Embers Ad Infinitum

At night, in an empty room.

A slightly magnetic male voice sounded from a radio. Opposite it, a recording device was quietly operating.

From time to time, cracking static sounded.

Two minutes after the Dao and Electrical Appliance Repairs segment ended, a robot in a black military uniform with red-light-emitting eyes pushed open the door.

He listened to the entire recording. After doing this, Genava walked to another room diagonally opposite him.

“How was it? What did Wu Meng say today?” Jiang Baimian asked.

Genava raised his right hand and placed it under his chin. This was him unconsciously mimicking Shang Jianyao’s posture. “It was about the spirit of electrical appliance maintenance, something about scholars of the lowest class, and how something not laughed at wouldn’t be fit to be the Dao.” Genava simply repeated the main content. “But I can’t tell if they can affect humans.”

Jiang Baimian smiled. “This requires us to experiment.”

She led the other Old Task Force members into the spot where the recording equipment was placed. She then closed the door and looked around. “Who wants to go first?”

She didn’t set an example because she was worried that an uncontrollable development would happen midway. In that case, the unaffected her could still use high-voltage electric currents to create a chaotic electromagnetic environment and interfere with subsequent changes so as to prevent any possible accidents.

Long Yuehong glanced at Shang Jianyao before looking at Bai Chen. He gritted his teeth and said, “I’ll do it.”

From his point of view, Shang Jianyao had a relatively strong Awakened ability. He was capable of causing significant damage once he was affected. Bai Chen was a woman, and she wasn’t as tall as him. Getting her to be the guinea pig made him appear timid, weak, and ungentlemanly.

“Alright, be careful.” Jiang Baimian didn’t stop him.

She, Shang Jianyao, and Bai Chen quickly covered their ears in different ways and looked at Long Yuehong.

Compared to the two team members who wore cupping headphones or stuffed their ears with paper balls, Jiang Baimian’s solution was the simplest—she raised her palms and covered her ears.

Upon seeing that his companions were prepared, Genava switched on the recording device.

Long Yuehong sat up straight and listened to the recording.

“…Electrical appliances are simple and precise. The simplicity refers to the Dao, and there are only a few fundamental principles. Precision refers to the principles that derive all kinds of patterns and combinations that are complicated and incomparably magical…

“…When we repair appliances, we have to grasp the Dao and use the Dao to understand the patterns and combinations. Only then can we tell what the problem is and what kind of repairs are required…

“…For repairmen who are listening in to our radio station, repairing appliances is an art and an actualization of the Dao. Ordinary people can’t comprehend this—they either find it too complicated and don’t understand it at all, or they don’t think it’s necessary. They believe in products of experience. Just like when you tell a person who doesn’t know much about appliances that ‘there’s a big problem with your television and that it needs to be repaired as soon as possible,’ they will often answer you with ‘it’ll be fine with a smack.’ If one smack isn’t enough, then two…

“As the saying goes: Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Dao, earnestly carry it into practice. Scholars of the middle class, when they have heard about it, seem now to keep it and now to lose it. Scholars of the lowest class, when they have heard about it, laugh greatly at it. If it were not (thus) laughed at, it would not be fit to be the Dao[1]…

“Therefore, we have to remember that when facing things we don’t understand, we have to humbly seek guidance and put down the prejudices brought about by experience. Do not be filled with conflicting emotions from the beginning. Adopt an attitude of accepting everything and learn, understand, grasp, and accept…”

Long Yuehong nodded slightly. He felt that Wu Meng was rather good at lecturing regardless.

It was quite a while later when he finished listening.

After receiving his and Genava’s signal, Jiang Baimian, Shang Jianyao, and Bai Chen removed their hearing restrictions.

“I don’t think I was affected.” Long Yuehong first expressed his feelings before emphasizing Wu Meng’s words.

Shang Jianyao suddenly laughed and switched off the lamp on the table. He then said to Long Yuehong, “Look.”

Long Yuehong immediately frowned when he heard this word.

Shang Jianyao continued, “This lamp is switched off, and Wang Fugui’s old computer also had its keyboard backlight turned off because of a malfunction. This lamp is an electrical appliance, and so is the old computer. The old computer was later smacked twice, so…”

Long Yuehong’s frown gradually relaxed. He suddenly stood up, walked to the lamp, and stretched out his right hand to smack the lamp’s base. After smacking it three consecutive times, he came to a realization.

The light switch had already been switched off—it wouldn’t light up no matter how hard he smacked it!

Long Yuehong turned to look at Shang Jianyao and said angrily, “There’s obviously an effect when you use Inference Clowning!”

Shang Jianyao stroked his chin and smiled. “I only used the linguistic format of Inference Clowning. In fact, I didn’t use my abilities at all.”

“…” Long Yuehong’s expression froze.

“Really?” he asked again indignantly.

Shang Jianyao replied seriously, “There’s no need to be so formal when lying to you.”

Jiang Baimian nodded. “From the looks of it, you were indeed affected. The focus should be on ‘when facing things we don’t understand, we have to humbly seek guidance.’ It makes you blindly ignore all your past experiences and lose the ability to selectively discern the words of others. You only know how to accept everything.”

“That’s actually possible…” Long Yuehong immediately came to a realization and felt a lingering fear.

At this moment, Shang Jianyao looked at him and said, “You said you wanted to treat me to iced Coke. There are only a few places in the Red Wolf Zone where you can buy it.”

Long Yuehong was first stunned before he blurted out, “When did I promise you that!?”

“Sigh, the ability is no longer effective.” Shang Jianyao let out a long sigh.

Long Yuehong was caught between laughter and tears.

Upon seeing this, Bai Chen volunteered. “I’ll be the next to try to determine if that sentence has any effect.”

After all, one had to select a sentence with additional effects in order to use it as a ‘weapon.’ Otherwise, they couldn’t get their adversary to patiently listen to the Dao and Electrical Appliance Repairs for more than half an hour during a battle, right?

Jiang Baimian thought for a moment and said, “Let Hey do it. He was previously affected, so he can evaluate the difference between the effects from a recording and the direct listening to the radio. Also, we should repeat it a few more times to confirm how the effect declines as we keep playing it.”

Team Leader is so professional. As expected of a researcher… Long Yuehong was secretly speechless.

After putting their lives on the line together for such a long time, the team members basically knew that Jiang Baimian’s ears were damaged. Before joining the Security Department, she did research work, and her goal was to become a scientist. As for which field she worked in, she didn’t mention it.

After the others stuffed their ears, Shang Jianyao selected a sentence and listened. “Therefore, we have to remember that when facing things we don’t understand, we have to humbly seek guidance…”

After he was done, Long Yuehong took off his headphones and probed, “I’m your brother.”

Shang Jianyao was stunned for a moment before opening his mouth. The next second, his slightly confused expression warped into a smile. “Hahaha, he’s so short. How can he be my brother?”

Hey… Long Yuehong felt insulted.

Shang Jianyao changed his expression and said in all seriousness, “There’s a possibility of genetic mutation.”

“We can’t blindly believe him. Let’s do a genetic test first.”

“Everything is but a dream. Why so serious?”

…

The few Shang Jianyaos argued for a moment before quickly coming to a conclusion that they had been affected by the recording and escaped the affected state.

He then assumed a professional posture and said, “The effects are much weaker than when I heard it at Lehman’s place, but it’s enough to affect Awakened at the Sea of Origins level as long as they don’t have a special price that can counterbalance it. As for whether it can affect Awakened at the Mind Corridor level, I can’t tell since I haven’t walked out of the Sea of Origins. I can only say that the effects are definitely very weak even if it does influence someone.”

After Shang Jianyao’s repeated experiments, the way the effects declined was figured out: It declined by about 15% to 18% from the original version each time.

In other words, one recording could be used six to seven times. The effects were worse after each time.

There were only one to two recordings left.

Regarding this, the Old Task Force didn’t mind too much. After all, Wu Meng broadcasted Dao and Electrical Appliance Repairs every day. Even if he didn’t exert his abilities to influence the listeners every time, he would do so just a few days later.

Therefore, the Old Task Force could recharge regularly and regularly obtain different effects.

“Even if it can’t be used to deal with the Virtual World’s owner, it might be effective in other aspects.” Jiang Baimian sighed with satisfaction. She then reminded her team members, “After all, touch pitch, and you shall be defiled. I’m worried that there is more than one sentence that will affect listeners in Wu Meng’s subsequent radio broadcast, making us ignore certain effects. It’s too tiring and a waste of time to check each individual sentence at a time. Therefore, let’s use it sparingly if possible and not rely on it.”

“Alright.” The Old Task Force members began to investigate the other words in the recording.

After confirming that there were no other problems, it was already late at night. Everyone was mentally exhausted.

“Phew…” Jiang Baimian exhaled and laughed self-deprecatingly. “Unfortunately, I can’t induce Wu Meng to say what we want. I think it’s too risky to send him a telegram…”

Shang Jianyao thought for a few seconds and said, “We can consult Xiaochong next time. It would be better if we can meet Teacher Du Heng.”

[1] From the Dao De Jing.