Late at night, the simple desk lamp that Gu Beichen brought cast a warm halo around Lin Su’s drawings.
However, what illuminated her eyes at that moment was not the foreign language materials that needed to be translated, but a notebook with yellowed paper and badly worn edges.
This is her mother Su Qingluan’s notebook. Ever since she got her hands on it, she has kept it close to her body and it has never left her side.
She finally freed up the necessary energy from her heavy past to begin systematically organizing this legacy.
As her fingertips traced her mother’s neat and elegant handwriting, the complex deductions about fluid mechanics and new materials felt as intimate to her as another mother tongue.
However, as she turned to the later part of the notes, where seemingly unrelated, scattered cryptographic symbols and philosophical reflections began to appear, her movements slowed down.
Her fingertip hovered over a page about “information entropy and system stability,” next to a small, dark brown stain in the corner.
Memories are like a safe that has been pried open, bursting open with a bang.
That wasn’t ink, it was blood.
On that rainy night years ago, she had just discovered she was pregnant, a mixture of joy and fear.
She was overjoyed to have a child with her beloved, but she was also terrified because Gu Beichen had not sent her a single word since he left.
Two months of silence gave her a bad feeling. Was this relationship going to end with his departure?
But just when she was filled with fear and anxiety, she discovered that she was pregnant.
One day, while she was out gathering firewood, a disheveled stranger delivered a devastating blow: her mother had died in an accident in the laboratory, leaving behind only this notebook.
She couldn’t believe it, so she opened the notebook and saw that it was indeed her mother’s familiar handwriting, and there were bloodstains on the notebook that made her eyes widen in horror.
She remembered that day when she returned to the home Gu Beichen had built for her. She sat on the kang (a heated brick bed), leaning against the cold earthen wall, tightly clutching the notebook as if it were the last piece of driftwood in the world.
The dull, throbbing pain in her lower abdomen mingled with the agonizing pain in her heart, yet she couldn’t shed a single tear.
It’s a kind of numbness where even sadness seems superfluous after being abandoned by the whole world.
“Mom, what should I do…” she murmured unconsciously, her fingertips moving helplessly.As he wrote, he pressed his pen onto the old bloodstain that his mother hadn’t had time to clean.
The icy touch sent a chill down her spine.
At that moment, she was not a brilliant genius, but a young woman who had lost her mother, been “abandoned” by her husband, was pregnant with her child alone, and whose future was uncertain.
It was this bloodstain that woke her up.
Why did the mother leave bloodstains? What kind of “accident” was it? Does this notebook hide a more dangerous secret?
A clear realization struck her: she could not fall.
She not only had to find a way to survive and raise her child, but also to find out the truth about her mother’s death.
Any sign of weakness could lead to her and her unborn child’s utter ruin.
From that day on, the Lin Su who could be coquettish and dependent died.
Those who survived were “Gu Yun,” who had to use their wisdom and iron will to fight for a way out for themselves and their children.
“despair.”
A drop of warm water fell onto the notebook, blurring the writing in front of it.
Lin Su snapped back to reality and realized that she had been crying uncontrollably. She immediately raised her hand and roughly wiped the wetness from her face with her sleeve, also wiping away that moment of vulnerability.
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to pull her attention out of the emotional quagmire and focus on her mother’s philosophical reflections, which were rich in references to various sources in her notes.
On one of the pages, the mother quoted a logician and wrote: “The most brilliant lie is to construct a self-consistent logical system with flawed premises.”
To identify it, one must find that barely perceptible ‘disconnect’ between its system and the objective world.
Just then, footsteps and voices came from outside the office. It was several researchers from the project team passing by the door after finishing their evening discussion.
“…Therefore, I believe that the underlying logic of the ‘Spark’ plan is flawed, too radical, and deviates from our consistent principle of ‘steady progress’.”
This is more like innovation for the sake of innovation, ignoring the constraints of fundamental physical laws. A slightly aged but powerful voice rang out.
It is Professor Qian Siming, a senior elder of the base, and one of the direct disciples of the late academic giant, Professor Pan.
His words clearly reached Lin Su’s ears, and almost simultaneously, she broke them down into a logical syllogism in her mind:
The fundamental premise is that a steady and pragmatic approach is the only correct principle.
Minor premise: The “Spark Program” does not comply with this principle.
Conclusion: The “Spark Program” is erroneous.
Wait a minute! This logic seems perfect, but its core premise, “the only correct one,” is an unproven logical loop.
The moment that thought flashed through Lin Su’s mind, a chill ran down her spine.
This mindset of forcibly defining “correctness” and using it to negate everything is similar to the description of “clever lies” that she had just read in her mother’s notes.
And the logical core of the trap code she reverse-compiled was exactly the same.
That’s not a simple technical backdoor; its code structure itself carries a condescending mindset that tries to lead you in the wrong direction!
Previously, she had only thought the trap was ingenious, but now, inspired by her mother’s notes, a chilling first impression gripped her.
That unique, hidden logic beneath the technical details stems from the same mode of thinking as Professor Qian Siming’s earlier remarks!
Qian Siming…a disciple of Master Pan…a man of high moral character and great prestige…
A chill ran down Lin Su’s spine.
She quickly closed her mother’s notebook and put it back into the cloth bag she always carried with her.
All the vulnerable emotions that belonged to “Lin Su” had vanished from her face, leaving only the absolute calmness and sharpness of the “Ancient Rhyme” expert.
She previously searched for evidence of “moles” on a technical level, but overlooked the most fundamental point: thought habits cannot be completely faked.
Qian Siming, a seemingly uncontroversial and traditional academic authority, was listed as her number one suspect.
The crisis is no longer a vague shadow; it has a possible name and is standing not far away in the light.
Lin Su picked up a pen and slowly but forcefully wrote the three characters “Qian Siming” on a blank draft paper.
The ink almost seeped through the paper.
She stared at the name, as if trying to see through it to uncover the whole truth hidden behind it.
Then, with a steady wrist, he drew a cold, chain-like circle over the name.
This is not just a question mark; it is a topic that needs to be tackled and thoroughly verified.