I'm doing engineering in the instance.

Chapter 62 The Designer

Old Zhao said, "I'll go settle the accounts," and Engineer Li said, "Me too." The two of them went in different directions from Yuan City.

Xie Chengzhou stood still, without moving.

After they left, the area became quieter. Not really quiet—Source City was never quiet; the sounds of people, transactions, and the occasional bid were always there, but no one was speaking to him anymore. He stood leaning against a stone pillar, which was cold. Leaning against it, he could feel the coolness seeping from the stone, a unique temperature of this space, different from the outside world and different from the instance; it was Source City's own.

He didn't move immediately.

The smells of Yuan City were mixed—the lingering scent of a copycat on someone's person, something damp, with a hint of earth and oxidized metal, mixed with the odor emanating from some unknown props on the stalls. It was hard to describe, but it was the same smell every time he came in; he recognized it. Nearby, someone was hushed and negotiating a price. On the other side, something was placed on the ground with a muffled thud, followed by silence, then more hushed voices.

He stood there at that level of sound, not thinking about anything, just standing there.

He stood there for about a minute before opening the memo.

The line with "75%" is there, and below it is a blank line.

He didn't write immediately; he simply opened the book and stared at the blank line. He knew what he was waiting for. He was waiting for a word, a word he already knew, but he didn't yet have enough information to write it down.

Engineers follow a set of rules when writing conclusions: conclusions must be based on evidence, evidence must be traceable, and traceability must be supported by data. A conclusion without data is not a conclusion, but a guess. Guesses can be recorded, but they must be marked "to be verified" and cannot be placed side by side with conclusions that are based on evidence. Otherwise, during the review, you will not be able to distinguish which is the actual judgment and which is the feeling at the time.

The rules he learned on the construction site are now being used in his memos as well.

He went over the two rules in his mind again.

Pattern #1: Each instance scene contains traces left by the "last user". Four data points, 60% certainty.

Rule #2: The core implicit rule of each instance is linked to the trigger threshold and the professional knowledge of that space. Four data points, 75% certainty.

He put these two rules side by side and tried to understand the relationship between them.

It's not just about being side by side.

Rule #1 states that "users leave traces." Wrenches in factories, notes in pipe networks, worn construction records on construction sites, ore in dam expansion joints—these things are not items generated by the dungeon system; they are left behind after someone actually existed, proof that someone used this space.

Rule #2 states that "the triggering of a rule requires the user's professional knowledge." If you don't understand the machine rhythms in a factory, you won't discover the core hidden rule of #001; if you don't understand the pressure logic of a pipeline, you can only grasp the surface phenomena of #002; if you don't understand the load-bearing principles of a building structure, every step you take in #003 will be blind; if you don't understand the seepage mechanism, you can only wait to die in #004, unable to build anything. The threshold for the rule closely matches the user's knowledge boundaries.

He paused for a moment.

Something tightened in his mind. It wasn't pain, but the feeling of suddenly realizing something was wrong on a construction site—not panic, but a highly focused silence, as if the surrounding noise had been suddenly turned down, allowing him to hear himself more clearly.

The two principles combined refer to the same thing: the design of this space takes into account "who the user is".

It's not a randomly generated space, nor are the rules fabricated out of thin air. Someone designed it specifically for the "user"—designed the rules, the thresholds, and perhaps even the way those traces exist.

He suppressed this deduction in his mind for a moment.

Then he put the pen down.

He wrote two words in the blank line below "75%".

"The Designer".

The pen tip stopped on the paper as he looked at the two words.

He did not let go immediately.

Two characters, seven strokes each, not difficult to write. His hand didn't tremble, and the handwriting was as usual, straight and even. He never wrote carelessly; it was a habit he developed on construction sites—on-site records had to be legible to others, not just to himself. But after he finished writing, his hand remained there, the pen tip still touching the paper, the ink already dry, and he hadn't put the pen away.

Designer.

This means someone did this. It means the copies didn't grow naturally, nor were they the result of some random system operation; they were designed by someone—someone with a purpose and the ability. It means those rules aren't physical laws; they were written in, can be modified, and have a source.

The estimated weight was heavier than he had anticipated.

He had dealt with many cases on construction sites where "someone did this." Steel bars had been replaced, mix proportions altered, hidden works tampered with—each time, the feeling was different when he shifted from "data anomalies" to "someone did it." It wasn't anger, not shock, but a particularly tangible heaviness. It was like initially thinking he was dealing with a physics problem, only to suddenly discover someone standing behind him, changing the nature of the problem.

His current feeling is very similar to that moment.

He stared at those two words for a while.

Then he turned the pen sideways and crossed out the two words.

It's not because the word is wrong.

It's because he doesn't have the data.

He couldn't quantify the certainty of the term "designer." He had two patterns, both pointing to a purposeful source, but a "purposeful source" is not the same as a "designer"—it could be due to the randomness of the patterns themselves, insufficient sample size, or undiscovered flaws in his reasoning. Engineers don't write conclusions without sufficient data; they can only write inferences. Inferences need to be labeled with their degree of certainty, and he couldn't provide a numerical figure for the degree of certainty of this term.

He didn't know what percentage it was.

All he knew was that it wasn't zero.

The horizontal line crossed over the paper, the ink showing through, and the two characters were still visible, just pierced through. He stared at the line, pausing for a moment. He'd seen many things crossed out on construction sites—plans crossed out on blueprints, numbers crossed out on change orders, resolutions crossed out in meeting minutes. The crossed-out things didn't disappear; they were just marked "this doesn't count." But they were still there; you could still see them.

He kept the feeling in his mind but didn't write it down in his memo.

He rewrote a new line next to the crossed-out "Designer":

"Source of the rule: Unknown."

He paused, then added another line below this one:

"But the design logic of the rules points to a purposeful source."

He looked at the two lines of text and felt the difference between them and the "designer".

"Source of the rule: Unknown" is the most honest statement he could write. "Unknown" does not mean "does not exist," but rather "I currently do not have enough data to name it." "Pointing to a purposeful source" is his inference, not a conclusion; it is the maximum inference he can make based on the available data.

These two lines together represent all he can write right now.

He put the pen back and closed the memo.

The moment he closed the door, he heard his own breathing.

He stood against the stone pillar for a while without moving.

He recalled a situation on construction sites that he found most unbearable after twelve years in the industry: you know there's a problem with the structure, but you can't pinpoint where it is. All the data is correct, all the calculations pass, all the specifications are met, but you just have a feeling that something is wrong, you just can't see where it is.

He worked on a project in Pakistan—a six-story office building. The main structure had passed inspection, and he spent three days on-site. Afterward, he couldn't find any problems with the data, but he couldn't leave. He walked back and forth in the building, over and over again, with a feeling he couldn't quite put his finger on. The building's corridors had terrazzo floors, and walking on them created an echo. As he walked back and forth, he could hear his own footsteps echoing through the corridors, each step clear, each step telling him, "I haven't found it yet." Later, he discovered it—the problem was with the ventilation ducts in the basement, not the structure. The construction team had offset the duct's intended location by twelve centimeters during the pouring of the concrete. The offset was within the allowable error range, so the inspection passed. However, this twelve-centimeter offset would create negative pressure under certain wind conditions, which would accelerate fatigue damage at a certain node over long-term operation.

That problem wasn't in the calculations, but in the feeling he had after walking back and forth in that building for three days.

It took him three days to find it.

This situation is more difficult than "a problem has been confirmed" not because it is more dangerous, but because you have no way to deal with a problem that you cannot see. You can only wait for it to be exposed and for it to give you enough data to locate it.

He feels very similar to that situation now.

He knew something was there. He had two patterns, four copies of the data, and "the two crossed-out words"—all of these combined told him something was there, purposeful, logical, and bigger than he could currently see. But he couldn't see the whole picture; he could only wait, wait for more data, wait for the next copy, wait until he could push the certainty from 75% to a number he was willing to include in his conclusions.

Footsteps came from the side, the same kind of stride Old Zhao took when he came back—even, firm, his right leg had mostly recovered, and he no longer limped. He was still holding a thermos, the lid undone, as if he had just finished drinking from it.

"Alright," Old Zhao said.

Xie Chengzhou reached into his pocket, touched the memo to confirm it was there, and then released his hand.

"Let's go," he said.

He followed, without looking back.

The crossed-out words remained in the memo, on the paper. Two words, crossed out by a horizontal line, but the ink was still there, still visible.

He memorized it.

Wait for the data to fill it in.