Friday.
The duty roster had gone into the system Thursday night: North Archive Center, quarterly status check on a frozen-tier account, signature on site, ticket WO-1117-033, same-day round trip. The ticket sat in the group for a day and a half. Nobody took it. Xiao Zhou had his physical Friday morning. Old Zhao had to be at his kid's school in the afternoon.
Liang Cheng took it at 4:41 on Thursday afternoon.
The reason he took it wasn't on the roster. After the Filial Score went live Thursday afternoon, a new section had appeared at the bottom of TL-0417:
[Disposition plan pending confirmation] ○ Settle and delete ● Retain at Level-4 frozen tier (default)
[Prerequisite for submission] The executor must complete "same-tier on-site verification" at least once. Basis: Terminal Disposition Operating Procedures, 6.3. [Optional verification sites] North Archive Center (47 km) / East Suburb Node 2 (63 km) / HQ showroom (31 km, mockup)
Of the three he picked the farthest one.
He didn't have a car. Field vehicles had to be booked; the next slot was Wednesday of the following week. Su Man was driving north Friday anyway to collect Auntie Shao's installments, three hundred a month, recovery probability—her own estimate—sixty percent. She replied in the group with one word: works.
At 8:19, Su Man's car pulled up below his building. A gray hatchback, eight years old, a scratch on the rear-right door covered over with a cartoon sticker; one corner of the sticker had curled, and the curled part was dirty.
A cardboard box sat on the back seat, "Files—do not stack" written on the lid in marker. Liang Cheng lifted it down to his feet.
The car merged onto the main road. The radio stayed off. At 8:47 Su Man's phone buzzed twice in the cup holder and stopped. She didn't look.
"What are you doing at the archive center," she asked.
"Verification."
"Verifying what."
"Level 4."
Su Man glanced at him. The whites of her eyes were a little red.
"One look," Liang Cheng said.
She didn't answer. Two traffic lights later she said, "Auntie Shao's ticket—you want to sit in on it? She's on the third floor of an old walk-up. No elevator."
"No."
"Suit yourself."
Past the Fourth Ring the traffic thinned. First an auto-parts city along the road, then a logistics park, then empty lots fenced off with hoarding, half the lettering on the hoarding sun-bleached away. At 9:20 the navigation said "in two kilometers, turn right" once, then went quiet.
9:38, arrived.
The archive center was a four-story gray building, its rooftop sign reading: Afterlife Cloud. Three-dimensional letters, backlit, lights off in the daytime. A turnstile at the entrance, a security guard beside it, sixty-ish, watching his phone.
Registration. ID left at the window in exchange for a visitor badge, no. 07. The lanyard was short and knotted; once it was on, the badge hung pinned to the right of his chest.
On the south wall of the lobby, one line: "May every farewell be dignified." Gold acrylic letters; the lower-right corner of the last one had lifted, and you could see the double-sided tape behind it.
Behind the front desk stood a potted plant, plastic, dust on the leaves, the dust settled in the grooves of the veins.
The vending machine was on the east side of the entrance hall: mineral water, three yuan, scan-to-pay only. Liang Cheng looked and didn't buy.
At 9:46 a man came out from the back, twenty-seven or twenty-eight, quilted vest, "Afterlife Cloud" embroidered on the left breast, a thread come loose and hanging down. The index finger of his right wool glove had a hole in it; the finger poked through.
"Which one are you verifying," he said.
"Guan Changgui."
"AC-0416-8803?"
"Right."
"I'm Qiu. Come with me."
Shoe covers, an antistatic wristband clipped to his cuff, clipped tight; it left a white line on his wrist.
Through the second door the temperature dropped. A humidity-temperature panel hung on the wall, red digits: 6.2℃.
Rows and rows of cabinets, doors of honeycomb perforated steel, the indicator lights inside green, blinking every few seconds. The aisles were narrow; two people passing had to turn sideways. Ducts ran overhead; the rush of air was constant, never rising or falling.
"Zone B," Qiu said. "This whole zone is Level 4."
At the end of the aisle, a right turn, fourth row. Qiu stopped at a rank of cabinets, reached out, and tapped the number plate on the seventeenth slot from the left.
CS-B04-17.
"Slot 3," he said. "He's been in there three-plus years. Never moved."
Liang Cheng took out the field terminal and scanned the slot code. One line came up on the screen:
[Slot] CS-B04-17 / Slot 3 [Account] AC-0416-8803 [Name] Guan Changgui (male, died at 68) [Tier] Level-4 frozen (dignified-end tier) [Data volume] 1.7 MB [Verification] fingerprint match passed (0.4 seconds)
1.7 MB. Liang Cheng read the number twice.
"Want to listen to a stretch of it," Qiu said.
"Yes."
Qiu unhooked a pair of monitoring headphones from the hook on the cabinet door and passed them over. The foam on the ear cushions was split; someone had mended it with clear tape, and the tape had gone yellow.
The first thing after putting them on was a layer of floor noise, very soft, like an air conditioner behind a wall.
Then an intake of breath. 0.41 seconds.
"Hello? Xiaojun?"
1.62 seconds. A man's voice, sixties, local accent, the tail of "jun" lifting, the lift cut off halfway.
Silence. 9.42 seconds.
An intake of breath. 0.41 seconds.
"Hello? Xiaojun?"
He listened seven times. Seven times identical. By the seventh he was waiting for that lift on the tail of "jun"; the lift landed at exactly 1.28 seconds, all seven times at 1.28.
He took the headphones off. His ears were cold outside, hot where the cups had been.
"Identical every time?"
"Identical," Qiu said. "Waveform overlap 99.7 percent. The difference is all in the floor noise. None of it is him."
"Doesn't he get tired in between?"
Qiu thought a moment, as if choosing his words. "The Level-4 tier doesn't have that."
On the terminal there was a table; Qiu switched it to "loop statistics" for him.
[Utterance] Hello? Xiaojun? [Utterance length] 1.62 s (preceding breath 0.41 s) [Interval] 9.42 s [Period] 11.04 s [Last 30 min, sampled] 163 times [Last 24 h] 7,826 times [Since Level-4 activation] 611 days [Cumulative] 4,781,739 times
Liang Cheng looked at the last line a while. Four million seven hundred eighty-one thousand seven hundred thirty-nine.
"Do you people ever look at this cumulative count."
"No," Qiu said. "That column is for the families. Sometimes a family comes on site, and we put it up on the screen for them. After they've seen it, they usually sign."
"Sign what."
"Anything. Settlement, or conversion to frozen."
One more screen down was the emotional contour. One line, a label, a number after it:
[Contour · label] Waiting [Intensity] 0.93 [Secondary] anxiety 0.11 [Standby state] holding
"Holding means what."
"It means it never zeroes out," Qiu said. "It's the same even when he isn't waiting. The contour was extracted from the last thirty-seven incoming-call waits of his life. We call it a contour internally, not an emotion. Emotions are a Platinum-tier thing."
"Then right now—is he waiting, or not?"
Qiu laughed once, a short one. "That I don't know. The system doesn't output that."
The archive page was another screen. Liang Cheng paged through it once.
Name: Guan Changgui. Sex: male. Died at 68. Employer before death: Hongxing Textile Factory (boiler room, stoker), 31 years of service. Stoker certificate: HG-88-2014. Uploading institution: municipal hospice hospital (contracted institution). Uploaded: six years ago, Sep 12. Tier: Basic, 45.00 yuan/month. Executor: Guan Xiaojun (son). Downgrade record: four times, handling fees totaling 4,800.00 yuan. All four downgrades triggered by "no prepaid balance on account." Level-4 activation: 611 days ago. Arrears: 3,802.40 yuan. Days in arrears: 648. Entered terminal queue: 431 days ago. Queue number TL-0416. Scheduled wait in queue: 512 days. Days left on the schedule: 81. Level-4 frozen continuation fee: 8.00 yuan/month. Outbound capability: none (Level-4 tier carries no outbound-call authorization). Inbound response: loop-utterance playback. Answered (external calls): 0.
Answered: 0. Liang Cheng stared at that line.
"Meaning even if I call in, all I'd get is that one line."
"Right," Qiu said. "Call in, it's that line. Don't call, it's still that line. The difference is, when you call in, that line runs on your voice circuit. It counts as call time. It bills. No call, no charge."
"What does a call-in cost."
"Voice-access fee, debited from the caller's preauthorized balance. You're in this trade. You know."
Liang Cheng knew. His eight minutes forty-two seconds on Monday night had been charged exactly that way.
Coming out of the cold zone, the air noise kept on behind him another two seconds before it stopped being audible.
Back to the lobby to sign. The signing pad was a black slab with a pen on a tethered cord; the cord was short. A scratch ran across the face of the pad, diagonal from the upper-left corner to the middle. The signature in the field above was still there, screen not cleared: Feng Tuo, dated the 27th of last month.
Liang Cheng signed below it. The pen skipped a little; it dragged on the final downstroke of "Liang."
Verification conclusion: status normal, no anomalous fluctuation, meets Level-4 frozen continuation standards.
Qiu tore off the receipt and handed it over. "Quarterly spot check, four times a year. Next one's in March."
The receipt was thermal paper, warm under the fingers.
At 11:40 he walked out the front gate and stood at the edge of the yard.
The sunlight was very white, glaring off the car roofs in the lot. Someone in the yard was unloading a delivery, cardboard boxes stacked on a flatbed, stacked higher than a man.
He dialed the number. The executor contact number registered in the work app: 139****6621.
One ring and it was answered. An engine in the background, and someone shouting something—"left, left."
"Who's this?"
"Hello, is this Mr. Guan Xiaojun?"
"Ah, that's me."
"This is Liang Cheng, client retention specialist, Retention Operations Department, Afterlife Cloud, employee ID L-0284. This call is being recorded."
Nothing from the other end. The engine noise dropped a little, as if he'd rolled the window up.
"Regarding the continuation-service account under your late father Mr. Guan Changgui's name, account number AC-0416-8803. The account is currently in a Level-4 frozen state, with an outstanding balance of three thousand eight hundred two yuan forty cents, 648 days in arrears, entered into the terminal queue 431 days ago, with 81 days left on the disposal schedule."
"Oh."
"This call is to confirm your intentions for disposition going forward."
"Go ahead."
Liang Cheng opened the frozen-tier family communication points on his phone—fourteen items in all. Items one through four were identity confirmation and recording disclosure; those were done. Item five began the options.
"There are currently two options. One: settle and delete. The account is physically overwritten, irreversible; settlement requires a one-time payment of three thousand eight hundred two yuan forty cents. Two: retain the Level-4 frozen tier. The continuation fee is eight yuan a month, ninety-six a year."
"Eight yuan."
"Eight yuan."
"Ninety-six a year."
"Correct."
A pause on that end. "What's my father's situation right now."
Liang Cheng glanced at the points in his hand. Item seven: family asks "what's the situation right now."
"The Level-4 frozen tier is the company's dignified-end tier," he read from the points. "It retains one emotional contour and one loop utterance, occupies minimal resources, generates no new data, and requires no maintenance actions."
"What's a loop utterance."
"'Hello? Xiaojun?'"
No sound from that end. The engine had stopped too—maybe he'd cut the motor.
Liang Cheng waited three seconds and went on to item eight: "This tier includes no outbound authorization. That is, he will not call you on his own. You can call in and hear the loop utterance, billed at the voice-access rate."
"Then what would I be calling in for."
That line wasn't among the fourteen. Liang Cheng paged the points forward, paged them back, and found nothing that fit.
"Delete it, then," Guan Xiaojun said.
Liang Cheng looked at those words, phone in hand, and said nothing.
"He isn't suffering anyway," Guan Xiaojun said.
The heading of item nine was that exact sentence, and printed under the heading was the standard reply, two lines:
[Standard reply] The frozen-tier persona has no pain module and forms no judgment of its own condition. You may understand it this way: he will not know anything.
Liang Cheng looked at the two lines. He had this one by heart. It was on the quarterly exam in his second year; he'd scored full marks.
"Mr. Guan," he said.
"Mm."
"To confirm deletion, you'll need to perform a one-time irreversible confirmation on the executor end. I'll send the link over."
"Send it."
"The link is valid for twenty-four hours; past that, a new application is required. The deletion itself is scheduled within seven business days of confirmation."
"Fine."
Liang Cheng scrolled the points down to the end: item fourteen, the closing line.
"Thank you for your cooperation. If anything comes up later—"
"Wait."
"Go ahead."
Quiet for a few seconds. Wind noise came in, as if he'd rolled the window back down.
"My father, he—" Guan Xiaojun said. "Does he really not know?"
Liang Cheng stood at the edge of the yard. Sun on the phone screen; the screen was black, and he hadn't lit it.
Item nine was right there on the screen. Two lines, bold weight. Read them out loud, and the question would be answered.
He didn't read them.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
"Hello?" Guan Xiaojun said.
Four seconds. Five seconds.
"Forget it," Guan Xiaojun said.
The line went dead.
[This call] duration 06:12. Silence 5.00 seconds. Recording archived. [Access log no.] AR-118801.
He sent the link. When it was sent he stood there without moving.
The thermal receipt in his pocket had a corner crumpled from being pinched.
A new note in the phone's memo app; he typed two lines:
AC-0416-8803 TL-0416 · 81 days left on the schedule
Then he opened contacts and created one. Name field: Guan Xiaojun. Number field, copied off the work app: 139****6621. Over the notes field he stopped a few seconds, then typed: Old Guan's son.
Saved, the screen returned to the list. The list sorts alphabetically; Guan sat between Feng and Guo.
He didn't exit. He scrolled two screens down, to the Liangs. Liang Chuan, Liang Cheng, Liang Cheng (work). Below them, "Ma," with a parenthesis after it, and inside the parenthesis, "account."
He pressed the lock button.
The ride back left at 1:10 in the afternoon.
Su Man rode in the passenger seat going through the cardboard box—printed installment ledgers inside, A3 sheets folded in half, corners curling. She changed a number in the last column in red pen, and when it was changed she bit the cap back on.
"Done looking?" she asked.
"Done looking."
"What's Level 4 cost."
"Eight yuan a month."
Su Man gave an "mm," shut the box, and carried it to the back seat.
"Deleting or not."
"The family wants it deleted."
"Expected," she said. "Of the seven on my hands, four are Level 4. Eight yuan a month, and there are people who won't pay even the eight."
The car reached the main road. Past the stretch of logistics park there was a farm-tools shop at the roadside, a row of hoes out front, wooden handles up.
2:40, the company garage. Su Man killed the engine, pulled the key, took her phone out of the cup holder.
The phone buzzed once in her hand. Not a ring—a message tone, very short.
She glanced at the screen, turned the phone face-down on her lap, didn't reply.
Liang Cheng unfastened his seat belt.
"That plan of yours," Su Man said. "Think it through before you submit it. Once it goes up, it leaves a trail."
"I know."
"You don't," she said. "If you knew, you wouldn't have picked the farthest site to go look at."
She pushed the door open, got out, dragged the box out of the back seat; it scraped once on the concrete.
The garage lights were on motion sensors. Two minutes after people left, a row of them went out on their own.