I'm doing engineering in the instance.

Chapter 11: The Client's Perspective

He walked around Yuan City again.

It wasn't because there was anything he hadn't finished looking at—he had already established a sufficiently complete spatial framework in the past two hours. This round was for verification: he wanted to confirm whether he had missed anything in the framework he had established the first time, just like walking through a construction site again after completing the initial survey.

The conclusion is that nothing was missed.

He paused on this conclusion, then added a line to his memo: "Second verification: framework completeness 95%, remaining 5% is the outer functional area - insufficient data, not evaluated for now."

─────────────────────────────

He noticed that the person was walking back to the entrance.

On the west side of the outer ring, a blue folding stool and a gray work uniform. He had noted this person during his first scan—"West side of the outer ring, blue folding stool, gray work uniform, red thermos. No transactions, no waiting, just here." At the time, he added a note to this person: "Insufficient reference frame, temporarily stored, to be reassessed after a judgment benchmark is established."

Now that person stood up and walked towards him.

Xie Chengzhou didn't stop, but he slowed down and went through the man's movement trajectory in his mind: it wasn't random, it was purposeful, and the target was him.

Xie Chengzhou stopped and turned around.

The man walked up to him, stopped, and stood with his hands at his sides, not in his pockets. Xie Chengzhou assessed him: around forty years old, male, with a faded logo on the pocket of his work clothes, shaped like the emblem of some international construction contractor—not the same one, but of the same type. His palms were broad, tanned, and like Xie Chengzhou's own hands, the color of someone who spends years on outdoor construction sites.

The inside of his wrist was not covered. The serial number was clearly identifiable: C-0214.

"You know me," Xie Chengzhou said, not as a question.

"On the bulletin board," the man said, "C-0047, 18 minutes and 47 seconds. I stood there for a while."

Xie Chengzhou shifted his gaze from the man's wrist to his face. The man's expression was the kind he had seen before—not unfamiliar, but rather a state of "knowing each other but unsure if the other person remembers."

Then he remembered.

In the power distribution room, during the eight minutes of waiting for the circuit change, he sat next to the distribution cabinet, his fingers unconsciously clenching and unclenching. "This is the third time. The first two times I didn't go out, so I didn't even know there was a main switch here."

"Are you the fellow traveler from the #001 adventure?" Xie Chengzhou suddenly remembered that fellow traveler, L.

The man nodded. "Liu Qingyuan," he said, "C-0214."

─────────────────────────────

Xie Chengzhou didn't say anything; he was waiting for Liu Qingyuan to speak.

Liu Qingyuan paused for a moment, not out of hesitation, but to organize his thoughts. Xie Chengzhou had seen this kind of silence before; veteran workers on construction sites did the same when reporting problems—it wasn't that they didn't know how to say it, but that they were trying to be precise.

"Thank you," Liu Qingyuan said, "to the power distribution room."

Xie Chengzhou thought for a moment, "You're on the edge of the safety line," he said, "Two meters more is the effective operating distance."

“Not just there,” Liu Qingyuan said, “the entire instance.” He paused. “I followed your route. I know where you landed, I know your detour logic, I know why you went around—you didn’t explain, but I figured it out. The first two times, I didn’t know the chemical area would amplify the sound. I thought it was just a no-stepping zone, a safety zone, not a rule-based zone.”

Xie Chengzhou wrote in his memo: "Liu Qingyuan (C-0214): Has observational skills, can infer logic from behavior, and is not a passive follower."

"The third time," he said, "what did you get in the first two times?"

Liu Qingyuan thought for a moment, "The first time," he said, "I learned the factory supervisor's patrol route, roughly, but not precisely. The second time, I knew that the north staircase led to the second floor, but I stepped on a crack in the floor slab in the second-floor corridor, and the factory supervisor went into surveillance mode, so I didn't go out."

"The floor slab is cracked," Xie Chengzhou said. "You know the detour route."

"I understand," Liu Qingyuan said. "This is the third time I've understood. But I don't know where the main switch is. I searched the entire control panel in the third-floor control room, thinking the switch was there. It took me too much time. After the route was changed, the factory supervisor went into the third floor, and I couldn't get out."

Xie Chengzhou added a line to his memo: "Three failure paths: unfamiliar route → floor slab cracks → incorrect target location. Each failure yields new information, but no complete framework is established."

"You're an engineer," he said, not as a question.

"Construction work," Liu Qingyuan said, "site management." He paused, then added, "And you?"

"The project leader," Xie Chengzhou said, "is a state-owned enterprise located overseas."

Liu Qingyuan nodded, and there was something in his expression that Xie Chengzhou recognized—it wasn't envy, but rather the kind of understanding that said, "Now I finally know why you pay attention to the power lines."

─────────────────────────────

The two walked towards the entrance without any deliberate intention; they were just walking.

Liu Qingyuan held the thermos in his hand, without opening the lid, just holding it as a habitual action. Xie Chengzhou noticed that there were words on the lid, written with a marker, the handwriting was neat, and it was written in the format of a project number, but he couldn't read the content.

"How long have you been here?" Xie Chengzhou asked.

"After coming out this time," Liu Qingyuan said, "I stood here for about two hours. On the outer circle." He paused, "I didn't really want to go into the central area."

Why?

Liu Qingyuan didn't answer immediately. He switched the thermos to his other hand. "After the first two failures," he said, "someone came to me. They said they had information they could sell me, routes they could share, and they could team up with me." He paused. "I bought some information once, spending 150 star coins. What I got was something I already knew from my first time entering the dungeon."

Xie Chengzhou noted in his memo: "Information market: Low-quality information exists, and prices are determined by scarcity, not content quality. Liu Qingyuan: There has already been one instance of ineffective consumption."

"Star coins," he said, "how many do you have left?"

Liu Qingyuan's expression changed slightly, not obviously, but Xie Chengzhou noticed it—it was a reaction that "this issue touched on a specific number."

"Not much," Liu Qingyuan said. "Three failures, and we spent a lot on buying information. But the most critical issue is the deduction of Star Source."

Xie Chengzhou stopped, glanced at him, and asked, "Xingyuan?" He waited for him to continue.

"Each failure costs 100 points," Liu Qingyuan said. "Failure in the trial will deduct 100 points of Star Source." His voice was flat, as if he were stating a fact he had already accepted. "Once it's exhausted, it's gone."

Xie Chengzhou paused for a moment after saying that.

"Exhausted," he repeated, "and then?"

Liu Qingyuan glanced at him. "You don't know this?"

"This is my first time entering the Realm of Experience," Xie Chengzhou said, "and my first time coming to the city."

Liu Qingyuan nodded, his expression revealing something Xie Chengzhou couldn't decipher—not sympathy, but something more complex. "I only found out later," he said. "Someone told me about it. He failed four times, but passed on his fifth try, and then told me about it in Yuan City."

He paused for a moment, "When the star source is exhausted, the original structure will be obliterated. Not in the realm of experience, but in reality."

Xie Chengzhou remained silent, waiting for Liu Qingyuan to finish speaking.

"How exactly was it erased?" Liu Qingyuan said, "I don't know. That person said he only knew the result—someone he knew failed seven times, and after the eighth failure, he died in reality. The hospital said it was multiple organ failure, and they couldn't find the cause." He gripped his thermos slightly tighter. "Seven times, one hundred points each time, that's seven hundred points of Star Source. When that person came in, the entity gave him one thousand points, leaving him with three hundred points, which were deducted after the eighth failure."

Xie Chengzhou wrote in the memo: "Failure penalty mechanism (Source: Liu Qingyuan, C-0214, indirect information): 100 Star Source points will be deducted for each failed adventure; if Star Source points are exhausted, the entity will be obliterated - real death, medically manifested as multiple organ failure, incurable. Initial Star Source: 1000 points (to be verified)."

He added a line after this: "To be verified: ① Whether the initial number of star sources is uniform; ② Whether there are exceptions to the annihilation mechanism; ③ The source information is secondary, and its reliability needs to be assessed."

Then he wrote on another line of the memo: "Current risk assessment: #001 Successfully completed, no failures, no loss of star resources. #002 Must confirm current star resource reserves before entering. Highest priority risk: Star resource management."

He circled this line; it was the first time he had used a circle in his memo.

─────────────────────────────

"How much do you have left?" Xie Chengzhou asked. "Star Source."

Liu Qingyuan paused for a moment, then said, "Seven hundred," adding, "Three times, three hundred were deducted."

"Seven hundred," Xie Chengzhou repeated, "that's enough."

"It's enough," Liu Qingyuan said in a flat tone, "but I used to think a thousand points was a lot, now I know it isn't."

Xie Chengzhou did not answer this. This is not an observation that needs an answer; it is complete.

He stopped. "How did you find that?" he said. "Star Source Balance."

Liu Qingyuan glanced at him. "You haven't been to your personal space yet?"

"I don't know how to get in," Xie Chengzhou said.

Liu Qingyuan nodded, showing no surprise. "Before entering the Realm of Trials," he said, "the Primal Structure will send you a summoning confirmation. Have you seen it?"

"I saw it," Xie Chengzhou said, "when entering the #001 historical realm."

"Use that method in reverse," Liu Qingyuan said. "It's not about waiting for the essence to summon you, it's about you actively summoning the space. At the wrist number, you focus your attention on it, like you're confirming a construction milestone—not just looking, but confirming." He paused. "If you're an engineer, you know that feeling. During on-site inspections, you don't just scan with your eyes, you focus all your attention on it to confirm whether the milestone is stable."

Xie Chengzhou paused for a second on this description.

He knows that feeling. He's been doing live performances for over a decade, and that action of "pressing" your attention into a specific moment is muscle memory.

"and then?"

"Then I went in," Liu Qingyuan said. "Everyone's space is different. Mine was a temporary shed. When I first went in, I thought it was the Trial Realm, and I searched around for a while before realizing there was no factory supervisor." He paused, scratched his head awkwardly, and continued, "After you go in, look for the Source Coin ledger. Next to the ledger, there's a red number; that's the Star Source balance. It's not blue, it's red."

Xie Chengzhou wrote it down: "Personal space summoning: Focus your attention on the wrist number, confirm the node, do not scan. Star source balance: next to the ledger, red number."

"The Star Source Ledger," he said, "is separate from the Source Coin Ledger."

"They are separate," Liu Qingyuan said. "The Source Coin ledger is blue, and the Star Source ledger is red, placed to the side." He paused for a moment. "Most people only notice the Source Coin ledger when they first go in, because the blue one is more eye-catching, and you have to flip through the red one to see it."

Xie Chengzhou added a line to the memo: "Star Source Ledger: Red, located next to the Source Coin Ledger, requires active searching - not prominent in design, consistent with the logic that the entity does not actively notify about the Star Source balance."

─────────────────────────────

They walked to the vicinity of the entrance, where the noise subsided.

Xie Chengzhou thought for a moment, "Source Coins," he said, "How do we use them?"

Liu Qingyuan switched the thermos to his other hand. "Here," he said, "most stalls in Yuan City can use it. You approach a stall, the vendor will quote a price, you align your wrist number with theirs, and the organization will automatically deduct the payment." He paused, "No operation is required, just align, confirm, and deduct."

"Just aim it," Xie Chengzhou said.

"Just make sure you get the information right," Liu Qingyuan said. "But there's one thing—before you enter the central area, make sure you see the vendor's number clearly." His voice was flat. "Those with numbers longer than three digits usually have unstable information quality. I gave my 150 star sources to one called C-0612."

Xie Chengzhou noted in his memo: "Source coin transactions: wristband serial numbers must match for automatic deduction. Information quality reference: the fewer the digits in the serial number, the higher the reliability—to be verified, sample size is insufficient, for reference only."

"Mr. Qian," he said, "C-0003."

Liu Qingyuan glanced at him. "You know Mr. Qian?"

"I've seen him," Xie Chengzhou said. "He recognized my speedrun record."

Liu Qingyuan paused for a moment, his expression containing something Xie Chengzhou couldn't decipher—not envy, but a complex mix of "I know what this means, but I haven't experienced it." "Then you don't need to worry about the quality of the information," he said. "I've never heard anyone say that Qian Lao's stuff is worthless."

Xie Chengzhou did not respond to that sentence.

─────────────────────────────

"When is your next adventure?" Xie Chengzhou asked.

"I don't know," Liu Qingyuan said. "Waiting to be summoned." He paused. "And you?"

"We're waiting too," Xie Chengzhou said.

Liu Qingyuan gripped the thermos for a moment, then remained silent. Xie Chengzhou was waiting for him, not out of politeness, but to assess whether this man had any untold information.

"That person told me," Liu Qingyuan concluded, "that some people, after coming in, the first thing they do is look for a team, look for information, look for someone who can help them clear the game." He paused, "He said he spent the first three trials doing this, and found nothing."

"and then?"

"Then he started to look at the rules himself," Liu Qingyuan said, "and started to memorize them."

Xie Chengzhou wrote in his memo: "Liu Qingyuan's information framework: relying on others = ineffective path, building your own rule system = effective path. He drew this conclusion from the failures of others, not from his own experience."

He thought for a moment and added a parenthesis after the line: "(He himself only came out on the third attempt; he was using other people's conclusions to revise his own framework, but his framework was not yet complete.)"

"Next time you enter the realm," Xie Chengzhou said, "check the power supply lines first."

Liu Qingyuan glanced at him. "Why?"

"Because the diameter of the main power distribution line can tell you the location of the independent power distribution room," Xie Chengzhou said. "The location of the independent power distribution room is usually directly related to the location of the main switch. This doesn't apply to all situations, but it's a starting point."

Liu Qingyuan paused for a moment, then said, "Okay."

He didn't ask "Why the power line?" or "Does this hold true in all scenarios?" He simply said "Okay" and absorbed the information. Xie Chengzhou changed a line in his memo: "Observation exists, and logic can be inferred from behavior" to "Observation exists, and logic can be inferred from behavior; the way to receive information is through direct integration rather than questioning."

─────────────────────────────

Liu Qingyuan stood near the entrance for a while, then turned and walked towards the outer circle. He didn't say goodbye, and neither did Xie Chengzhou. This wasn't a conversation that needed a goodbye—it was complete, it was over, and it didn't need an extra sentence to mark the end.

Xie Chengzhou glanced in the direction he left, then looked away.

He stood near the entrance to Yuan City for about twenty minutes.

During those twenty minutes, he didn't do anything specific. He just stood there, going over Liu Qingyuan's words in his mind. Not by repeatedly pondering them, but by systematically organizing them—which information was firsthand (Liu Qingyuan's own experience of failure), which was secondhand (the experience of the person who failed seven times), which could be cross-verified, and which required further data collection.

One failure costs 100 Star Points.

He mapped this number to his current situation: #001 cleared, no failures, no loss of star resources, initial quantity to be verified.

Then he focused his attention on the inside of his left wrist.

It's not about looking, it's about confirming. It's like focusing your attention on a specific point during on-site acceptance—confirming whether this area is stable, confirming whether the data here is reliable.

He felt a slight warmth on the number on the inside of his wrist, and then he felt the space change.

─────────────────────────────

Construction site project management.

Three folding tables were pushed together, and a large blueprint was laid on the tabletop. The paper was semi-transparent tracing paper with an ink-drawn border, hand-drawn with neat lines, as if drawn with a T-square and a set square. A whiteboard hung on the wall with the words: "#001·Wasteland·Clearance·SS Rating". There was a thermos and several mineral water bottles on the floor.

He stood in the space for a few seconds, making an assessment: it was about twenty square meters in size, the source of light was unknown, there were no windows, but it wasn't dark either. There were two ledgers on the folding table—one blue and one red, the blue one on top and the red one underneath.

He looked at the blueprints first.

The border of the drawing is complete, and inside is—

It's not empty.

He paused on the discovery for about two seconds, then walked over, bent down, and brought his face close to the drawing.

It's an engineering drawing. Not a sketch, not a diagram, but the kind of formal plan used in engineering projects, requiring specialized software or extremely high hand-drawing precision to complete. The lines are ink lines, thin and even, with no jitter at the corners. The axes are represented by dashed lines, and the section symbols use standard legends. The font is so neat it doesn't look handwritten, but upon closer inspection, one can tell it's handwritten—written by someone with extremely steady handwriting using a very fine technical pen.

He recognized the picture.

This is a floor plan of site #001 – the abandoned chemical plant.

The corridor he walked along was all on it—the east section, the west section, the north staircase, the control room on the third floor, the freight elevator shaft, the south main passage, the power distribution room—all were on it, their locations accurate and proportions correct. He didn't have a measuring tape or laser rangefinder in the factory; all his dimensional perception was based on step-by-step estimation, with an error margin of 10% to 15%. The precision of the markings on this drawing wasn't based on step-by-step estimation, but on actual measurements—the kind of precision that only a total station or specialized surveying equipment could achieve.

His gaze moved along the blueprints, extending outwards from the areas he was familiar with—and then he saw an area he didn't recognize.

On the south side of the factory building, directly below the power distribution room, there was an area marked on the drawing, outlined with a dotted line. Next to the dotted line was a column of characters he couldn't understand. The characters were arranged like a label, but he didn't recognize them.

In the upper left corner of the dashed box, there is a label: "-B1".

basement one.

He stayed in the factory for nearly nineteen minutes. He walked past the south power distribution room, where he waited for eight minutes. He stood on the floor of the power distribution room, and the testing hammer touched the ground—he did not feel any signs of underground space, no hollow echoes, no abnormal vibrations. The ground was solid and normal concrete to him.

But this drawing says there's a space underneath.

He shifted his gaze to the signature section in the lower right corner of the drawing.

The signature field was in a standard format, with three lines: "Design," "Check," and "Approval." The lines for "Design" and "Check" were empty, while the line for "Approval" contained a single character, handwritten, in a style he didn't recognize. It was the kind of handwriting he had seen on the last page of the control room files—a handwriting from another world, precise and restrained, professional, the handwriting of someone who wrote their name as an engineering symbol.

Next to the character was a label he recognized: "-G".

Xie Chengzhou stood in front of the blueprint without moving for about ten seconds.

He came in just now, and the blueprints already had the contents. It didn't appear after he came in; it was there from the moment he entered, with that -B1 level, with that signature, and with that underground area he hadn't discovered in the factory.

He wrote two lines in the memo, very slowly:

"Drawings: Available upon entry. Content is a complete floor plan of site #001, with a resolution exceeding the level obtainable in this instance. Includes an unknown area: -B1 level, located directly below the south power distribution room. Signature: G."

Then he paused, and wrote another line below:

"This space is not one that only I can enter."

─────────────────────────────

He closed the memorandum and opened the two ledgers.

The blue ledger is on top: the remaining amount of source currency, the numbers written in dark blue ink.

Then he opened the red ledger.

The numbers are red, clear, and unadorned.

Star Source Balance: 420 points.

He paused on that number for a few seconds.

420 points. The initial allocation is pending verification, but if Liu Qingyuan's statement of 1,000 points is accurate, then he entered with 420 points, not 1,000. If the initial allocation is inconsistent, then his initial quota was originally lower than Liu Qingyuan's—or, the initial allocation is consistent, but something happened to him before he was drawn, causing his star source to be depleted before he entered.

In his memo, he wrote: "Star Source Balance Confirmed: 420 points. Initial Allocation: To be verified (Liu Qingyuan's information source: 1,000 points; my actual amount: 420 points, reason for the difference unknown). Remaining Fault Tolerances: 4 times - failure on the 5th attempt will trigger annihilation. Current Risk Level: Medium to High."

He drew a line under "4 times".

Then he closed both ledgers. He glanced at the blueprint again in the space—the contents were still there, not gone, clear and precise; the dotted line pointing to level -B1 was still there, like an unfulfilled promise, or a question yet to be asked.

He didn't go over there again, and he didn't touch the drawing again.

Then he went out.

It wasn't that he did anything special; it's just that when he wanted to leave, this space let him out.

─────────────────────────────

The sounds of Yuan City remained unchanged. There were conversations, footsteps, the sound of something being put down somewhere, and people discussing a realm rule whose details he couldn't make out. The sounds overlapped, with no one sound standing out and no one sound disappearing.

He wrote the last line in his memo: "Yuan City - First Exploration - Supplement: The client is not on-site seeking survival, but on-site setting the challenges."

He then closed the memo, put his hands in his pockets, and stood near the entrance to Yuan City for a while.

He felt a slight warmth on the inside of his left wrist.

It wasn't pain, it was heat. It felt like something under the skin had been activated.

He glanced down at his wrist: the serial number C-0047 was still there, but below the number, a new line of text had appeared:

"Trials #002 - Summoning Confirmed - Please Prepare."

Xie Chengzhou rolled up his sleeves and put the memo into his pocket.

He mentally reviewed the evaluation framework he had built in #001: structural features, two-layer rule structure, implicit rule search strategy, and variable handling methods. Then he added Liu Qingyuan's words, placing them at the very beginning as a new constraint:

Each failure costs 100 points. He has four attempts left.

He didn't know what scenario #002 was, whether there were other players, what the rules were, or what form the threat took.

He knew only one thing: the first thing he had to do after he went in was not to survive.

It is an assessment.

Then it's not about failing.