It's cold, but the snow hasn't fallen yet.
On the way back from the hospital to the Internet cafe, the temperature seemed to drop another 10 degrees.
Lin Zhaoxi bought antipyretics at the pharmacy next to the Internet cafe, and specially ordered the kind that would not let you fall asleep after taking it.
The pharmacist at the pharmacy probably saw that she was young, so he pulled her to ask a few more questions, and especially told her to seek medical treatment in time if her condition was serious, as a long-term cough might be dragged into pneumonia.
Anyway, there is nothing to be afraid of if there are too many flags. Lin Zhaoxi sniffed, opened the thick cotton curtain of the Internet cafe, and the hot and humid air rushed in.
She walked back to her seat, picked up the glass, went to the water dispenser to get a glass of water, and took the antipyretic medicine first as Brother Pei instructed.
Although she was emotionally helpless, Pei Zhi's eyes were still deep in front of her eyes when she left, but she felt that she still had the strength to suppress these helplessness and despair.
Without thinking about Pei Zhi's last expression, without thinking about how urgent the time is, Lin Zhaoxi turned on the phone again and observed the data in the morning.
The first thing she has to do is to separate these documents into the categories of data she wants. Thinking of this, she opened the notebook on the table, which contained the process she had sorted out a long time ago, as well as how to classify and organize the data.
Lin Zhaoxi calmed down, focusing on the new urban traffic flow. She classified the data related to this part into a new folder first, and then downloaded a file name sorting program to rename the arrangement.
She had timed the steps in her head, telling herself that everything was in order, but in reality, the process was often anxiety-intensive.
As time passed, she finally finished sorting out the documents for the first time and converted some excel documents into csv format. It was such a simple operation. When she finished it, it was already past four o'clock in the afternoon.
Outside the window, a blizzard crushed the city, and the clouds were as thick as ink.
Lin Zhaoxi shuddered suddenly, maybe it was the effect of the antipyretic medicine, she glanced at the bottom right corner of the computer again.
At 17:11, she had already spent three times longer than expected, so she was very sure that according to the current progress, she could not complete the program rewriting.
On the computer desktop was the document she had sorted out the city traffic flow data, and the screen was dazzlingly bright. On the other side, the unorganized folder scroll bar is as thin as a thin straight line.
Execution of the plan is like this. When the progress is slow and difficult to reach the sky, no matter how firm the belief is, it will be polished to a fragile state.
The high fever made her ache all over her body and her headaches were splitting. She seemed to be wrapped in a hot bubble, and many twisted and bizarre plots always appeared in front of her eyes. In other words, she seemed to be in a dim space debris.
She could see herself sitting in a corner of the dilapidated Internet cafe, facing the huge orange-red "Net" on the window. Due to the temperature difference between inside and outside, the window was covered with white mist.
She could also see her hand dragging the mouse, the software alternated on the screen, with a white background and a lot of thin black data.
She operates the import wizard, defines some additional options, selects the target table, and imports things into the mysql database.
She found herself moving very slowly, at least much slower than usual. Sometimes I suddenly lag because my brain can't react, so I can only look at my notebook and write a note or two.
The sky outside the window is getting darker, and the street lights are gradually turning on.
A small amount of data was imported, and she started to adjust the program, but then—
unboundlocalerror: local variable 'road' referenced before assignment
indexerror: list index outrange
…
The constant error messages made her scalp tingle, as if something was constantly grinding the aching nerves in her brain that were tortured by the high fever. But the part of consciousness that was still awake told her, calm down, you are modifying the program, and it is normal to report errors.
But mistakes kept appearing, which made her search and modify exhaustedly, as if she had returned to the most helpless time when she first started learning this thing. The time at the bottom of the screen kept jumping backwards, and she could even hear the "tick" and "tick" sound of the wall clock in the Internet cafe.
It would be great if there was more time, Lin Zhaoxi kept thinking about it. The tip of the ballpoint pen brushed against the thin book, and she looked down at the characters she had drawn unconsciously, the shallow and scribbled e=mc^2.
Lin Zhaoxi's pen paused, staring at Boben, the lights of the Internet cafe scattered through the misty smoke, she suddenly realized that it doesn't matter if you can't finish it.
Yes.
The idea of "it doesn't matter if you can't finish it" came out of nowhere.
But it is very likely that it has long been hidden deep in her emotions, in that dark and cramped corner, suppressed by her with many emotions, but it will burst out suddenly when she does not want to face reality.
The characters on the thin book made her clearly aware of everything she experienced now—whether it was the voice she heard or the air she breathed, or her running yesterday and every action of clicking the mouse anxiously now, even including just now. Holding Pei Zhi's hand is just a time in the past.
It manifests itself as an alternate mode of development for the storyline in a parallel universe, and gives her the illusion that she can change something.
But in fact, the past is the past. All she is doing now is to make up for the regrets she once had.
But for her, regret has clearly happened.
In the real real world, after all, Pei Zhi is the young man she has loved for many years but has no time to confess. He has already boarded the plane at the airport and is about to go to a foreign country to study.
Lao Lin is the forty-five-year-old middle-aged man suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He has packed up all his drafts and is fully prepared to slowly lose his memory.
And she was just a girl who was unwilling to let everything end like this, and traveled through time and space to "cheat" for her father.
Now, Lao Lin's thesis has been basically completed.
All she has to do now is turn off the computer in the Internet cafe, go back to the guest house, open the document that Lao Lin put on the computer in the guest house, and start reciting.
and go back.
As long as she brought back Lao Lin's thesis, she had already completed all the tasks of this trip.
Yes, just go back, and she was destined to go back.
The feeling of relaxation is intoxicating. The air conditioner in the Internet cafe is blowing a gentle breeze. Lin Zhaoxi looks out of the window as if soaked in warm water.
On the window directly opposite her was pasted the word "net" in orange and red, with the corners rolled up. Pedestrians are coming and going on the street downstairs, and the stoves of the roadside snack bars on the street are emitting white steam. Farther away, the whole city is immersed in the peaceful lights of winter nights.
Fatigue came like a tide, and she really wanted to lie on the table and take a nap.
Lin Zhaoxi leaned on the table and gradually closed her eyes.
"Your database is too large."
Like an auditory hallucination, a crisp and lively boy's voice appeared in her ears.
She forced herself to open her eyes a little, turned her head, and saw a boy who looked like a primary school student standing beside her. The boy wears a giant gaming headset on his head, bites a strawberry-flavored lollipop, and has huge eyes.
"This is python, right? I sat behind you and played the game for three days. I watched you change the program for three days." The boy came over very familiarly like a chatterbox, and he pointed out in a tone that smelled like strawberry candy. Looking at her screen, she said: "Here, counting starts from 0, and the length of the last character is reduced by 1."
Lin Zhaoxi braced herself up, looked at the error report on the screen, and realized that it was indeed the problem.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome," said the little boy, "but that won't solve your problem."
Lin Zhaoxi looked at the boy: "My question?"
"Lookuperror, the base class for invalid data query." The little boy said to himself while looking at the screen, "The database is overloaded, your previous database is much smaller than it is now."
In an instant, cold sweat slid down her spine.
In the dark space, someone's computer suddenly turned off and shouted "network administrator", and someone asked the boss to deliver a bowl of Laotan sauerkraut noodles to the table. The tinnitus struck again, and she felt the smell of blood on her lips.
She suddenly realized that the problem she encountered was almost one of the most unsolvable problems in the field of computing.
The boy continued to say: "Your calculations are increasing exponentially. I suggest you find a normal online game server to run the program, but it may not be successful. God knows where there are bugs. Otherwise, please forgive Yongzheng." Father try?"
"Lord Yongzheng..."
"Dedicated to the eighth elder brother (bug)!"
The joke was cold, but Lin Zhaoxi couldn't laugh at all.
The little boy has bright eyes. Perhaps because his intelligence level is higher than that of his peers, he unconsciously uses an adult tone that does not match his age when he speaks, eager to communicate with older people.
For some reason, Lin Zhaoxi thought of Pei Zhi, even though they were completely different.
"Is there any other way?" She heard herself make such a dry voice.
The boy pondered for a moment, snapped his fingers, and suddenly became excited: "Quantum computer!"
The sudden hope was shattered again, and Lin Zhaoxi felt that she might really be crazy.
At that moment just now, she almost desperately put all her hopes on the little boy she met in this dilapidated Internet cafe.
"Um, I'm just kidding, don't be sad." The boy hurriedly said, "If you can't solve the hardware problem, start with the data and design a new mathematical model."
"Design a new mathematical model." Lin Zhaoxi repeated this sentence.
"If you can design a better model and load the data in a more reasonable way; or simplify your original data through processing, it's fine. But in the computer field, mathematical models are the most difficult. General programs Employees can only write code, and can make models with a million annual salary."
Probably because her face was too ugly, the boy became cautious: "Are you angry? My boss said that I talk too much and I will be beaten when I go out. Do I talk too much?"
"No, thank you very much." Lin Zhaoxi wanted to reach out and rub the boy's head, but she didn't have any strength.
"My name is Wang Chao, nice to meet you." The boy made a very gentlemanly farewell gesture, and finally said: "A mortal like you doesn't know how to make models, so don't feel inferior, after all, even I don't know how at present."
The little boy was as proud and sincere as most gifted teenagers. After he finished speaking, he left.
Actually, before he mentioned the final conclusion, Lin Zhaoxi already knew the answer—she couldn't do it.
In just a few breaths, she experienced the moment when her hopes were ignited and shattered again. She no longer had the previous sadness, but more of some clear self-cognition.
Her relaxation just now, all the thoughts of "this is over" are just her unwillingness to face the explanation of her own incompetence.
The computer screen is dotted with mottled bright red characters, just like the teacher's corrections on the test papers from childhood to adulthood, right, wrong, right and wrong.
Lin Zhaoxi closed her eyes, her head was full of red wounds, intricate and densely covered like blood vessels. That was what she saw on Pei Zhi's arm just now, it was very shallow, some scabs had formed, but there were also newly opened flesh.
Those suppressed pictures couldn't stop popping up—Pei Zhi's retracted wrist, his voice, and finally his eyes looking at her. These images are continuously edited, pieced together, and reappeared in a loop.
At a certain moment, a certain part of her emotions that had been suppressed by her for a long time seemed to be finally completely liberated through some way she could not detect.
She suddenly understood Pei Zhi's last gaze.
That is the deepest reluctance and attachment to his mother. He was not forced to stay there, nor did he self-harm because of being tortured by his mother. He just couldn't solve the conflict between them.
He also has a way.
Lin Zhaoxi used to think that as long as one works hard enough, one can always get what one wants.
But in fact, she couldn't save Lao Lin at all, and all the companionship never lessened Pei Zhi's pain.
After all, even Lao Lin was forced to give up mathematics because of her birth. In real life, being a genius is not the answer to all problems. Because geniuses are often tempered by fate.
Now, she can only be forced to give up.
She moved the cursor to the program close button, and the teenagers screamed softly in the Internet cafe. She looked out the window, only to find that the first snowflakes had finally fallen from the sky since this winter.
The street lamps illuminate the snowflakes brightly.
She held the mouse tightly and finally cried.