Chapter 4

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Lin Xun was familiar with many programming languages, but he was only good at a select few. After his idol Dong Jun had unveiled Glax, Lin Xun had made countless sacrifices for his new beloved language, kicking the other languages he’d learned to the curb. But that didn’t mean he’d forgotten everything about C—on the contrary, after coding for as long as he had, relearning a language would be a simple task.\n

If “Hello World” was enough for him to start refining his qi, then it seemed that other simple operations would fulfill his quests, too. He started to test his theory, watching his quest progress steadily increase.\n

Declaring and assigning a variable: 5%.\n

Simple boolean operations comparing three numbers: 10%.\n

Simple loops for repeated addition and factorials: 15%.\n

Declaring an array: 20%.\n

A fully written function: 40%. \n

Declaring a pointer variable: 60%.\n

After a bit more of this, his quest progress seemed to cap out at 80%. \n

Maybe basic operations won’t cut it anymore? Lin Xun heaved a deep sigh, rapidly throwing together a simple game of Minesweeper. \n

After he finished, he glanced back at his quest progress: it hadn’t changed.\n

His next plan had been to create a simple web crawler, but seeing his progress, he quickly axed that idea. It seemed that to build his “qi foundations,” he’d need to start with some foundational operations—complex programs wouldn’t help him here.\n

Lin Xun sank into thought.\n

Whenever he encountered a problem he couldn’t solve, he’d fixate on it to a fault. Until he could find a solution, he’d refuse to sleep. It seemed like he’d first learned C an eternity ago: digging into the deepest recesses of his brain, he tried to recall as many basic operations as he could and tested a few more things—finally, his quest progress inched up to 85%.\n

Lin Xun frowned.\n

He was still trying to come up with more when suddenly, a robotic voice echoed through the space around him. “Spiritual energy has been depleted. System shutting down. Goodbye.”\n

The world before him went dark, and Lin Xun opened his eyes to find himself laying in bed—as if everything he’d experienced had only been a dream. \n

He closed his eyes again, but nothing appeared before him.\n

A wave of fatigue swept through his body, a reminder that he’d pulled an all-nighter yesterday. His tired brain felt a bit fuzzy—was it because he was out of “spiritual energy?” Lin Xun was deep in thought up to his last second of consciousness, before plunging straight into a dead sleep.\n

<hr class="wp-block-separator">\nThe alarm clock that jolted Lin Xun awake declared the time: eight in the morning.\n

Lin Xun climbed out of bed and washed his face, refreshing himself. Leaving his bedroom, he started digging through the stacks of books piled up around the living room.\n

Wang Anquan was on the couch, engrossed in some video game. “What are you looking for?”\n

Grabbing a book, Lin Xun took a seat across from him. “Found it.”\n

“Man, could it be?” Wang Anquan glanced at the cover. “Is our resident coding king giving up his throne and returning to his roots?”¹\n

In Lin Xun’s hand was a book with a blue cover. Its title was written across the front in large letters: C Primer Plus. It was a classic—a staple of any compsci classroom. By now, schools were using its tenth edition, a testament to its longevity.\n

Lin Xun was skimming through the table of contents when the sound of wheels rolling across tile broke his concentration.\n

The door across from him opened, revealing a rather haggard-looking young man. He wore a black, low-brimmed hat and dragged a wheeled suitcase behind him as he walked out into the living room. \n

“I’m moving out,” the man said.　　\n

Honestly, Lin Xun didn’t even know the guy’s name—the landlord had always called him Xiao Chen.² He was their fourth roommate; Lin Xun didn’t know much about him, but he was pretty sure the man was a novelist.\n

After Lin Xun, Wang Anquan, and Zhao Jiagou had graduated, they’d started work on Luoshen—but since they’d started their own company, they’d naturally needed their own space. Every inch of land in the city was worth its weight in gold; in the end, they’d settled for their current apartment, located on the third floor of an old-fashioned residential complex.\n

The apartment had four bedrooms: Lin Xun, Anquan, and Jiagou each had their own room, which left the last one to their co-renter, Xiao Chen.\n

The three of them were programmers, while their hapless roommate made his living off of the arts: naturally, they were a bit incompatible. Xiao Chen wasn’t much of a talker either, so even though he’d lived with them for over a year and a half, they still didn’t know much about him. Now that he was leaving, they didn’t have much to say—but the awkward silence was too much, even for them.\n

Wang Anquan took a stab. “Why are you moving?”\n

“Need a change of scenery,” Xiao Chen replied.\n

Personally, Lin Xun didn’t see a problem with their apartment. It was neat, tidy.\n

Just as he thought this, Xiao Chen slid a glance towards the large whiteboard along the wall of the living room, its surface filled with writing. It was the Luoshen team’s communal whiteboard. They used it for all sorts of impromptu diagrams and explanations, from designing algorithms to drawing out program flowcharts. One of their most trusty tools, it was perpetually covered in strange, incomprehensible formulas.\n

Lin Xun swallowed. “…I hope the move goes well.”\n

Xiao Chen made a sound of acknowledgement before leaving, his suitcase clattering behind him.\n

Wang Anquan elbowed Lin Xun. “You think our… ‘scenery’ got in the way of his creative process or something?”\n

Lin Xun shot the whiteboard a look. “Might be an understatement. This stuff’s enough to give him permanent writer’s block.”\n

Wang Anquan followed his gaze over to the whiteboard, a pensive look on his face. “Guess you’re right. He should go live with other writers, maybe. Wonder what they’d write on their whiteboard, if they had one?”\n

Lin Xun shrugged. “Poetry, maybe? You know, ‘A pair of white herons taking to blue skies.’”\n

“Dude, you have no culture. ‘For how many years have I watched the spring blooms and autumn moon?’”\n

Zhao Jiagou came out of his room, a bottle of milk in his hands. He looked over at them, his blue eyes filled with doubt. “Why do I get the feeling my Chinese is the best of the three of us?”³\n

Without waiting for an answer, Zhao Jiagou turned to Lin Xun. “Are you feeling better?”\n

“You could say that,” Lin Xun replied, squinting at Zhao Jiagou.　　\n

After his strange experience last night, the squares above people’s heads had vanished, his vision returning to normal. But it seemed that when he concentrated on someone for long enough, the tiny compiler window above them would reappear. Don’t tell me this is what it meant by “absorbing qi?”\n

Zhao Jiagou took a seat next to Wang Anquan, giving his friend a push. “Safe, you’ve gained weight. It’s because you’re not using Java.”\n

“Am I balding?” Wang Anquan replied.\n

Zhao Jiagou studied his head. “Doesn’t seem so.”\n

Contented, Wang Anquan leaned back against the couch. “Then it’s fine by me. Life is short. Too short for me to use anything but Python.”　　\n

Now that they were all assembled, it seemed it was time for an official company meeting.\n

After Wang Anquan and Zhao Jiagou had finished their Java-Python squabble, Anquan turned to Lin Xun. “So let me get things straight. You want to accept Dong Jun’s offer of two hundred grand and give him five percent of our shares.”\n

Lin Xun tried to defend himself. “Look, he said that he believed in our potential. Luoshen could be priceless. It’s not just anyone saying that, it’s Dong Jun—”\n

“God, we get it! You’re a hopeless fanboy,” Wang Anquan interrupted.\n

Lin Xun gave a small smile before crossing his arms, resolute. “I know two hundred thousand’s on the low side, but the truth is that we need the money. After we get paid, we can hire another programmer and work on refining our framework. The SciTech Expo’s in a month. If we can get Luoshen up and running by then—and if we can manage to make a good impression there—then we might be able to win some investors over. We’ll be back on track in no time.”\n

“You’re not wrong,” Wang Anquan said, his face gloomy. “But we’ve worked on this for three years. Three years of our hard work, and Dong Jun offers us just two hundred grand? You’re usually the salty one—you’re just gonna let that go?”\n

“You’re right. Our work’s worth more than two hundred grand,” Lin Xun replied. “Once we have something to show for it, though, those shares will be worth so much more. Dong Jun will realize how much we’re worth then, and he’ll know that he made the right choice in backing us.”\n

Wang Anquan shot Zhao Jiagou a look. “I give up. It’s your turn. I don’t speak fanboy.”\n

Zhao Jiagou stepped up to the plate. “I mean, I’m a fan of Dong Jun, too. Other companies’ shareholders are all random corporate shills—at best, they might work for Milky Way. But we have the chance to get Dong Jun as a shareholder, Anquan. Dong Jun himself. Just imagine how good it’d look on paper.” He paused before adding, “Plus, we do need the money.”\n

Exasperated, Wang Anquan raised both hands in surrender.\n

The majority had spoken, and their meeting was adjourned. Lin Xun picked up his phone, entering the number Dong Jun had given him. Call me anytime, he’d said. \n

Just as he was about to call, someone knocked on the door.\n

The three of them shared a look: their only regular visitor was their landlord.\n

“He’s here for rent!” Wang Anquan hissed.\n

Zhao Jiagou straightened out his clothes, walking up to the door with a blinding smile that rivalled the midday sun. Enunciating every syllable with perfect clarity, he opened the door with a magnanimous welcome. “Uncle Huo, what can I do for y—”\n

He stopped mid-greeting. \n

Their visitor wasn’t their landlord at all—it was a man in a luxurious tuxedo, his polished leather shoes gleaming in the light. He looked ready for a high-end banquet.\n

“Good afternoon.” Taking in the state of their living room, the man seemed to hesitate before remembering his manners. “May I ask if this is… the Luoshen headquarters?” \n

“That’s right,” Zhao Jiagou replied.\n

“And you are…?” Lin Xun asked.\n

A polite smile was glued to the man’s face, the smell of fancy cologne clinging to his body. Next to the formula-filled whiteboard, he seemed distinctly out of place, like a door-to-door salesman.\n

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Director Li, from Eagle’s Asia-Pacific branch.”\n

His smile deepened, his gaze sweeping over the three of them as if waiting for their reactions.\n

Eagle was Milky Way’s main competitor; together, they were the two pillars of the technological world. Both of them were giants in the industry, their research—and funding—unparalleled in the field. On the surface, they seemed to coexist peacefully, but in reality the two companies were constantly at each other’s throats. Lin Xun could only imagine how much money they’d spent trying to outmaneuver each other. \n

Clearly, Director Li was proud of himself—or, at least, of the company he represented. But the only reaction he was met with was a brief, awkward silence.\n

After a beat, Lin Xun spoke up. “Nice to meet you, Director Li.”\n

“I do apologize for the sudden visit,” Director Li said. “I called Luoshen’s contact number earlier, but it seemed that no one answered.”\n

Lin Xun paused, thinking. “Ah, I’m sorry. I must have been asleep.”\n

Director Li’s smile grew. “No worries.”　　\n

Lin Xun invited Director Li to take a seat. The man complied, then launched into a carefully rehearsed business pitch—a finely-crafted work of corporate prowess. Cutting through the needless formalities, the heart of his pitch was that Eagle was interested in Luoshen: specifically, they were willing to offer ten million dollars to acquire their company. The system development would remain under their control, but Eagle would take over their operations and marketing.\n

Ten million dollars.\n

Lin Xun blinked in surprise.\n

“The Asia-Pacific SciTech Expo is in a month. We’ve already seen your company registered as an attendee. When the time comes, Eagle will do our part to ensure that Luoshen has all the support we can provide. What do you think about our proposal?” Director Li finished.\n

Having finished his pitch, Li awaited their response with a self-assured smile.\n

Lin Xun and Wang Anquan locked eyes. After a beat, Wang Anquan looked away.\n

Zhao Jiagou’s gaze took his place, his face expressionless and calm. \n

Lin Xun turned to Director Li with an awkward clear of his throat. “I’m sorry, but we already have our own goals in mind. For the time being, we can’t accept your offer.”\n

Director Li’s smile froze in place. “Are you sure, Mr. Lin?”\n

Lin Xun nodded. “I’m sure. I’m sorry you went to all this trouble.”\n

After ensuring that they were in fact quite sure, Director Li finally let the issue drop, bidding them farewell at the door—by then, his polite smile had crystallized into a solid mask, with only the slightest resemblance to a human face.\n

After closing the door behind him, Lin Xun looked back at the two on the couch. “Why didn’t you guys agree?”\n

“I’m Norwegian, but I’m an eighth Jewish,” Zhao Jiagou said flippantly. “To tell you the truth, they’ve been trying to buy me out for ages, but personally, I’d never work for the Germans.”\n

Lin Xun looked over at Wang Anquan.\n

Wang Anquan cupped his goji tea serenely. “C’mon, it’s not like you don’t know. Back in junior year, I hacked their databases, remember? I’m scared they’ll end up figuring out it was me.”\n

“Alright then,” Lin Xun said.\n

Wang Anquan piped up. “Then what about you? Why didn’t you want to take the deal?”\n

“First of all, Eagle and Milky Way are archenemies. Dong Jun would never forgive me.” Lin Xun returned to his seat, opening up his copy of C Primer Plus. “Besides, I’m still salty. Lions was acquired for thirty million. You think I’d let Eagle buy us out for ten?”\n

Wang Anquan shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, Eagle may as well be a vulture. I doubt they’re interested in our tech, anyway. They must’ve heard about your chat with Dong Jun—they’d do anything to one-up Milky Way, right? They just want us to sell out. The ten million isn’t for our system, it’s for getting under Dong Jun’s skin.” \n

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Lin Xun said. “Then it’s settled. We’ll accept Dong Jun’s offer, then focus our efforts on preparing for the SciTech Expo. Both Eagle and Lions’ teams will be there, so we have to…”\n

Zhao Jiagou finished his sentence. “Destroy them!”　　\n

Lin Xun flashed him a thumbs up. “Especially Lions.”\n

Wang Anquan leaned back against the sofa, patting his belly thoughtfully. “You’re still jealous, huh? Well, alright. We’ve all agreed. You may as well give Dong Jun a call now.”\n

For the second time, Lin Xun dialed Dong Jun’s number.\n

Before the call connected, another knock came from the door.\n

Zhao Jiagou’s face contorted into a painfully fake smile as he pulled upon the door. “Director Li, you’re ba…”\n

The man who stood in the doorway was assuredly not Director Li.\n

In the blink of an eye, Zhao Jiagou’s smile turned wide and sincere, his voice saccharine. “Uncle Huo!”\n

“Xiao Zhao,” their aging landlord acknowledged. Uncle Huo clasped his hands behind his back, strolling step by step into their living room. His steady gaze swept across the room, giving each of them a once-over. “You’re all here, hm? Xiao Chen’s moving out, so I’ve come to inspect the premises.”\n

Uncle Huo was a small, slight man with snow-white hair and a stooped back. Despite his unassuming appearance, a strong aura of financial stability radiated off of him, a force to be reckoned with: in this city alone, he owned over fifty apartments. Pacing around their living room, he seemed like a proud lion patrolling his territory—at the same time, he seemed like some stuffy old patriarch, inspecting the room’s furniture with distaste. His solemn gaze landed on the whiteboard filled with formulas. “You three are still spending every day on this chicken scratch!”\n

Uncle Huo was edging his way towards ninety; he’d never understood what it was, exactly, that the three of them did for a living. The first time they’d met, he’d watched them move in with their laptops in tow. Later, they’d set up a desktop, spending entire days plastered to their screens and banging on their keyboards—it was a miracle he hadn’t mistaken them for computer salesmen.\n

Uncle Huo turned the ferocious might of his oppressive gaze onto the three of them. “Your rent is just about due, isn’t it?”\n

“I’ll have the money transferred to you today,” Lin Xun replied quickly.\n

Uncle Huo gave a satisfied nod before looking at Xiao Chen’s old room. “So it seems we have a vacancy…” \n

He waved his hand dismissively. “I won’t rent it out after all. It’s not worth the trouble. You three can have it. Maybe you can use it to store your inventory, get some more computer chips and whatnot.”\n

…Alright, so he really does think we’re computer salesmen, huh?\n

But something wasn’t right. Uncle Huo had always been a stingy old bastard—what had brought on his sudden change of heart? Gifting them a free room? It was too out of character for the old man. \n

Just as Lin Xun was considering the probability that their dear landlord had been drugged, a familiar robotic voice echoed in his mind. “Sect territory expansion complete. Current territory level: 1. Maximum territory level: 9.”\n

Lin Xun’s eyes widened. \n

Uncle Huo let them have a free room, and suddenly his “sect territory” had expanded. His mind connected the dots. Apartment = sect territory. Which means… my “sect” is… Luoshen?\n

Don’t tell me—sect funds represent our company finances?\n

He stared at the C textbook on the table, lost in thought.\n

Uncle Huo was busy being flattered by their resident foreign charmer: Zhao Jiagou was tripping over himself to bury their landlord in thanks and appreciation. Even the old man’s expression seemed more benevolent than usual, his face taking on an amiable hue as Zhao Jiagou supported him with an arm. Uncle Huo turned, about to inspect their newly gifted spare room—when he suddenly stopped, freezing in place. Out of the corner of his eye, Lin Xun noticed Uncle Huo’s strange reaction, looking over at the old man.\n

The eighty-nine-year-old’s gaze was fixated on Lin Xun’s body.\n

Suspicion building in his heart, he returned the gaze.\n

The strange ability he’d received yesterday returned: after a moment of concentration, a small compiler window slowly floated into view, just above Uncle Huo’s head. But it was different from all the windows he’d seen before. The ones above his friends’ heads were blank—all the windows he’d seen had been. But the blue screen above Uncle Huo’s head was filled to the brim with code!\n

Squinting to make out the small text, Lin Xun realized what it was: a simple web crawler, coded in C!　　\n

Web crawlers were a common type of program. Operating online, they automatically browsed the Internet, scraping data from designated sites and servers.\n

Lin Xun was baffled.\n

Just as he was staring at the mysterious web crawler, Uncle Huo’s gaze met his own.\n

Taking a single tottering step towards Lin Xun, Uncle Huo exclaimed, “What an exceptional foundation! A body filled with qi… This talent—truly, you must be a prodigy!”\n

<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide">\n[1] The idiom here, 返璞归真, has Daoist roots; literally, it means “retrieving one’s original simplicity and returning to perfection.” Traditionally, it’s connected with cultivation-related practices of returning to one’s true nature and attuning oneself with the spontaneous motive force of the Dao. In colloquial usage, it basically means to go back to one’s roots, but the cultivation-adjacent phrase slides in an extra bit of humor that I wasn’t entirely able to capture in English. ):\n

[2] Xiao in “Xiao Chen” 小陈 is a diminutive term of familiarity; literally, it’s something like “Little Chen,” Chen being the guy’s last name. It can also be used to express an age difference—since Uncle Huo’s a fossil, he can basically call everyone this.\n

[3] Part of the humor here is probably that the two of them are not only being ridiculous, but that they’re reciting cliched classical poems you’d learn in a grade school textbook; Lin Xun recites a line from Du Fu (“一行白鹭上青天”), whereas Wang Anquan goes with a line from Li Yu (“春花秋月何时了”). The former is a poem that describes a nice riverside scene, while the latter deals with the angst of a king who basically lost his own empire (and which, according to legend, got him killed). The other part of the joke is that Lin Xun says that they’d probably write poems (诗 shi, which is both a catch-all word for poetry as well as a specific form of verse poetry). Wang Anquan responds with a line from a lyric poem (词 ci) from the Song Dynasty, which is completely different from the Tang shi that Lin Xun started with. \n

Also, Uncle Huo talks like he’s trying to revive imperial China. I’ll try to capture the ‘ye olde’ vibe. We’ll see how it goes. On another note: don’t worry if you get lost in the technobabble. Understanding all the nods to code and real-life hacking/cybersecurity as the novel goes on isn’t really important to an understanding of the main plot at all, so feel free to skim through it if you don’t feel like taking a Wikipedia deep dive to understand what they’re talking about (it’s cool though, don’t get me wrong)!\n

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