Chapter 86: Hard Seats and Rain Streaks

5:40 a.m. The alarm had not gone off. Lin Chen opened his eyes. In the gray-white light, the watermark on the ceiling gradually came into focus. He turned on his side and threw off the thin blanket. The edge of the bandage around his left ankle had already yellowed, stained faintly with iodine. He unwound it carefully. The wound was dry, but the skin around it felt tight, with the slightest trace of flaking at the edges. He dipped a cotton swab in saline and wiped it gently. The alcohol’s evaporation carried away the surface warmth. A slight sting. Manageable. He wrapped the gauze again and tied it off. Even pressure. No pressure on the blood vessels. No restriction on the joint’s movement. Function first.

He had already packed the canvas bag the night before. He checked it again. ID card. Admission ticket. USB drive (4 GB). Laptop power adapter. Power strip. Cash. Two steamed buns. Enamel mug. Health certificate. The weight distribution was balanced. The strap bit into his right shoulder. He pulled open the dormitory door. The corridor was empty. His footsteps echoed across the tile. He went downstairs, avoided the pooled water on the first floor, and detoured four hundred meters. The soles of his shoes rasped over the slick pavement. He fixed his stride at thirty centimeters. His breathing remained steady. The county town had not fully woken up yet. The coal stoves at the breakfast stalls were just being lit, white smoke rising into the damp air. He did not glance aside. He looked only at the road ahead.

County bus station. The ticket window had just opened. The line was short. He slid over his ID card and small bills. “Qinghe to the provincial capital. Hard seat.” The ticket clerk tapped at the keyboard. Ticket issued. Twenty-four yuan. Nine yuan and eight jiao in change. He took it. The edge of the bill curled slightly. He tucked it into the inner pocket against his body. He recalculated the balance. Remaining on the books: forty-two yuan and eight jiao. Guesthouse: thirty. Food compressed to ten. Printing: two yuan fifty. Emergency reserve: three. Deficit reduced to zero. He did not need a miracle. He only needed execution.

The green train rolled in. Its whistle was heavy and muted. Inside the carriage hung the smell of instant noodles, sweat, and damp leather. He found a window seat and set down his bag. He stretched his left leg straight to avoid pressure. Outside, the outline of the county town slid backward. Fields, telephone poles, squat brick houses. The train was not fast. At each rail joint came the regular impact. Clack. Clack. Like a metronome. He pulled out a sheet of draft paper. A folded map of compiler paths. Environment variable settings. Common header files. His finger traced across the page in the air. TC 2.0’s memory limits. Python’s local library dependencies. Notepad++ plugin conflicts. He closed his eyes and simulated the startup sequence in his mind. Load. Compile. Run. The fault-tolerance points had already been marked.

Across from him sat a middle-aged man. Half a length of rebar stuck out of the woven sack at his feet. He smoked with his head lowered. Ash fell onto his pant leg. He did not flick it away. Lin Chen did not look at him. His gaze rested on the window. Fine rain slanted against the glass, dragging out long, thin streaks of water. There would be showers in the provincial capital. The forecast had been right. He took out a plastic bag and pulled it over the outside of the canvas satchel. Zipper sealed. Waterproof. Moisture-proof. Accident-proof. A hawker’s cry came from the carriage connection. Sunflower seeds. Sausages. Mineral water. He did not move. The steamed buns were in his bag. The enamel mug was empty. There would be free hot water after arrival. The budget was iron law. No crossing the line.

2:10 p.m. The train slowed. Provincial Capital Station. The woman’s voice over the loudspeaker was calm. He hoisted the bag onto his back and followed the flow of people out. The rain intensified. He had not brought an umbrella. A plastic bag barely shielded his head. He transferred to a bus by memory. Coin in the slot. One yuan. The carriage swayed. Stop names were called out. South Gate of Polytechnic University. He got off and walked three hundred meters. Security office. Behind the duty room’s glass, a guard looked up. “Register.” He handed over his letter of introduction. “Looking for Professor Li. I’m staying one night.” The guard checked it, stamped it. “Behind the Information Building, Guesthouse No. 3. The key’s with the gatekeeper.” He thanked him and turned away. Raindrops struck the concrete and splashed up muddy specks. He stepped around the puddles. His stride did not change.

The guesthouse corridor was dim. Paint peeled from the walls. Room Three. The key turned. The door opened. A single room. Iron-framed bed. Wooden desk. One chair. Private bathroom. The faucet dripped. He set down his bag and did not rest. Power strip into the wall. Laptop on. Fan humming. Screen lighting up. White letters on blue. He inserted the USB drive. Recognized normally. Opened TC 2.0. New file. Compile. Passed. Python. Test. Output normal. He wrote down the system time. The exam room clock would need manual calibration. He switched on the power strip and tested the voltage. The indicator flickered. Unstable voltage. Professor Li had warned him. He had prepared for it. He took an old voltage stabilizer from the bag. Found at a secondhand market. Ten yuan. Wired it up. Connected it. The indicator turned green. Stable. He let out a long breath. Risk isolated.

He sat down. Fluid had seeped from his left foot again. The gauze was damp. He removed it. Iodine. Fresh gauze. Rewrapped. His movements were practiced. The pain had already gone numb. What he needed was full function, not healing. He spread out the admission ticket. Exam room: Information Building 304. Time: tomorrow morning, eight o’clock. Bring your own equipment. Emergency response in case of power outage. He pulled out the photocopied campus map. Layout of Room 304. Two rows of outlets along the wall. No power source in the center aisle. He had to claim a wall-side seat before eight. Otherwise there would be nowhere to plug in the stabilizer. The risk surfaced again. He stared at the map, his finger moving over the outline of Room 304. First row by the window. Last row by the door. Two backup options. He wrote them down.

At dusk, the rain stopped. Outside the window the sky darkened to blue. He finished the second steamed bun. The enamel mug was filled with hot water. Steam blurred his vision. He opened his notebook of mistakes. Not physics or chemistry. Programming. It recorded the compiler errors of the past three months. Segmentation faults. Memory leaks. Missing header files. Every line was a pit he had already stepped into. He checked them one by one, confirming that the local libraries had all been covered. He closed the notebook, turned out the light, and lay down. The iron bed frame creaked softly. He adjusted his breathing until the rhythm slowed. There were no neon lights of the provincial capital in his mind, no imagining of the future. Only the checklist. Route for claiming a seat. Voltage test. Compiler cold-start time. USB read-write speed. Bandage replacement intervals. Every variable had been entered. All that remained was execution.

Deep in the night, footsteps sounded in the corridor. They stopped outside the door. A key turned. Someone was checking into the next room. Low voices came through the thin wall. Lin Chen opened his eyes. He could not make out the whole conversation, only the urgency in the tone. He got up, walked to the door, and pressed his ear against it. He caught only a few words. “...temporary rule change... external voltage stabilizers not allowed... unified power supply in the exam room...” The voices faded. He stepped back to the bedside and sat down. His fingers tightened unconsciously. Voltage stabilizer. Unified power supply. If the exam room cut off external power devices, the battery in his old laptop was too degraded to last two hours of the practical test. He looked at the dim indicator on the power strip atop the desk. Reality had no fault tolerance outside the plan. He had to calculate again. Tomorrow morning, seven o’clock. Arrive at Room 304 an hour early. Confirm the power policy. Or accept the risk. He picked up a pen and wrote on the back of the admission ticket: Plan B. Battery endurance limit. Compile optimizations. Background processes reduced to the minimum. The pen tip paused. Outside the window, the night wind of the provincial capital passed between the buildings with a low, heavy howl. Like some kind of countdown. He closed his eyes and waited for dawn.