Pure emotion error - Chapter 6
Chapter 6 Are you there? Look at the jellyfish
Dinner was the same as lunch, except for an extra serving of green grape yogurt pudding.
Lin Yiqiao scooped the pudding clean with a spoon, scraping off the last bit of yogurt residue from the glass, and sipped it.
The sky gradually darkened, the deep blue night sky rising above the yellow moon.
Yan Lu watched him pack his things. “I’ll take you home.”
Lin Yiqiao took out his phone, the screen’s light reflecting on his quiet face. He said, “I’ll wait for Lin Yimiao.”
“She’s coming to pick you up?”
“Yes,” Lin Yiqiao nodded. “We agreed.”
Yan Lu leaned back on the sofa and casually asked, “Does your sister pick you up every day?”
Lin Yiqiao said, “Sometimes it’s my mom.”
Yan Lu asked again, “Why don’t you take the subway? It’s quite close to the company.”
Lin Yiqiao paused, looking down. “Too many people, too noisy.”
He had tried the subway once before, alone. The swaying carriage felt like a giant iron box, trapping light and noise inside, rumbling and crushing his nerves. He couldn’t take it, crouching down with his head in his hands, motionless, until staff arrived and took him away.
From then on, Xu Zihui and Lin Yimiao took turns driving him, but Xu Zihui, being an obstetrician, was always busy, so Lin Yimiao usually did it.
Yan Lu looked at him, not pressing further, only saying, “Call your sister and tell her I’ll take you home.”
“But we agreed,” Lin Yiqiao said stubbornly, showing Yan Lu their chat history.
Lin Yimiao: [There’s an open mic tonight, ends at 9:30. Be a good girl and wait for me at the company.]
Lin Yiqiao: [Okay.]
Lin Yimiao: [Don’t run around, or I’ll beat you up. (smile.jpg)]
Lin Yiqiao: [Okay.] ]
Yan Lu looked at the sentence “Be careful, I’ll beat you up” and couldn’t help but laugh: “Your sister is quite fierce. Does she like to watch talk shows so much?”
“It’s not about watching,” Lin Yiqiao said, “she went up to talk about it.”
“Wow,” Yan Lu was a little surprised this time, “talk comedian?”
“It’s a part-time job. Her mother requires her to have a stable job first, otherwise she won’t be allowed to do this.” Lin Yiqiao said this with a look of disapproval on her face.
Yan Lu asked him: “What’s wrong?”
“I think my mother’s request is contradictory. Talk shows require a lot of time to create and practice, but Lin Yimiao’s work takes up most of her energy. Objectively speaking, she can’t do a good talk show at all.” Lin Yiqiao remembered what she had just promised Yan Lu, and asked Yan Lu, “What do you think?”
Yan Lu thought for a while and said, “What you said makes sense, but your mother’s request is also reasonable. Many talk show actors work part-time first, and then switch to full-time jobs when they have a stable income.” He listed a few names. Lin Yiqiao had never heard of them, but he did not refute them.
“Was she good?” Yan Lu asked with interest. “Have you been to see her?”
“I went once,” Lin Yiqiao answered honestly. “I didn’t understand it. She explained it to me later, but I still didn’t find it funny.”
Yan Lu just looked at him without saying a word. The reason Lin Yiqiao couldn’t understand stand-up comedy was that his cognitive logic was completely different from the logic of what people understood as “jokes.” Yan Lu had known this for a long time.
Before he knew about Lin Yiqiao’s neurotic diversity.
“I think my jokes are very funny,” Lin Yiqiao added, “but Lin Yimiao said they’re boring.”
“Your jokes?” Yan Lu raised an eyebrow. “Then tell me one?”
So Lin Yiqiao told Yan Lu the joke about “stars busy rolling themselves into balls.” After listening, Yan Lu laughed for a long time, his shoulders shaking.
Lin Yiqiao laughed along too.
On Thursday morning, as soon as Lin Yiqiao arrived at work, he emailed Cai Dong through the internal system, explaining that he was terminating the design work on the new material knee joint because the thermoelectric noise problem of the new material was insurmountable.
He also wrote a note saying that Cai Dong knew about the material’s major flaws but failed to point them out when he proposed the solution, causing him to waste a lot of time and company resources—a highly inappropriate act. He hoped Cai Dong would learn from this and not repeat the mistake.
Because he was unfamiliar with the internal email system, Lin Yiqiao accidentally sent the email to the entire company without realizing it.
Two minutes later, Wen Wei, who was drinking water at the next table, sprayed water all over her computer screen.
Lin Yiqiao glanced at her, then moved his chair away in disgust.
Wen Wei frantically wiped the screen, and while doing so, gave him a thumbs-up, mouthing an exaggerated “Awesome!”
Lin Yiqiao: “?”
A while later, he went to the break room and ran into Song Xin in the hallway. Song Xin immediately put his arm around his shoulder: “You’re awesome, bro! From today onwards, you’re my brother!”
Lin Yiqiao: “?”
At lunchtime in the break area, Tang Xiaoxiao came running over with her tray and sat opposite him, looking at him with admiration: “You’re so awesome, bro! Do you even remember you’re still on probation?”
Lin Yiqiao: “?”
Lin Yiqiao was “awesome” all morning, completely baffled.
He decided to ask Yan Lu.
Mechanical Engineering Group Lin Yiqiao: [Today Wen Wei, Song Xin, and Tang Xiaoxiao all said I was awesome, but I didn’t do anything awesome.]
Mechanical Engineering Group Lin Yiqiao: [The other two people in my group, who usually ignore me, started talking to me today. Do you know why?]
Yan Lu: [I guess it’s because of this.] [Image]
The image shows the email Lin Yiqiao sent to Cai Dong.
Lin Yiqiao (Mechanical Engineering Group): [How did you get the email I sent to Team Leader Cai?]
Yan Lu: [Everyone in the company has it. Check your sent items folder. Did you accidentally send it to a group?]
Lin Yiqiao opened it and saw that it was indeed a group email.
Lin Yiqiao (Mechanical Engineering Group): [I clicked the wrong button.]
Lin Yiqiao (Mechanical Engineering Group): [What should I do?]
Yan Lu: [It’s sent, it’s okay.]
Yan Lu: [They say you’re awesome, they’re praising your courage.]
Inside the Neuroscience Lab, Chief Scientist Professor Li Wei’en called out, “Yan Lu.”
Yan Lu looked up from his phone: “Professor?”
Li Wei’en gestured for him to look at the main computer screen. “When you went to Los Angeles, we validated the ‘Neuromechanical Real-Time Co-oscillation’ model.”
Yan Lu immediately stood up and quickly walked to the main screen. Two real-time generated waveforms were displayed on the screen. Li Wei’en pointed to one line of data, “Look here, after applying our new decoding algorithm, the instantaneous coupling delay reached 33 milliseconds.”
Yan Lu’s gaze was fixed on the screen, “What’s the reproducibility rate? Has it been tested on other subjects?”
“The reproducibility rate is very low, less than 25%.” Li Wei’en paused, “But it’s enough to prove that the ‘cooperative oscillation’ model has far greater potential than the old framework.”
The two discussed for more than half an hour. After the conversation ended, Li Wei’en suddenly brought it up: “By the way, I heard that Lin Yiqiao, the newcomer in the mechanical engineering group, had a big conflict with their group leader, Cai, today.”
Yan Lu hummed in agreement: “I know.”
Li Wei’en was somewhat worried: “Engineer Cai is very experienced, and Lin Yiqiao is also a talented kid, but…” It was their friction that caused a simple materials test to be wasted a full two weeks. “Yan Lu, we don’t have much time to waste.”
“Teacher, don’t worry,” Yan Lu’s expression also turned serious, “I’ll handle this. Lin Yiqiao’s approach is correct; his problem is a lack of experience. But as the team leader, Cai Gong has the responsibility of reviewing and guiding. He can’t let his personal emotions slow down the lifeline of our entire project.”
Li Wei’en nodded slightly, looking at her most prized student, and couldn’t help but remind him, “You know Cai Gong’s temper; you can’t say those things to his face.”
“It’s alright, I know what I’m doing.” Yan Lu gave Li Wei’en a confident smile, “Leave it to me.”
Working overtime until nine o’clock that night, Yan Lu drove back to his parents’ house. Zhao Meixue said she had bought a new dress that would stun everyone, and he absolutely had to come back to worship her.
Before going home, Yan Lu searched online for a hundred compliments, and as soon as he entered the house, he started praising her, making Yan Zhongyun think he had married a fairy.
“Stay home tonight?” Zhao Meixue said. “Your room’s going to get spiderwebs if no one stays there any longer.”
Yan Lu knew her showing off her dress was an excuse; she really wanted him home, so he agreed.
After graduating and returning to China, he immediately focused on his career. To be closer to the company, he bought a house nearby and moved out of his family home. Although he lived in the same city as his parents, they saw each other very rarely, and opportunities like this to sit and watch TV with them were even rarer.
His phone vibrated. Yan Lu opened it and saw a new message on the company’s internal messaging app.
Mechanical Engineering Group Lin Yiqiao: [This afternoon, Team Leader Cai came to see me and said he wanted to test me by not telling me about the material problem. He wanted to see if I could discover it myself. He said I hadn’t noticed it for two weeks, which meant my work methods were wrong, and he told me to reflect on them.]
Mechanical Engineering Group Lin Yiqiao: [Should I reflect on them again?]
Yan Lu looked at the screen, a slight smile playing on his lips: [I think you’ve already reflected on not considering the noise issue beforehand.] [Mechanical Engineering Group, Lin Yiqiao: [Yes, I wrote it in the email.]
Yan Lu: [Then there’s no need for further reflection.]
Lin Yiqiao’s own thoughts aligned with Yan Lu’s suggestion; it felt like she had made the right choice, and Lin Yiqiao was very happy.
Just as she was about to put down her phone, another new message came in.
Yan Lu: [Are you home? Check on your jellyfish.]