Reality Programming Association

Chapter 90: Chapter 37: Risk of Rain 2

”This won’t be leaked, don’t worry,” he added.

”Okay... The password for the flash drive is 0911.” Yang Yiyi handed the flash drive to Yu Xian. She glanced around the room, looking a little embarrassed. ”Can I take a shower here? I got caught in the rain on the way, and I’m feeling a bit dizzy. I might be catching a fever.”

Yu Xian only just noticed that the senior sister’s face was already flushed with an unnatural redness.

”Sure, I’ll go turn on the water heater for you. It’ll be ready in a bit.” He hurried to the cabinet to find his remaining cold medicine. After a moment of thought, he pulled out a fleece-lined hoodie and sweatpants that he hadn’t worn in a long time from the wardrobe. ”Make do with these for now and change out of your wet clothes. We don’t want your cold getting any worse.”

Yang Yiyi took the clothes and medicine, softly murmuring a word of thanks.

His laptop was still at his cousin’s place. Yu Xian had considered going back to send the audio to Wen Xiao, but when he saw that the last message in their chat was still the one he sent that morning, he realized the dorms in the North Campus were definitely without signal as well.

”Senior Sister, I need to go find my computer science friend to analyze the audio. It’s safe here. After your shower, get some good sleep and lock the door from the inside. No matter who knocks, don’t open it. Just pretend no one’s home.”

Yang Yiyi seemed to have no strength left to speak. Clutching the pile of clothes, she nodded with a slightly unfocused gaze. ”I know... Be careful out there. There are so many shady characters on campus right now.”

He placed the black flash drive in the inner pocket of his clothes, pressing against it from the outside to ensure he could feel its outline. Only then did he put his raincoat back on and step out of the apartment.

After confirming that Senior Sister Yang Yiyi had locked the door from the inside, he gave it a push to make sure it was secure. Taking a deep breath, he charged back into the curtain of rain.

Going from outside the West Gate to the apartment dormitories in the North Campus required crossing more than half the university, or taking a much longer detour along the main roads outside.

Considering there might be rioters causing trouble on campus right now, Yu Xian opted for an old road off-campus. Although it was a longer route, its remoteness made it harder for him to be spotted.

The rain seemed a bit lighter than before, but the sky still pressed down heavily overhead, dark and oppressive. The puddles on the road were mixed with mud and sand, draining his stamina with every step. The closer he got to the North Campus, the more apparent the restless atmosphere became.

The North Campus was the living area for master’s students, doctoral students, and faculty. On its outskirts sat several national-level key laboratories—which, according to that absurd rumor, were the culprits behind the torrential rain.

Before he even reached the gates of the North Campus, Yu Xian could hear a heart-stopping clamor and hysterical shouting.

Right ahead, gathered below the High Energy Physics Research Institute, was a crowd larger than the one at the South Gate. They swarmed like a horde of frenzied ants, trying to shake the silent, towering monolith. Some held flashlights, while others waved iron pipes stripped from god-knows-where, frantically smashing against the institute’s glass doors.

”Shut down the machines! Stop the experiments!”

The synchronized chanting sounded exceptionally shrill amidst the downpour.

Yu Xian pulled his raincoat tighter and avoided the main road, slipping through the edges of the chaos as carefully as a prowler. Fortunately, everyone’s attention seemed fixated on the imposing research institutes, leaving the nearby dormitories largely ignored.

After a tense but safe detour around the most chaotic epicenter, the towering graduate apartment buildings finally came into view.

Building 3, North Campus.

It was still brightly lit, standing like an isolated lighthouse in the downpour.

Yu Xian sprinted the final stretch and rushed into the building’s lobby. The hall was completely empty, and the security guard was absent from his post—perhaps off supporting security elsewhere, or simply hiding. Without an access card, he couldn’t get past the turnstiles.

Perhaps the storm and rioters outside had eroded his rationality, because just as Yu Xian was about to forcefully vault over the barrier, a student happened to come downstairs to throw away the trash.

”I forgot my card, could you swipe me in?” Yu Xian made an excuse. With the student’s help, he slipped into the stairwell.

Taking the elevator up to the twelfth floor, he found the corridor dead silent. The only faint light came from the public lounge area.

Yu Xian softened his footsteps as he approached. Through the glass wall, he spotted a petite girl with her hair in a bun, wrapped in a thick cartoon puffer jacket, curled up on the corner sofa. Wen Xiao had a laptop open in front of her. The screen’s glow reflected on her face, illuminating a frown that suggested she was stumped by a problem. A bag of potato chips, seemingly unopened, sat beside her.

Yu Xian knocked lightly on the glass door.

Wen Xiao jolted in surprise. She instinctively reached out to slam her laptop shut, spinning around in panic. But the moment her eyes met Yu Xian’s, they instantly lit up. She quickly jumped off the sofa and ran over to pull open the door, a look of pleasant surprise on her face before she suddenly stopped in her tracks.

”Yu Xian! How did you...” She looked at his dripping raincoat, then out the window at the torrential rain, her voice filled with disbelief. ”Did you swim here?”

”Pretty much.” Yu Xian took off his raincoat, leaving it in a heap outside the door, and pulled the flash drive—now warmed by his body heat—from his pocket. ”I got it. The unencrypted, raw audio.”

Yu Xian placed the black flash drive on the table with a soft CLACK.

”Wen Xiao?” He noticed she was staring at him, her gaze somewhat glazed over.

”Ah! Here!” Wen Xiao snapped back to reality like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on. She frantically averted her eyes from his face, grabbed the unopened bag of potato chips off the table, and clumsily tore at the packaging. ”Ahem, um, you really got it? That fast?”

”Yeah, I got it. From a classmate at the School of Life Sciences. We need to keep this a secret,” Yu Xian reminded her.

”That senior sister?” Wen Xiao shot him a glance.

”Right.” Seeing Wen Xiao’s strange reaction, Yu Xian frowned. ”Are you okay? Why is your face a bit red? Do you have a fever?”

”No, no, no! I’m fine!” Wen Xiao shrank back, nearly tumbling off the sofa in her carelessness. Her voice pitched upward. ”It’s just... the heater is turned up too high in here...”

Yu Xian was thoroughly baffled. Wasn’t she overreacting just a little bit?

”How is the audio decryption going? Any new progress?” Rather than dwelling on it, he steered the conversation back on track.

”Not yet... I might have to go to the TDI website to download the second part of the audio and compare them.”

Yu Xian froze. He turned his head, staring blankly at Wen Xiao.

”How do you know about the second piece of audio?”

The air seemed to freeze solid.

The TDI login mechanism was single-use only. He had only ever mentioned this to Yang Yiyi and had never shared the details with Wen Xiao. Unless someone had memorized the TDI protocol and personally tested that invalidated audio file, it was absolutely impossible for them to know about the mechanism requiring a ”second part” to be downloaded.

Wen Xiao’s hands froze in the middle of tearing the potato chip bag, the plastic letting out a harsh RUSTLE. She slowly looked up, her eyes darting evasively. Her lips twitched, but no sound came out—like a child caught red-handed doing something wrong by her parents.

”Did you use it?” Yu Xian’s tone turned stern, carrying an almost imperceptible tremor. ”You listened to the TDI login key, didn’t you?”

”I...” Wen Xiao shrank back, hugging the bag of chips to her chest as if using it as a shield. ”I just... wanted to know how exactly that audio constructs the dreamscape. I wanted to see if I could find some inspiration to crack the ’black box’ through this method...”

”Didn’t I warn you?!” Yu Xian suddenly sprang to his feet, shoving the sofa back a few inches. ”Do you have any idea how agonizing that dream is? What if something happened to you?”

”Please don’t be mad, listen to me!” Seeing that Yu Xian was genuinely agitated, Wen Xiao hastily tossed the chips aside and gestured frantically with her hands. ”I figured I’d forget it anyway... And you listened to it too, right? See, I’m perfectly fine now.”

Yu Xian glared at her fixedly. ”Doesn’t that audio have device binding? How did you even listen to it?”

She stole a timid glance at his expression, her voice dropping to a whisper. ”I made a tiny... modification.”

”Modification?”

”Yeah...” Wen Xiao replied weakly. ”Didn’t we analyze yesterday that the original TDI audio consists of three parts, while the Midnight Bus audio has four?”

Yu Xian remained silent, motioning for her to keep explaining.

”The first part for both is the piano piece using the Twelve-tone Technique. The second part is presumed to be the ’engine’ black box, and the TDI’s version of this section has device binding. The third part is unique to the bus audio and is suspected to be the section that suppresses MCH neurons. The fourth part is the specific scenario construction content.”

Yu Xian nodded, unsure of what she was getting at.

”The second part of the Midnight Bus audio, the black box, doesn’t have device binding...” Wen Xiao murmured.

”So you...” Yu Xian gritted his teeth.

”So I swapped its second part into the TDI login key...”