167: The calm before the storm and the "hand-rubbed" early warning system

When the massive underground facility "Homeland" officially entered the highest combat readiness "Fortress" state, a strange duality became the main melody of daily life.

On the surface, the lights in the living area remained warm, meals in the cafeteria were served on time, instruments in the training room were still on, and even the humming of cleaning robots in the corridors continued as usual—everything was trying hard to maintain "normal" operation, as if the impending storm outside was just a distant phantom.

However, beneath this shell of forced calm, an invisible yet incredibly heavy tension, like thin air at high altitudes, permeated every cubic meter of air, making everyone within it subconsciously adjust the rhythm of their breathing.

Although Excellence was kindly comforted by Su Mu and Evelyn with excuses like "routine safety drills" and "system upgrades," his increasingly keen "Holographic Sensing" ability, which was in the stage of "Resonance" sublimation, made him like a creature with countless tiny, sensitive tentacles, capturing the "abnormal ripples" in the environment—things indescribable by common sense yet truly existing—more intuitively than most adults in the base.

What he caught with his ears was not just the faster, higher-frequency footsteps of the security patrols, but also the shorter, harder echoes that revealed themselves when their tactical boots struck the alloy floor, owing to tense muscles.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed that the researchers, uncles and aunts who usually liked to walk and chat enthusiastically in the corridors, were now lowering their voices, speaking faster, keeping content concise, and exchanging glances as brief as sparks, full of a tacit understanding and vigilance that needed no words.

He even vaguely felt that the light emitted by the constant-brightness LED sources in the corridors and public areas seemed to have been adjusted to carry a touch of "cold" and "vigilant" tone (this was perhaps more of a projection and interpretation of the collective subconscious permeating the environment by his keen empathy).

This ubiquitous, pervasive "tension field," like a continuous low-frequency noise, made Excellence feel an indescribable uneasiness and restlessness in his heart.

He seemed to be able to "hear" the "heart" of this massive base beating faster, its "nerves" tightening.

However, he firmly remembered the instructions from Su Mu and Evelyn—"Stay put and focus on training, that is the biggest help"—and deeply understood their intention to protect him.

Therefore, he did not show panic, nor did he get to the bottom of it, but instead transformed that uneasiness into a positive, unique driving force belonging to Excellence.

He secretly made up his mind to contribute to this "Homeland" in his own way; he wanted to "help"!

Genius Concept and "Wasteland" Implementation

Once this thought was born, it took root and sprouted wildly in Excellence's little head.

He pondered for a whole afternoon like a little thinker, even missing his favorite fruit snacks.

Finally, a "brilliant," "epic-level" "Excellence-style" contribution plan was born: he would personally build a unique, "hand-crafted" "All-around Harmonic Energy Field Anomaly Early Warning System"!

This grand name itself made him excited.

In his vision, this system would be able to "hear," "see," "feel," and even "smell" any discordant "bad energy" in the environment, just like his "Holographic Sensing," and sound a world-shaking alarm when it approached, leaving all bad guys with nowhere to hide!

So, where would the materials come from?

Excellence confidently cast his gaze toward his studio, which was like a "treasure mountain."

It was piled with treasures he had collected that others considered "electronic waste" and "junk":

Auditory module: Several miniature electret microphones with varying sensitivity, dismantled from scrapped communicators or old earphones, used as the system's "ears" to "monitor" abnormal sound waves.

Visual and somatosensory module: A bunch of photoresistors (LDR) and several old but still functional digital temperature sensors (DS18B20), used to "sense" sudden changes in light and abnormal fluctuations in temperature.

Environmental olfactory module: An analog barometer gauge he scavenged from abandoned meteorological station equipment, with a slightly blurry dial but a needle that could still tremble.

He pinned high hopes on it, believing it could "smell" subtle changes in air pressure, and "bad guys coming might cause changes in air pressure"—this was his unique logic.

Core soul component: Also his most important "magic weapon"—those few "singing stones" that had a mysterious Resonance with him and occasionally emitted faint ringing in specific energy environments.

He firmly believed these stones were the best "Resonance" sensors, capable of sensing "energy malice" that instruments could not detect.

Connection and creation artifact: Of course, it could not be without his famous hot melt glue gun, which consumed glue sticks at an alarming rate, and a large box of wires of various colors, thicknesses, and some even carrying rust.

The Carnival and Obsession of "Wasteland Technology"

Over the next few days, Excellence's studio completely turned into a "wasteland technology" manufacturing site full of postmodern collage style.

It clattered inside, smoke from the glue gun curled, and wires crawled over half of the workbench like vines.

He carried out his great project with extreme focus and a sense of ritual:

He used a large amount of hot melt glue to stick the small microphones onto the top of his room's door frame, the corners of the windowsills, and the edges of the vents in a way that looked precarious but was actually exceptionally sturdy, like tiny electronic earflaps.

He used discarded Lego bricks as a skeleton to solder the photoresistors and temperature sensors together crookedly, wrapping them randomly in tin foil outside (he believed tin foil could "focus sensing energy"), making several "sensing spiders" that were clawing and ugly but quite cute, and solemnly placed them in several key corners of the corridor outside his room.

The old barometer was led out by wires and connected to an "Atmospheric Emotion Indicator Dial" made from a bottle cap with an exaggerated expression drawn on it.

He interpreted the swinging of the needle as the "mood of the atmosphere," from "pleasant and calm" to "irritable and uneasy."

The most core part was those "singing stones."

He held his breath and used thin enameled copper wire (rumored to be dismantled from a scrapped coil of Evelyn's) to carefully wind complex "sensing coils" with no electrical standards on each stone according to the "optimal path of energy flow" conceived in his mind.

Then, he soldered the other ends of these coils all at once to the expansion interface of a tablet computer found from a junk pile, which had a cracked screen but could still light up.

Inside the tablet, a "Harmony Waveform" display program he cobbled together using graphical programming software was running, with a code structure like an abstract painting.

A smooth waveform represented "harmony," while violent fluctuations represented "abnormality."

Su Mu and Evelyn would "happen" to pass by his studio from time to time.

Watching the little guy with a tuft of hair standing up from the glue smoke, his face stained with a little tin foil scrap, his little brows tightly locked, muttering to that pile of "junk," they were both amused and felt heartache.

They understood that this was the child using a way he could understand to resist invisible pressure, trying to grasp a trace of control.

They did not stop this seemingly nonsensical behavior; instead, under the premise of ensuring safety, they occasionally provided some "technical support": for example, Su Mu would help him carefully wrap the wire joints that looked like they would short-circuit at any time with electrical tape to prevent failures or even small fire hazards; Evelyn would "inadvertently" point out, for example, "The grounding wire of this sensor doesn't seem very stable, do you want to try adding a capacitor for filtering?"

(Although Excellence likely didn't understand what capacitor filtering was, he would follow the pattern and solder something on).

Their tacit approval and support made Excellence full of energy.

He patted his chest and promised his two most trusted "project consultants": "Squad leader! Sister Evelyn! Just wait and see! When my 'All-around Harmonic Energy Field Anomaly Early Warning System' is completed, any guy with bad energy who approaches will trigger a 'scream' alarm! It will be more accurate than those big radars in the command center! It will scare the bad guys!"

Grand Debut and "Excellence-style" Demonstration

After days of hard work, this "epic-level" early warning system, which condensed Excellence's countless efforts and hot melt glue, was finally declared complete!

On the day of completion, Excellence was so excited that his little face turned red, and he grandly invited Su Mu and Evelyn as special guests to attend his "System Launch Demonstration."

The studio was tidied up into a small "demonstration area" by himself.

Excellence cleared his throat like a real engineer and began to introduce his masterpiece: "Ahem, ladies! Now, Dr. Excellence will demonstrate for you, 'Distributed Environmental Safety Situation Awareness Network Based on Multi-modal Sensing and Chaos Stone Resonance'—this is its official scientific name!"

This domineering and tongue-twisting name was combined by himself after glimpsing a few words from a book Evelyn had laid out, and he felt it was particularly imposing.

The demonstration process was full of "Excellence style":

Auditory test: He leaned close to the microphone stuck firmly to the door frame with glue and suddenly shouted "Wow!"

Sure enough, on the tablet screen connected to it, the waveform line representing sound suddenly jumped up a high peak and emitted a short, sharp electronic sound prompt (which he also recorded himself).

Visual test: He used his palm to suddenly block the "eye" (photoresistor) of a "sensing spider," and the "alarm light" (actually just a red light-emitting diode) made of LED beads on that "spider" immediately flashed with a faint light (although the brightness was only enough to illuminate itself).

"Atmospheric emotion" test: His proudest part.

He ran to the "Atmospheric Emotion Meter," fanned the air with his palm toward the sensing port of the barometer, causing a small disturbance in local air pressure.

The old needle, as expected, began to tremble neurotically from side to side.

Excellence proudly announced: "Look! The atmosphere is starting to get 'nervous'!"

Although the demonstration process seemed full of childishness and wishful thinking to Su Mu and Evelyn, seeing Excellence's eyes shining with excitement and pride, they both responded with the most sincere and enthusiastic applause.

Excellence excitedly announced that the system was officially put into operation and personally placed the tablet computer with the cracked screen in the most conspicuous position in the studio.

Ridiculous Actual Performance and Unexpected Warmth

However, the actual performance of this "advanced" early warning system, which poured all of Excellence's efforts, could only be described as "full of incidents and ridiculous."

The first day the system went online, it became the "number one source of comedy" inside the base:

In the morning, a lost little bird accidentally flew past the window of Excellence's room, its shadow flashing over the photoresistor, and the system judged it as a "fast-moving shadow anomaly," and the tablet dutifully sounded the "Woo-wah" alarm once.

At noon, the rich oily smoke produced by frying steaks in the cafeteria was partially brought into the corridor by the ventilation system, triggering the linkage of the temperature sensor and the barometer (disturbance of hot air from oily smoke), and the system alarmed three times in a row, with the reason being "detected local high temperature and airflow disturbance, suspected energy gathering."

The most outrageous thing was in the middle of the night.

Because Su Mu was thirsty, she got up to go to the public lounge to pour water.

Her footsteps echoed in the silent corridor, triggering the vibration sensing of the "sensing spiders" placed in the corridor (actually a misjudgment caused by poor contact).

The system immediately raised the alarm level, judging it as a "medium-sized abnormal moving object approaching the core area"!

The tablet computer instantly erupted with the "Woo-wah, Woo-wah" screaming that Excellence had recorded himself, which was extremely penetrating and comparable to a fire alarm, echoing through half a floor in the silent night!

The on-duty guard almost rushed over, only to find it was a false alarm.

And the "chief engineer" who caused this chaos, little Excellence, was on the bed in the room next door, hugging his precious stones, sleeping with his little mouth slightly open, drool flowing onto the pillow, completely unaware of all this.

Although this system played almost a "negative role" in real security defense, what it brought was an unexpected, heart-warming effect.

The busy people in the base soon knew about Excellence's "amazing" invention and its hilarious false alarms.

Whenever that unique "Woo-wah" sound rang out, everyone would not panic, but instead smile at each other and joke: "Listen, our 'Excellence Early Warning System' has caught another 'big energy fly'!"

Seeing the little figure of Excellence hugging his "sensing spiders" and debugging everywhere, or staring at the tablet with the jumping waveform with a serious face, the lines on the adults' faces, tightened by pressure, would involuntarily soften.

This child, with his clumsy, naive, yet incredibly sincere efforts, seemed to be reminding everyone what they were guarding here so nervously for.

Su Mu and Evelyn even treated the tablet computer placed in the public lounge as an interesting "mood light" and "Excellence mood barometer."

When the waveform was stable and soothing, it meant the little guy might be reading or drawing, or training smoothly, in a good mood; when the waveform had regular small fluctuations, he might be focused on tinkering with a new invention; if the waveform was chaotic for a long time, it might mean he was anxious or encountered a difficult problem, and they would go to care about him at the right time.

This flawed, childish, yet incredibly sincere effort was like a ray of tenacious and warm sunshine, cleverly piercing through the clouds gathered by the heavy combat readiness state.

Excellence, in his own unique way, which might be technically childish and ridiculous, stubbornly tried to protect this "Homeland" he loved deeply.

The power contained in this intention itself, though small, precisely touched the softest part of everyone's heart, bringing comfort and warmth that far exceeded any precision alarm system.

On the eve of the storm, this innocent protection seemed particularly precious.