Chapter 31: debug (3)
31 – debug (3)
Jiang Lian not only choked, but choked with extreme severity. For a moment, the only sound in the room was his heart-wrenching coughing. Lin Xun was almost afraid he would suffocate right there.
He patted Jiang Lian’s back: “Brother Jiang, don’t get worked up.”
His Brother Jiang coughed for a full five minutes before finally catching his breath.
“Sorry,” Jiang Lian said.
Lin Xun: “It’s fine, as long as you’re okay.”
Jiang Lian slowly turned his face toward him, his movements so stiff he seemed like a cervical spine patient.
Jiang Lian: “What did you just say?”
“I said… since we can’t solve this problem ourselves,” Lin Xun continued, “we’ll find outside help—we’ll ask Dong Jun.”
Jiang Lian frowned, his expression somewhat dazed.
“Actually, I’ve been wanting to ask for a while,” he said. “What… exactly do you all do?”
Lin Xun rummaged through the drawer and pulled out their three graduation certificates and printed copies of their theses: “We really are legitimate programmers.”
Jiang Lian looked ordinary, with single eyelids and slightly thinning hair, all of which made his eyes appear small. But at that moment, his small eyes held great confusion.
“Do you… have some kind of problem?” he asked. “It’s too strange… Do you need to see a psychiatrist?”
“We’re not mentally ill,” Lin Xun flatly denied. Thinking of the series of bizarre incidents Jiang Lian had encountered here, he tried his best to explain: “It’s just that Dr. Huo, the traditional Chinese medicine practitioner upstairs, has a strange temper. He’s an old man, and he often does odd things. The coffin this morning wasn’t really a coffin—it contained medicinal herbs Dr. Huo needed.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he could bite off his tongue.
But then he saw Jiang Lian suddenly stand up from the sofa, look at them, his lips trembling, and after a long pause, force out a sentence: “He… uses things from a coffin as medicine? Then the epilepsy pills I took…”
Lin Xun’s sharp eyes caught sight of Jiang Lian’s phone screen switching to the dialing interface, teetering on the edge of calling 110.
Wang Anquan quickly stood up to salvage the situation, helping Jiang Lian sit back down: “Well… Brother Jiang, Lin Xun isn’t good with words. But we’re definitely a legitimate company—we’re registered.”
Zhao Jiagou added: “We’re really proper. We have four shareholders: the three of us, plus Dong Jun. Brother Jiang, if you want, we can even allocate some shares to you.”
Lin Xun watched as Jiang Lian glanced at him, then looked at the yellow talisman taped tightly to the door with transparent tape. The hand that had been about to dial 110 now switched to dialing 120.
Seeing the situation worsen with every explanation, Lin Xun said: “No, Brother Jiang, we don’t have delusions. We’re quite normal.”
“Dong Jun?” Jiang Lian’s hand holding the phone trembled slightly.
Lin Xun knew that things had gone too far to salvage and had a premonition that he was about to lose Jiang Lian, this precious programmer.
Five days ago, he hadn’t expected the words “Dong Jun” to appear in his life either.
The current scene was like two high school students solving a problem together, with one unable to figure it out and the other saying: “Let me ask Hua Luogeng.”
While frantically thinking of a solution, Wang Anquan suddenly shoved his phone in front of his face.
A video call request was in progress. The contact: Male God.
Lin Xun: “…”
Wang Anquan, you’re really clever—clever in the worst possible way, always adding to the trouble.
He whispered quickly to the Goddess of the Luo River: “Connect to the computer.”
Immediately after, the computer screen flickered and switched to the video interface.
Wang Anquan truly dared to make the call.
The key was that Dong Jun actually answered.
Lin Xun took out his earphones from the charging case and, just as he looked up, met Dong Jun’s gaze on the screen.
Judging by the background, it was an office. Today, Dong Jun was wearing a simple white shirt, with thin gold-rimmed glasses—the camera did nothing to diminish his striking appearance.
Dong Jun in a white shirt, Dong Jun in a black shirt, and Dong Jun in a full suit each carried subtly different auras. In the white shirt, his aggressiveness was notably subdued, replaced by an air of refined elegance.
Through the earphones, Dong Jun asked, “What’s wrong?”
His voice was quite gentle, showing no sign of being unexpectedly disturbed.
…
“There’s a bit of a problem…” Lin Xun said. “Are you busy right now?”
“Not busy,” Dong Jun replied. “The program won’t run?”
Lin Xun: “Yes.”
Dong Jun’s response was straightforward: “Accept the file.”
A second later, Lin Xun received a file package. He clicked to install and run it—it was a remote control software. Once running, Dong Jun could control his computer from the other side.
Lin Xun released the mouse and said to Dong Jun, “In glax, the two projects currently open are incompatible, even though each can run on its own.”
“Let me take a look.”
Lin Xun watched the upper right corner of the screen, where Dong Jun on the video call slightly lowered his eyelashes, his expression focused, fingers lightly tapping on the keyboard.
His code began to scroll—Dong Jun was reviewing the code and comments.
Dong Jun read quickly, roughly scanning twenty lines at a glance, while occasionally fixing minor errors, even aligning misaligned sections and correcting braces that had been carelessly left without line breaks.
Come to think of it, glax… was a language developed by Dong Jun himself. Reading glax code was probably as effortless for him as reading his native language.
Dong Jun paused.
The section of code he paused on had an ugly comment written beside it:
Don’t touch this. I don’t know what it does, but deleting it will cause bugs.
He heard Dong Jun chuckle softly.
Lin Xun: “I wrote that…”
“It’s an issue with the compiler itself,” Dong Jun said. “The new version of glax in September has already fixed it.”
Lin Xun: “I see, but I haven’t seen anyone mention it.”
Dong Jun: “Generally, no one writes code like this.”
Lin Xun: “…”
Dong Jun continued reviewing the code. During this process, Wang Anquan quietly leaned in from the left, staring at the screen, while Jiang Lian silently approached from the right, also gazing intently.
Zhao Jiagou, having lost the prime spot, took an alternative route—leaning over from behind Lin Xun to peer at the screen as well.
Lin Xun silently removed his earphones and switched to speaker mode.
Dong Jun said, “Explain the algorithm.”
Lin Xun flipped through his draft notes and glanced at the whiteboard before replying to Dong Jun, “I’ve explained part of the first module to you before.”
“I remember. Explain the second module.”
He switched to the second one.
Lin Xun began his explanation.
The core idea was actually quite simple. With sufficient mathematical skill, communication efficiency could improve dramatically.
In just twenty minutes, the core algorithm was fully explained.
Dong Jun fell silent for three seconds.
“Have you noticed,” he said calmly after the pause, “that the programming level of this code doesn’t perfectly implement your algorithm?”
Lin Xun: “…I wrote it.”
Dong Jun: “I can tell.”
Zhao Jiagou, standing behind Lin Xun, let out a laugh.
“In order to implement the functionality, you modified some logic, like here,” Dong Jun highlighted a section of code over two hundred lines long, then switched to another module and marked another segment: “There’s a conflict at the underlying level.”
“It won’t be just this one place.” Dong Jun switched back and continued scrolling down.
Forty minutes later, a total of five sections had been marked.
Lin Xun: “…Understood. I’ll go fix it.”
“You’re going to fix it yourself?” Dong Jun said. “It might take a long time.”
Lin Xun anxiously squeezed the mouse: “I’ll try my best.”
“No need.” Dong Jun said: “I have a short meeting at ten o’clock. I’ll send you the code by noon.”
Lin Xun was overwhelmed by this sudden stroke of luck: “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Dong Jun operated the remote software, copied the code file, and disconnected the remote session.
His gaze shifted: “Are these three all your team members?”
Lin Xun: “Yes.”
Dong Jun: “Looking forward to working together.”
Lin Xun: “Thank you for your hard work.”
While wondering how many people Dong Jun had debugged for to be so skilled, and pondering how to thank him—whether to send a gift or something else—Lin Xun heard Dong Jun say calmly on the other end: “Don’t force yourself to write code.”
Lin Xun: “”
He: “Can I interpret that as you criticizing me?”
Dong Jun in the video seemed to smile slightly: “That’s not what I meant.”
He seemed to glance at the time in the upper right corner of his computer: “I should go now. Let’s chat again when there’s a chance.”
Lin Xun: “Alright, you go ahead with your work.”
The call ended.
Lin Xun wanted to lean back against the sofa but ended up leaning against Jia Gou.
“This Dong Jun is different from what I imagined,” Wang Anquan said.
Zhao Jiagou sighed: “A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Wang Anquan: “A beast in gentleman’s attire.”
Lin Xun: “”
He: “It’s common knowledge that Dong Jun is good-looking. Watch your words.”
Lin Xun looked at Jiang Lian.
Jiang Lian’s eyes were vacant, his nerves seemingly frayed.
He: “Brother Jiang, see, we really are a legitimate company.”
“I believe it,” Jiang Lian said, “but I have a question.”
Lin Xun: “Go ahead.”
Jiang Lian: “If that’s the case, why did you hire me?”
Wang Anquan: “Ahem, actually, we don’t always have Dong Jun’s help. We’re just his side project, and he only helps us with specific…”
Before he could finish, Jiang Lian: “So I’m a backup.”
Zhao Jiagou: “You’re a linguistic genius.”
Jiang Lian leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, as if completely losing his dreams: “I only knew I was a backup for my goddess. I didn’t know…”
So, Brother Jiang was actually someone who had been hurt in love.
In this world, many people suffer from heartbreak, but programmers who have been hurt in love are rare—most of them don’t even have the prerequisite conditions to get hurt.
Zhao Jiagou patted his shoulder: “Look on the bright side, Brother Jiang. You’re Dong Jun’s backup. Dong Jun.”
Brother Jiang pondered: “You have a point.”
—On this day, Jiang Lian’s efficiency suddenly improved.