Chapter 132: Scales and Variables

The bus stopped at the entrance to town. The engine died. The tailpipe let out one last breath of black smoke. Lin Chen lifted his schoolbag. His left foot touched the ground. The scabbed gauze rubbed against the sole of his shoe. The pain had already dulled. It had become a steady, low-frequency vibration. He walked back along the dirt road. Thirty li. His cadence steady. His breathing even. Like a machine that had been calibrated.

He pushed open the courtyard gate. Wang Guiying was at the stove, simmering mung bean soup. Hearing the sound, she turned and glanced back. Said nothing. Just handed him a towel. Lin Chen took it. Wiped off the sweat. Sat down. Took off his shoe. His left ankle was swollen like a steamed bun of risen dough. Dark red stained the edges. He peeled off the tape. The gauze had stuck to the wound. When he tore it loose, it took a fresh layer of skin with it. He drew in a cold breath. Made no sound. He used cotton swabs soaked in iodine to clean it little by little. The disinfectant mixed with the smell of mildew, spreading through the main room. Lin Jianguo sat on the threshold smoking. Ash fell onto his trouser leg. He did not brush it off. He only looked at his son's foot. After a long while, he said, "Don't go out to the fields tomorrow."

Lin Chen nodded. He wrapped on fresh gauze and tied it off, his movements practiced. The pain was reclassified as a manageable parameter. He opened his ledger, crossed out "first mock exam review," and wrote: "June 7. Chinese. 9:00 sharp. Margin remaining: twenty-one days."

The days that followed were cut into fixed modules. Morning self-study. Six o'clock. Third pass through the notebook of corrected mistakes. Derivatives. Electromagnetic fields. Organic synthesis. Noon. Twelve o'clock. Forty minutes asleep on the desk. Afternoon. Two o'clock. Full science mock paper. Timed. Evening. Eight o'clock. English listening. Eleven o'clock. Lights out. The dressing on his left foot was changed every day. The swelling slowly went down. But the muscles began to waste away. When he walked, his center of gravity clearly shifted to the right. His thigh overcompensated and ached. He ignored it. He only recorded it. Pain level. Gait deviation. Answering speed. The error remained within acceptable limits.

Xiaoman sat on a little stool drawing. Crayon scraped over old newspaper with a soft rustle. He drew a row of crooked stars. Beside them he wrote: Big Brother's stars. Lin Chen glanced at it. Said nothing. Slipped the drawing into his notebook of corrected mistakes. In a blank space. One more anchor point.

June 6. He went to inspect the test center. County No. 1 High School. Lin Chen arrived an hour early. Sat in the last row of Room 307. Familiarized himself with the height of the desk and chair. Tested the drag of the pen tip. Confirmed the direction of the air conditioner. It did not blow on the back of his neck. In the afternoon he went home and sorted his admission ticket, ID card, and stationery pouch. Two inhales, one exhale. Heart rate steady. He closed his eyes and ran through the whole procedure in his head. There were no accidents. Only execution.

June 7. Chinese. 9:00 sharp. The starting bell rang. He opened the test paper. The smell of fresh ink. The roughness of the page. The pen tip came down. His handwriting was neat. He did not chase speed. He chased accuracy. The essay prompt was about the times and the individual. He wrote three paragraphs. No lyricism. Only statement. The chain of logic complete. He handed it in. In the afternoon, math. Analytic geometry. Heavy computation. He skipped the cumbersome steps and wrote only the key scoring points. He did not chase every possible point. He only secured the stable ones.

June 8. Science composite. English. The procedure repeated itself. Muscle memory took over the body. Under the desk, his left foot trembled slightly. He pressed it to the floor. Borrowed strength from the ground. Held himself steady. At five in the afternoon, the final subject ended. The bell rang. He put down his pen and pushed the answer sheet forward. Checked it. No mistakes. He stood up and walked out of the classroom. The corridor was roaring with voices. Some people were crying. Some were laughing. Some tore their books into scraps and flung them into the air. Lin Chen kept close to the wall, avoiding the crowd. Down the stairs. Forty-two steps. One by one. His weight on his right leg. The left hanging in the air like a useless piece of wood. Sweat had soaked through his school uniform. The wind hit it and turned it cold.

He walked out the school gate. The setting sun dragged his shadow long behind him. He went to the bike shed and wheeled out his old bicycle. The chain was rusty. The brakes were bad. He swung himself onto it, pushed off with his right foot, left his left foot hovering over the pedal, and slowly rode out through the gate. The road back to town. Thirty li. The asphalt rose and dipped. Every time he hit a pothole, the wound was squeezed. He ignored it. Only fixed his eyes on the road signs ahead. Calculating distance. Calculating time. Calculating margin.

When he got home, Wang Guiying brought him a bowl of cold noodles. Lin Jianguo sat on the threshold, the cigarette tip glowing and dimming. Xiaoman ran over and handed him a new drawing. In it was a square, boxy machine. Light flashed on its screen. Lin Chen took it and tucked it into his notebook of corrected mistakes. Said nothing.

Late June. Results posted. The school bulletin board was covered with the red list. Lin Chen stood outside the crowd on tiptoe and looked. His name sat on the edge of the second-tier admission line. Three points short. Not enough for a first-tier university. Not enough for electronic information at Provincial Polytechnic either. He stood there for a long time without moving. The crowd dispersed. The wind lifted scraps of paper from the ground. He turned and walked back. His cadence did not change.

Three days later, the reassignment notice arrived. Computer Science and Technology. Program code 080901. Lin Chen opened the envelope. The paper was rough. The seal ink stood up slightly under his fingers. He stared at that line for a long time. He felt no disappointment. No relief either. He only opened the ledger, crossed out "Electronic Information," and wrote: "Computer Science and Technology. Unknown. Must be broken down."

He closed the ledger and went into the main room. From under the bed he dragged out a wooden box. Inside were the old textbooks from his three years of high school. He searched through them and pulled out a copy of Fundamentals of Computer Literacy. The cover had yellowed. The page corners were curled. He opened it. Table of contents. Hardware. Software. Operating systems. Programming languages. C language. He stopped on page three. His fingertip traced those unfamiliar terms. There was no retreat in him. Only calculation.

Outside the window, the cicadas shrilled. Heat rolled in waves. He dragged over a chair, sat down, spread out a sheet of scratch paper, and picked up his pen. On the blank page he wrote the first line: Variables. Assignment. Loops. Conditionals.

The pen tip paused. He lifted his head and looked at the calendar on the wall. September 1. Countdown. Seventy-three days.

He lowered his head and kept writing. His handwriting neat. No lyricism. Only statement.

The road had changed. But the scale was still there.

The pen had not stopped.