Chapter 201: Deadlines and Echoes

Beep—beep—on the third ring, the call connected.

“Hello.” The voice was hoarse, like sandpaper rasping together. In the background came the faint whir of server fans and the clatter of a keyboard.

“Brother Zhao, it’s me, Lin Chen.” His tone was steady, with no small talk. “I’ll keep it short. My younger brother’s doing a long-term EEG. The hospital is pressing for a two-thousand-yuan deposit, and it has to arrive before five tomorrow afternoon. My liquid cash has dried up, so I want to borrow two thousand from you. I’ll repay principal and interest in full before June fifteenth. Or, if you’ve got an urgent data-cleaning job next month, I can do a V4.0 script for free to settle it. Whichever is easier for you.”

There was silence on the other end for about five seconds. Old Zhao did not ask about the illness, nor where Lin Chen was working now. He asked only, “What company are you at now? What level?”

“A top-tier internet company on the front lines. Backend developer. P5. I’m currently going through the internal review process, and in June I’ll get my quarterly performance payout and project bonus.”

“Fine.” Old Zhao’s voice sharpened, more decisive. “Send me your Alipay account. Forget the interest. As for settling with a script, I’ll keep that on the books for now. I still remember the way you used to grind through all-nighters cleaning data back in the county server room. Don’t let family matters knock you off the right road. The money will be there within ten minutes.”

“Understood. Thank you, Brother Zhao.”

He hung up. Leaning against the edge of the flower bed, he switched his phone screen to Alipay, entered the account number, and sent it over. The swelling in his left ankle had already spread into his calf; even through the fabric of his pants, he could feel the skin burning hot. He unscrewed the bottle of iced mineral water and pressed it back against the injury. The cold climbed along his nerves, suppressing the waves of throbbing pain.

Nine minutes later, his phone vibrated.

Alipay transfer received: ¥2000.00.

He immediately called his mother. Wang Guiying picked up quickly. Behind her was the noise of a hospital corridor, carts rattling over the floor.

“Mom, I’ve transferred the money to your card. Two thousand. Go pay the deposit at the nurse’s station, then take a photo of the receipt and send it to me.”

“Ah, ah. Your father just went to line up at the payment window.” Wang Guiying kept her voice low, and it trembled faintly with relief. “Chen, don’t work yourself too hard. Xiaoman woke up for a little while just now and said he wanted to see the stars you drew.”

“Tell him to lie still and rest. I’ll be back Friday.”

“Alright. You take care of your work.”

The call ended. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the damp May air. Two thousand yuan was only a number in a ledger, but in real life it was the conductive paste sticking EEG electrodes to his brother’s scalp, the green waveform flickering across a monitor, the dignity of sparing his mother from having to bow her head and borrow money from relatives. He got to his feet, put his weight on his right foot, let his left only brush the ground, and slowly made his way toward the subway station.

By the time he got back to his rented room, it was already eight that night. The place was less than fifteen square meters. On the desk were technical manuals, half a pack of Hongtashan cigarettes, and that error notebook with its curled edges. He boiled a kettle of water, poured it into a plastic basin, and soaked his left foot in it. The temperature was just right. The blood vessels over the top of his foot expanded slightly in the heat, and the pain shifted from sharp stabbing to a dull, swollen ache. He leaned back in the chair and turned on the computer.

The final interview was the day after tomorrow. The technical committee did not test canned interview answers; what it tested was judgment in system architecture and control over failure boundaries. He pulled up the logs from the three core projects he had handled over the past six months and reviewed them line by line. Cache breakdowns during gray releases. Latency jitter in cross-datacenter synchronization. Index optimization for slow database queries. In his error notebook, he drew a new decision tree: if a P0 incident occurred online during the review period, how would he authorize remotely? If the review itinerary overlapped with a family emergency, how would he hand things over? If the technical committee questioned his reliability, how would he prove it?

He did not write anything sentimental. Only facts:

"2014.05.21 Final interview contingency plan. Variables: family responsibility / career advancement / physical load. Solution: isolate risks in advance, define handoff SOP clearly, preserve elastic buffer. Bottom line: the business must not collapse, and the family must not be dragged down."

The handwriting was neat; the ink dried through. He closed the notebook and switched off the desk lamp. In the darkness there was only the low hum of the computer fan and the occasional sweep of car headlights past the window.

May 25, 9:00 a.m.

He sat in front of the computer and refreshed the internal system. The loading icon spun three times before the list finally appeared.

"Public Notice of the Final List and Itinerary for the First Batch of the 2014 Overseas Technical Review Delegation"

He scrolled down. Third line: Lin Chen. Status: Approved. Budget approval: Granted.

He stared at those two words, his fingers suspended over the keyboard for two seconds. No cheering. No visible release of tension. He only picked up his phone and sent Director Li a WeChat message:

"I’ve seen the list. Thank you for the recommendation, Director. I’ve already prepared the itinerary materials and can submit them at any time."

Director Li replied at once:

"Change of plans. Headquarters made a last-minute adjustment. Departure has been moved up to the morning flight on May 26. Passport and visa have already been expedited. Come to my office at three this afternoon to sign the liability waiver and handover agreement. Also, keep your phone on during the review trip. You are still the primary person responsible for domestic operations."

He replied:

"Understood. I’ll be there at three sharp."

Setting down the phone, he glanced at the calendar.

May 26. Tomorrow.

At 2:40 that afternoon, while he was organizing handover documents, his phone suddenly rang. It was the landline from the county hospital’s neurology department.

“Are you Lin Xing’s family member? I’m the doctor on duty. The long-term EEG report is out.” The doctor’s tone was flat, but he spoke quickly. “The frequency of abnormal discharges is higher than last time. There are clear epileptiform discharges in the left temporal lobe. We recommend adjusting the sodium valproate dosage and adding levetiracetam. The new medication carries risks of drowsiness and rash, so a family member needs to sign to confirm the treatment plan. Also, if the seizure frequency continues to rise in the near term, surgery may need to be evaluated. When can you come in to sign?”

Lin Chen’s gaze dropped to the time in the lower right corner of the screen.

14:42.

At exactly three, he had to go upstairs to sign the review agreement. At seven tomorrow morning, he had to rush to the airport. And the signature had to be done this afternoon, otherwise the new medication could not be started, and his brother’s treatment window would be delayed until next week.

He stood up. The instant his left foot touched the ground, a sharp stab of pain shot up to his knee. He braced himself on the edge of the desk and waited for the dizziness to pass. Then he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

The motion-sensor light in the corridor flicked on with the sound of his footsteps. He called Director Li.

“Director, I may be forty minutes late for the agreement this afternoon. There’s an urgent medical consent form in my family that has to be handled today. I’ve already sent the handover documents to your email. Engineer Zhang is the backup contact. If anything gets stuck in the process, I can sign afterward at any time.”

There was a two-second silence on the other end. Director Li’s voice revealed no emotion. “Forty minutes. Don’t go over. The review team won’t wait for anyone, but neither will a human life. Be careful on the road.”

“Understood.”

He hung up, stepped into the elevator, and pressed B2. The metal doors reflected his face. There were dark shadows under his eyes, but his pupils were steady. As the elevator descended, the sensation of weightlessness tugged at his stomach. He pulled out that error notebook, flipped to a blank page, and wrote:

"2014.05.25 Variables overlapping. Review moved up / medication signature. Solution: split the time, push responsibility forward. Don’t choose the optimal option; choose the executable one."

The elevator doors opened. Cold air from the underground garage rushed at him. He pulled open the car door, got in, fastened his seat belt. The engine’s vibration ran up from the seat into the soles of his feet. He shifted gears, eased off the clutch, and the car slowly rolled out of the garage into the congested traffic of a May afternoon.

The navigation showed that from the company to the county hospital, without traffic, it would take one hour and twenty minutes.

He glanced at the rearview mirror. The clouds were hanging low, and a few drops of rain had already struck the windshield. The wipers swept out a clear arc, only for it to be covered again at once by a fresh sheet of water.