90: Birthday surprises and the ultimate romance of "hand-rubbed"

The hourglass of time flowed silently in the depths of the "Candle Dragon" base, and in the blink of an eye, a special date marked on the internal medical calendar quietly approached—Excellence's birthday.

This should have been a day filled with noise, laughter, sweet cake, and sincere blessings, but in the highly guarded, isolated, and solemn environment of the base, the celebration was inevitably cast in a shadow of bleakness and simplicity.

The scent of disinfectant permeating the air and the low hum of instruments replaced the melody of birthday songs and the sound of party poppers.

However, Su Mu and Evelyn had long secretly discussed how, no matter what, they had to give Excellence a surprise.

Even if this surprise was small, crude, or even a bit clumsy, they hoped to ignite a cluster of warm, "human" birthday candlelight for him in this cold steel jungle.

They knew well that for Excellence, whose memories remained fragmented and whose emotional Perception fluctuated between sharp and dull, this kind of warm, ritualistic touch might nourish his slowly repairing heart better than any medicine or treatment.

Su Mu's thoughts were delicate and pragmatic.

She observed that Excellence had recently shown a strong interest in audio-visual interaction, often staring blankly at his modified "Emotion-Visualization Device" or tracing the trajectories of light in the air with his fingers.

Thus, using some scraps she had saved while helping in the laboratory—a few discarded lenses, a short length of optical fiber, a slow-rotating motor, and several high-brightness LEDs that Excellence had finished playing with—she snuck away to her small workshop while he was napping or undergoing physical therapy, hammering, welding, and assembling.

A few days later, a vintage-looking and somewhat rough "Starry Sky Projection Lamp" was born.

Its core function was simple: it projected the strange, abstract patterns and symbols that Excellence usually drew on transparent film onto the ceiling of the rehabilitation room, forming slowly rotating, blurry, and dreamy light and shadows.

Evelyn's gift carried her usual refinement and sense of technology, but it also held an extra measure of cautious care.

She utilized her remaining, strictly approved, limited external communication privileges to specially customize a very unique birthday cake through absolutely safe and reliable channels.

The cake itself used the safest and most easily digestible ingredients, but its design was ingenious: the base was a chocolate board imitating a printed circuit board, and the "Happy Birthday" lettering on it was meticulously embedded with tiny, edible light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that would emit a soft glow once connected to a hidden micro-battery.

This gift not only considered Excellence's health but also catered to his instinctive love for electronic objects, which was truly painstaking.

Even Wang Jianguo, who was always stern and prioritized base security and discipline above all else, showed a rare touch of humanity upon hearing the news.

He specially approved a small amount of extra funding and privately instructed Xiao Zhang: "Go, find a way to get some of the barbecue ingredients that kid used to love. Remember, the quantity must be strictly controlled, the quality must be absolutely guaranteed, and the cooking method must be healthy—don't add too much seasoning."

He paused and added, "Just consider it... improving the food, balancing work and rest."

When this order was given, the serious expression on his face, meant to convey "I'm just maintaining team morale," formed a subtle contrast with the fleeting, imperceptible softness in his eyes.

On the evening of his birthday, the rehabilitation room was simply decorated.

Su Mu and Evelyn hung up some colorful, slightly tacky paper streamers and balloons together, diluting the coldness brought by the medical equipment in the room.

When Su Mu walked in holding the projection lamp shimmering with faint starlight, Evelyn carrying the circuit board cake, and Xiao Zhang holding a food container of barbecue that gave off an enticing aroma but was clearly a "health-improved version" (low oil, low salt, perhaps even air-fried), Excellence, who had been lying on his workbench staring blankly at a pile of parts, suddenly lifted his head.

Upon seeing the flickering LEDs on the cake and the long-lost barbecue skewers in the food container, his eyes lit up like stars instantly ignited, his pupils filled with childlike surprise and disbelief.

"Bir... Birthday?" He blinked, seemingly taking some effort to connect the word to the scene before him, a silly smile mixed with confusion and happiness appearing on his face, "Is today... my birthday?"

Wang Jianguo and Xiao Zhang also symbolically came to show their faces.

Wang Jianguo remained concise, simply patting Excellence on the shoulder and saying, "Happy birthday, recover well, and take care of your health," before leaving with Xiao Zhang.

But this rare care from the usually stern "Uncle Wang" still left Excellence flattered, and he stood there stunned for a while.

The most interesting part was the "blowing out the candles" and making a wish.

For absolute safety, the candles were electronic, and the simulated flame was a flickering small red light.

Amidst Su Mu and Evelyn's smiling urging of "Make a wish!", Excellence obediently closed his eyes like a well-behaved elementary school student, clasped his hands together, his lips moving slightly as he muttered to himself, his expression exceptionally serious, as if he were performing an extremely important ritual.

When he opened his eyes, Su Mu couldn't help but lean in curiously and ask: "What did you wish for? Was it to get better soon?"

Excellence turned his head, wearing an extremely serious expression, and shook his head: "Not that. I hope... my Emotion-Visualization Device 4.0... can successfully identify... the complex compound emotion of 'awkwardness'! The current version's recognition rate for 'awkwardness' is too low; it always confuses it with 'confusion' or 'mild anxiety'! This is a technical bottleneck!"

Everyone: "..."

After a moment of eerie silence, Su Mu was the first to burst into laughter, and Evelyn also turned her head, covering her mouth, her shoulders trembling slightly.

This wish... was truly very "Excellence," filled with the persistence of a tech nerd and an indescribable comedic effect.

The warm atmosphere was gradually heating up, and the air was filled with the aroma of barbecue and the sweetness of the cake.

Just then, Excellence suddenly put down the barbecue he had taken a bite of, as if he had remembered something extremely important, ran quickly to his workbench piled with "junk," squatted down, fumbled underneath for a while, and then mysteriously produced something wrapped tightly in kitchen foil with an irregular shape.

"I... I prepared a gift too!" He announced loudly, with an expression of excitement mixed with pride and nervousness on his face.

Under the curious and slightly wary gazes of Su Mu and Evelyn (given the shocking results and potential risks of Excellence's past "hand-crafted" projects), he carefully peeled back the layers of foil, revealing the "treasure" inside—two head-mounted devices that looked extremely crude and even a bit shabby.

The frame was modified from a discarded plastic headband, with several coils of thin copper wire twisted crookedly and fixed on with hot glue, and several oxidized electrode pads that looked like they had been removed from an old ECG machine were connected by wires, with a palm-sized small circuit board, also covered in manual soldering marks, attached to the end.

"This... what is this new invention?" Su Mu asked tentatively, already silently praying that this thing wouldn't suddenly start smoking or shock someone.

"Emotion... Synchronizer!" Excellence announced triumphantly, as if he were presenting a Nobel Prize-level achievement, "Prototype! Version 0.1! Its function is... to weakly... attempt to synchronize the brainwaves of two people... well... more accurately, to create a shared... emotional atmosphere!"

As for the principle, he vaguely mentioned the "biological field resonance" and "alpha wave coupling effect" he had been tinkering with, which sounded more like concepts randomly grabbed and pieced together from a pile of technical jargon.

He enthusiastically signaled for Su Mu and Evelyn to wear these two extremely unreliable-looking devices.

The two looked at each other, both seeing helplessness and a hint of adventurous excitement in the other's eyes.

Ultimately, under Excellence's expectant gaze, they bit the bullet and, like putting on a crown of thorns, wore the two crude head-mounted devices on their heads.

"Now, start the experiment!" Excellence, like a conductor, rubbed his hands excitedly and pointed at Su Mu, "Squad Leader, you now, try hard to think of something particularly happy, particularly joyful!" Then he pointed to Evelyn, "Sister Evelyn, you... you think of something that makes you feel particularly calm, particularly at ease!"

Su Mu tried hard to focus, recalling the ecstasy of successfully completing a complex experiment with Excellence in college; Evelyn closed her eyes, trying to recall the afternoon tranquility she felt in her mother's garden as a child.

Excellence squatted nervously in front of his Emotion-Visualization Device 3.5 (acting as the receiving and display terminal), his eyes fixed on the screen.

At first, the device seemed to have no reaction.

Excellence tapped the machine anxiously (one of his classic troubleshooting methods).

After a while, the halo on the screen began to change extremely slowly, the color swaying between the warm yellow representing pleasure and the light blue representing calm, like TV snow with a poor signal, and the projected pattern was distorted and deformed, with no recognizable shape.

"Seems... a little... effect?" Excellence muttered uncertainly, his tone filled with a trace of hope.

However, the moment his voice fell, that Emotion-Visualization Device suddenly emitted a sharp, piercing noise like metal rubbing against metal!

The halo on the screen flickered and rotated crazily, and finally, with a "pop," it completely extinguished, turning pitch black!

At the same time, the "Emotion Synchronizer" worn on Su Mu and Evelyn's heads also emitted a faint burnt smell, and a wisp of thin blue smoke curled up from a soldering point on the circuit board...

Excellence: "...Uh... this... power calculation... seems to... have a tiny... insignificant error..." He scratched his head, looking at the smoking "masterpiece," his face full of frustration and embarrassment.

Su Mu and Evelyn quickly took off the broken devices, and looking at Excellence's puppy-like expression as if he had done something wrong, their initial lingering fear and helplessness were instantly replaced by a stronger emotion mixed with amusement and heartache.

Su Mu walked over and couldn't help but laugh as she patted his shoulder: "Dummy! Does a gift depend on whether it's reliable? It depends on the intention! We received your unique, hand-crafted... 'hardcore romance'! Even if it successfully 'synchronized' its own circuit to burn out!"

Evelyn also stepped forward, looking at the pile of smoking parts on the table, and said softly, her tone sincere and gentle: "Thank you, Excellence. This is indeed the most... special and thoughtful gift I have ever received."

She looked into Excellence's eyes, as if to say that this clumsy effort was more precious than any expensive gift.

Excellence looked at their expressions, which were not blaming but filled with warmth and smiles, and was stunned for a few seconds, then that bit of frustration vanished like mist dispersed by the sun.

He scratched his head and joined in with a silly "hehe" laugh, his smile pure and bright.

Perhaps this "Emotion Synchronizer," which was a complete failure in terms of technology, had already achieved a huge success on another level—its clumsy and sincere attempt, like an invisible silk thread, gently and warmly connected the hearts of three young people whose fates were intertwined at this moment.

Wang Jianguo, who had been silently watching the situation in the rehabilitation room through the monitoring screen, looked at this scene filled with the smell of fireworks, burnt circuits, and silly laughter, and the corners of his habitually serious mouth couldn't help but twitch upward, finally turning into a helpless shake of his head and a trace of an extremely faint, yet real, smile.

He whispered to himself: "This kid... although his brain is still a mess, his talent for stirring up the atmosphere and turning awkwardness into... a more unique warmth is truly gifted, not lost at all."

This birthday night, quietly spent in the center of the vortex, flowed slowly amidst the burnt fragrance of barbecue, the sweetness of the cake, and that wisp of faint, burnt circuit board smell that symbolized failure yet was full of sincerity.

For the three people caught in the center of a huge conspiracy and heavy mission, this brief moment of stripping away the crisis and returning to ordinary warmth was like a weak candlelight flickering in the dark night, small yet enough to illuminate the softest corners of their hearts, appearing exceptionally precious and unforgettable.

And at this moment, no one would have predicted that in Excellence's failed "Emotion Synchronizer" prototype that had burned out due to a "power calculation error," a certain coil structure he had unconsciously wound and which had undergone a special electromagnetic field deformation due to overload during the brief moment of power-on, had just happened to record, in an extremely accidental way, the faint yet unique brainwave harmonic characteristics produced by Su Mu and Evelyn when they were trying to mobilize specific emotions.

This unintentionally collected, extremely precious raw sample data of "dual emotional harmonics," like a buried time capsule, would unexpectedly become the crucial key to cracking a seemingly unsolvable problem at a critical, turbulent moment in the future...