An 80s female translator was spoiled rotten by a rough and jealous man.

Chapter 279 Background Sounds (Part 1)
When Meng Youyou woke up, the room was naturally empty.

Her eyes were vacant as she stared at the blurry, interwoven patterns on the top of the container, remaining stunned for a full half minute before her sluggish consciousness slowly began to function again.

I gently turned over and realized that the two wooden crates that had been stacked beside the bed were now back in their original positions, neatly arranged so that no one could tell they had been moved.

The burning sensation in my ear canal was still there, but it felt like it was being washed by a layer of warm water, dull and deep inside, no longer the sharp pain that felt like it was drilling through my temples when I had a high fever.

With her throat dry and tight, Meng Youyou propped herself up to find some water, but the movement was too big and pulled on her neck, causing a sharp pain. Meng Youyou quickly covered her neck and, after a while, tentatively turned it left and right a few times. It was still a little sore inside, but there was nothing serious. She figured it was just a stiff neck.

The kettle was hanging on the wall near the bed. Meng Youyou slowly leaned out halfway, reached out, and hooked her fingertips onto the kettle strap.

When Meng Youyou picked up the kettle, she found it heavy and felt strange. She shook it in her hand and found that it was almost full of water.

While the current logistical supply situation is not as dire as it was a few days ago, and we are not at the point of running out of food and water, the control of drinking water remains strict. It is allocated daily according to quotas and quantities, which is the foundation for the survival of every soldier stationed on the front line.

It was almost instantaneous to understand whose work this was.

So, is this what they mean by "a drop of water in need should be repaid with a spring of water"?

I once lent you a sip of water, and now you're returning me with more than half a pot.

Meng Youyou couldn't help but chuckle.

She quickly tidied herself up and got out of bed. Although her limbs were still weak and she felt heavy with the slightest movement, she felt much better overall and her vision was clearer. After carefully considering her current condition, she decided to return to her monitoring post.

With something on her mind, Meng Youyou couldn't sit still, even though her illness had only slightly subsided. She was worried about Ayou working alone for so long; after calculating the time, she realized that Ayou had been away from her post for almost 24 hours.

……

Ayu looked towards the doorway. "Sister Meng, what brings you here?"

Meng Youyou took a few steps closer and spoke in a very relaxed tone: "If I hadn't come, I doubt anyone would have noticed you collapsing in front of the radio station."

She raised her hand and patted Ayu on the back of the head, saying, "Leave this to me. You've worked hard for a day and a night. Go back and rest for a while now." Her voice was noticeably hoarse when she spoke.

Ayu's face showed worry. "Sister Meng, your voice doesn't sound like it's fully recovered yet."

The night before, Meng Youyou told Ayou that she had a slight cold and wasn't feeling well, using that as an excuse. Therefore, Ayou is still completely unaware of her true health condition.

Meng Youyou joked with a smile: "I'm not that delicate. I'm almost fully recovered. I should do some work to keep my brain active, otherwise it will get rusty."

Ayu reluctantly dragged out her words, "Fine..." but lingered, unwilling to get up.

Meng Youyou picked up the nearest chair and sat down, asking, "Where are the recordings from the past day?" This had become a routine for the two of them in recent days. Every communication conversation that Ayou overheard during her shift would be recorded and archived so that Meng Youyou could review it to see if any valuable information had been missed.

Ayu pulled three cassette tapes from the drawer and placed them on the table, pointing to the boxes with her fingertip as she explained, "These two are the main channels, and this one is the secondary channel."

Meng Youyou picked up the cassette tape from the secondary channel and looked at it, asking in a puzzled tone, "Is this tape finished?"

It's important to know that the enemy uses the secondary channel less frequently, so the listening station consistently uses a triggered recording mode, unlike the continuous recording mode of the main channel. Recording only starts when there is communication. Normally, a tape should last at least five days, and she clearly remembered that she had personally changed this tape two days ago.

“Hmm,” Ayu nodded, then explained, “The number of times the secondary channel has been used has been increasing day by day in the past few days, especially yesterday. Most of the calls were to logistics communications, and the callers were the cooks. They would contact them every time there was something trivial. They didn’t seem to mind the trouble. It was too much trouble to explain everything at once, so they made so many trips back and forth.”

Meng Youyou was quite puzzled: "The cookhouse?"

Xiong Ayou blinked and nodded, "Yes, the mess hall. For example... you have to call out when you send two baskets of cabbage to the old kitchen, and you have to report how many meals the old kitchen has made and sent out. You have to handle such trivial matters back and forth."

Xiong Ayou scratched her neck and added, "Sister Meng, you know what, their food is pretty good. They can have hot meals every day."

The more Meng Youyou listened, the more her brows furrowed. She immediately put on her headphones, inserted the cassette tape into the tape recorder, and began rewinding.

Seeing this, Xiong Ayou finally realized something was wrong. She pursed her lips, clenched her fists, and sat stiffly to the side, her eyes fixed on Meng Youyou's face, observing every subtle change. Her face gradually turned ashen.

Meng Youyou repeatedly played the few tapes she had selected, her expression sometimes serious, sometimes slightly confused. She listened intently again and again, and during this time, she took off her watch and held it in her hand, staring intently at the dial. Then she casually pulled over a piece of paper and wrote down a series of numbers.

After more than ten minutes, he finally spoke his first words: "Ayu, can you help me find the secondary channel tapes from before this week?"

"Okay," Ayu replied quickly and urgently. He turned around abruptly, bumping his back against the metal cabinet. He didn't care at all and hurriedly opened the cabinet door, his fingertips sweeping over the stacked cassette tapes. In just a few seconds, he picked up a cassette tape with a date label and placed it on the table, his fingers trembling slightly involuntarily.

The door to the listening room wasn't closed tightly, leaving a crack about the width of a finger. Huo Qingshan had just reached the door when he caught sight of Meng Youyou through the crack. She sat upright, her profile serious, her face and neck showing no signs of abnormal flushing. She looked much better than yesterday, indicating that her fever had likely subsided considerably.

As usual, he tapped on the door with his fingers, the knuckles making a thumping sound on the metal. However, neither of the two people inside responded. One of them was wearing headphones and couldn't hear, but the young man standing next to him, whose head was completely bare and clearly not covered, was also oblivious. His eyes were staring blankly at one spot, as if half of his soul had been taken away and his attention had wandered off somewhere else.

Huo Qingshan pushed the door open and entered. Meng Youyou noticed him out of the corner of her eye and immediately waved to him, signaling him to come over quickly.

Seeing this, Huo Qingshan strode over. Meng Youyou had already sprang up from her chair. Without a word, she reached out and pulled him back down to sit. In her haste, she remembered to grab another pair of headphones from the corner of the table—Ayou's headphones, the cord still tangled. She quickly untangled them, plugged the plug into the recorder with a "click," and then shoved the earcups over Huo Qingshan's head. The cool plastic earcups brushed against his earlobes, carrying the warmth of her fingertips.

“Listen carefully to the background noise.” Meng Youyou’s fingertip rested on the button of the recorder. She looked at the man with a sharp look in her eyes and emphasized, “Pay close attention to the duration of the echo, as well as the quality of the speaker’s voice and any distinctive features. Remember these details clearly.”

The instructions were clear enough that Huo Qingshan instantly grasped the key points and nodded.

The next second, the button was pressed, and the soft sound of the tape spinning filled the air. Just over a minute later, Meng Youyou suddenly raised her hand to stop it, her movements swift and precise. She bent down, opened the tape recorder's cassette slot, removed the tape, and deftly inserted another one; the slot clicked shut.

Meng Youyou looked him straight in the eye again and instructed, "Next is another recording. Listen carefully and see how it differs from the previous one."