Chapter 216: The Doctor’s Orders and the Party Line

At ten to two in the afternoon, Lin Chen pushed open the door to the neurology office. The smell of disinfectant in the corridor was even stronger than in the ward, mixed with the particular sourness of old medical records. The attending physician’s surname was Zhou, a man in his early forties with black-rimmed glasses. Spread across his desk were Xiaoman’s follow-up EEG and blood concentration report.

“Sit.” Doctor Zhou didn’t look up. His finger drew two lines across the report. “The blood concentration of sodium valproate is a little low. The trough level hasn’t reached the therapeutic window. Have the seizures become more frequent lately?”

“Twice last week.” Lin Chen’s voice was level. “Both at night. Neither lasted more than three minutes.”

Doctor Zhou pushed up his glasses and looked at him. “We need to adjust the dosage. Also, his liver and kidney function indicators are borderline. The metabolic burden from long-term medication is building up. I suggest you consider adding levetiracetam. Combination therapy can lower the dose of a single drug and reduce side effects. But this one is out of pocket. Insurance won’t cover it. About eight hundred to twelve hundred a month, depending on the formulation.”

Lin Chen did not answer at once. He looked at the undulating lines and numbers on the report.

Eight hundred to twelve hundred.

The remaining payment that had just come into his account, after next month’s rent, his younger brother’s food expenses, and the money reserved for follow-up visits, would be just enough to cover this new long-term cost. The figures aligned automatically in his mind like variables being assigned in code—not sad, not happy, simply objective facts.

“Prescribe it,” he said. “Start with the minimum effective dose. I’ll take one month’s worth first.”

Doctor Zhou glanced at him, asked no further questions, and lowered his head to type. “Go to the first floor to pay and pick up the medicine. Watch for rashes and drowsiness. If anything unusual happens, come in immediately. Epilepsy is a long-distance run. Don’t expect a complete cure. Controlling the seizures and preserving quality of life—that’s the realistic goal.”

“Understood.” Lin Chen stood up. When his left foot touched the floor, a dull pain climbed from his ankle up his calf. He braced himself on the doorframe for two seconds, then turned and walked out. The fluorescent lights in the corridor were a little harsh. He narrowed his eyes, folded the payment slip, and tucked it into the inner pocket of his coat.

When he returned to the ward, Xiaoman was still asleep. The monitor’s lines were steady. Lin Chen slid the payment slip beneath the glass panel on the bedside cabinet and took out his phone to check the time: 2:40.

Less than twenty-four hours remained before the online meeting. He needed to get both positions—“full cleansing” and “in-place desensitization”—down on paper, and be ready for the CTO’s questioning.

He pulled open the folding chair and set his laptop on his knees. The screen lit up, its cold glow reflecting off his pale face. He created two new documents. On the left he wrote Proposal B: Full Migration and Cleansing. Its core logic was “physical isolation + historical data reconstruction.” Its advantage was thoroughness; its disadvantages were a long timeline, high cost, and the need for the client to coordinate a shutdown window for the old system. On the right he wrote Proposal C: Dynamic In-Place Desensitization. Its core logic was “view-layer interception + real-time rules engine.” Its advantage was a smooth transition with no disruption to existing business flows; its disadvantages were roughly fifteen percent performance loss and limited ability to trace historical dirty data.

The IT architecture of a state-owned enterprise was often like an old house: pipelines crossing everywhere, load-bearing walls that could not be moved. What the CTO wanted was not to tear it down and start over, but to replace the plumbing without bringing the place down. Lin Chen deleted the academic phrasing about “real-time stream processing” from Proposal C and replaced it with “plugin-based deployment on top of the existing database middleware.” He laid out the implementation path: phase one, rules configuration and sandbox testing; phase two, gray rollout and performance stress testing; phase three, full switchover and audit integration. At each stage he marked down a rollback plan and the boundary of responsibility.

The tapping of the keyboard was very light. He wrote slowly, but every word landed where it should. Technical documentation did not need rhetoric. It only needed a closed loop of logic. He remembered something Professor Zhou had said in college: “Engineering isn’t writing poetry. It’s building bridges. How deep you sink the piers depends on the riverbed geology, not the designer’s ambition.”

At 4:10, his left foot began to cramp. The muscle tightened uncontrollably, as if twisted by invisible pincers. Lin Chen stopped typing, set his foot flat on the floor, and rubbed his calf hard with his palm. The pain was sharp, but his mind was clear. He could not stop. Friday’s meeting was the key to winning the pilot contract. The remaining payment could only ease the immediate thirst; only a long-term project could become stable cash flow.

Xiaoman turned over and mumbled something indistinct in his sleep. Lin Chen paused, reached out, and tucked the blanket more securely around him. His younger brother’s breathing was light, his eyelashes casting faint shadows beneath his eyes. Looking at that face, Lin Chen remembered Qingshi Village, when Xiaoman used to trail after him along the yellow dirt road, asking whether the city really had that many lights. Now the city had plenty of lights, but none of them reached the corners of a hospital ward. He withdrew his hand and set it back on the keyboard.

At five o’clock, the comparison chart for the two proposals was finished. He exported a PDF and named it “Government-Enterprise Data Desensitization_Implementation Path Comparison_v3”. Then he opened his mind map and began rehearsing the questions the CTO was likely to ask.

“How do we control performance loss?” — Answer: use field-level sampling and asynchronous queues to smooth peak loads; core business tables go through direct connections, non-core tables through cache.

“How do we audit historical data?” — Answer: generate hash fingerprints before desensitization and store them in a separate audit database, supporting retrospective tracing without involving real-time computation.

“If errors appear in business operations after launch, who takes responsibility?” — Answer: define SLA boundaries clearly. The desensitization layer is responsible only for compliant data output; business logic errors are borne by the client’s application layer. The contract appendix must specify the liability exclusions.

He wrote them down one by one. No assumptions, only contingencies. The essence of business negotiation was the distribution of risk. He could not shoulder the client’s share for them, nor could he force technical ideals onto a real-world budget.

At seven in the evening, the orderly brought dinner. Lin Chen ate only half and packed the rest away. He needed to stay alert; he could not afford to get sleepy. He walked to the window and opened it a crack. The early-winter wind poured in, carrying the city’s particular smell of dust. In the distance, office towers glowed with checkered lights like luminous circuit boards. Behind every lamp, there might be someone revising a proposal, reconciling a budget, waiting for approval. No one had it easy. But the easy roads had all been taken long ago.

He returned to the table and printed out the proposal. A paper copy made it easier to underline and annotate. With a red pen he circled the key nodes and wrote “needs confirmation” beside the risk points. Then he opened his notebook of mistakes and turned to a fresh page.

“Rule 216: Medical care is a fixed expense; projects are flexible income. Fixed expenses cannot wait; flexible income must be stabilized. Friday’s meeting: do not promise what cannot be done, and do not evade the risks that must be borne. Bottom line: no fronting costs, no taking the blame, no compromising on compliance. Technology is a tool; the contract is the boundary.”

He closed the notebook. His phone screen lit up. It was a meeting link and access code from Chen Hao. There was also a new attachment: Client IT Security and Compliance Red Lines Checklist. Lin Chen opened it and checked it item by item. One line in the list read: “Any form of data leaving the country or third-party cloud storage is strictly prohibited.” He frowned slightly. That meant some of the SaaS-based components in Proposal C could not be used and everything would have to be deployed locally. Costs would rise, and the timeline would stretch. He picked up his pen and wrote beside the item: “Localized deployment will require an increased server procurement budget, or reuse of the client’s existing idle resources. Need to confirm server room racks and network bandwidth in advance.”

Reality always had one more wrinkle than the plan. He had no room to complain. He could only break it down.

At nine-thirty that night, all the materials were ready. He checked the network environment and tested the camera and microphone. Once he confirmed everything was in order, he switched off the main light and left only a desk lamp on. The ward dimmed, leaving only the glow of the screen and the beeping of the monitor.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. In his mind, he began to simulate tomorrow’s conversation. The pace should be slow, the logic firm, the attitude steady. Neither obsequious nor arrogant, neither eager to prove himself nor quick to give ground. He knew that Friday at three in the afternoon was not an examination. It was a negotiation. What the client wanted was reassurance; what he could provide was certainty. Only if the two matched could a deal be made.

His phone vibrated once. Not Chen Hao this time, but a bank text.

“Your savings account ending in 7749 was charged RMB 980.00 at 21:42 on November 15. Current balance: RMB 5,274.30.”

The medication had been paid for. Nearly a thousand was gone. The numbers kept moving, and life went on.

Lin Chen opened his eyes and placed the phone face down on the table. He picked up the thermos cup and took a sip of warm water. The temperature was just right. He shifted his posture and let his left foot hang free to reduce the pressure. There was still a long road ahead tomorrow. But tonight, all he needed was four hours of sleep.

At midnight, he set his alarm and lay down on the cot beside the bed. The blanket was a little thin, but he had no strength left to ask for another. Before closing his eyes, he took one last look at Xiaoman. His brother was sleeping deeply, breathing evenly.

Tomorrow, three in the afternoon. Online meeting room. CTO. Two positions. Compliance red lines. Budget negotiation.

The wind had already shifted.

The sails had to be drawn tight.

He closed his eyes, and his breathing gradually steadied. Time in the ward slowed once more.