Lin Wanqiu was woken by the wind.
Sand pattered against the tin roof, crisp and rapid, like someone tapping a pot bottom with a spoon. She turned over, the bedboard creaking, and her pillow slipped to the floor. Bright daylight seeped through the curtain gap, drawing a slanted line across the floor. She reached for her phone; the screen lit up: 10:23:17. She had slept in a little, but she was in no hurry. She set her own broadcast time, and her viewers never rushed her.
She sat up, rubbed her temples. She had not slept deeply; her dreams had been full of wood clicking together — click, click, click — like some mechanism locking repeatedly. She paid it no mind, slipped on her shoes, and walked to the desk to check her equipment. The notebook booted up, the fan spinning into steady operation; camera self-test passed; microphone input normal. The pothos still stood in the corner, leaves facing south, edges slightly curled, as if thirsty.
She unscrewed her thermos and drank some warm water, then placed the mortise-and-tenon model she had prepared onto the desk. It was a simplified dovetail joint, two hardwood pieces fitting tightly, pullable, pressable, easy to assemble and take apart. The background was still the dark cyan linen cloth embroidered with half a bamboo slip, a gift from her mother years ago. When everything was ready, she took a deep breath and pressed Start Live.
The comment area automatically loaded greetings:
[Host is online!]
[What are we talking about today?]
[Waiting for an update for three days!]
[Fun facts fan here!]
Lin Wanqiu glanced at the viewer count in the corner: 4. Usual numbers. She cleared her throat and spoke:
"Today we cover the core of traditional wooden structures — mortise and tenon."
Her speech was slightly fast, but she paused on the word "core," giving the audience time to react.
"Its greatest feature: no nails, no glue. Connection relies purely on shape interlocking." She held up the model and rotated it slowly toward the camera. "Take this dovetail. One side a trapezoidal protrusion, the other a matching groove. Angle it right, push it all the way, and the harder you pull, the tighter it locks."
She demonstrated assembly. The wood clicked into place with a clean, crisp sound.
Comments flew:
[This is exactly how my old wardrobe is made!]
[Ancient people were geniuses!]
[Fun fact: This is how earthquake-resistant houses were built!]
[Such steady hands!]
[Can you share CAD drawings?]
[Calm down, it's a popular science stream, not a tech forum.]
Lin Wanqiu didn't read the comments, but she could feel something was different today. Network latency was absurdly low, audio output almost zero lag, even her own echo compressed to inaudibility. Stranger still, the host fan hummed softly the entire time, as if under heavy load — yet task manager showed CPU usage under 30%. She frowned, assuming unstable power from an aging battery, thought little of it, and continued.
"The key to this structure is the bevel angle," she slowed down, holding the model close to the lens. "Usually between 75 and 80 degrees. Too steep, easy to crack; too flat, can't lock. Error over half a millimeter, and the whole connection loosens."
She paused for 1.5 seconds, her usual rhythm for absorption.
The comments exploded:
[Detail lover's dream!]
[This precision is aerospace level!]
[Ancient Earth craftsmen: We figured this out long ago.]
[Please measure the Forbidden City's data!]
[Suggest UNESCO add: Chinese Traditional Connection Science.]
[Are you doing dougong brackets next?]
[+1! I heard they can handle magnitude 10 earthquakes!]
Lin Wanqiu smiled faintly at "dougong." She had indeed written a preview in her notebook the night before:
Next week: Dougong structure and ancient building seismic mechanism.
But not yet. She wanted to lay a solid foundation.
"Another example." She switched to a PPT slide showing a photo of the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda in Shanxi.
"Built in the Liao Dynasty, 67 meters high, all wood. Survived over 200 earthquakes. Why? Layer upon layer of mortise-and-tenon systems. Every joint absorbs vibration like a spring."
She pointed to the image. "See here? No rigid connection between beam and column, only tiny gaps. When an earthquake comes, the tower sways slightly but never breaks."
The comment flood suddenly accelerated:
[Dynamic buffering?!]
[This is literally modern shock absorber logic!]
[Earth civilization +10086!]
[Request replication for curvature engine mounts!]
[Emergency meeting: Energy, Materials, Space Navigation all access!]
[Signal source locked: Coordinates Area A-7, Northwest Gobi, Earth 40.3°N, 93.7°E]
[Reception status: Continuous inflow, encoding mode recognizing…]
These words did not appear on Lin Wanqiu's screen.
They appeared in another space — invisible to the eye, undetectable by normal instruments.
No air, no gravity, only flowing light and data.
Thousands of messages streaked across the void like meteors, rolling at high speed along a straight signal trajectory, forming a silent carnival.
["Connection without fasteners? This is the most elegant solution!"]
["Bevel stress conduction… usable on curvature engine supports!"]
["Earth wisdom +10086!"]
["Host please repeat the locking angle parameters!!"]
["Request temporary access: next frame analysis image"]
["Warning: Local computing load 98%, suggest shunting to tertiary nodes"]
["Don't care. I'm finishing this breakdown animation."]
["Who deletes my saved cache I'll fight them."]
["Host speaks too fast, can you slow down?"]
["Auto-record + frame-by-frame replay set, don't worry."]
["New discovery: Host pauses 1.5s after each key point — teaching rhythm design."]
["Learning… Imitating… Applying…"]
["Energy solidification prototype design initiated."]
["Materials requests live stream access for real-time molecular alignment."]
["Approved. Priority upgraded to S-Class."]
["Notify all units: This transmission classified as Enlightenment-Level Cognitive Asset."]
["Respond?"]
["No. Rules prohibit active contact."]
["Then we can only spam comments…"]
["SPAM IT!!!"]
Back on Earth, Lin Wanqiu was explaining the three great advantages:
material efficiency, earthquake resistance, detachability.
She said:
"It doesn't damage the material like welding or riveting, and needs no extra parts. If one piece breaks, you replace only that — no effect on the whole."
She held up the model and gently twisted it; the two pieces separated cleanly.
"And because it's purely mechanical, lifespan is long. As long as the environment doesn't rot, the structure won't fail."
She finished, paused for a few seconds as usual.
Comments erupted again:
[Detachable = modular design!!]
[This is ideal for interstellar ship maintenance!]
[Request application to 7th-generation transition cabins!]
[3D model generated, pressure testing underway.]
[Host that action — breaking the model — repeat once!!]
[I can't, I've recorded 37 replays already.]
[Calm down everyone, it's just a science streamer.]
[No, you don't understand. She just solved the structural fatigue problem we've had for 30 years.]
[Thank you, teacher from Earth.]
[What is pothos? Why always in the corner?]
[Suspected life field generator.]
[Request sample collection.]
[Prohibited! No contact with signal source items without permission.]
[But we can grow one in virtual space.]
[Grown. ID L-001, 6hrs sunlight daily, simulating Earth morning angle.]
Lin Wanqiu knew none of this.
She only knew the broadcast had gone unusually smoothly.
Nearly 40 minutes without a single glitch, not even the usual static.
She even felt as if someone was listening very carefully — and understanding.
This feeling was strange.
Normally viewers only left short comments like "I learned something" or "where to buy the model."
Never this sense of being watched so closely, as if afraid to miss a single word.
She pressed her lips slightly, closed the PPT, and concluded:
"So you see, the things our ancestors left behind aren't necessarily outdated.
Sometimes, viewed from another angle, they might be the key to future technology."
She finished and clicked End Live.
System tone: "Recording completed, video saved locally."
The host standby light turned red; the fan slowly stopped.
She stretched, her shoulders clicking softly.
Then she stood, picked up a spray bottle, and watered the pothos.
Dots of water glistened on the leaves in the sunlight.
She did not notice that, in that exact moment,
one leaf trembled faintly, as if pulled by an invisible force.
A drop fell to the desk, leaving a small wet circle.
Wind slipped through the door gap, brushing her clothes.
She looked down at her phone. A platform notification popped up:
[Your broadcast "Mortise-and-Tenon Structure Analysis" has been added to "Selected Knowledge Base"]
Beneath it:
[Viewer interaction index hit historic peak, automatically marked high-value content]
She raised an eyebrow, thinking:人气 really was good today.
But she thought nothing more of it.
She packed the model into a cloth bag, closed the notebook, and checked a box in her schedule:
[Mortise-and-tenon explanation √]
Next: write the dougong script.
She pulled out her chair, poured warm water, and blew on it.
The sandstorm outside softened; sunlight slanted in, glinting off the bronze hairpin in her hair.
The room was quiet.
Only a faint crackle from the cooling fins as they cooled.
She opened a document and typed the title:
Dougong: The Mechanical Miracle of Ancient Chinese Architecture
Her fingers tapped twice, then stopped.
She suddenly felt the air was different.
She couldn't say how — just… lighter.
As if something had just left, or just arrived.
She shook her head, imagining things.
Probably hadn't slept well.
Or had gotten too absorbed in the stream.
She took a sip and continued typing:
"Dougong, also called puzuo, is a unique load-bearing structure in ancient Chinese architecture.
Composed of stacked short wooden members, it sits between eaves and columns,
distributing the roof weight…"
She wrote slowly, choosing every word carefully.
Outside, sand dunes lay still, sky clear blue.
Far toward the Lyra constellation, a photon-based cluster fluctuated violently.
They reorganized and evolved around the newly received information,
trying to reconstruct the structure called "dougong."
A prototype was activating.
Its outer shell was not yet formed,
but inside it already simulated an ancient locking method —
bevel fitting, layered transmission, no external force, self-contained system.
Energy began to condense.
First attempt failed; beams scattered.
Second: parameters adjusted, structure fine-tuned.
Third: when one angle matched precisely 78.5 degrees,
the energy core stabilized briefly.
A data wave like cheering spread through the cluster:
[Success!!]
[Only 0.3 seconds, but we saw materialization possible!]
[Request continued experiments.]
[Approved. Allocating resources.]
[Remember this name: Lin Wanqiu.]
[She is the first who made us understand 'the beauty of solidity.']
On Earth, Lin Wanqiu was still writing.
She typed a few words, stopped, and glanced back at the pothos.
Imagination or not, the plant looked unusually alive today.
A new bud had sprouted half an inch, tender green as if it could drip water.
She smiled, turned back, and continued typing:
"Notably, dougong has not only practical function
but also profound philosophy:
using softness to overcome hardness, retreating to advance,
dissolving concentration with dispersion,
resisting rigidity with elasticity…"
She paused, drank some water.
Sunlight fell on her cheek, eyelashes casting small shadows.
Outside, a lizard crawled past the wall, its tail sweeping up fine sand.
The wind rose again, tapping gently on the roof.
She did not hear the cheers deep in the universe.
She did not know every word she spoke
was being translated into billions of forms
and permanently archived in the memory banks of countless civilizations.
She only knew this broadcast had gone fairly well.
Next, she needed to prepare the next episode properly.
She saved the document and closed the notebook.
The moment the screen dimmed,
the pothos in the corner trembled —
once more —
very slightly.