32: Evelyn's "Gift" and Su Mu's Discovery

Despite Excellence being cautious and trying his best to avoid contact with anything suspicious, trouble—or rather, "opportunity"—always found its way to his doorstep.

It was a gloomy Wednesday afternoon. Excellence had just returned from the lab when the dormitory administrator called out to him, "Excellence, there's a package for you. It looks quite valuable, remember to sign for it."

Alarm bells immediately rang in Excellence's mind. He hadn't shopped for anything online recently, and no one would send him a "valuable" package. He cautiously took the parcel and found it exceptionally well-packaged. The outer layer was special shock-absorbent bubble wrap, and the inner layer was smooth black wrapping paper. There was no sender information, not even a delivery slip, as if it had appeared in the mailroom out of thin air.

The package wasn't large, about the size of a thick dictionary, but it felt heavy in his hand, as if it carried the weight of history.

Excellence's heart raced. He immediately reported it to Xiao Zhang through their emergency contact channel. In less than twenty minutes, Xiao Zhang arrived at the dormitory, his expression cold and stern.

Xiao Zhang didn't touch the package immediately. Instead, he took out various professional devices from a silver metal case: a handheld X-ray scanner, a chemical substance detector, an electromagnetic field meter... He conducted a comprehensive inspection of the package with clean, efficient movements, drawing stares from passing students.

"No traces of explosives, no hazardous chemicals, no active monitoring devices," Xiao Zhang reported calmly while operating the equipment. "The interior contains paper material and some high-density organic material, preliminary assessment suggests a wooden container."

Once safety was confirmed, Xiao Zhang signaled Excellence to open the package under surveillance. Excellence carefully peeled away the layers of packaging, revealing a deep purple sandalwood box. The surface of the box was carved with intricate astronomical patterns and indecipherable runes. It was cold to the touch and emitted a faint scent of agarwood.

"Is this... an antique?" Excellence discovered with surprise that the box's latch was a clever mechanical lock. He studied it for a long time but couldn't figure out how to open it.

Xiao Zhang silently handed over a specialized multi-functional tool. "Try rotating it three times clockwise, then twice counter-clockwise, and finally press down."

Excellence followed the instructions. With a soft click, the lid slowly popped open. Inside was a lining of dark red silk, and resting quietly on the silk was a thread-bound ancient manuscript with yellowed pages. The edges of the pages were slightly damaged, but it was overall well-preserved. Though the ink had faded, it was still clearly legible.

The title of the book was written in Small Seal script. It took Excellence a long time to recognize it as the commentary on the huainan wanbi shu.

"The myriad arts?" Excellence looked bewildered. "Isn't that the Han Dynasty book... the one that records various occult arts and natural phenomena? But this 'Commentary' is..."

He carefully turned a page with a gloved finger. The text inside was obscure and difficult to understand, interspersed with numerous diagrams and symbols. The material of the pages was unique, possessing a strange resilience that was clearly not ordinary paper.

As he flipped through, Excellence was deeply drawn to the content of one page. The illustration on that page depicted a uniquely shaped bird pattern, surrounded by wavy lines and strange symbols that seemed to represent some kind of energy field. The adjacent text annotations mentioned concepts like 'Yang Sui fire-starting' and 'Fang Zhu dew-collection,' but the perspective of the discourse was very peculiar.

"For the Yang Sui to take fire and the Fang Zhu to take dew, it is not the ingenuity of the tools, but the resonance of sincerity and the harmony of Yin and Yang..." Excellence read the obscure words softly, his heart suddenly accelerating.

These words weren't merely describing phenomena; they were exploring a deep principle of 'resonance of sincerity and harmony of Yin and Yang,' vaguely involving the resonance and transmission of energy and information! What shocked him even more was that certain symbols and diagrams describing energy flow in the book had a startling, metaphysical correspondence with the basic theoretical models he had received from the system regarding wireless energy transmission and even more advanced technologies!

"How is this possible..." Excellence muttered to himself, his fingers trembling slightly. "This is an ancient book of occult arts? How could it..."

In his state of shock, he noticed a beautifully crafted note tucked into the gutter of the pages. On the paper, a line of English was written in elegant fountain pen script:

"Perhaps the ancients already knew the secrets you seek. A little gift for your curiosity. - E."

("Perhaps the ancients already knew the secrets you seek. A little gift for your curiosity. — E.")

E.! Evelyn! Evelyn!

Excellence's hand shook, and the ancient book almost fell to the floor. Her! It really was her! In this way, she had bypassed all direct contact to deliver a "gift" he couldn't possibly refuse right to his face!

How did she know he was interested in these things? What was her purpose in sending this ancient book? A gesture of goodwill? A show of power? Or a deeper lure?

Xiao Zhang also saw the note, and his expression instantly turned cold. He immediately took out an encrypted phone to report the situation to Wang Jianguo, while carefully placing the ancient book and the note into a specialized evidence bag.

"Do not concern yourself with this anymore, and do not mention it to anyone," Xiao Zhang warned Excellence sternly, his gaze sharp. "We will take this for professional appraisal. Remember, this is very likely a carefully designed psychological manipulation."

Excellence nodded blankly, but his mind was in turmoil. Evelyn's move was completely beyond his expectations. Not only did she know what he was studying, she even seemed to understand the deepest thirst for knowledge in his heart better than he did. In a way he couldn't resist, she had once again pulled him into her rhythm.

However, what neither Excellence nor Xiao Zhang knew was that while they were handling the package, Su Mu happened to be returning from the library and passed by the dormitory. From a distance, she saw Excellence and Xiao Zhang standing at the mailroom entrance, solemnly dealing with a package, and Xiao Zhang even produced a professional evidence bag... Su Mu's footsteps faltered. She recognized Xiao Zhang; the last time Wang Jianguo came for a "home visit," this man had been standing beside him with a cold aura. She had later specifically looked him up but couldn't find any information on him at all; he was definitely not a school staff member!

How did Excellence get mixed up with someone like that? What were they dealing with? What was in that package?

Connecting this to Excellence's recent suspicious behavior, the funding from The Foundation, and his advanced "research"... a strong sense of unease and worry welled up in Su Mu's heart.

The doubts she had slightly let go of were reignited and deepened. She didn't step forward to disturb them but left silently, her mind made up: she had to find out exactly what Excellence was involved in.

That night, Su Mu used her permissions in the student union and the Science and Innovation Center to quietly log into the school's logistics management system (she happened to have temporary access for a project) and retrieved surveillance footage from near the dormitory over the past few days... She saw that the package had been delivered late the previous night by someone dressed as a courier, but the person's face remained blurred in the footage. She saw Excellence's confused expression when he received the package. She saw Xiao Zhang's professional inspection process after he arrived... What unsettled her even more was that in the footage from another camera, she noticed someone in a black sedan across from the dormitory who seemed to be observing everything with a long-focus lens!

Su Mu's heart sank. She realized that what Excellence was involved in was far more complex and dangerous than she had imagined. She didn't know that her actions, born out of concern, were pulling her step by step into a dangerous vortex far beyond her imagination.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Evelyn Li stood before a floor-to-ceiling window, playing with an antique-style notebook similar to that ancient book, a faint smile playing on her lips.

"The gift should have arrived by now," she whispered to herself. "Let's see how you handle this 'revelation of history,' Student Excellence."

Her eyes sparkled with the light of wisdom, as if she had already foreseen certain future possibilities. This technological dialogue spanning a thousand years had only just begun.