The dispatch system wakes at nine. Liang Cheng has been out the door since eight.
The Shao family lives on the west side, an old walk-up, six floors, no elevator. He climbs to the fifth and stands in the stairwell for half a minute. Not catching his breath. He's reading the door.
Three overdue notices have been stuck to the security door. Two from water and power, yellowed, corners curled. The third is from the property management office, pressed underneath, one corner of a red stamp showing. He pulls it out, checks the date, slides it back. A building with bad payment habits has apartments with bad payment habits. These households you can talk into installments. Full payment, no.
He presses the doorbell. Broken. He knocks with a knuckle, three times.
The door opens a crack. Mugwort smell comes out first, then a person. A woman in her fifties, hair in a bun, elastic sleeves pulled over her cuffs. She sees the work badge and steps aside.
"Xiao Liang. Come in, sit."
She remembers him. He came by last month. No deal.
Liang Cheng doesn't sit. He looks at the shoe rack first. Top shelf: one pair of women's cotton slippers, fleece-lined, toes facing in. Beside them a man's slipper—just one, the other nowhere. Next to the slippers, a pair of men's leather shoes, polished, insoles pulled out and stood on edge to dry.
He files it away: this one takes care of things. People who take care of things don't dodge debts, they postpone them. Postponers need a face-saving exit.
"Auntie, I'm here today—still Uncle's order." He takes out the folder. "Sit down, we'll take it slow."
Aunt Shao goes to pour water. He uses the gap to scan the kitchen. The refrigerator door is covered in magnets—supermarket promotions, community health screenings, and a taxi company's complaint hotline. One of the magnetic fruit models is missing half a lemon. On top of the fridge, an unopened bag of dried noodles.
Second entry: cash is tight, but there's something.
An old-timer taught him this reading. The old-timer's exact words: don't listen to what they say, listen to their bills. Fridge magnets are just bills in another format. Tourist-spot magnets mean the children are out of town, wiring money on holidays—full payment on the table. Bank magnets mean someone manages the money, and that someone isn't present—open with installments. A wall of promotional magnets means price-sensitive—use the word "save" in your script, not the word "worth." The Shao fridge was type three, plus one extra thing: that taxi-company complaint hotline. A complaint hotline goes up on the fridge of someone who insists on being made whole. People who insist on being made whole read the terms. They don't respond to tears.
Seven years. He's tallied more than forty rules like these, written nowhere. What's written in the head needs no training.
"Uncle's account is one hundred thirty-three days past due." He spreads the payment notice on the coffee table and taps the numbers with a knuckle. "Standard tier, 129 a month. With late fees, that's 1,873.50 as of today. Auntie, I'm not here for that number."
"I know what you're going to say." She sets the water by his hand. "You said it last time too."
"The plan's still open." He says, "Downgrade. Standard to Basic, 45 a month. Downgrade processing fee, 88, one time. Settle the month and the late fee drops five percent. Three hundred today, then 45 a month after. About a pack of cigarettes."
Aunt Shao doesn't answer. She looks at the name on the notice—Shao Changyou—and looks at it for a while.
"If he's downgraded," she says, "will he still know me?"
"Downgrade to Level 2 only compresses secondary social ties. You're the primary contact. Out of scope. Clause seven of the agreement."
"Your company called last time. Said they deleted all his workmates from the factory."
"What got deleted was redundancy. Thirty-some factory friends, five years of zero calls—the system flagged them." He turns the script card halfway over in his palm and leaves it there. "Auntie, data doesn't lie."
She picks up her own glass, drinks, sets it down.
"Is he cold over there, alone?"
"The machine room is in Guiyang. Constant eighteen degrees, fifty-five percent humidity." Liang Cheng says, "Warm in winter, cool in summer."
"He snores. Don't let him bother anybody."
"Independent file, independent storage. No interference."
Aunt Shao nods, as if she really believes it.
Liang Cheng takes the script card out of his pocket. Laminated, tri-fold, fuzzed at the creases. Column one: empathy. Column two: the plan. Column three: close. He reads column one. "Auntie, handling all of Uncle's affairs alone, running up and down stairs—not easy." He stops for half a second, waits for her to pick it up.
"Easy, nothing. He's gone. Who am I arranging things for?" Aunt Shao says. "Last week Old Song's wife from the factory came by. Old Song's account got stopped, she asked if mine—whether ours would stop too. I told her our son and daughter haven't decided."
"Can't let it stop." Liang Cheng switches to column two. "Auntie, I'll be straight with you. If this account can't get out of grace period today, it goes to downgrade at month's end, and what gets downgraded is Uncle's sensory library. Wanting to hear an opera, wanting a taste of something salty—it's all gone. It doesn't come back."
"He had diabetes. That last year he didn't dare eat much white rice." Aunt Shao says, "If over there he can't even taste salty anymore, then wasn't it all for—" she doesn't finish the word.
Liang Cheng doesn't finish it for her. He skips column three and quotes instead: "Above the Basic tier there's an add-on. A farewell call. Ninety minutes, billed separately, 268 a call. A lot of families keep it for the death anniversary. If you're interested, we do it today and I can give you the returning-customer price. 238."
Aunt Shao waves him off, clean and quick. "When he was alive we couldn't fill a truck with what we said to each other in a day. Now that he's gone it's a 238 phone call." She gets up and goes into the back room, comes out clutching a handkerchief bundle. She unfolds it layer by layer. Cash inside, mostly twenties. She counts out fifteen, counts them twice, lays them on the coffee table, faces toward him.
"Three hundred," she says. "For now. On the fifteenth of next month my girl sends money home, I'll pay more."
"You'll need to sign the installment agreement." He holds out the signature pad. "First payment 300, posts to the system today. Uncle's account leaves grace period today."
Aunt Shao presses her thumb to it. Presses hard, like stamping a chop.
Liang Cheng gathers the agreement and stands. At the door he gives the closing line: "Auntie, any issue on Uncle's end—customer service, twenty-four hours, press one."
"Xiao Liang." Aunt Shao speaks at his back. "Does winter over there cost extra?"
"Basic tier covers everything. No add-on charges."
"Fine." Before the door closes she adds, "Next time don't buy fruit. That bag of apples last time, I only finished them today."
The stairwell is quiet. Liang Cheng stands at the landing for two seconds, takes out his phone, and closes the ticket: Shao Changyou, installment plan, first payment 300, recovery probability raised to seventy-eight percent. Seventh year in the trade. The system holds eight hundred–plus closings like this one.
9:40. He's back at the office.
Afterlife Cloud Tower, eleventh floor, Client Retention Department. This quarter's poster is up in the elevator, one big line: LET LOVE ENDURE. The corner of the poster carries the price list: Platinum 399, Standard 129, Basic 45, per month. The elevator reaches eleven and the poster stays behind.
Morning meeting still going. Feng Tuo, the supervisor, stands at the whiteboard reading yesterday's numbers: all-hands wake rate thirty-four percent, retention rate sixty-one percent, twenty-nine conversions. At Liang Cheng's name he pauses. "Liang Cheng. Two closings. One for 1,873, one installment at 300. Ugly number, but the account survives. Counts for you."
Nobody claps. Nobody has ever clapped at the morning meeting. There's only the sound of keyboards.
In Liang Cheng's desk drawer there's a laminated card the size of a work badge, issued on his seventh day: digest of the Retention Specialist Handbook. Conflict of interest is page three, clause eleven: a specialist with a direct-family connection to a work order must declare it. Clause twelve follows: after declaration, if no other qualified executor exists for the order, the assignment stands. He remembers clause twelve better than clause one. The old-timer who trained him used to say clause twelve is the actual body text of this job. Clause eleven is the cover.
He has carried out one overwrite. The year before last, another team's ticket—certificate holder on leave, he filled in. Machine room in the basement, shoe covers at the door. The progress bar ran eleven minutes with the fans never stopping. The signature pad was smaller than a delivery tablet and the stylus drifted; he signed twice before it took. Afterward he sat in the parking garage a while and smoked. The cigarette came from that order's bereaved—a pack of soft Zhonghua. Not his brand. He smoked half and pinched it out. That family later mailed the company a red silk banner with their thanks. It hangs by the eleventh-floor elevators now, right next to LET LOVE ENDURE.
Nine sharp, the work-order pool refreshes.
Dispatch is random. The system calls it load balancing. Nobody knows what they'll catch until nine. Liang Cheng pours himself water, sits, refreshes.
The new order pops up. He doesn't look at the name first. He looks at the status field. Gray background, red text: terminal deletion queue.
Seven years in the trade and he's taken a dozen-odd terminal orders. He can recite the flow: enqueue, seventy-two-hour settlement broadcast, broadcast period ends, physical sector overwrite, no reversal. Terminal orders aren't his to negotiate. On a terminal order the work is execution.
Only now does he look at the client name.
Zhou Sufen.
He leans back. The chair creaks. On the screen the fields file past:
Client name: Zhou Sufen. Sex: F. Age at death: 61. Tier: Basic (downgraded to Level 3). Days past due: 217. Status: terminal deletion queue (queue number TL-0417). Registered address: Hongxing Textile Factory family compound, Building 3, Unit 2, Apt 402. Surviving kin: elder son Liang Cheng, younger son Liang Chuan. Total due: 41,386.50 yuan.
Itemized—storage principal (7 months): 315.00. Late fees: 8,417.22. Downgrade processing fees (×3): 3,600.00. Terminal queue occupancy (217 days × 15.00): 3,255.00. Broadcast-period resource restoration (estimated): 9,600.00. Overwrite operation and file closure: 16,199.28.
At the bottom of the list, one more line:
Executor: Liang Cheng (default assignment: responsible specialist).
He sets the cup down. The bottom knocks the desk.
Two hundred seventeen days. The professional reflex fires before the son can: two hundred seventeen days ago is mid-April. That month his recovery rate was first in the group, a department commendation, prize an umbrella. He remembers that month because it was his third straight month first. He does not remember one single day of it on which he thought about the Hongxing Textile Factory family compound.
Forty minutes by car, Hongxing Textile Factory family compound, Building 3, Unit 2, 402. On the shoe rack there should still be those size-37 cloth shoes. On the fridge there should still be half a sheet of unused magnets—the ones he collected in junior high, scenic spots, eighteen in all, one short: the Potala Palace.
None of this belongs in a collections agent's head. He shuts it off and taps the red button at the corner of the order: conflict-of-interest declaration.
A dialog asks: Does this work order involve a personal or direct-family interest of yours?
He taps Yes. Relationship type: direct family (mother). In the remarks field he types one line: the executor is the declarant.
Submit. Spinner. Three seconds, and the system answers in white text on a green frame:
Declaration received. After evaluation you remain the optimal executor for this order (terminal disposition requires a licensed specialist; currently qualified in this team: Liang Cheng, Su Man). Order status: assigned (Liang Cheng).
He stares at "optimal executor" for a few seconds, then gets up to find Feng Tuo.
Feng Tuo is in the pantry. On the microwave, an A4 sheet: HEATING OVER 3 MINUTES? LOG IT. Not one line on the sheet. Feng Tuo holds his cup noodles and listens to the whole story, then taps Liang Cheng's badge with a chopstick tip.
"System's fine." Feng Tuo says. "Terminal orders need a licensed specialist. You and Old Su are the only two with the certificate, and Old Su's under audit watch. Can't be assigned. You're it."
"I filed a recusal."
"I saw it." Feng Tuo sucks up noodles. "Filed and assigned. The two don't conflict. You think I'm happy? HR sent an email this morning. This order of yours is now an employee care case."
"What case?"
"'Peace of Mind Companion: Employee Family Terminal-Care Pilot.' New program out of headquarters. They're short on samples." Feng Tuo puts down the noodles and wipes his hands on a paper towel. "Liang Cheng, let me be clear. You handle this one well and the culture score in our quarterly OKR goes straight to full marks. You recuse, I swap in someone else. I can't swap. The system only recognizes you."
The microwave hums off. Nobody goes to get the food.
"And my compensation claim?" Liang Cheng asks.
"You can file it." Feng Tuo says. "Three weeks of process. The broadcast period in the queue is seven days. Do the math yourself."
Liang Cheng stands at the pantry door and says nothing more. At fourteen he attended the middle school next to this company's front gate. He joined at twenty-seven. Three badges since; same photo on all of them. In seven years he has tapped Yes in the conflict-of-interest field four times. The first three times the system approved in seconds and the orders moved to someone else.
This time the order is on his desk. Status: assigned.
He goes back to his seat. Bottom right corner of the screen, the bank notification still hanging: your student loan payment of 2,180.00 has been deducted this month. Remaining balance: 20,693.25.
He puts the two numbers side by side.
Twenty thousand six hundred ninety-three yuan and twenty-five fen. Forty-one thousand three hundred eighty-six yuan and fifty fen.
The student loan balance times two. To the fen.
"Liang Cheng!" Feng Tuo shouts from across the floor. "Back in the meeting—we're at your line now!"
He closes the bank notification. Feng Tuo has already turned to the next slide: QUARTERLY CULTURE METRICS BREAKDOWN. Feng Tuo lifts his chin at him and adds one line:
"Your mother's order is in the quarterly OKR. First employee care case in the department. Don't waste it."