Chapter 40: Scale and Touch

5:40. The alarm had not rung. His eyelids opened first.

Outside the window it was still gray-white. The frost hung heavy. He sat up. The edge of the gauze on the sole of his foot had curled. The crack had scabbed over, dark red in color. He pressed it. No pain. Only tightness. He put on his shoes slowly. He shifted his weight onto the outer edge, avoiding the pressure point. He pushed open the door. A thin layer of ice coated the terrazzo floor in the corridor. Wind poured in through the north window, carrying the smell of rust and old wood. He walked close to the wall, steps light. In his canvas bag were the blank test sheets he had cut the night before, a ruler, a set square, pencils, an eraser. No scratch paper. The rules were fixed. He could only adapt.

6:05. The laboratory building. West side of the first floor. The iron door was half ajar. Dim yellow light leaked out from inside. Old Li wore a blue work coat washed pale with years. He was bent over, sorting the equipment cabinet. The sound of metal striking metal rang out, crisp. Lin Chen stood outside the door and waited. Counted to thirty. Knocked twice. “Come in.” Old Li straightened up. Saw him. Was not surprised. “So early.” Lin Chen nodded. “Teacher. I need to borrow discarded meters. A resistance box. Wires. A switch.” Old Li looked him over once, his gaze landing on Lin Chen’s foot. He did not ask. He turned and dragged out a wooden crate from the bottom shelf of the cabinet. Dust covered the lid. He opened it. Inside was disorder. The dials had yellowed. The needles were faintly rusted. The terminals were blackened with oxidation. Old Li picked out two ammeters, two voltmeters, one sliding rheostat, one resistance box, and several bundles of wire, placing them on the table. “All obsolete. Poor precision. But they still move. If you break them, no need to pay. Put them back where they came from when you’re done. Don’t touch the high-voltage power supply.” Lin Chen thanked him. He reached out. His fingertips touched the metal terminals. Icy. Rough. The oxidized layer scraped his skin. He hugged the wooden crate close, turned, went downstairs. His steps were steady.

6:20. Library basement. Abandoned reading room. The heat had been cut off. The air was hard with cold. He found a long table against the wall. The paint had flaked from the tabletop. The scratches were deep. He laid out the apparatus, spread open the lab manual, checked it against the circuit diagram, and began wiring.

Resistance measurement by the volt-ampere method. First step: check the needle’s zero position. Ammeter. The needle leaned left, about half a division off the scale line. He picked up a small screwdriver and adjusted the mechanical zeroing knob. The needle returned to center. Voltmeter. The same. Zeroed. Second step: choose the range. The resistance to be measured was around ten ohms. The power source was three volts. Estimated current: 0.3 amperes. He chose the 0.6-amp range on the ammeter and the 3-volt range on the voltmeter. Third step: connect the circuit. Positive terminal of the power source. Switch. Sliding rheostat. Current-limiting connection. Ammeter. Measured resistor. Voltmeter in parallel. Back to the negative terminal of the power source. He twisted the wires tight, screwed down the terminals. The feel was stiff. The threads did not bite well. He pressed harder until the pads of his fingers reddened. They held. The circuit was complete.

He pressed the switch. The needle jumped, then stopped at 0.28 amperes. The voltmeter stopped at 2.7 volts. He recorded it. Broke the circuit. Changed the position of the rheostat slider. Measured again. Recorded again. Five times. The data filled the lower right corner of a blank test sheet. The space was tiny. The handwriting had to be compact. He drew the coordinate axes, plotted the points, drew the line, found the slope. The pencil tip hovered. There was no scratch paper. Every calculation had to happen in his head. 0.28 times 10. 2.8. 2.7 divided by 0.28. 9.64. He wrote it down. Erased once. Crossed it out. Wrote again. 9.6. The second time. The third. The fourth. The fifth. Line fitted. Slope calculated. Intercept read off. The page was neat. Two corrections. One still remained.

He stopped. Closed his eyes. His finger traced imaginary lines over the tabletop as his mind replayed everything. The reasoning on paper assumed ideal conditions. The real apparatus carried deviations. Internal resistance of the ammeter, about 0.1 ohm. Voltage division. Internal resistance of the voltmeter, about three thousand ohms. Current shunting. Contact resistance. Aging wires. The battery’s internal resistance decaying as it discharged. In the manual these were only concepts. In the real device they were concrete tremors—the faint quiver of a needle, the parallax in a reading. He opened his eyes, adjusted his posture, brought his line of sight perpendicular to the dial, avoiding both high and low angles. He read the values again. 0.28 became 0.275—estimated digit included. Voltage, 2.7, became 2.68. Fine adjustments to the data. Slope recalculated. 9.5. The error shrank.

He understood. Experiment was not about memorizing steps. It was about taming error. Accepting imperfection. Finding the optimal solution within the rules. He continued. Measuring electromotive force and internal resistance of a power source. U-I graph. Changing the external resistance. Recording six groups of data. The space on the page ran out. He could only plot the points in his head and put the pencil down directly. Point. Line. Slope. Intercept. Third correction. The pencil paused. He could not mark it again. He changed angles, gently pressed the wrong number with the edge of the ruler, and wrote the correct value beside it. Did not black it out. Did not cover it. Left white space on the page. The rules allowed it. He wrote down: Page strategy: reserve a correction area. Mental arithmetic first. Once written, it is fixed.

7:50. The morning reading bell rang. He packed up the apparatus. Coiled the wires. Tightened the terminals. Closed the wooden crate securely. Carried it back to the laboratory building. Old Li was smoking by the door. When he saw him, he nodded. “Got the feel for it?” Lin Chen answered, “There’s deviation. I recorded it.” Old Li exhaled a stream of smoke. “Deviation is the norm. What the winter camp tests is your ability to handle deviation, not whether you can recite circuit diagrams. Remember—read accurately, choose the right range, write the steps clearly, and the points are yours.” Lin Chen nodded. “Thank you, Teacher.” He turned and went upstairs, quickening his pace. The crack in the sole of his foot rubbed inside the shoe. The pain returned, like fine needles. He adjusted his center of gravity, leaned onto the outer edge, did not slow down.

7:50. Classroom. Morning reading. He sat down without making a sound. Opened his physics mistake notebook. Started a new page. Wrote: Day 20. 07:55. Initial real-apparatus experimental test. The pencil paused. He made a list. One, mechanical zeroing is mandatory. Two, estimate range first. Three, line of sight perpendicular to the dial. Four, estimate significant digits to one place beyond the smallest division. Five, use repeated measurements and averaging to cancel contact resistance. Six, no scratch paper: three steps in the head, one step on paper. Three corrections maximum. Reserve a correction area. Do not chase completeness. Seize the core.

Four morning periods. Physics. Chemistry. Math. English. Lin Chen never lifted his head. His pencil never stopped. During breaks he did not go to the corridor. He stayed in his seat, eyes closed, simulating circuit assembly. Power source. Switch. Rheostat. Meter. Resistor. In his mind he connected them, current flow, voltage distribution, needle deflection. Once. Twice. Three times. Muscle memory. He opened his eyes and drew U-I coordinates directly on blank paper. No scale markings. Only plotting points. Drawing the line. Finding the slope. Mental arithmetic. Pencil down. Check. No errors. Time: 9:40. Twenty minutes until class. He closed the notebook, tightened his fingers. The page edges curled. He stuffed it into the bottom of his bag and pressed it flat.

Noon. Cafeteria. Clouds hung low. The wind was hard. Lin Chen waited until the end, avoiding the crowd, then walked to the long bench and opened the oiled-paper parcel. The rice was hard. The soup was cold. He broke the rice apart and swallowed it with the soup. His stomach had something in it now. The crack on the sole of his foot rubbed inside the shoe. Every step was a dull ache. He adjusted his weight, pressing to the outside. The edge of the sole had started to peel upward. He flattened it with his fingernail. It would not go back in. He let it be. When he finished eating, he cleaned up after himself and left no trace.

Back to the classroom. Lunch break. The classroom was half empty. Lin Chen did not sleep. He spread out a blank test sheet. Timed himself. Forty minutes. Simulating the winter camp experimental written test. No scratch paper. Limited corrections. Page presentation counted for points. He drew tables, listed data, calculated slope, found intercept, analyzed error, tracked significant digits. The pencil drew extremely fine lines across the paper. Even pressure. No shake. Time up. Pens down. He checked against the answers. Correct approach. Correct calculations. Two corrections. The page was neat. But he had exceeded the standard time by fifteen minutes. The bottleneck was time. Without scratch paper, the mental load of calculation was too high. The steps had to be compressed to the extreme. He wrote down: Countermeasure: memorize common formula transformations. Modularize mental calculation. Write only the key steps and results. Abandon lengthy derivations.

2:00 in the afternoon. Group exercise period was canceled. He stayed in the classroom and continued breaking down optics experiments. Vernier caliper readings. Micrometer screw gauge readings. Zero-error correction. He took out the old caliper he had borrowed from Old Li. Real object. Main scale. Vernier scale. Alignment. Reading. Precision to 0.05 millimeters. He practiced ten times. Even with his eyes closed, he could call out the values. The feel had formed. Muscle memory now overlaid the abstraction on paper.

Evening study. 18:30. The classroom was full. The fluorescent tubes hummed. The air smelled of old books and sweat. Lin Chen finished the day’s homework and closed his workbook. He checked the time. 21:10. Twenty minutes until lights out. He packed his schoolbag, counting out one by one the cardboard backing, pencil, eraser, ruler, set square, placing them into the canvas bag. He zipped it closed. He had no candles left. He would switch to the corridor emergency light.

21:30. The lights-out bell rang. The corridor went dark in an instant. Chaotic footsteps. Sounds of washing up. Voices. Lin Chen waited. Counted to one hundred. The sounds gradually thinned. He pushed open the door and moved along the wall. At the end of the corridor the emergency light was still on. Dim yellow. The edge of its halo blurred. He crouched down, back against the wall, out of the draft, opened his English vocabulary book. Timed. Ten minutes. Memorize only twenty words. No greed. Mastery over quantity. The pencil tip crossed the page—copying spellings, phonetic symbols, parts of speech, example sentences. Not one left out. The light was dim. The handwriting small. He leaned closer. His eyes turned sore. He blinked and continued. He checked the time. Nine minutes. One minute left. Review. Spelling. No mistakes. He closed the book. His fingers were numb with cold. His joints felt stiff. He hugged the canvas bag to his chest and stood. His knees gave a faint crack. The pain in the sole of his foot had become a dull ache, like a needle lodged at the ends of his nerves. Step by step, he walked back to the fourth floor. Pushed open the door. The dorm room was quiet. Only the even rhythm of breathing.

He walked to the bedside and sat down. Took off his shoe. Untied the gauze. The edges of the crack had turned white. Tissue fluid had seeped out. No pus. He picked up mercurochrome and a cotton swab, dipped it, applied it. A sharp sting. He held his breath. Spread it evenly. Rewrapped the bandage. His movements were very slow, but perfectly steady. He lay down and closed his eyes. In his mind he arranged the schedule. Tomorrow. 6:30, morning reading, aloud. 7:00, breakfast. 8:00, class. 12:00, lunch break. 18:30, evening study. 21:30, back to the dorm. Wash up. Sleep. One step, one imprint.

He felt for the ledger. Opened it. The pencil moved.

Day 20. 22:15. Initial real-apparatus experimental test completed. One round of no-scratch-paper simulation.

Progress: feel for the electricity module established. Skilled in reading vernier calipers / micrometer screw gauges. English vocabulary section C advanced to 35%.

Time spent: all day.

Status: up to standard.

Gaps: funds 1.56. Meal tickets 0.32. Foot injury not healed. Time pressure still high.

New variables: real-world apparatus deviation confirmed. Contact resistance / parallax / battery decay must be included in error analysis. Mental calculation load is high without scratch paper. Time exceeded by 15 minutes. Correction strategy optimized.

Countermeasure: during tomorrow morning break, ask Old Li to confirm the model of the exam-room power supply (dry cell / regulated supply). At the same time compress the mental-calculation steps. List only core formulas and results. Change English listening to segmented intensive listening + blind retelling. Funding gap: needs assessment.

The pencil paused. He closed the ledger. Tightened his fingers. The page edges curled. He pushed it into the bottom of the bag and pinned it there. Footsteps came from the corridor. Very light. Even rhythm. The night patrol teacher. A flashlight beam swept past the crack of the door and stopped. “Sleep early. Twenty-five days until final exams. Don’t stay up too late.” The voice was low and resonant, carrying an echo. “Got it,” the boy in the lower bunk answered vaguely. Lin Chen said nothing. His hands rested on his knees, moving slowly. The pain in his sole had gone numb. His body felt hollowed out. But he did not sleep. Outside the window, the clouds had scattered. The moonlight was cold. Puddles reflected it. The wind had stopped.

He reached into the pocket against his body and touched the notification slip stamped with a red seal. The paper was warm. Its edges curled. He unfolded it and read it once. Reporting in. The time had passed. The rules remained. One step, one imprint. No disorder. He folded it shut and put it away. His fingers tightened. The edge of the cloth bag pressed into his palm. He closed his eyes. His breathing was steady. In his mind he arranged the schedule again. Tomorrow. 6:30, morning reading, aloud. 7:00, breakfast. 8:00, class. 12:00, lunch break. 18:30, evening study. 21:30, back to the dorm. Wash up. Sleep. One step, one imprint.

The wind outside slipped through the cracks with a low whistle. Far away came the faint sound of a broadcast. County No. 1 High School campus radio. Sound check. Static. Then came the voice of Old Li, head of the physics teaching group. “Notice. Final confirmation has been received from the Provincial Physics Society. The winter camp written examination room will be on the second floor of the laboratory building at City No. 3 High School. The exam room will uniformly provide regulated DC power supplies, model 12V/2A. In addition, a supplement to the scoring criteria for the experimental module: any error in circuit connection will result in deduction of all points for that question. In the data-processing section, errors in significant digits will lose half the points. Candidates are requested to become thoroughly familiar with standard instrument operating procedures. Tuesday morning at eight o’clock, gather at the test site entrance. Transportation will depart together. Late arrivals will not be waited for.”

The sound spread through the night wind, carrying the cold hardness of metal.

Lin Chen opened his eyes. His gaze fell on the ledger at his bedside. The pages were pale in the dark. He reached out, found the pencil, and drew a faint, shallow line across a blank page.

Day 20. End.

Progress: feel for real apparatus established. Adaptation to the rules.

Status: alive.

New variable: exam-room power supply is regulated 12V, not dry cells. Internal resistance can be ignored. Range selection must be recalibrated. Test site is off-campus. Need to adapt to the environment in advance.

Countermeasure: tomorrow at six, library. Rework range matching using a 12V supply. At the same time prepare motion-sickness medicine and spare insoles. Funding gap: needs assessment.

The pencil paused. He set it down. Closed his eyes.

Tomorrow. Six o’clock. Library.

He turned over to face the wall. His breathing gradually slowed. His fingers unconsciously rubbed the zipper pull of the canvas bag. The metal was cold, rough, like an unpolished stone. He closed his eyes. There were no formulas in his mind. No words. Only two numbers. Tuesday. Morning. Twelve volts. Two lines crossing in the dark. Not colliding. Not entangling. Each moving forward on its own. Night dew condensed. A thin layer of frost formed on the window glass.