January tenth, two oh three in the morning, the staff app pushed one line:
> AC-0417: cognitive smoothing complete (system-scheduled, operator: system). > Account restoration process ended. Current status: online. Tier: Basic.
Liang Cheng wasn't asleep. He sat at the desk reading the push. The anti-static bag on the table was empty; the cartridge had been taken yesterday in He Yu's hard-shell case, leaving a ring-shaped mark. He opened the account home page. The thumbnail had changed angles — the same bedroom, the bed made, the navy cardigan hanging behind the door. The word "online," in green, with small text beside it: last active: 2024-01-10 02:03.
Active. The system calls smoothing active.
At two ten, he sent He Yu: Done. The reply came almost as fast: Go sleep. He laid the phone face-down on the desk, lay down, and slept two hours before daylight.
He opened the dial page once. His thumb hung over the string of digits — a string he knew by heart, ending 0417. It hung there a good ten seconds; he backed out, back to the home screen, then closed that too. The her inside the snapshot, her time stopped at March fourteenth, twenty nineteen, nine fifty-two in the morning. Everything before that she remembers: the beans, the coal stove, eight yuan a month in rent, two sons, one in middle school, one in high school. Not one thing after. She doesn't know this number exists, doesn't know there were arrears, doesn't know the downgrades, doesn't know there was an afternoon when she recognized him. Call through, and the first thing out of her mouth would be: who is this.
He set the forty-five-yuan basic monthly fee to autopay. First deduction, February fourteenth.
With that done he left the computer open and called up the repayment plan. December's sheet, revised into January's. He scrolled down to the two lines in the middle — AC-0417 occupancy 105.00/week, deferral proxy 6.00/week. A hundred and eleven a month; the two lines he had circled twice back then. He struck them through, slow, one stroke at a time. Below he added a line: basic monthly fee 45.00/month (autopay). Below that, Filial Score monthly installment 1,166.67/month, first payment February fifteenth. He saved the new sheet and didn't print it — the first time this sheet didn't need to go up on the fridge.
Before shutting the computer he looked at the balance once more: seven thousand four hundred sixty-seven yuan sixty-two cents. Before February fifteenth — rent, the student loan, the first installment — he ran the arithmetic in his head. It would hold. Tight; it would hold.
January thirteenth, Saturday, he went to the wet market. Five years since he'd been inside one — delivery, the canteen, the convenience store, the three of them in rotation. The wind at the market mouth was strong; the plastic awning rattled. He stood at the meat counter not knowing which strip to start from. Beside him a granny with a cloth bag reached out and pressed one belly, then pressed the one next to it, pointed at the one she'd pressed and said she'd take that. He waited for her to finish buying, then pressed the remaining two the way she had. One was hard; one gave under the press and sprang slowly back. He asked for the one that sprang back.
The stall keeper said thirteen eight. He bought two jin, twenty-seven sixty. Chop it up? the keeper asked. No, he said, cutting it at home. Paying, he glanced at the price tags on the counter; the strip next to his read 15.8, with a sign that said Black-Haired Pig. He didn't ask what a black-haired pig was.
There was white sugar at home, opened, caked solid. No star anise; he bought a small packet at the spice stall, four yuan. The dark soy was from the supermarket downstairs, the bottle printed "Braised-Pork Soy Sauce, Bright Red Color." Done shopping, he stood at the market mouth and counted the three items over in the bag: sugar, anise, soy. Meat. Seven years of business travel and he never once missed a receipt; these four things today he counted three times.
He stood at the spice stall and messaged Liang Chuan: Come to my place for lunch tomorrow. I'm making red-braised pork.
Fast reply: You know how to make that?
No. Following a recipe.
Where'd the recipe come from.
He stared at it a while, then replied: From Ma.
This time the other end took minutes: Fine. What time.
Twelve. Don't bring Niuniu's portion — her mom's taking her to her grandma's.
The fourteenth, nine in the morning, he cleaned the kitchen first. He barely used it — one pot on the stove, an oil cruet, a salt jar. The cutting board was bought the year he moved in; almost no knife scars.
The meat thawed till the knife would go through, and he cut roll-cut chunks by the steps he'd memorized. Her roll-cut chunks he'd seen: one per bite, not big. His came out big; a whole plate of them, none the same size. He let it pass.
Into the pot from cold water. The froth rose; he skimmed it with a spoon. This step he had down — skimming froth he was good at; he watched the kettle in the office pantry every day. Skimmed till the broth ran clear, lifted the meat out, rinsed it once in warm water.
Then the sugar color. White sugar, two spoons. His spoons at home were porcelain soup spoons; he scooped two, low flame. The sugar melted in the oil, small bubbles rising; he watched; as the bubbles went from big white to fine, a thread of smoke rose at the pot's rim — one thread — and the sugar went black. Burnt.
He dumped the pot, scrubbed it, started over. Second time he switched to the small spoon, the tea spoon, two and a half. Flame twisted to the lowest, the pot held half an inch off the fire, swaying. The sugar melted, bubbled, the bubbles went fine, went date red. He poured the meat in, turned it till even, half a spoon dark soy, one star anise, boiling water up over the meat. Lid on, low flame, twenty minutes, no lifting.
Through those twenty minutes he sat on the small stool in the kitchen, just sat. The timer stood on the stove counter, running off the seconds. He thought of her line, "talk till the pot boils" — on the phone she could talk a whole meal to the point of the pot boiling. Now the pot was boiling at his place, blub-blub, even.
She had said this pork's method twice. The first time in that kitchen, white tile, yellow grout, talking as she cooked, and when she reached low flame, twenty minutes, the timer outside ran out; the second half never got said. The second time was those thirty seconds — start to finish, not a step dropped, and the moment it finished, it was cut off. Five years between the two tellings. In five years he hadn't cooked one pot of meat.
With four minutes left on the timer, he took out the bowls. Two bowls; what he took down was three sets of chopsticks. He looked at the extra set in his hand, put it back in the drawer, closed it.
When the timer rang, he lifted the lid. The broth still ran wide, the meat showing its spine above it. The recipe, this far, had one sentence left.
Before the flame goes off — reduce over high heat.
Reduce over high heat. And then. The thirty seconds stopped right here. Reduced to what count as done, reduced till when do you kill the flame, what does the sauce look like hanging on the meat, how long you have before the pot scorches — none of that was in those thirty seconds. He stood at the stove, flame twisted to high; the broth came in fierce the moment it boiled, oil spitting at the rim, crackling.
He messaged Liang Chuan: Reduced to what count as done?
Reply: Dunno. Try searching?
He didn't search. He laid the phone face-down on the counter and took the spatula. The broth was rolling; he pushed through twice, watched the sauce run off the spatula, thin. He waited. The sound in the pot changed, from water-sound to oil-sound; a speck of oil jumped out, landed on the back of his hand, burned a small red dot; he didn't flinch. The sauce thickened; the spatula drew a line across the pot bottom, baring a streak, and he counted three; the streak didn't close. He settled on this standard for himself — draw it open, the bottom shows, three seconds without closing, flame off.
The first time he counted to five and the streak still hadn't closed; he didn't dare wait, flame off. He lifted a piece out with the spatula. The meat shone, sauce hanging on the skin. He tasted one piece — hot; salty or not, couldn't tell, scalded past it. He set that piece at the rim of the bowl, waited two minutes, tasted a second piece. This time he chewed it out: not good to name, not bad to name. He'd never made this. He had no reference.
Eleven fifty, all out of the pot, a full plate.
He shut the gas first. After shutting it he stood a while, then found pen and a sticky note in the drawer and wrote one line: Did you turn off the gas? Done writing, he pressed it under the magnet on the fridge door, words facing out. He stepped back half a pace and looked. Same spot as the one in his memory, same height.
Cleaning up, one thing surfaced. After Old Guan's son's call, he had texted the number ending 6621 one line: The money wasn't the company's — it came from a family member, transferred to the old man. Five days out; no reply had come, no second call either. He'd meant to put the matter on his memo, thought about it, didn't. The memo in the badge sleeve still ran ten lines; he added nothing.
Twelve oh five, the doorbell. Liang Chuan came in carrying two bottles of beer and a bag of oranges, sniffed first thing: "Something burn?" The rims of his eyes weren't red anymore; just two patches of blue under them, the blue of a week without sleep.
"Burnt a pot of sugar. This is the second pot."
Liang Chuan set the beer on the table, took a turn around the kitchen, saw the sticky note on the fridge, stopped, looked two seconds, said nothing; on the way out, in passing, he went to smooth the apron — there was no apron — and smoothed the towel Liang Cheng had hung over the chair back.
Two dishes on the table, red-braised pork, cabbage with tofu. Liang Chuan took a piece of meat, chewed, said nothing, took another piece.
"How is it," Liang Cheng asked.
"Too salty," Liang Chuan said.
Liang Cheng took a piece himself. It was too salty. Half a spoon of dark soy, and his spoon ran bigger than her spoon; into the second sugar color his hand had shook and he'd topped up another half spoon of sugar. Too salty. Chewing, he remembered her saying Ma's tongue's no good these days, everything tastes the same. Her sense of taste had been deleted two years and more. That last pot of meat — did she taste it, what did it taste like — nobody knows.
"Too salty, still eat it," Liang Chuan said. "Ma's ran salty too. She had a heavy hand."
The two of them ate two bowls of rice off the salty meat. Beer open, Liang Cheng drank one glass, Liang Chuan two.
Late in the meal, Liang Chuan took out his phone, tapped a few times, held it over. A transfer page. Thirty-seven twenty.
"Posted this morning," Liang Chuan said. "I looked. The accrued came in with it — two hundred fifty-three twenty. Of that, thirty-seven twenty's mine. The two sixteen from your suspension — that's yours. I ran it; you should pay that — who you were suspended for is a separate question; an account is an account."
Liang Cheng looked at him, tapped accept. Thirty-seven twenty, received. In five years Liang Chuan had started four transfers — twenty-five thousand five hundred — and not one had ever arrived. This was the first, thirty-seven twenty, the memo line reading: demo unit.
"The apartment transferred last week," Liang Chuan said. "Money's in, right."
"In."
"That seventy thousand of the Filial Score — pay it back fast," Liang Chuan said. "Out of the sale money. Don't carry that interest. I looked — that clause, paying it off inside the first two years is the best deal; after that it's all interest."
"Monday I'll do it," Liang Cheng said. "Early repayment. Booked Monday morning."
"Then it's square." Liang Chuan counted on his fingers. "The apartment, cleared. The debt, cleared. The restoration, done. One thing left — forty-five a month." He put his hand down. "Forty-five a month, Ge. This one I understand — this one's called affordable."
Liang Cheng didn't pick it up. Paying off inside two years runs cheapest — that arithmetic Liang Chuan would never have done before; his ledger, five years ago, was four unconfirmed texts. Now it rolled right off his tongue.
"Right," Liang Cheng said.
"What right."
"Accounts cleared."
Liang Chuan didn't take that up either. He shoveled two mouthfuls of rice, laid the chopsticks down, picked them up again, took a piece of meat, didn't eat it, set it on the rim of his own bowl.
"Niuniu called her grandma the day before yesterday," he said.
Liang Cheng's chopsticks stopped a beat.
"Two minutes. Talked two minutes." Liang Chuan said, "She came out and told me — Grandma asked whose little one she was. She said, I'm Niuniu. Grandma said, oh, Niuniu. Which Niuniu. That's as far as Niuniu told it. Then she asked me, does Grandma not remember me anymore."
"What'd you say."
"I said Grandma just moved house; she'll remember, give her time." Liang Chuan said, "She bought it. Kids are easy to get around." He picked up that piece of meat and ate it. "I'm not easy to get around. I sat outside and heard the whole thing. Two minutes. The voice on that end was exactly like before. Exactly, Ge. Just doesn't know who Niuniu is."
"Anything else."
"Asked if Niuniu had eaten." Liang Chuan said, "Niuniu said she had. She said, good, then." He copied the cadence, copied it close, the tail falling away. "Hanging up, Niuniu said bye-bye Grandma, and the other end said, ai, don't run so fast."
Liang Chuan stopped there. He poured himself half a glass, didn't drink, let it sit.
"Ge. Tell me that isn't strange," he said. "She doesn't know who Niuniu is, and she tells her not to run so fast."
Liang Cheng said nothing. The last of the sauce in the pot had long gone cold, set in the pot bottom, oil-white.
"I thought about it two days," Liang Chuan said. "Thought one thing through. Those two minutes — Niuniu was happy. Hung up and skipped all the way back. She doesn't care whether Grandma remembers her; she cares that the call went through." He drank off what was left in his glass. "I care. What's my caring worth."
He set the empty glass face-down on the table.
"Ge."
"Mm."
"I cleared my feed."
Liang Cheng looked at him.
"All of it?" he asked.
"All of it." Liang Chuan said, "That one too. The pinned one, the one with thirty-seven likes. Before I deleted it I looked once — thirty-seven likes, and I couldn't put a face to a single one." He paused. "After deleting, the phone got lighter. Don't laugh. Really lighter — like something I'd carried five years had been taken out."
Liang Cheng didn't laugh. He got up, put the pot with its last bit of sauce back on the flame. High flame. The sauce loosened, began to sing; he counted three, flame off.