Chapter 254: Corridors and Callbacks

The door to the doctor’s office stood slightly ajar. Overhead, fluorescent tubes gave off a low, steady hum. Lin Chen pushed the door open and went in. The attending physician was typing up medical notes at the computer without looking up.

“Sit. The evaluation form is printed.”

Lin Chen sat down, instinctively shifting his weight to the right as his left foot touched the floor. The numbness below his knee was like a thick layer of rubber, cutting off sensation while magnifying the dull ache deep in the joint into a regular throb. He took the form the doctor handed him and quickly scanned the checklist: high-resolution MRI, long-term video EEG, blood drug concentration monitoring, preoperative anesthesiology consultation. Each item had an estimated cost marked after it.

“The evaluation period will take about three days.” The doctor took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “If the epileptogenic focus has clear boundaries and is at a safe distance from the language-function area, we can schedule surgery. But the medial temporal lobe is structurally complex. There’s about a fifteen percent chance of short-term memory impairment after surgery. Your family needs to be mentally prepared for that in advance.”

“Understood.” Lin Chen nodded. The tip of his pen made a light stroke along the edge of the form. “Can I pay the evaluation fee now?”

“Go to the cashier on the first floor. Bring the deposit slip back to me for signature, and we’ll arrange the exams tomorrow morning.”

Lin Chen stood, thanked him, and left. The air in the corridor felt colder than before. He walked to the self-service payment machine beside the nurses’ station and inserted his bank card. The screen displayed the balance: 41,200.35. He entered the evaluation fee: 15,800. Payment successful. The balance changed to 25,400.35. The shift in numbers stirred no emotion; his mind simply filed it under necessary sunk cost. He printed the receipt, folded it into his pocket, and turned toward the elevator.

The elevator descended. The mirrored wall reflected his slightly hunched back. Bloodshot eyes, a blue-gray layer of stubble. He stared at himself in the mirror, breathing evenly. Capital settled by quarter; illness advanced by the hour. They did not live in the same time zone, but he had to find the point where they intersected.

Seventh-floor fire stairwell. The heavy soundproofing of the safety door filtered the ward’s noise into a muffled background. Lin Chen sat on the steps and opened his laptop. The whir of the fan was amplified in the narrow space. He connected to his phone’s hotspot and opened the draft of the compliance audit report.

The document’s framework was already in place: description of the data desensitization process, feature-vector interface call logs, preliminary results from the third-party classified-protection assessment, archive path for patient informed-consent forms. The missing piece was the last item: proof of original-data hash verification and timestamp alignment. Su Man’s feature-vector dimensional alignment rate from last night’s sandbox run was 92%, but Zhao Qiming’s legal team was stuck on the closed loop of compliance in data transfer. What capital wanted was traceable certainty, not an ideal value in the laboratory.

He brought up the terminal and entered commands. Dense log lines began scrolling across the screen. His left ankle started to tighten; the muscles twitched faintly beyond his control. He stopped typing, pressed a hand against his lower leg, and pushed down hard with his fingertips. Pain climbed along the nerve. He closed his eyes and waited for the sharpness to pass. Three seconds later, his fingers returned to the keyboard.

11:20. His phone vibrated. A voice-call request from Su Man. He answered without turning on speakerphone.

“Lin Chen.” Her voice was hoarse from staying up, but she spoke very quickly. “Zhao Qiming’s side sent over their pre-review comments. They’re questioning the k value in our desensitization algorithm. They think extreme samples could potentially be used to infer original identities. We need to add an explanation of the differential-privacy noise-injection parameters.”

“The parameters are in the v2.3 branch config.” Lin Chen kept his eyes on the screen. “Export the epsilon and delta values for the Laplace noise distribution. I’ll write them into the report appendix. Also, the timestamp mismatch is because there’s a 1.2-second delay between the test server and the primary database, not because of data contamination. I’ll add a section with the NTP synchronization logs.”

“Okay. I’ll send them within ten minutes.”

The call ended. Lin Chen created a new text file and began writing the technical explanation. No adjectives, only formulas, parameter ranges, and boundary conditions. He was used to breaking complex problems down into verifiable steps. Desensitization was not a black box; it was an engineering compromise under mathematical constraints. He wrote each line of derivation the way he had once used a pencil on scrap paper in the main room of the house in Qingshi Village, calculating the ratios for his younger brother’s medicine expenses. Logic was the only anchor.

11:45. Su Man’s email arrived. He extracted the attachment, matched the parameters, inserted the explanation into the main body of the report, and generated a PDF. File size: 4.7 MB. He checked the table of contents, page numbers, and signature fields three times. Confirmed correct.

11:52. Email sent. Recipients: Zhao Qiming, the legal-compliance team, Su Man. CC: himself.

The sent notification sounded thin in the stairwell. He closed the laptop and leaned against the wall. The numbness in his left leg had already spread to the root of his thigh. When he stood, his right knee wobbled visibly. He braced himself against the wall and slowly walked back to the ward.

When he pushed the door open, his mother was asleep over the edge of the bed, still clutching half a packet of tissues. The monitor’s beeps were regular and restrained. Xiaoman was awake, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Hearing the movement, he turned his head. On the bedside cabinet lay an old, well-worn sketchbook.

“Ge.” Xiaoman’s voice was very soft, as if afraid to disturb something.

Lin Chen walked over and draped his coat across the back of a chair. He picked up the sketchbook and opened it. The newest page held a pencil outline of a city skyline: tall buildings, glass curtain walls, a straight road. In the lower right corner, in crooked handwriting, were the words: Brother’s building.

Lin Chen’s fingers paused on the paper for two seconds. He said nothing. He only closed the sketchbook and put it back where it had been. Then he reached out and tucked the quilt around Xiaoman. The fabric rustled lightly.

“Sleep,” he said.

Xiaoman closed his eyes. His breathing gradually became even.

Lin Chen sat down in the chair and took out his phone. The screen lit up with two new messages.

The first was from Zhao Qiming: Report received. Forwarded to the third-party audit institution. Preliminary review opinion expected at 3 p.m. If there are no objections, the Q2 funding process will begin.

The second was from the inpatient nurses’ station: Mr. Lin, tomorrow’s preoperative-evaluation bed has been confirmed. However, anesthesiology requires a detailed medication history for the past five years, signed by the original attending physician and stamped with the county hospital’s official seal. In addition, a surgical preparation deposit of 30,000 yuan must be credited before 8 p.m. tonight, or the bed will automatically be postponed until next week.

He glanced at the time: 11:58.

The clock at the end of the corridor ticked forward second by second. A thirty-thousand-yuan shortfall. An interprovincial official seal. A seven-hour deadline.

Lin Chen placed the phone face down on his knee. The pain in his left foot was no longer sharp; it had become a heavy, downward-dragging blunt force. He stood and walked to the window. Outside was the Beijing street scene before dawn. Streetlights stretched the shadows of roadside trees long across the ground. There were no stars, only the occasional sweep of headlights on the distant overpass.

He took out his other backup phone and opened his contacts. His fingertip stopped on Chen Hao’s name. After a three-second pause, he dialed.

The phone rang twice before connecting. The background was a quiet bedroom.

“Brother Chen?” Chen Hao’s voice was hoarse with sleep. “Calling at this hour—did something happen?”

“Nothing happened.” Lin Chen’s tone was steady. “I need to borrow thirty thousand. We’ll use a formal IOU, calculate interest at the bank’s current rate, and I’ll repay it within three months. Also, you mentioned before that Old Li from the county hospital’s medical affairs office has a son interning at your unit. Could you put in a word and ask him to expedite a seal tomorrow morning?”

There was silence on the other end for two seconds. No questions about the reason. No pleasantries.

“Send me the card number. I’ll contact Old Li in ten minutes. For the seal, have someone at the county hospital send over a scanned copy of the list. I’ll push it through the internal process.”

“Okay.” Lin Chen read out the account number. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Chen Hao paused. “Are you holding up over there?”

“Step by step,” Lin Chen said. “Handle what’s in front of us first.”

He hung up. He opened online banking and confirmed the thirty thousand had arrived. The balance climbed back to 55,400.35. He took a screenshot and sent it to the nurses’ station. Then he called the county hospital archives office landline. A long waiting tone came through the receiver.

The corridor light flickered once. Lin Chen leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. His breathing was slow and steady. The elevator had already stopped on the seventh floor, but he knew the next level still had to be climbed by himself.