Three days later, the decommissioning execution date arrived.
Su Ding'an walked into the meeting room with the folding chairs and took a seat in the last row, carrying a folder with him.
He had crumpled one corner of the folder slightly. Inside were three photocopied pages he had printed at a convenience store the night before. He had printed an extra copy as a backup, folded it up, and stuffed it into his inner coat pocket.
The previous night at his rented place, he had read that section of the policy over and over five or six times. By the end, he could recite the position of every punctuation mark.
He had even gone out of his way to look up the old woman's dates of employment. He found them in the job creation records, in a month from 160 years ago. The record format was so outdated that it took him nearly twenty minutes to understand what each field corresponded to.
When he calculated the number 4,800, he stared at the calculator screen for a long time, then ran the calculation twice more before he dared believe it.
The old woman was already there, still wearing that old-fashioned indigo blouse. The faded floral pattern around the collar looked even paler beneath the meeting room's fluorescent lights.
She sat perfectly straight, both hands resting on her knees. Her face wore the same expression from three days ago, somewhere between confusion and calm, as though she still hadn't fully figured out how their last conversation had ended.
The other duty officers arrived one after another. This time, the room was a little fuller than it had been three days ago. He didn't recognize several faces in the front, while a few people in the back were ones he'd seen the day Old Zhou showed him around the duty stations.
The folding chairs made intermittent scraping sounds. No one was making a point of talking. The atmosphere in the meeting room was much the same as it had been three days ago, carrying the patient endurance of people waiting for a fixed procedure to run its course.
Zheng Yang stood beside him, leaning against the wall, just as she had three days ago. She still hadn't taken a seat.
Today, she was carrying an extra folder. It wasn't the same style as Su Ding'an's; it was older, with worn corners. He didn't ask what was inside.
At exactly nine, Mr. He walked in. The bookmark in his notebook was already placed on the right page. His tone was exactly the same as it had been three days ago, even the pauses nearly identical. Even the number of steps he took before stopping at the long table seemed to have been counted in advance.
“Duty station number: Sunrise 732. Decommissioning execution date: today.”
He turned his notebook halfway to confirm the number of people present. When his gaze swept over the last row, it paused on Su Ding'an for less than a second.
“Any objections?”
As usual, after asking, he paused for two seconds. The pause was precisely the same length as three days ago, like a blank space written into the procedure, waiting for no one to fill it.
Su Ding'an raised his hand.
The movement in the meeting room was more pronounced than it had been three days ago. The folding chairs scraped more densely, and several people turned to look at him.
One person lowered his voice and said to the person beside him, “Isn't that the new temp? He was the one asking questions at the last decommissioning meeting.”
Someone else murmured, “I heard he's been digging through the Staffing Division's records until late these past few days. Someone even said he copied out the entire operations manual.”
Mr. He's gaze settled on him. He said nothing, waiting for him to speak.
His expression didn't change at all. It was the same as when he normally presided over the proceedings, impossible to tell whether he was surprised or had expected this all along.
Su Ding'an stood, opened his folder, and turned to the page marked with highlighter.
“The special annual leave provision in the operations manual.”
He read the sentence aloud. His voice wasn't especially loud, but the meeting room was quiet enough that every word could be heard clearly.
He could feel the back of his neck growing warm. In his four years of working, this was the first time he'd spoken up in front of so many people to challenge a procedure that had already been finalized. But once the words left his mouth, the tension slowly began to recede.
“Duty officers who have been employed for three full years are granted thirty days of special annual leave each year. Unused leave accumulates and does not expire.”
He extended the folder half a step forward, then raised his head and looked at the old woman.
“She has been employed for 160 years.”
He paused, then turned the photocopied page around so the people in the front row could see the number circled on it.
He had traced over that number three times with a red pen the night before, afraid the ink would be too faint to read in the photocopy. He had even wrinkled the corner of the page from tracing it so much.
“That comes to exactly 4,800 days of accumulated annual leave.”
No one spoke in the meeting room. This silence was different from the one before.
The earlier silence had been people waiting to see what would happen next. This time, no one could process what they were supposed to say.
Su Ding'an quickly did the math in his head. Four thousand eight hundred days divided by 365 came to more than thirteen years. If she started taking leave now, she could sleep all the way to Minguo 127 and still not have used it all.
When the thought flashed through his mind, even he found the number so absurd it was almost funny. But he didn't say that part aloud.
“She wasn't absent without leave.”
He closed the folder and tucked it under his arm.
“She was on leave. And she hasn't finished using it yet. She can't finish using it.”
The silence lasted two or three seconds. Then it exploded.
A duty officer in the middle row stood up first, dragging his chair half a slot backward with him and producing a shrill scrape. He startled himself and hurriedly sat back down, but his mouth had already started moving.
“Do I have any, too?” asked a duty officer in a station staff uniform in the front row. His voice trembled slightly.
“How long have I been employed? Does anyone know?” someone beside him immediately called out.
“Does the thirty days have to be taken consecutively, or can I split it up?” another voice burst from the back row, sounding as frantic as someone fighting for a limited-time sale item.
“Then does the compensatory leave I've been owed for 160 years earn interest?” someone else asked. He started laughing as soon as he finished, and the people around him immediately joined in.
The old woman still wore the same expression, though her brow had furrowed more deeply. She turned to the person beside her and asked, “Do I still have to come in tomorrow?” Her voice was soft, and most of it was drowned out by the commotion in the front rows.
The person beside her couldn't answer either and could only shake their head.
Old Zhou sat diagonally ahead of Su Ding'an. Only now did he mutter a curse, so quietly that it was barely audible, but Su Ding'an heard every word.
He turned and shot Su Ding'an a look whose meaning was perfectly clear: What the hell did you do, newbie?
Mr. He did not join the commotion. He lowered his head and flipped through his notebook, slowly turning back one page at a time. It took nearly half a minute before he stopped, pressing a finger to one line and turning no further.
He was the only person in the entire meeting room who wasn't speaking. He didn't look up at anyone, simply waiting in silence for the commotion to pass on its own.
It did not die down quickly. Several duty officers had already stood up and gathered around one another, asking questions. For a while, the meeting room's voices tangled into one indistinguishable mess.
He closed his notebook and raised his head, waiting for the meeting room to gradually quiet down.
The wait didn't take long. The duty officers were still whispering among themselves, but once he looked up, no one dared continue speaking loudly. The volume dropped in layers until only the occasional scrape of a folding chair remained.
“What you did is procedurally unobjectionable.”
His tone was the same as usual, neither raised nor lowered, as if he were reading the conclusion of an official document.
He said the four words evenly, in the same tone he had used to read out the duty station number, without the slightest trace of frustration or reluctance.
“Decommissioning case: withdrawn.”
Su Ding'an hadn't yet had time to breathe a sigh of relief when Mr. He continued.
“But reviewing another person's attendance records is outside the scope of your duties.”
His gaze shifted to Su Ding'an's face and stayed there.
“I'll include this item in the next audit.”
After saying that, he opened his notebook and flipped forward another page. The motion was so quick that Su Ding'an couldn't see what he wrote. He only saw the pen remain on the paper for less than two seconds.
When he finished speaking, he turned and left without another word. He tucked the notebook back under his arm, and his footsteps neither quickened nor slowed all the way to the door.
He didn't even glance at the old woman as he passed her, as though she were no longer the main character of this meeting.
The commotion in the meeting room hadn't completely dispersed. Several duty officers crowded around Su Ding'an, bombarding him with questions about whether he could help them look up their own annual leave balances.
Some wrote their duty station numbers on slips of paper and shoved them at him. Some asked whether he charged a fee and how much. Others grabbed his sleeve and wouldn't let go, saying they'd been employed for nearly fifty years too and asking whether they might have thousands of days as well.
The old woman was pushed half a step to the side by the crowd. She was still quietly asking whether anyone had answered her question from before, but no one paid attention to her. Everyone's attention had shifted to themselves.
Overwhelmed by the questions, he nodded as he made his way out, saying, “I'll look into it first,” and, “I'll let you know if there's anything.” Three or four slips of paper had been shoved into each of his hands, the handwriting so sloppy he could barely make out the duty station numbers.
He finally managed to escape into the hallway, where Zheng Yang was already waiting.
She held out a sheet of paper.
Su Ding'an took it and glanced down. It was a duty delegation form, and the edges of the paper were still slightly warm, as if it had come out of the printer not long ago.
The date at the top said three days ago. The fields were filled in with what he had done over the past few days, and the reason field read: assisting with the attendance record audit for duty officer Sunrise 732.
The handwriting was as neat as Zheng Yang's usual forms, even the signature in the handler field already filled in.
“With this, your access was authorized.”
After Zheng Yang said that, she put her hands in her pockets and looked toward the end of the hallway without looking at him again.
One of the fluorescent lights in the hallway was flickering, brightening and dimming, stretching her shadow longer and shorter across the wall by turns.
Su Ding'an stared at the date for two seconds. Three days ago, he hadn't even started looking anything up. At that point, he hadn't yet figured out how to write the access request.
She had only just filled out this form, making it look exactly like the real thing. A small stamp he had never seen was pressed into the approval field, the edges of the red ink slightly blurred, clearly stamped down with force.
“What about you?” he asked.
Her name would be on this form. Filling it out retroactively was just as far outside the permitted procedure as his review of the records. If Mr. He discovered when the form had actually been completed, she might be the first person listed in the audit—not him.
Zheng Yang glanced at him without offering any further explanation.
“I'll be fine.”
She said it lightly, without the slightest hesitation.
She turned and headed toward the Staffing Division. After walking a few steps, she stopped and added over her shoulder, “Remember to organize the form with the annual leave calculations tomorrow. Otherwise, those people will keep coming to ask. I've already gotten three internal calls about it today.”
“And one more thing.”
She paused again, this time without turning around.
“Mr. He said he'd include it in the audit. It usually takes one to two weeks for them to schedule it. For now, keep an exact record of your own hours. Don't give him any other leverage.”
Then she really did leave. Her footsteps receded down the hall and disappeared around the corner.
Su Ding'an stood in the hallway, watching the direction in which she had vanished. The duty delegation form in his hand had acquired a crease.
He lowered his head and looked at the date again. Three days ago. That day, he had still been writing the words access request in his notebook. He hadn't found anything yet, and he was still debating whether he should really investigate at all.
He carefully folded the form and put it into his inner coat pocket, together with the other backup document.
The flickering fluorescent light at the end of the hallway continued to brighten and dim. He stood there for several seconds before turning toward the elevators, preparing to return to Hongchang Trading and continue his afternoon's work.
Before the elevator doors closed, he reached into his pocket again to make sure the duty delegation form was still there.
He planned to look up the duty station numbers on those slips of paper one by one that night. Those people would probably all come asking for the results tomorrow. But more than that, he wanted to figure out exactly what Mr. He had written on that line in his notebook.