Chapter 112: Night School Turmoil: He Yushui's Discovery

The sound of Director Zhou knocking on the door still echoed in the courtyard, Zhao Jianguo had already turned and entered the room. He didn't go to open the door, nor did he respond; he simply carefully slipped the just‑adjusted bottle of black‑gray powder into the innermost part of the drawer, and, as an afterthought, grabbed an old newspaper from the desk corner to cover the tester.

"Was Xu Da Mao's older brother hit by someone?" Sha Zhu stood at the doorway, his brows knotted into a lump, "Something like this happening at this juncture is too much of a coincidence."

"Whether it's a coincidence depends on the outcome." Zhao Jianguo pulled out a chair and sat down, his knuckles lightly tapping the table twice, "How seriously is the person injured?"

"I heard his arm was broken and his head scraped a bit of skin, not too serious." Sha Zhu scratched the back of his head, "But this whole thing feels strange. Xu Da Mao has been keeping a low profile lately, and his brother isn't anyone important—who would single him out?"

Zhao Jianguo didn't respond, lowering his gaze to his right index finger— a speck of dust from flipping the blueprint earlier still hadn't washed off, under the light it gave off an extremely faint matte sheen. He suddenly recalled the blue light Aunt Liu mentioned last night, and the sketch that had been touched; it felt as if a thread in his heart was being slowly pulled tight.

"Go to the Night School." He looked up at Sha Zhu, "Help me check on a person named He Yushui. These past few days, has she been staying late in the library? Has she borrowed any materials?"

"Huh?" Sha Zhu blinked, "Right now? It's already dark."

"Right now." Zhao Jianguo stood up, his tone allowing no interruption, "If she's still there, tell her I'm asking her to copy a mechanical manual, and by the way ask if she's seen anyone tampering with where I placed the files."

Sha Zhu muttered as he walked out, glancing back at the door before leaving: "You suspect she's been sneaking a look at your blueprints?"

"I'm not suspecting anyone." Zhao Jianguo smoothed the oilcloth back over the desk, "I'm only following leads."

Half an hour later, Sha Zhu returned, holding a thin notebook in his hand.

"She's in the dormitory." He handed over the notebook, "But she left this on her desk; I thought the handwriting was neat, so I took it along."

Zhao Jianguo took it and flipped it open; the pages were densely filled with ballpoint‑copied text, the title reading 《1953 Annual Summary of Steel Rolling Factory Production Accidents》. His gaze swept to a middle section, and his breath hitched slightly:

"On June 17, Jia Wu of the blending workshop suffered a serious right‑arm injury due to a sudden equipment failure. According to the day's shift log, half an hour before the incident, this employee had a roughly twenty‑minute private talk with a Shanghai technical consultant in the east storeroom; the conversation was not recorded."

He traced that line back and forth with his finger twice, then asked in a low voice, "How is she? Is her emotional state normal?"

"She's quite normal." Sha Zhu sat on the stool, "When I entered, she was glancing toward the window, saying the tree shadows outside were shaking violently, as if someone were flashing a mirror to reflect light onto her window."

Zhao Jianguo snapped his head up: "She said 'reflection'?"

"Yes, she said it was like the signal mirrors we played with as kids, flashing on and off." Sha Zhu spread his hands, "I told you you might be seeing things, but she didn't argue, and asked me to relay this: 'I've finished copying the materials, put them back exactly as they were, and didn't let anyone else see them.'"

Zhao Jianguo fell silent for a moment, then stood and put on his coat: "Come on, let's go to the laboratory."

The night wind was light; the two walked in silence. Upon entering the laboratory, he headed straight for the file cabinet and pulled out the original copy of the Steel Rolling Factory document. When he turned to the corresponding page, his motion froze—page 47 was missing, the tear ragged and uneven, the edges slightly damp, as if someone had ripped it out with wet hands.

He pulled out the magnifying glass to examine the torn edge closely, and indeed found a faint trace of ink on the paper's margin. Activating the attendance system's "handwriting trace" function, the screen rolled with data at high speed, then settled on a result with a 98.6% match.

Zhao Jianguo stared at the small print, the corner of his mouth twitching: "Yi Zhonghai… the signature on a confession letter from twenty years ago."

"Who?" Sha Zhu leaned in.

"An old acquaintance." Zhao Jianguo closed the screen, "Someone whose painstakingly written self‑critique could earn praise from superiors for having a 'proper attitude' back then."

"Is he connected to this?" Sha Zhu glared.

"I don't know." Zhao Jianguo locked the file in the safe, then turned to open the encrypted terminal, "But right now someone wants us to think he's involved."

He entered He Yushui's handwritten notebook page by page into the system, which automatically generated three files. One was encrypted and archived; the other two were implanted with different tracking codes, one titled 《Initial Parameters of the Magnetic Control Regulator》, the other labeled 《Draft Reverse Analysis of Future Alloys》.

"Tomorrow, find a chance to slip these two into the old file folder in the Night School's materials room." Zhao Jianguo said while operating, "Especially the notebook that records the east storeroom accident—just tuck it in the middle."

"You really dare to put them there?" Sha Zhu grinned, "Aren't you afraid someone will just take them again?"

"I'm actually afraid no one will come for them." Zhao Jianguo chuckled, "If nobody touches it, it means we've guessed the wrong direction."

After saying that, he took out a fresh sheet of blueprint and drew what looked like a complex energy‑conversion module, but in reality the internal circuitry had been tampered with, all key nodes linked to a false signal source. He marked the corner "For teaching demonstration only," then placed it in a file bag and wrote "To Comrade He Yushui."

"If she goes to the Night School again tomorrow night, just hand this to her." Zhao Jianguo patted Sha Zhu on the shoulder, "Just say it's a small token of my thanks for her help organizing the materials."

Sha Zhu nodded, making a note, then lowered his voice: "So when are you planning to talk to Yi Zhonghai?"

"No talk." Zhao Jianguo shook his head, "Going to see him now would be telling the person behind the scenes that we've caught onto their trap."

He walked to the window and glanced toward the Night School teaching building in the distance. The west‑side window on the second floor was still lit, the curtains drawn tight, but a faint silhouette of someone sitting at a desk writing could be made out.

"What we need to do now is make the other side feel that everything is proceeding according to their script." Zhao Jianguo said softly, "Let them keep acting; we'll slowly see who is truly pulling the strings."

The next evening, Zhao Jianguo went to the Night School alone. He didn't enter the classroom, just walked around the ground floor to confirm that there was indeed a path through the western woods leading to a gap in the enclosure wall. Returning, he had Sha Zhu arrange a nightly patrol from ten p. m. to two a. m., requiring someone to be on the perimeter at all times.

At eleven p. m. that night, while he was reviewing surveillance playback in the laboratory, he noticed that the door to the Night School materials room had been pushed open a crack at 10:18 p. m. It was quietly closed again less than thirty seconds later.

He enlarged the image and saw that the person wore a hat, kept his head down to avoid the camera, had his right hand tucked into his coat pocket, and walked with a slight limp.

Zhao Jianguo paused the footage, saved a screenshot, then called up the system's comparison function. The silhouette match was low, but the gait characteristics resembled those in a certain historical recording.

He didn't rush to a conclusion; instead he opened the terminal to check the newly online tracking signals. One file marked 《Draft of Future Alloys》 had been accessed at 10:20 p. m. tonight, the IP originating from an old residential area in the southern part of the city.

The other file, 《Magnetic Control Parameters》, showed no activity.

"It seems someone is more interested in the 'future' stuff." He muttered to himself, idly pouring a cup of hot tea.

At 1 a. m., Sha Zhu slipped in, holding a lunch box.

"I brought you a late‑night snack." He set down the lunch box, "By the way, I just looped around the Night School and found fresh footprints in the western woods heading toward the enclosure wall. I also picked up a cigarette butt—brand 'Da Qianmen'."

Zhao Jianguo took the cigarette butt, glanced at it, said nothing, and placed it in an evidence bag.

"Do you think it might really be Yi Zhonghai who did this?" Sha Zhu rubbed his hands, "He's certainly not above doing foolish things before."

"Foolish acts and leaking information aren't the same." Zhao Jianguo leaned back in his chair, "Besides, this person works with clean traces. Back then, when writing self‑critiques they'd repeatedly revise the wording—how could they leave such an obvious handwriting trail?"

"You mean… someone is imitating him?"

"Or maybe it's outright framing." Zhao Jianguo stood up, walked to the wall and pressed a button, and the laboratory's surveillance system began automatically cycling recordings.

Outside the window the night was deep; the distant teaching building's lights suddenly went out. At the very moment the last flicker of light vanished, a shadow seemed to pass at the end of the second‑floor corridor, holding something that reflected a faint gleam.