Chapter 260: Pharmacy and Measures

A long line stretched in front of the outpatient pharmacy at the end of the corridor. Red characters flickered on the automatic queue screen, and a mechanical female voice made an announcement every thirty seconds. Lin Chen stood at the very back of the line, the tip of his left foot touching the floor, his weight entirely on his right leg. The strap of his canvas bag bit into his collarbone; inside were the settlement statement he had just printed and his hardbound notebook.

The air was heavy with the mingled smells of disinfectant, old newspapers, and sweat from the crowd. He lowered his head and glanced at his phone. 9:47. Twenty-seven minutes had passed since the sandbox demo ended. There were no new messages from Zhao Qiming. That was within his expectations. The cycle of capital decision-making never shifted according to the speed at which a technology ran successfully; it only followed the cadence of internal risk control.

The line inched forward. Lin Chen pulled the notebook from his bag and turned to a blank page. His pen hovered, then fell: Sodium valproate sustained-release tablets (0.5g*30): out of stock. Alternative: levetiracetam tablets (0.25g*30). Requires a neurologist to reissue the prescription. Blood concentration monitoring cycle shortened to two weeks. Estimated cost: original medication about 210 yuan per month. Alternative medication about 480 yuan per month. Difference: 270 yuan/month.

The numbers were cold, but they had to be written down. Survival did not depend on feelings. It depended on ledgers. He had calculated the burn curve of the thirty thousand yuan reserve fund. If Zhao Qiming's project went through, the first payment would take at least forty-five days to arrive. Over those forty-five days, Xiaoman's follow-up examination fees, alternative medication costs, hospital meal expenses, plus Lin Chen's own painkillers and basic living expenses, would leave a monthly shortfall of around six thousand. Thirty thousand would not last five months. If the project fell through, or if the price was forced down, the gap would punch straight through his bottom line. He could not gamble on probability. He could only calculate margin.

The queue screen jumped to “Area C-047.” Lin Chen stepped forward. Behind the glass window, the pharmacist wore a mask, her eyes tired, her fingers tapping rapidly across the keyboard. “There's no sodium valproate?” Lin Chen asked. “The manufacturer stopped supplying it, and the provincial allocation hasn't come down yet. There are only two expired boxes left in the storeroom; we can't dispense those.” The pharmacist did not even raise her head. Her tone carried the numbness of someone who had dealt with patients' families for years. “Do you want levetiracetam? The system has a substitution record from neurology, but it needs a doctor's signature.” “Prescribe it. Two boxes for now.” “It's in the medical insurance catalog. The out-of-pocket portion is one hundred twelve yuan and eight mao. QR code or cash?”

Lin Chen scanned the code. His balance changed from 35.3 to -77.5. At the instant the numbers jumped, his stomach clenched slightly. His expression did not change. He put away his phone and took the medicine boxes. The edges of the foil blister packs were sharp; he pinched them carefully and placed them in the inner compartment of his canvas bag.

When he turned and walked back, the corridor seemed a little darker. Outside the window, the clouds hung low, as if rain were about to fall. He held the wall and slowly made his way toward the inpatient department elevators. The muscles in his left leg began to tighten again, like a rubber band stretched to its limit. He stopped, took a deep breath, and waited for the spasm to pass. Pain was an objective fact; complaining about it was meaningless. What he needed was to lay out the next path during these twenty minutes before the painkillers took effect.

The elevator doors opened. He stepped inside and pressed the button for the fourteenth floor. In the mirror, the back of his shirt was already soaked with sweat, clinging to his spine. He tugged at his collar and ignored it.

When he returned to the ward, Xiaoman was awake. His eyes were open, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. The fluid in the IV tube fell drop by drop in an even rhythm. Lin Chen placed the medicine boxes on the bedside table and poured a cup of warm water. “Brother.” Xiaoman's voice was very soft, carrying the hoarseness particular to the postoperative period. “Mm.” Lin Chen handed him the cup, propped up his back, and let him lean against his arm. The water temperature was just right. Xiaoman drank two sips, then shook his head. Lin Chen set down the cup and tucked the quilt around him. “Does it hurt?” “No.” Xiaoman paused. “Just sleepy.” “Then sleep. I'm here.” Lin Chen pulled over a chair and sat down. His movements were very light, making no unnecessary sound.

He opened his laptop and plugged it into the wall outlet in the ward. The Ethernet port was a little loose; he adjusted the angle, and the indicator light turned green. The terminal window popped up again. He checked the sandbox environment logs once more. The stress-test data had already been archived, and the latency curve was stable below eighty milliseconds. There were no errors. The technical work had already formed a closed loop. What remained was the game between people.

His phone vibrated. Su Man sent a message: Mr. Zhao's assistant just updated me. The internal review meeting has been moved up to two o'clock tomorrow afternoon. They need an additional competitor comparison and a cost breakdown table. Lin Chen replied: Received. I'll send them to you before ten tonight. He switched to the spreadsheet software. The cold light of the screen reflected on his face. The competitor comparison was not the hard part; the hard part was the cost breakdown. What Zhao Qiming wanted was not how advanced the technology was, but how long it would take to recoup the money after it was invested, and how large the risk exposure would be. He needed to break down the computing power consumption of the data-cleaning module, manual review costs, server bandwidth, and redundancy overhead for the fault-tolerance mechanism into quantifiable line items. Every row of figures had to withstand scrutiny.

The sound of the keyboard in the quiet ward was soft, but its rhythm was steady. He pulled up the previous outsourcing ledger and checked it against the cloud service provider's price sheet, calculating each item in turn. Unit price per CPU core-hour, peak memory usage, object storage read/write frequency, idle cost of backup queues. He multiplied each item by the estimated concurrency, then left a twenty percent buffer coefficient. Under the effect of the ibuprofen, the pain in his left leg gradually dulled, becoming a heavy sense of pressure. He did not fight it; he simply adjusted his sitting position and kept his spine upright.

At one in the afternoon, the first draft of the spreadsheet was finished. He exported it as a PDF, attached the architecture diagram and stress-test report, packaged everything, and sent it to Su Man. The progress bar reached 100%. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. There was no excitement in his mind, only the clarity that came after exhaustion. He knew what Zhao Qiming would see when this material was submitted. A man with no way back would calculate every variable to two decimal places. That was not intelligence. It was survival instinct.

Xiaoman's breathing grew long and even. Lin Chen opened his eyes and looked at his quiet sleeping face. The medicine boxes lay silently on the bedside table. One hollow in the foil blister pack was empty—the dose that had already been swallowed. He reached out and lightly touched the back of Xiaoman's hand. His skin was warm, his pulse steady. He drew back his hand and opened the hardbound notebook. Beneath “Mr. Zhao's response window: 72 hours,” he crossed it out and rewrote: Window shortened to 28 hours. Must confirm intent before 14:00 tomorrow. The tip of his pen paused. He wrote a third line: If it does not pass, initiate Plan B: break out the cleaning module and connect with data-labeling companies. Reduce quote by 15% in exchange for immediate settlement. There were no emotional words. Only paths and alternatives. Reality would not become gentle with you just because you had prepared a Plan C, but with a Plan C, at least there would be some buffer when you fell.

A muffled roll of thunder came from outside the window. Raindrops began striking the glass, sparse at first, then quickly joining into a sheet. The footsteps in the corridor grew hurried. A nurse pushed a treatment cart past at a run, the rubber wheels making brief scraping sounds against the terrazzo floor. Lin Chen closed the laptop. Unplugged the Ethernet cable. Packed the equipment back into the canvas bag. He stood up. His left foot was still a little stiff when it touched the ground, but it could already bear weight. He walked to the window and looked out at the curtain of rain. The city's outline blurred in the downpour, but the streetlights had already come on. Their halos stretched long across the pooled water, like lines extending outward.

His phone vibrated again. This time it was not Su Man. It was an unfamiliar local number. He answered. A man's voice came through the receiver, speaking very quickly in a businesslike tone: “Mr. Lin Chen? I'm Mr. Zhao's assistant. Mr. Zhao has reviewed your materials and has questions about the cost breakdown. At two o'clock tomorrow afternoon, he will be waiting for you in the company conference room. Please bring the original data samples and the detailed computing-power consumption records. Also...” The other party paused. “Mr. Zhao suggests that you had better prepare a joint-liability statement for a personal guarantee as well. The project's upfront investment is large, and the investors need to see binding commitment.”

Lin Chen held the phone, his knuckles faintly whitening. The sound of the rain outside was sealed beyond the glass. In the ward, there was only Xiaoman's steady breathing. “Received,” he said. His voice was steady, without fluctuation. The call ended. The screen went dark. He stood where he was and did not immediately sit down. Joint liability. Those four words were like a stone smashed into nerves already pulled taut. He knew what they meant. If the project failed, or if the payment cycle dragged out, the debt would fall directly onto him personally. The thirty thousand yuan reserve fund, plus his future income, might not be enough to fill that hole. But he was clear that what the investors wanted was not money. It was attitude. A person who did not dare stake himself was not qualified to take their money.

He walked back to the bedside, pulled open the drawer, and found the blank template for a guarantee letter of intent. The pen tip touched the paper, and he wrote his own name. His handwriting was steady, each stroke separate and deliberate, without cursive connections. The rough grain of the page rubbed against the pen tip, making a faint rustling sound. The rain fell harder. He closed the document and placed it into the canvas bag. The sound of the zipper being pulled shut was almost inaudible beneath the rain. He glanced at the wall clock. 1:45 in the afternoon. There were twenty-three hours and fifteen minutes until two o'clock tomorrow afternoon. He needed to go to the print shop to make three copies of the materials, needed to buy two packets of instant coffee from the convenience store downstairs, and needed to confirm Xiaoman's monitor alarm thresholds for the night. There was no way back. Only options. He shouldered his bag and pushed open the door. The cold wind in the corridor rushed against his face. He stepped forward, right foot landing first, left foot following. His pace was not fast, but his direction was clear.