Friday, 1:50 p.m.
The field report had a template: eight fields, forty-eight required items. Liang Cheng filled them in one by one. At item seventeen the system threw a validation error—wrong timestamp format. He read it over once; nothing wrong. He refreshed, and it passed. The validations pop up for no reason, but they don't hold you up either. Two or three a year.
Verification site: North Archive Center. Slot: CS-B04-17 / Slot 3. Account number: AC-0416-8803. Method: on-site listening + fingerprint match. Conclusion: status normal, meets Level-4 frozen continuation standards.
Two photos to upload. One of the slot's number plate, one of the signed receipt. When he photographed the receipt, the scratch on the desk got into the frame too. He didn't retake it.
Mileage: 94 km round trip. Field allowance: 35.00 yuan/day, paid with next month's salary; if payday falls on a holiday, it defers to the next business day.
He divided 35 by 8: 4.375. Four-plus months. One day of his allowance kept Old Guan in Slot 3 for four-plus months.
Filled in, he hit submit. System prompt: this report will sync to the disposition file of account AC-0416-8803 and be retained three years.
Back to TL-0417.
The yellow strip at the top was still there, the red text still there, fifteen a day. In the middle a new one had appeared, green:
[On-site verification complete (1/1). Prerequisite met. Disposition plan may be submitted.]
Two radio buttons—"settle and delete" on the left, "retain at Level-4 frozen tier" on the right. Below them one more, gray, one size smaller than the other two: hold for now.
Liang Cheng looked at the green strip. It said he could submit. It didn't say he had to.
He clicked the gray one.
A popup: [You have selected: hold for now. Queue scheduling continues; the occupancy fee of 15.00 yuan/day accrues as before. Confirm?]
He confirmed.
The strip turned yellow: plan pending submission. 295 days left on the schedule.
Two hundred ninety-five days. He read the number once through. 512 minus 217 is 295. Arithmetic he should have done long ago, and never had.
At 3:10 he opened the dropdown on the "account disposition" panel and pulled it all the way to the bottom.
There was an entry down there, an icon of a small figure inside a small square, in the palest gray there is. People who didn't do fieldwork would basically never open it:
Onsite deep visit.
He clicked in.
[Onsite deep visit] The executor or a delegated specialist enters the account's internal scene in digital-avatar form to conduct face-to-face collection with the account persona. Basis: Continuation Service Agreement, Annex Twelve, "Collection Operating Standards," clause two: the account persona may not refuse to answer onsite personnel and may not break off the session. Applicable scenarios: low call-connect rate; family unreachable; executor requests in-person notification. Single-session cap: 30 minutes. Monthly quota: 4 sessions. Billing: 2.00 yuan/minute, charged to account-disposition costs, borne by the executor, and folded into the outstanding balance.
Liang Cheng read the billing line twice.
Two yuan a minute. Thirty minutes, sixty yuan. Four sessions at full quota, two hundred forty—folded onto his mother's debt, forty-one thousand three hundred eighty-six fifty becomes forty-one thousand six hundred twenty-six fifty.
The money for talking with Ma went on Ma's bill. The order was hard-coded: hers first, entry by entry, always that way.
He divided 60 by his own hourly 51.8: 1.16. Half an hour inside equaled an hour and ten minutes of extra shift, and that hour and ten minutes was worked for his mother.
Scrolling down the page was the application form. Header fields auto-filled:
[Account] Zhou Sufen (account no. AC-0417-XXXX, pending) / queue no. TL-0417 [Applicant] Liang Cheng (L-0284) [Relationship to account] executor [Terminal certificate held] yes [Audit status] normal
Below that, his part to fill in.
Purpose of visit (dropdown, one of six): ○ Verify payment capacity ○ Notify of arrears and consequences ● Verify intent to continue the account ○ Serve legal documents ○ Family delegation ○ Other
He picked the third.
Next down: visit script (required, minimum 50 characters, subject to compliance filing).
He opened the script library, found standard opener P-07, copied, pasted.
After pasting he counted the characters once: one hundred forty-seven. The sentence in the middle read "Your account has accrued arrears totaling forty-one thousand three hundred eighty-six yuan fifty cents RMB; if not settled before the schedule expires, the account will enter the deletion process; this operation is irreversible."
Next down: bringing written materials (optional). He left it blank.
Next down: avatar appearance.
[Avatar] Generated from the photo on the executor's work badge; cannot be modified.
Beside it a "preview" button. He clicked it.
A face came up. Liang Cheng at twenty-seven, more hair than now, no crease on the forehead yet, the tie the company had issued—blue ground, white diagonal stripes—tied in the four-in-hand they taught in training back then. Tied crooked.
He looked three seconds and closed the preview.
At 3:06, submit.
Redirect. Application no.: DA-0417-001.
The approval chain ran below in a row, three cells, all gray:
Direct group lead → Regional compliance → HQ (product side)
He moved the cursor off the three cells and went to pour water. The water cooler in the pantry had a new bottle on it; it gulped once while he filled, and went on gulping after he was done.
When he came back, the first cell had gone green.
[Direct group lead] Feng Tuo · approved · 15:09 Comment: employee family care pilot, supportive. Submit weekly report.
Three minutes three seconds. He remembered another DA in the group last week—the applicant waited four days seven hours, and compliance still returned it once for a revised script.
At 3:22 the second cell went green.
[Regional compliance] approved · 15:22 Comment: script filed. Recommend keeping the explicit term "debt"; avoid vague wording that could invite later disputes. Also: this visit will be entered into the quarterly compliance score.
Liang Cheng looked at that recommendation. Keep the term "debt." Compliance meant: when you talk with Ma, say the number in full.
At 3:47 the third cell went green.
[HQ (product side)] approved · 15:47 Comment: supportive of frontline innovation in disposal methods. CC product dept, brand dept. May serve as a care-pilot sample. Approver: He Yu.
He Yu. The man who'd stood at the all-hands that morning saying "borrow against future income to keep paying today," and forty-one minutes later clicked approved on his onsite application.
Liang Cheng ran the approval times once through: from submission to final approval, forty-one minutes.
At the very bottom of the page ran a line of gray type, the smallest size there was:
[Channel] Executive Accelerated Channel (GAC)
GAC. Seven years in the system and he'd never seen the abbreviation. He typed it into the search box; nothing came back—"no permission to view."
At 4:02 he opened "voluntary downgrade application."
That page and the onsite one were separate systems, different icon, adjacent entrance.
[Voluntary Downgrade Application (VDR)] An account persona may apply of its own initiative to move to a lower tier and reduce fees. The application must be confirmed by the persona in a lucid state and reviewed by the executor within 72 hours. The confirmation process must retain the persona's voice.
Must be confirmed by the persona in person.
He read those words once through, then took a screenshot. When it was taken he opened the "To-do" folder and saved the image in. Eight files in the folder now: seven were other people's cases, and the last was TL-0417_full-lifecycle-log_1115.pdf.
He didn't rename the new image; the system named it automatically: Screenshot 2023-11-17 160214.png.
Then he closed the voluntary downgrade page and filled in nothing further.
Before end of day, Feng Tuo asked in the group for weekly reports.
[Care case progress (within 200 characters)]
Liang Cheng typed two lines, deleted one. What was left:
Completed one same-tier on-site verification of a frozen account. Applied for one onsite deep visit, approved. Account plan not yet submitted.
He counted the characters: forty-seven. Sent.
Feng Tuo replied "got it." Half a minute later another line: that onsite of yours went through fast. Someone upstairs is watching.
Liang Cheng didn't reply.
Monday.
A meeting in the morning on last month's recovery rate; it ran forty minutes. The bar charts went by one bar at a time, and at the third bar somebody asked a question—it was about methodology. The presenter said methodology would be unified next issue, and went on. When it broke up, the chart was still up on the screen; someone had forgotten to kill the projector. It stayed lit on the wall nearly an hour. Everyone passing looked at it, and nobody turned it off.
After the lunch break, Liang Cheng went to the pantry to print.
Less than half a stack of paper left in the printer tray; when he pulled at it, three sheets came out with it and scattered on the floor. He picked them up. Someone else's: page two of a departure handover form, a physical-exam notice, and a blank one. He slid the blank one back under the rest of the stack.
The approval sheets came out, two pages, A4, still warm.
Page one was the approval conclusion: three green cells, three signature boxes. He Yu's was an e-signature in FangSong type; it looked handwritten, and it didn't.
Page two was the execution notices, nine in all:
1. No food or drink for 30 minutes before access. 2. Session time runs on the account's internal clock, 1:1 with the outside. 3. The internal scene is rendered per the account's current tier. Unpurchased or deleted modules appear in placeholder gray. 4. The persona may not refuse to answer onsite personnel and may not break off the session. 5. Onsite personnel may not disclose account information beyond the arrears amount. 6. Physical contact with the persona is prohibited, including passing or receiving objects. 7. The entire session is recorded and minuted. 8. Single-session cap: 30 minutes; overruns are force-terminated. 9. Re-entry is prohibited within 24 hours after exit.
Item six. Liang Cheng stopped a moment on item six.
Under "placeholder gray" in item three, a line had been ruled. Not by him—the highlight line came with the print template.
The pantry door opened. Su Man came in to fill her cup, that thermos in her hand, a ring of tea stain at the rim.
She glanced at the pages in his hand.
"Approved."
"Approved."
"How long."
"Forty minutes."
Su Man filled the cup, didn't lid it, carried it two steps, and stopped.
"I went in once," she said.
Liang Cheng looked up.
"Zero-nine. The thing was brand new then. No quotas, no script filing. I drilled my lines for three days before going in." She looked into the cup. "Came out without using a single one."
"Why."
"Because the person in there doesn't pick up your thread," Su Man said. "What you drilled was lines. What she talks is days. Two different things."
She took a sip; it scalded; her brow flinched.
"There's one more item. Did you read it."
"Which one."
"Item four," Su Man said. "The persona may not refuse to answer onsite personnel and may not break off the session."
"I read it."
"Think about those words again." Su Man twisted the lid back on. "On the phone, she can hang up. She was always the one who hung up first. You know that better than I do."
Liang Cheng said nothing.
"Once you're in there," Su Man said, "she has to hear every sentence you say. Talk as long as you want—she cannot miss a single second of it."
She shifted the cup to her left hand.
"Are you sure that's how you want to see your mother?"
The water cooler gulped once more—air in the new bottle.
Liang Cheng looked down at the pages in his hand. The line under item six on page two was printed in with the template; every copy had it.
He didn't answer.
At 3:20 he booked a slot in the system.
[Available access points] DA-P01 (occupied) / DA-P02 (maintenance) / DA-P03 (open) / DA-P04 (open) [Available slots] Tue 11/21 09:00 / 10:00 / 14:00 / 15:30
He picked DA-P03, Tuesday 10:00.
Once the booking succeeded, the page threw up one line:
[This booking locks 30 minutes, estimated fee 60.00 yuan. The fee is debited from the executor's preauthorized balance on completion of access and entered into the account's outstanding balance.]
[Monthly quota remaining] 4 sessions.
Confirm.
The clock in the top right of the screen ticked over: 3:21. He folded the two approval sheets in half, aligned the edges as he folded—long edge first, then short—pressed the creases with his thumb into two hard ridges, and slipped them into the inside pocket of his work jacket. Already in the pocket was a sheet of paper: Friday's thermal receipt, AC-0416-8803. The two sheets lay together, the thermal one soft, the printer one stiff.
He pressed the lock button and pushed the phone into the drawer. The box of business cards in it still half used, three staples left in the stapler's rail.
Someone outside was calling for a delivery. The AC was still heating.