「The third day of the training camp.」
Any sense of novelty, any of the initial tentative probing, was utterly crushed by this high-intensity, force-fed regimen.
The air in the tiered lecture hall was perpetually thick with the smell of chalk dust that never quite settled.
Mixed with the muggy humidity of early summer, it felt dry and scratchy in your lungs.
Four hours of pure theory every morning.
Basics of calculus, complex topological networks, rigid body dynamics models.
Professor Wang no longer told his enlightening physics stories.
He had become a ruthless sowing machine.
Regardless of whether the soil beneath was barren or fertile, he just hammered the most esoteric, high-level physics formulas into the six students’ heads.
The afternoons were for the First Physics Lab, an immovable part of their schedule.
The projects in the lab grew brutally difficult and more diverse.
Professor Wang no longer just handed them black boxes and circuit boards.
Mechanics, heat, light, electricity.
In the actual hands-on portion of the finals, these four major fields were often integrated and interconnected.
All sorts of crude, even defective, experimental equipment was brought to the professor’s desk, box after box.
Evening self-study sessions were filled with a seemingly endless supply of the most difficult problems from the national exam papers.
Eight full pages of exam papers, densely packed with force-analysis and electromagnetic-field diagrams.
The empty ink cartridges on the corners of their desks began to multiply.
Wang Huashao’s once-energetic face now sported two prominent, dark circles under his eyes.
He even grew quieter when eating in the cafeteria.
His usual energetic stride degenerated into a weary shuffle.
Miao Shian’s few, neatly pressed white shirts now bore indelible yellow rosin stains and black, oily smudges on their collars and cuffs.
He no longer agonized over keeping his clothes clean; his only concern was whether the component in his hand had a bad solder joint.
A hard callus had formed on the side of He Gui’s right index finger from holding his pen.
He was shy to begin with, and now he spent all day with his head bowed, burying himself in calculations on his scratch paper.
Zhou Kai’s jawline seemed even sharper than when he first arrived.
He spent every day wrestling with complex mathematical models, attempting to define every corner of the physical world with the absolute clarity of algebraic equations.
In this enclosed, brutally monotonous environment,
time became a pure physical quantity,
marked only by its mechanical passage.
「The fifth day.」
「Two in the afternoon.」
「The First Physics Lab.」
The sky outside was overcast, heavy thunderclouds pressing down on the roofs of the affiliated high school.
The air was muggy and still.
The air conditioner in the lab hummed and vibrated.
Unlike usual, Professor Wang didn’t hand each of them an individual black box or motherboard.
On the professor’s desk,
was piled a small mountain of loose components.
A rusty brass gear set, photoresistors, thermal diodes, a tangled mess of wires, several different models of DC motors, a small salvaged relay, and a large, blank perfboard.
"No more ’minesweeping’ today."
Professor Wang held his chipped enamel mug, leaning against the lecture desk.
"The national finals are divided into individual and team competitions."
He pointed to the pile of parts on the table.
"You have three hours."
"The six of you together."
"Using these components, build me a mechanical alarm that has a dual-trigger mechanism: light and temperature."
Professor Wang took a sip from his mug, his tone flat.
"The requirements are simple."
"When the light dims, or the temperature rises to a critical point, the motor must activate, driving the gears to strike that brass bell over there."
"Begin."
Having said his piece, Professor Wang pulled over a chair and sat in the far corner.
He flipped open an old academic journal and paid them no further attention.
The six of them gathered around the professor’s desk,
staring at the chaotic jumble of components.
This was their first large-scale, hands-on project that required teamwork.
Chen Zhuo stood in the middle.
As the team’s captain, he naturally took charge of coordinating their efforts.
He pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose.
His gaze swept over the pile of parts and the five people before him.
Chen Zhuo’s line of thought was clear.
Over the past few days, he had gotten a good sense of everyone’s strengths. He needed to place these top-tier ’components’ in their most effective positions.
"Let’s divide the labor."
Chen Zhuo’s voice was quiet but steady, imbued with a convincing logic.
"Zhou Kai, you’re responsible for the main circuit’s logic gate design. The photosensor and heat sensor are an ’OR’ relationship. Sketch the simplest possible circuit."
Zhou Kai nodded, immediately pulling scratch paper and a fountain pen from his bag.
"Miao Shian, you’re in charge of calibrating the trigger thresholds for the light and heat sensors. No false alarms."
"Got it."
Miao Shian pushed up his glasses, picked up a multimeter, and started sorting through the components.
"Wang Huashao, you’re the best with your hands. You take the gear-train and striking mechanism. Make sure the lever hits the bell when the motor spins."
Wang Huashao flashed an "OK" sign, grabbed a file, and immediately went to work on the rusty gears.
"He Gui, you’re in charge of wire management and basic soldering. Make sure there are no cold joints or short circuits."
He Gui silently picked up the soldering iron and plugged it in.
Chen Zhuo finally turned his head to look at Lin Yi.
Lin Yi casually picked up a photoresistor from the table and was tossing it in her hand.
"Captain, what do I do?"
"You’re in charge of the final schematic review,"
Chen Zhuo said flatly.
"Before they start assembly, give the topology a once-over for any fundamental errors."
"Alright."
Lin Yi agreed casually, pulled up a chair, rested her chin in one hand, and started watching them work.
As for Chen Zhuo, he picked up a pen and paper.
He was responsible for calculating the total power redundancy of the entire system, as well as the current distribution between the various modules.
The division of labor was clear.
It sounded flawless.
Each of them was a top expert in their own domain. If each one perfected their assigned part, the final assembly should, in theory, be a perfect machine.
The lab filled with the sounds of their busy work.
Zhou Kai rapidly sketched logic gate circuits on his scratch paper.
He pursued perfection. To ensure the absolute purity of the signal, he added complex filtering capacitors and voltage regulators to the diagram, calculating the potential at every node.
Miao Shian held a multimeter and a lighter.
He patiently tested the resistance curve of the thermal diode under varying temperatures.
He calibrated the sensor’s sensitivity to an extremely high degree; the multimeter’s needle would deflect instantly if the lighter moved even a fraction closer.
Wang Huashao, file in hand,
focused on smoothing the rusty brass gear.
He blew the filings from the gear, trying to perfect its meshing. He even fashioned an intricate double lever from scrap wire to ensure the striking force would be absolutely perfect.
Nearby, He Gui quietly stripped the insulation from the wires, leaving the ends perfectly neat and tidy.
Chen Zhuo sat to one side,
the tip of his pen scratching across the paper.
He calculated the total current and the motor’s internal resistance; all the figures looked sound.
Lin Yi sat in her chair,
glancing over the circuit diagram Zhou Kai handed her.
"No shorts, no reversed polarity."
She pushed the schematic over to He Gui.
"Solder it."
Three hours later, everyone had perfectly completed their assigned module.
"Time to assemble."
Chen Zhuo put down his pen.
They each brought their modules over.
Using his soldering iron, He Gui carefully connected them on the perfboard.
"Power on."
Chen Zhuo connected the external power supply.
The multimeter’s needle twitched once, then stabilized.
"Test the light control,"
Chen Zhuo ordered.
Wang Huashao took a dark-colored jacket
and draped it securely over the photoresistor,
simulating darkness.
CLICK.
The relay made a crisp sound as it engaged.
The circuit was live.
But...

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