novelraw Chapter 19 - Non-Special Knowledge
Chapter 19 - Non-Special Knowledge
When the emergency lights of the second maintenance room appeared ahead, Xie Chengzhou made a mental note: the current location was about 410 meters, which was basically consistent with his estimate, with an error of less than 10 meters.
They entered the maintenance room. Xie Chengzhou paused at the door and scanned the room.
The circular space, five meters in diameter and approximately three meters high, has a concrete ceiling. Emergency lights, orange-yellow in color, are located at the top and are dimmer than the lights in the entrance maintenance room; a layer of condensation forms on the lampshades. There is standing water on the floor, about five centimeters deep, slightly deeper than the water in the pipes; this water has flowed in from the pipe openings and cannot drain away. On the east wall, there is a metal bracket with a metal box on it—the supply box. The box door is closed with a simple latch, but no lock.
He walked to the supply box, opened the latch, and pulled open the box door.
It's empty inside.
It wasn't an empty box that had been used; it was the kind of empty box where "there used to be something inside, but now it's been taken away"—there were slight indentations on the inside of the box, left by an object that had been left there for a long time, but the object itself was no longer there. He shone his flashlight into the box and carefully examined the shape of the indentations: one was a rectangle, about 30 centimeters by 20 centimeters, and the other was a circle, about 15 centimeters in diameter.
The rectangle is the shape of a backup light source. The circle is—he thought for a moment, the circle is the shape of a rolled-up emergency rope.
Someone had been here before them and taken the contents of the supply crates.
In his memo, he wrote: "Second Maintenance Room - Supply Box - Empty. Indentations: Spare Light Source x1 (rectangular) + Emergency Rope x1 (circular). Time of Removal: Uncertain. There was no water inside the box, indicating that it was removed before the water accumulated, or the person who took it had waterproof measures. Conclusion: There were other players in the pipes, or there were any in the past."
He closed the box door and glanced back at Old Zhao.
Old Zhao wasn't looking at the supply boxes; he was looking at the floor of the maintenance room.
"What's wrong?" Xie Chengzhou asked.
"Here," Old Zhao crouched down, holding the flashlight close to the ground, "there's something here."
Xie Chengzhou walked over, squatted down, and shone his flashlight beam in the same direction as Lao Zhao's beam.
There was a safety helmet under the water on the ground.
It wasn't new, it was old, yellow, with a damaged brim and several scratches on the shell. The lining was worn out and part of it had fallen off. The hat was in the water, upside down, as if someone had just left it there carelessly, or it had fallen off under some circumstances.
Xie Chengzhou pulled the helmet out of the water, turned it over, and glanced at the inside.
There is a nameplate, made of metal, with the employee number engraved on it: JG-0471.
In his memo, he wrote: "Second Maintenance Room · Safety Helmet · Worker Number: JG-0471 · Condition: Old, shows signs of use, not abandoned, possibly lost or misplaced. Relationship with signature for pipe wall construction: To be investigated."
Then he stood up, put his hard hat back in the water, and said, "Old Zhao," he said, "when you inspect pipelines, do the workers leave their signatures on the pipe walls?"
"Yes," Old Zhao said, "Each worker is responsible for a section. After the inspection, they sign their section on the wall, mark it with a steel nail, and leave their worker number. It's standard practice, not a requirement, but everyone does it." He paused. "Where did you see that?"
"Not yet," Xie Chengzhou said, "but if this hat is from JG-0471, there should be his signature on the wall of the section he was in charge of."
Old Zhao thought for a moment, "So that means you want to find the section he was in charge of," he said, "and then deduce where he ended up."
"Yes," Xie Chengzhou said.
Old Zhao glanced at him without saying anything, but his expression changed slightly, giving off an expression that said, "This person's thinking is different from mine, but his thinking makes sense."
They rested for about five minutes in the second maintenance room.
Xie Chengzhou organized the current information and updated the route plan to the third section: the distance from the second maintenance room to the third maintenance room is unknown, but it is estimated to be between 200 and 300 meters according to the specifications, and the third maintenance room should be between 600 and 700 meters away.
Then he listed all the information that Lao Zhao had provided along the way in his memo:
Methods for determining bifurcation (using turbulent sound to identify the direction of the main trunk).
Identification of supplementary construction sections (differences in construction joint width).
Safety helmet employee ID number detected (actively observing the ground).
Water pressure foot sensor (an analogy for a sensing system).
He read through the four points and then wrote a line below: "Information type provided by Lao Zhao: Pipeline engineering experience and knowledge. My assessment framework covers: Structure/Acoustics/Mechanics. Lao Zhao's coverage: Pipeline system/Construction technology/Field experience. Cross-cutting area: Acoustics (partial). Non-cross-cutting area: Lao Zhao has, I don't."
He paused on the line “Non-intersecting area: Lao Zhao has it, I don’t”.
This was the first time he had written such a sentence in this copy. In the #001 wasteland, he relied entirely on his own evaluation framework, his engineering knowledge was sufficient there, and he never encountered a situation where "I don't know, but others do."
Now he has encountered it.
He was the project manager on the construction site, and his knowledge was clearly defined—he knew about structures, mechanics, and construction management, but he wasn't a plumber. He hadn't worked in pipes for thirty years, his feet weren't sensitive to water pressure, and he couldn't tell that the construction joint had widened by two millimeters.
These are the boundaries of Lao Zhao's knowledge, not his.
He modified that line in his memo: "Old Zhao's knowledge boundary: experience knowledge of pipeline systems, complementary to my structural evaluation knowledge, not overlapping. Current copy scenario: Old Zhao's knowledge is more applicable than mine."
Then he added a line below, which he had mentally reviewed twice before writing it down: "Variables are not necessarily a burden. Non-specialized knowledge has engineering value."
He closed the memo and gripped the flashlight tightly.
Old Zhao was beside him, holding a thermos cup with the lid screwed on, waiting to set off.
"Old Zhao," Xie Chengzhou said, "do you know how workers usually go missing in the main sewage pipeline?"
Old Zhao thought for a moment, "Several," he said. "First, getting lost. The pipes branch off, there's no map, you go the wrong way and end up in a dead end. Second, the flow suddenly increases, and you get swept away. Third—" He paused, "Third, some old pipes have toxic gases accumulating, like carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, and going in there is fatal."
Is there a gas problem here?
Old Zhao brought his nose close to the pipe opening and inhaled. "Not now," he said. "In pipes with water flowing, gas doesn't easily accumulate; the water carries it away. But if the water stops—"
"Understood," Xie Chengzhou said. "Let's go," he said, "we won't let the water stop."
Old Zhao gripped the thermos in his hand for a moment before following.
They came out of the second maintenance room and continued walking forward.
Xie Chengzhou swept the beam of his flashlight across the wall, observing the width of the construction joints as he walked, and also looking for worker signatures on the pipe walls. After walking about thirty meters, he found the first one on the right-hand wall: "JG-0344," marked with a steel nail, the handwriting neat, left by someone who habitually signed their name.
He noted the location in his memo and continued walking.
After walking about twenty meters, we found the second one: "JG-0471".
He stopped, held the flashlight close to the wall, and looked at the signature. The handwriting was different from the first one; it was thicker, deeper, and applied more force, as if it had been written by someone with great strength, or perhaps someone who was expressing some emotion while writing it.
This is the starting point of the section that JG-0471 is responsible for.
In his memo, he wrote: "JG-0471, Signature location: approximately 430 meters. Note: This is the starting point of the section under JG-0471's responsibility. The safety helmet is in the second maintenance room (approximately 410 meters). The signature is at 430 meters—the fact that the safety helmet is before the signature location indicates that the worker left the helmet in the maintenance room before entering their assigned section, or lost it while passing by the maintenance room on their return journey."
He compared the two possibilities in his mind.
The first scenario is that workers leave their helmets in the maintenance room before entering their assigned section. This is unreasonable, as workers must wear safety helmets while working in the construction area and will not take them off voluntarily.
The second possibility is that the worker lost his hat while passing through the maintenance room on his way back. This is more plausible—the worker finished his section, passed through the second maintenance room on his way back, something happened there that caused his hat to fall off, and then the worker continued on his way, or the worker simply disappeared there.
He crossed out the first possibility in the memo, keeping only the second: "JG-0471 Disappearance Inference: After completing his assigned section, the worker lost his safety helmet while returning via the second maintenance room, and subsequently disappeared. Location of disappearance: Near or after the second maintenance room. To be verified: Continue searching for the signature endpoint of JG-0471."
Old Zhao watched him write from behind without saying a word.
Xie Chengzhou closed the memo and walked forward.
They continued walking through the pipe, Xie Chengzhou controlling his pace as he scanned the walls for signatures. He found two more signatures for JG-0471, one at about 470 meters and the other at about 510 meters. The handwriting became increasingly illegible, and by the third one, the last number "1" in "JG-0471" was only half-drawn, as if it had stopped halfway through and then not continued.
他在备忘录里记：「JG-0471·签名系列：430m（完整）→470m（完整）→510m（不完整，最后一笔中断）。推断：工人在510米处停止了签名，原因不明。510米之后：无签名。」
"Old Zhao," he said, "look."
Old Zhao shone his flashlight on the incomplete signature, looked at it for a few seconds, and said, "He stopped here, and then didn't continue."
"Yes," Xie Chengzhou said, "When you're doing the acceptance inspection, what circumstances would make you stop signing halfway through?"
Old Zhao thought for a moment and said, "I've discovered a problem. I've discovered a problem that needs to be addressed immediately. There wasn't enough time to finish writing the signature."
Xie Chengzhou added this deduction to his memo: "JG-0471·510m Signature interruption: Possible cause - Discovery of an issue requiring immediate attention, interruption of signing, handling of the issue, and subsequent disappearance."
He shone his flashlight forward, and the pipe continued to extend ahead, dark and deep. Five hundred and ten meters later, there were no signatures or marks on the wall, only concrete.
He closed the memo and walked on.
The sound of water slowly closed in behind them. It was dark in front of them. The beam of light in his hand shot out twenty meters, and it was still dark after twenty meters.