Sunday morning he woke from the cold. The radiator had gone half dead; property management had pasted a notice on the pipe—heating shut down Sunday morning for maintenance. He glanced at the notice; the type was printed, the date last Wednesday. Last Wednesday he hadn't been home.
The rice had soaked in the fridge all night. He did as she'd said: bring to a boil, low heat, twenty minutes, flame off, let it sit. The porridge was thicker than delivery. He ate two bowls and washed the pot.
Washing it he remembered that the kitchen had been deleted the afternoon before. He finished washing the pot and set it upside down on the rack.
At nine he went through every place in the apartment a thing could be. Looking for the property deed.
The apartment was his own, south of the city, forty-six square meters, bought in 2019, the down payment from his mother's savings passbook—not the one with the 8,500, an earlier one, money from selling the old house; the down payment had been eighty thousand. The deed carried his name alone. Fifteen-year mortgage, monthly payment 2,210, nine years left. Liang Chuan knew about all this; at the time Liang Chuan had said one line, a house bought with Ma's money, and your name alone on the deed. He hadn't answered. Five years, and neither of them had raised it again.
The deed was in the bottom drawer of the nightstand, red-covered, stacked with the household register. He opened it. First line of the inside page, holder: Liang Cheng. Ownership: sole. The appraisal field was blank; deeds don't print that.
On his phone he checked listings for the same compound. Same floor plan, middle floor, finished, asking 710,000, four months without moving. One floor lower, 680,000, two viewings. His was bare shell; on the agency page, bare-shell units of the same type ran about thirty thousand under finished ones. A line of small print at the bottom of the page: urgent sale negotiable.
The eighty-thousand down payment had come from his grandmother's three tile-roofed rooms. 2018, on the edge of the county town; the buyer wanted the land and paid 110,000. Eighty went into the down payment; the remaining 30,000 she put into an education fund for Niuniu, the passbook kept at Liang Chuan's. She had never told him this; it was Liang Chuan who brought it up later, brought up while she was still alive, at the New Year's Eve dinner, when she said it made no difference whose name the house carried—one family.
He had gone to open the door once, the day the apartment was handed over. Bare shell, a layer of dust on the windowsill, construction spoil piled on the balcony; he left the window cracked. South-of-city to the office was an hour and a half by subway; he never moved, kept renting, and the apartment sat empty five years. Property fee 1,900 a year, paid annually, five years paid, receipts folded inside the deed.
He opened the map app and searched his grandmother's village. The street view was still from years ago; the locust tree at the village entrance still stood, the spot where the tile rooms had been was ringed in blue sheet-metal, a demolition number sprayed on the metal, white characters. He pushed the street view inward, to the most recent frame, and it ended there. He quit the map, went back in a while later, and screenshotted the sheet-metal. Sent it to no one. Kept it.
Forty-six square meters, eighty thousand down, monthly 2,210. He did the arithmetic in his head: for the apartment to become cash, the mortgage had to be settled first; the balance was a little over 170,000. Sell at 680,000, settle 170,000, about 510,000 left. Agency fee, taxes, transfer—another layer peeled off.
Five hundred ten thousand.
He sat a while. The figure 50,107.70 had been sitting on paper for a day now, written yesterday in the corner of the electricity bill. Two sums: 8,600, the restoration quote; 41,507.70, the account's outstanding balance. One line of preconditions: no outstanding balance on the account. Which meant settle first, then talk restoration. The order was fixed.
He fetched the electricity bill, turned to the line in the corner, and below it added another: sell the apartment, about 510,000. Done, he set the pen down and stared at the two figures. They matched. The missing ten thousand was taxes and the agency fee, and the two monthly payments he'd missed these two months.
At ten he called the mortgage bank about early settlement. The service clerk said it was by appointment; the queue ran to mid-next-month; bring your ID card and bank card to a branch. He asked whether it could be expedited. The clerk said there was no such service. He wrote down: mid-next-month. The agency said one month to close. He set the two dates side by side on paper and drew an arrow between them. The first arrow of the day.
At noon he didn't eat.
At one in the afternoon he sent He Yu the second message. The first had gone out on the first of December, asking about the restoration channel: delivered, unread, hanging twenty-three days. This one he spent an hour typing.
The first draft ran too long; deleted. The second, three lines; deleted too. What went out in the end was two lines:
"Mr. He, a question. The K-11 restoration—the outstanding balance that comes first. Can that be paid in installments?"
The moment it sent he regretted it; his thumb hovered over unsend, held a few seconds, moved away. The quote said it plainly: precondition, no outstanding balance on the account. The terms said nothing about installments. He was in collections; nobody knew better than he what "precondition" meant—precondition means there is no afterwards.
He put the phone face down. Two minutes later he picked it up: delivered. Half an hour on: unread. He Yu doesn't read work messages on weekends—that was his own line from the machine room: this doesn't count toward the quarterly review; we carry no target for it.
He didn't just sit. In the app he opened the change notice one more time. A Level 1 account's detail page was over half shorter than a Level 3's, fields thinned out: base voice, call module, single scene. Under single scene hung a preview image, thumbnail-size, palm-small. A bed, against the wall. A chest of drawers, a mirror on it; the mirror showed nothing else. Behind the door hung a jacket, navy blue.
He enlarged the image. At full zoom it blurred; the jacket's cuffs were rolled twice. He knew that cardigan.
Below the image ran a line of small print: scene is default rendering; actual delivery per tier configuration.
The clothesline was two red nylon cords tied to the jujube tree in the courtyard, and on it, year-round, that cardigan hung. None of that was on the disc. The one on the disc hung behind a default-rendered door, cuffs rolled twice. Where the system had learned those two rolls he didn't know, or whom to ask. Unknowns of this kind, this week he had collected a drawerful.
He screenshotted the thumbnail. Afterward he saw it was useless—zoomed it still blurred—and kept it anyway, blurred.
He stared at the small print a while and backed out. He had never been into that bedroom, but he had touched this cardigan—on the clothesline, wet; at seven he had helped her take it in once. Cuffs rolled twice was her way of rolling them, so they wouldn't drag.
At two he called the Tower B front desk. The receptionist knew his voice. He asked how much longer the cardboard box beside the desk could stay. She flipped through the log: three days, tomorrow's the last day, the day after it goes back to property management in the afternoon. He said, understood.
He hung up and texted Su Man: jie, the box runs out tomorrow, going back to property management. If you want it, have someone pick it up.
Sent; no reply. He waited ten minutes and put the phone down. The last record still sat at Thursday—him asking whether she needed help moving. That one hadn't been answered either.
Deletion is the good ending—she had said that. At the time it had sounded like shop talk from her line of work; now it had landed on him. The ninety days she'd trained him, the first thing she taught was listen to the bills. This last lesson no one taught; she'd handed in her own paper and left.
At three he did the other thing. He called the agency.
"Hello, a listing south of the city."
"Selling."
"Which owner?"
"Me. Mingcheng Yayuan, building 7, middle floor, forty-six square meters."
"Mr. Liang, good day—for that floor plan we happen to have a client asking right now—"
"Urgent sale." he said. "Closed within a month. What can it list at?"
The sound of pages turning on the other end. "For urgent, 65 to 66. The mortgage discharge is on you; if the buyer pays in full it can move fast. The unit's under mortgage, I assume?"
"It is."
"Then work out the discharge money, and what lands in your hand. Mr. Liang, I'd say think it through before listing—at the urgent price, there's no going back."
"I know." he said. "I've thought it through."
"Then I'll register it as urgent. Tonight I'll push it to three serious buyers, tomorrow we set a time for photos."
"Bare shell. Nothing to photograph."
"Bare shell sells, Mr. Liang. Buyers all like to do their own fitting-out."
Off the phone he wrote on paper: 650,000, settle the mortgage at 173,000, 477,000 left. Taxes and agency peel off seven percent, about 430,000 in hand. Not enough.
430,000, gap of 70,000.
He set the pen down. A gap of 70,000. In his pocket he still had 7,467.62; December's salary had paid out, January's wouldn't arrive until the 15th; during suspension pay ran at 60% of base, 5,412. The occupancy fee at 105 a week was still running, the 6-yuan deferral payments were cut off too—work terminal gray, payment authorization untappable; those two he couldn't pay in right now. The money wasn't the problem. The problem was he'd lost even the entrance for paying money.
He looked at the gap. 70,000. The Filial Score: 186,000, credit line, 60 installments, monthly 3,100. The work order said: upon use, immediate delisting. He had clicked not for now.
Delisting. He turned the word over. Delisting meant she came out of the 512-day queue. But restoration's precondition was no outstanding balance—if the Filial Score's credit landed in the account, did that count as settled? He opened the work order's terms screenshot, paged to the third screen, and found a line he hadn't read closely before:
> Credit funds, once credited, count toward offset of the outstanding balance; until the offset completes, account status is unchanged.
Until the offset completes, status unchanged. Which meant: money goes in, balances square first, and only when the books are square does the queue recognize it. Delisting and restoration are two actions, one before, one after, with half a day's drive to pull the disc and a rebuild starting at forty-eight hours in between.
He read the line three times. The logic held. If it held, it could be walked.
Monthly 3,100, sixty installments. He was thirty-four; done at thirty-nine. On the back of the repayment plan he wrote: from January, 3,100. Done, he ran the numbers: salary 9,020, rent 2,400, student loan 2,180, Filial Score 3,100—7,680 all told, 1,340 left. Lunch 418, transport 220, phone 88, 614 left. He glanced at the last three months' accounts; he knew this number—three years ago, when he'd first moved to this post, what was left at month's end was exactly this.
The Filial Score contract screenshot was still on his phone, saved December 6. He paged to the last two pages. Pledge clause: my salary income and housing fund for the next sixty months. Default clause: three consecutive installments short, escalates to full garnishment, credit record filed in parallel.
During suspension, 60%: 5,412. 5,412 minus 3,100 minus 2,180 leaves 132; the 2,400 rent no longer clears. If the review findings went badly—Thursday, Su Man's four minutes, he had seen them: twelve years at a desk, cleared out, access revoked. His seven years would take two minutes.
January's salary lands on the 15th; the review findings arrive first, the morning of the 26th at ten thirty. Twenty days between. He wrote the two dates side by side and drew an arrow between them.
Then he saw the other line. The one added to the repayment plan last month: AC-0417 occupancy fee 105.00/week, and beneath it deferral payment 6.00/week. 111 a week, 444 a month. After settlement, those two lines vanish. He drew a line through them, struck them out. Done, he saw the error—after restoration, billing runs at the Basic tier, 45.00 yuan/month. Underneath the two struck lines he wrote 45.
The books can balance. Balanced, 569 left.
He read the page top to bottom. He gave the rent line, 2,400, one extra look. The apartment sold, and he'd still be renting. If he'd moved to the south-of-city unit two years earlier, he'd have saved 190 a month. The thought rose and he pushed it down—an hour and a half by subway; a man working overtime till ten misses the last train. After the rent line he added a parenthesis: (leave it).
At dusk he called Liang Chuan. Six rings, then it cut. He didn't call again.
A quarter of an hour later, a text: was at the site, what's up.
He typed, deleted, typed again: Ma's account was downgraded. The system did it. Two items deleted; one of them is you.
Sent. The other side showed typing, stopped, typed again. Five minutes later what came was a voice message, nineteen seconds. He played it. Liang Chuan's voice, wind behind it:
"What's deleting me mean. She wanted me deleted, or the machine did it?"
He replied: the machine. She got downgraded; it deletes by weight—lowest weight goes first.
That end typed a long time. What came at last was text: so is there any point in me calling again.
He stared at the sentence. Point—call the full five minutes, a week buys seven days; but she's Level 1 now, whether Level 1 still carries deferral eligibility he didn't know, he'd have to check the terms, and the work terminal was gray. He answered this one straight too: don't know. I'll check Monday.
Nothing came back from that end.
Half an hour later, one more: Niuniu asked me, can she still call the number for Grandma? I said yes. If she calls, do you stop her?
He replied: I won't. Any time at all.
Sent, he looked at the sentence. Any time at all—1.20 a minute, charged to the outstanding balance, merges in on the 14th of the next month. Of this he typed not a word.
At seven the sky was fully dark. He spread the afternoon's papers on the desk: the electricity bill, the repayment plan, the agency's estimate, the quote's PDF screenshotted on his phone. He ran through them top to bottom again.
Halfway he stopped, opened Saturday's ASR transcript, and scrolled to [02:58]. Under "the money at home..." that half sentence, the gray block was still there. He darkened the screen and went on with the papers.
650,000, 430,000 in hand, 70,000 short. The Filial Score covers the 70,000; the gap closes. Offset, delisting, then 8,600—pull the disc, rebuild, calibrate, five to nine working days. The her who comes out of the rebuild is the her of March 14, 9:52:11 in the morning.
He took the pen and wrote the time down on paper. Only in writing it did he remember he'd written this figure before—the sticky note in the badge sleeve, the fifth line, K-11 09:52:11.
March 14, 9:52 in the morning. She was in the hospital, lucid. The contract had been signed the night of the 13th. She had just signed, come out, and told Liang Chuan three things. At 9:52 she had seven hours left. The her of those seven hours is on the disc. The five hours outside the disc, Liang Chuan kept watch; he hadn't made it. And the five years outside those—2,913 diary entries, forty-one smoothing passes, the time she recognized him, the time of the 47 seconds, the Chuan Chuan and the funeral deleted by two cuts yesterday afternoon—all of it outside the disc.
Restoration, as the terms put it: the snapshot governs; additions are wiped.
He set the pen down.
At eight thirty he wrote tomorrow's questions on paper, numbered. One: can the outstanding balance be installment-paid, or offset. Two: during suspension, does the executor's signature count, and who signs the restoration application. Three: at Level 1, does the kinship-call deferral still apply. The fourth he meant to write; the pen paused above the paper and didn't land: the her after the rebuild—does anyone tell her about these five years.
Written or not, it comes to the same. The terms will ask for him.
The figures on the paper were right. Figures always are. Seven years in the trade, and the first time the arithmetic's being right hurt—run to the end, fifty thousand and one hundred seven point seven, buys back a her who doesn't know he ever came.
At nine he slid the sticky note out of the badge sleeve and below the seventh line added an eighth: ask whether the Filial Score can offset. He didn't put it back; he laid the note on top of those papers.
The phone lit. He Yu's reply, one line:
"Monday morning, come to B2. Bring your ID card."
A minute below it, one more:
"Don't go through the approval flow. This channel doesn't go through people."
He read the two messages twice. The second he didn't understand, and didn't ask. One thing surfaced: in the corner of the deep-visit application page, smallest gray type, GAC, executive fast lane—no permission to view. "This channel doesn't go through people"—then through what, he didn't know. Monday he would know.
He sent back "all right" and set tomorrow's alarm for seven. Day three of suspension, and he couldn't swipe into B2—access cut to the first floor. He thought a moment, took the ID card out of the nightstand, stacked it with the badge, and set them on his shoes by the door.
In bed at night he ran tomorrow's route through his head. Subway, transfer, Tower B. At the first floor, someone has to come down for him. He couldn't think who would come down for him. On that thought he fell asleep.
The last thought before sleep was the porridge. The pot was still inverted on the rack. Tomorrow morning—light the flame first, or leave first.
The alarm set, he thought again and changed it to six thirty. Porridge takes twenty minutes, and it has to sit.