Lin Wanqiu's fingers hovered over the keyboard. The cursor blinked in the center of the screen, like an untiring eye. She had just typed "using softness to overcome hardness, retreating to advance" when the wind outside suddenly died down. The room went quiet, even the faint crackle of the cooling fins fading away.
She looked up at the pothos. The water droplets on its leaves had dried, and the new bud was slightly open, as if breathing.
She did not move, only set down her cup. The base tapped softly against the desk.
At that moment, three knocks sounded at the door.
Calm, steady, perfectly spaced. Not the casual slap of a neighbor, nor the quick double tap of a delivery man. This rhythm carried programmed precision, like a test signal striking the tin door.
Lin Wanqiu frowned. She slid her fingers off the keyboard and gently touched the bronze hairpin in her hair. Instead of standing at once, she glanced at the old monitor in the corner. Snow fuzzed the screen for a few seconds before clearing: three dark figures stood outside the gate, in black tactical gear, postures rigid and identical. The leader raised his left hand, holding an ID card flat toward the camera.
She stared for two seconds, confirmed it was no drill or mistake, then stood and walked to the door.
The iron gate was an old sliding model, its track poorly lubricated. It let out a sharp screech as she pulled it open. Wind and sand rushed in. She shielded her face and squinted outside.
"Lin Wanqiu?" the man asked. His voice was not loud, but cut clearly through the wind.
She nodded.
"Cheng Ye, National Security Bureau Special Operations Division." He removed his glove and held out his ID closer. "We need to conduct a routine investigation."
Lin Wanqiu looked at the red seal and serial number, then lifted her eyes to him. The man was around thirty, with a square face, prominent brow bones, and eyes that scanned her like a scanner, no extra emotion. The two men behind him stayed still, hands in their pockets, gaze fixed forward.
"Now?" she asked.
"Sooner the better," he said. "Without disrupting your daily life."
She stepped aside. "Please come in."
Cheng Ye nodded and stepped inside. His boots thudded heavily on the concrete. He glanced around the home, converted from an abandoned satellite station: the front room served as living room and studio, with a folding desk against the wall holding a laptop, camera, microphone array, and a pothos in the corner. A simple rack stood nearby with several modified hanfu, plain fabric with subtly embroidered bamboo patterns. On the wall hung architectural sketches, including a disassembled dougong diagram of the Yingxian Pagoda, with stress angles marked in red pen.
He approached the workbench and looked at the open schedule notebook.
Today's Tasks
□ Stream review
□ Model storage
□ Dougong script — in progress
Beneath it were dense handwritten notes, titled Dougong: The Mechanical Miracle of Ancient Chinese Architecture. The text was mixed with sketches, mathematical derivations, and even a small table comparing overhang layers and seismic resistance across dynasties.
"You organize all your broadcast material yourself?" he asked.
"Mostly," she said, standing by the desk, not sitting. "The platform sometimes provides materials, but I prefer to restructure the logic myself."
Cheng Ye flipped through the manuscript. The edges were worn, clearly revised repeatedly. One page read: "Dovetail bevel angle 75°–80°, failure if error > 0.5 mm", with a hand-drawn cross-section clearly labeled. Another recorded beam data from Nanchan Temple in Wutai Mountain, precise to the centimeter.
He closed the pages and looked up. "Do you know why we're here?"
"Signal issues?" she guessed.
He gave a slight nod. "Abnormal signal leakage was detected recently, originating in this area. You live in Area A‑7 and host public broadcasts, so you are a subject for verification."
"I'm not the only one streaming here."
"You're the only one using a self-built transmission module without registration."
Lin Wanqiu paused. "I only increased antenna gain and used the backup channel of the old station. Technical parameters were declared to the platform."
"But your device output waveform does not match standard streaming protocols," Cheng Ye said. "We captured unencrypted narrowband pulses with frequency characteristics close to directional transmission."
"That could be interference," she said calmly. "The Gobi has high geomagnetic activity, plus solar wind disturbances. Occasional resonance in equipment is normal."
Cheng Ye did not argue. He only asked: "Your father was an archaeologist?"
Her eyes flickered. "How do you know that?"
"Background check," he said. "Lin Zhensheng, member of the 2019 Northwest Joint Expedition. Last recorded at the western edge of Lop Nor."
Lin Wanqiu said nothing.
Cheng Ye continued: "Your mother comes from a family of traditional Chinese medicine, majored in materials science. Her thesis: Correlation Between Bamboo Fiber Molecular Arrangement and Natural Composite Material Properties. During the solar storm three years ago, you were calibrating a device called 'Ancient Wisdom Analyzer' at this station."
He spoke like he was reading a file, word for word.
Lin Wanqiu looked at him. "So you're not here about signals."
"The signal is the excuse," he said. "I'm here to see the person."
She did not smile or grow angry. She only pushed the bronze hairpin half an inch deeper into her hair — a tiny movement, but he caught it.
"May I see your equipment?" he asked.
"Yes." She walked over and opened the laptop. "All streams are saved locally. You can check the records."
Cheng Ye did not rush to touch the computer. He signaled his team to stay outside and stepped into the studio alone. He crouched and checked the ports on the bottom of the mainframe. He found a shield that had been removed — screws misaligned, scratch marks from tools on the edge.
"Repaired recently?"
"The current noise got louder three days ago," she said. "I thought it was aging wiring, opened it up, and resecured the ground wire."
Cheng Ye touched the vent. His fingertips picked up tiny metal flakes. He rubbed them — grayish-white, not common solder residue.
"Have you noticed abnormal loads during streams? Sudden fan speed-up, or overheating USB ports?"
"Something was odd last night," she recalled. "Audio was unusually clean, near-zero latency, but CPU usage was very low. I thought it was good weather and stable ionosphere."
Cheng Ye stood up. His gaze swept over the camera, microphone, power manager, and finally rested on the pothos.
The plant looked healthy: full leaves, new buds, moist soil.
"It's always been here?"
"Since I started streaming," she said. "My mom said green plants balance the atmosphere, so I kept one."
Cheng Ye asked nothing more. He turned back to the desk, picked up the dougong manuscript, and flipped through it again — slower this time, page by page, not skipping even the calculation drafts at the foot.
"Did you measure all this data yourself?"
"Partly from literature, partly modeled and verified by me," she said. "This diagram, for example, is reverse-calculated load distribution using 3D stress analysis software. Red areas are concentrated stress points."
Cheng Ye stared at the diagram for five seconds, then suddenly asked: "Have you ever considered that these things… might be seen by people who shouldn't see them?"
Lin Wanqiu met his eyes. "It's popular science, posted on a public platform. Nothing 'shouldn't be seen.' Knowledge itself has no borders."
"But transmission paths do," he said. "What if your voice passes through the atmosphere and is picked up by other receivers?"
She froze for a moment. "You mean… alien civilizations?"
Cheng Ye neither confirmed nor denied. He placed the manuscript gently back on the desk. "I don't care what you teach. I only care who is listening."
The room fell completely silent.
Wind slipped through the door gap, stirring her clothes and flipping the pages on the desk. One draft on dougong overhang length and roof angle function lifted slightly, and she pressed it down.
"I'm just someone sharing fun facts," she said.
Cheng Ye looked at her for three full seconds. Then he pulled out a portable recorder and filmed the workspace: laptop, models, manuscript, pothos, wall diagrams. Motion crisp, emotionless.
"We will keep the record," he said. "If no further issues arise, we won't disturb you for now."
Lin Wanqiu did not ask how long "for now" meant, or if they would return. She only nodded.
Cheng Ye walked to the door. Before sliding it open, he stopped and turned back.
"Next stream: dougong?"
She blinked in surprise. "You saw the preview?"
"It was written in your schedule," he said. "Next Tuesday, 8 PM."
She nodded.
He said nothing more, pulled the door open, and walked out. The two agents followed immediately. The three left in formation, steps uniform, boots fading into the distance.
Lin Wanqiu stood at the door until their figures vanished behind the dunes, then slowly closed it.
The iron gate slid back into place with a heavy click.
She did not return to the desk. She stood where she was, staring at the shut laptop. The screen was black, reflecting only her blurry outline, like an undeveloped photograph.
She looked down at the manuscript in her hand, fingertips brushing the worn edge.
Then she turned, walked back to the desk, and reopened the document.
The cursor still blinked after that line:
"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 deleted the final period, replaced it with a comma, and continued typing:
"The core value of this structure is not how much weight it can hold, but that it allows slight shaking — and thus avoids total collapse."
She finished the sentence, paused, and drank cold water.
Outside, sunlight still shone brightly. Dunes lay quietly, as if nothing had happened.
But she knew something had changed.
She opened a drawer, took out a kraft paper envelope, neatly placed all of today's manuscripts inside, sealed it, and wrote two words on the cover:
Filed
She slid the envelope into the deepest compartment under the desk, pushed it all the way in, and blocked it with a thick book.
She sat back, folded her hands on the desk, and looked at the pothos.
Its leaves faced south, edges slightly curled, as if thirsty.
She did not move. Did not water it.
After a few minutes, she suddenly reached out and turned the camera toward the wall, no longer pointing at her workspace.
Then she pressed the laptop's sleep button.
The screen dimmed. The mainframe fan let out one last soft whir, like a sigh.
She sat there, not turning on the light, not standing up.
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 archived forever in the memory banks of countless civilizations.
She only knew that the man named Cheng Ye had not looked at her like a streamer.
He had looked at her like a puzzle.
She raised a hand and touched her bronze hairpin. It felt ice-cold.
Then she pulled out her chair and opened a new document.
This time, she created a blank page.
In the title bar, she typed four characters:
Backup Draft
The cursor blinked below, waiting for the first line.
She stared at the screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard, not typing for a long time.