I can hear all the lies in the world.
As a sound restorer, the 0.8 Hz throat tremble when the suspect pretends to cry, and the guilty conscience in the tail tone when concealing betrayal, are all in my ears.
Until I met Lu Beichen.
He is the cold-faced founder of an audio technology company. His voice is clean and precise, as if it has been perfectly processed for noise reduction. He helped me restore my deceased mother's out-of-print recordings from 18 years ago and prepared my own white noise. When he spoke love words to me, his heart rate was steady and his vocal cords didn't even quiver.
I thought I had met the only man in the world who would not lie to me.
Until I was in his study and dug out the "Master Tape Acquisition Plan" from two years ago.
It turned out that all his gentle adaptations were just long-planned parameter optimization; his affectionate words were all perfectly rehearsed lies. He approached me from beginning to end just to squeeze out the value of my mother's recordings.
"Your voice is more honest than silence." I took off the headphones that never leave my body and looked at his pale face, "At least your heartbeat is steady when doing business reports."
I cut off all perception of him and walked into the abyss of silence.
Later, this extremely rational control freak ruined the company's hard work and personally sent his mentor to the trial stand.
He stood outside my door all night, his voice hoarse and the end of it broken into pieces: "Read the words, don't leave..."
Through the door, I listened to his uncontrollable heartbeat and said softly: "Lu Beichen, your voice is trembling, who are you lying to?"
His eyes were red and he pressed his face against the door: "Then this time, listen to my heartbeat... It says it's going crazy."
