the light," he said, "point it at my cup, don't shine it directly forward."

Xie Chengzhou turned on the flashlight and aimed the beam at the thermos in Lao Zhao's hand.

The metal body of the thermos cup reflected the beam of light not forward, but towards the right wall—an orange-yellow halo, about twenty centimeters in diameter, appeared on the right wall of the pipe, forming a swaying reflection on the water surface.

The crawler ahead moved.

Not all of them, just the few on the right. Their heads turned towards the halo, and then they started moving, moving towards the right wall, towards the halo.

Old Zhao moved the thermos cup a little to the right, and the aperture moved with it.

The crawler followed the circle of light.

Xie Chengzhou watched the entire process in the dark, then made a quick mental assessment: the crawlers weren't chasing the light randomly, but purposefully; they were chasing the circle of light, not the light source itself. If Lao Zhao could direct the circle of light far enough, they would follow it, leaving the center of the pipe empty.

"How far can it be pulled?" he asked in a low voice.

"Watch their attention," Old Zhao said. "I'll try to lead them forward; you get ready to go."

Old Zhao slowly moved the thermos forward, and the light circle moved forward on the wall, causing the crawler group to move forward as well. Then Old Zhao pressed the thermos towards the right side of the wall, bringing the light circle close to the wall, and the crawler group gathered towards the wall.

A gap, about one meter wide, appeared in the center of the pipe.

"Go," Old Zhao said in a very low voice, "stay close to the left wall and don't look at them."

Xie Chengzhou adjusted the beam of his flashlight to its narrowest point, walking close to the left wall with light, slow steps, trying to minimize the sound of each step. Old Zhao followed behind him, holding a thermos cup in one hand to maintain the position of the beam, while the other hand supported him on the left wall. His right leg moved slower than his left, but he didn't stop.

They walked past the left edge of the crawler group.

After walking about thirty meters, Lao Zhao's wrist twitched.

It wasn't intentional on his part—his right leg paused with each step, and the force of that pause traveled throughout his body, to the hand holding the thermos. The thermos was tilted out of the flashlight beam's beam, and the halo disappeared from the wall in front of him.

Less than half a second.

But the sound of splashing water in front stopped for half a second.

Then it turned around.

Not all of them, just a few. They stopped the moment the light disappeared and began to reorient themselves. Xie Chengzhou sensed the change in direction in the darkness—not visually, but from the dense, fine sound of splashing water. Its direction was changing, from forward to sideways to backward.

Head towards him.

Old Zhao quickly adjusted the angle of the thermos cup back.

The beam of light reappeared on the wall ahead, and at the same moment, Xie Chengzhou narrowed the beam of his flashlight slightly to make it more focused. The sound of splashing water that had changed direction paused for about half a second when the beam reappeared, and then—a beat slower—continued chasing forward again.

Xie Chengzhou tightened his grip on the flashlight, feeling his fingers exert more force than he needed. He suppressed this excess force and continued walking.

"Breathe," he whispered in Old Zhao's ear, his voice even softer than a breath, "slow down."

Old Zhao nodded, and Xie Chengzhou could feel Old Zhao adjusting his breathing, from audible to silent.

They continued walking forward. Old Zhao kept the thermos cup at a steady angle and kept the light beam focused in front of them. Xie Chengzhou walked along the left wall with light, even, and neither fast nor slow steps.

The nearest reptile was about 30 centimeters away.

Xie Chengzhou could sense its presence, not see it, but feel it—the fishy, ​​damp smell, the subtle movement sounds, the stress response his skin had when it was near it, his wrists felt cold, his shoulders tightened, but he didn't stop, didn't speed up, he just walked, walked evenly, walked close to the wall.

They walked past.

After passing through, Xie Chengzhou walked about twenty meters more before slowing down and letting out a deep breath. He glanced back: Old Zhao was three steps behind him, still holding his thermos, the lid screwed on. The halo had disappeared, and the group of crawlers was about thirty meters behind, gathered on the wall, still searching for the vanished halo.

"It works," Xie Chengzhou said.

"I've used a flashlight to lure cats before," Lao Zhao said. "The principle is the same."

Xie Chengzhou memorized the sentence, said nothing, and continued walking forward.

The main control room is 760 meters away.

When he reached the last thirty meters, Xie Chengzhou sensed a change in airflow at the end of the pipe. It wasn't wind, but the kind of pressure change that occurs when a larger cavity appears in front of a confined space—a slight change that he could feel on his face, as if a larger space was breathing ahead. He recognized this feeling from his experience handling the final connections of underground pipe networks on construction sites.

He quickened his pace a little.

When they entered the main control room, the emergency lights illuminated the room much brighter than the pipes. Xie Chengzhou paused at the entrance for two seconds and scanned the room: it was circular, about eight meters in diameter and four meters high. On the wall directly opposite the entrance was a control panel, made of metal and rusty, with several valve handwheels and nameplates.

He walked to the control panel.

There are four valve handwheels, each with a different label. He looked at the nameplates from left to right: "Main Flow Control - Normal", "Main Flow Control - Emergency", "C-7 Branch Control Valve", "C-8 Branch Control Valve".

C-7.

He took out the note from the inside pocket of his coat, unfolded it, and checked it against the emergency light: "C-7 valve, to the left."

He folded the note and put it back in his pocket, walked to the handwheel of the "C-7 branch control valve", gripped the handwheel, and turned it to the left.

The valve was rusty and offered great resistance. He pressed his full weight onto it, and the handwheel began to turn with a low, metallic scraping sound—slowly, but steadily. After three rotations, he felt the valve reach its position, and the handwheel could no longer be turned.

The sound of the water in the pipes began to change at that moment.

The flow rate was decreasing, not abruptly, but gradually, as if something was being slowly shut off upstream. The water volume was decreasing, the sound of the water was diminishing, and the water depth was slowly receding. Xie Chengzhou placed his feet on the ground, feeling the changes in the water level: from thirty centimeters to twenty centimeters, fifteen centimeters, ten centimeters.

He placed his hand on the control panel and felt the vibration of the wall: it was decreasing, decreasing, and then the vibration disappeared.

In his memo, he wrote: "Main control room, C-7 branch control valve, closed, three turns to the left, water flow stops, main task: completed. Source of note: unknown. The C-7 valve is the correct answer, indicating that the person who left the note knew the valve number in the main control room and knew that C-7 was a critical node. This is not random information. To be verified."

Then he looked down at the inside of his wrist.

Below number C-0047, a line of text appeared, thin and blue: "Historical Pipeline Main Quest Completed. Score Calculation in progress."

He rolled up his sleeves, walked to the side wall of the control room, sat down in the corner furthest from the pipe opening, and leaned his back against the concrete wall.

Old Zhao was already sitting next to him.

He straightened his right leg, not out of habit, but out of necessity—bending his knee would press on the bruise, and bending it to sixty degrees would cause a dull pain that traveled up his calf. He had tried it in the second maintenance room, and now he kept his leg flat to relieve the strain on that muscle.

He unscrewed the thermos and took a sip.

Steam rose from the cup's rim, spreading out in the orange-yellow emergency lights of the control room, fine and steady, as if something had finally had time to slowly evaporate.

Xie Chengzhou looked at the steam rising from the ceiling and wrote the last line in his memo:

"Variables are not a burden."

He closed the memo app.

The sound of water in the control room grew fainter and fainter; the sounds of the crawler horde were no longer audible. It was unclear whether they were still chasing the vanishing circle of light. The water level continued to drop, steadily and continuously, as if this instance was finally coming to an end.

Xie Chengzhou turned off his flashlight and waited in the dark for the settlement.

Old Zhao was beside him, holding a thermos cup with the lid screwed on, not saying a word, also waiting.

The maintenance room was very quiet.