togophonebook Chapter 236 The Rider's Countdown
Chapter 236 The Rider's Countdown
Zhou Yuan walked through the revolving door of the Lightyear Technology Building, and security guard Xiao Li habitually glanced at the clock on the wall.
Normally, at this time, Mr. Zhou would walk through the lobby at a fixed pace of 2.5 steps per second, but today he was unusually slow.
Zhou Yuan was holding a cup of soy milk he bought from a street vendor. Water droplets clung to the plastic cup. He even stopped and glanced at the dust on the leaves of the green plants in the lobby.
The atmosphere in the top-floor conference room plummeted to freezing point.
The investor's representative, Li Mingda, slammed a stack of evaluation reports onto the long table.
"The retention rate of the recommendation algorithm has decreased by three percentage points month-on-month."
"Zhou Yuan, you haven't submitted any code optimization proposals in the last three days. I heard you went to a traditional Chinese medicine shop in an urban village?" Li Mingda interlaced his fingers, leaned forward, and said aggressively, "The board believes that your mental state is no longer sufficient to support the underlying architecture work at the T0 level. We propose to bring in an external technical consultant to take over the core codebase."
The meeting room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Several core programmers lowered their heads, preparing to face Zhou Yuanping's usual barrage of data attacks.
Zhou Yuan took a sip of soy milk and placed the plastic cup on the six-figure rosewood conference table. A dark ring of water seeped from the bottom of the cup.
"The decline in retention rate is because I modified the dopamine feedback threshold." Zhou Yuan pulled out a chair and sat down, without opening the laptop in front of him. "In the past, our algorithms were feeding users mental nourishment. The shorter and quicker the stimulation, the more addicted the users became. This looked good in the short term. In the long run, users' neural synapses develop tolerance to this kind of stimulation. In layman's terms, they get tired of it."
Li Mingda frowned: "The data doesn't lie; users' online time is decreasing, that's a hard indicator."
"This is exactly what we wanted." Zhou Yuan leaned back in his chair, his relaxed tone making everyone feel strangely unfamiliar. "There's a law of entropy increase in physics. Within a closed system, the degree of disorder only increases. By trapping users in information cocoons, we're creating entropy increase in the system. Sooner or later, this closed loop will collapse. I cut off 15% of the high-frequency stimulation recommendations, forcibly reducing noise in the system. Short-term online time decreased, but the completion rate of in-depth content increased by 40%."
He stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and instead of drawing a complex logic tree, he drew a yin-yang symbol.
"This is the chaos model I just learned. Yin and Yang are interdependent, and things will inevitably reverse when they reach their extremes." Zhou Yuan pointed to the boundary between black and white with a marker. "At the end of an algorithm, it can't all be calculation; there has to be room for space. Only by leaving room for users to breathe can we build a truly long-term ecosystem."
Li Mingda stared at the Tai Chi diagram, speechless for a moment.
All his prepared data attack and defense plans were completely ineffective.
"No need for external consultants. The next update will be codenamed 'Return to Origin'." Zhou Yuan threw his pen on the table. "Meeting adjourned."
As Zhou Yuan stepped out of the conference room, he checked his pulse.
Very stable.
The doctor named Wang Minyu used the most primitive methods to shatter his superstitious belief in code.
Sometimes, acknowledging the limitations of machines is the beginning of human wisdom.
Renxin Pharmacy, Old Street, Changxiang City.
Wang Minyu sat behind the counter, fiddling with the abacus with his fingers.
Su Qing took the electronic calculator and disassembled it, saying she wanted to extract the logic board inside.
The clattering sound of the abacus beads was particularly crisp in the quiet afternoon.
An argument broke out in the backyard.
"Are you out of your mind, you tin lumps! I painstakingly collected these ginkgo leaves to compost for planting angelica, why did you sweep them so clean!" Old Cai's furious voice pierced through the curtain.
"According to Article 3 of the cleaning agreement, fallen leaves are considered disorderly debris and affect the cleanliness of the space. My cleaning path follows the Archimedes' spiral, which is the most efficient." Wang Wei, wearing a cleaning uniform and holding a broom, spoke in a flat, monotone voice.
"I need humus to grow medicinal herbs! This is called ecological cycle!" Old Cai said, waving his hoe.
"There are too many uncontrollable variables in the ecological cycle. I suggest adopting hydroponics with nutrient solution drip irrigation, which can improve the accuracy to 99.9%," Wang Wei argued.
Wang Minyu lifted the curtain and looked at the old man and the young man who were arguing back and forth.
One is a traditional medicinal herb farmer who sticks to the soil, and the other is a high-dimensional weapon that has retained extreme rationality after being formatted.
"Alright," Wang Minyu interrupted them. "Old Cai, if you need fertilizer, go to the training camp and find Shen Wanshan. The mud they left over from building the pigsty is rich in trace elements. Wang Wei, put down the broom and go wipe the glass door. While you're at it, test your damping joint."
The two immediately stopped arguing and went about their own business.
Guan Shan walked over carrying a large bowl of noodles with soybean paste, squatted on the doorstep, and slurped it down. "Boss, those big bosses have been staying in the pigsty for almost a week. Shen Wanshan even asked me yesterday if I could get them some cement; they want to build a chicken coop next to it."
"Sure. Sell the cement by the gram, and tell them it's a special medical building material." Wang Minyu turned a page of the ledger.
Just then, the glass door of the pharmacy was suddenly pushed open.
A young man in a yellow delivery uniform rushed in.
He wasn't wearing a helmet; his hair was matted with sweat and stuck to his forehead.
His eyes were bloodshot, and his eye bags were so swollen they had a bluish-purple tinge.
The man gripped his phone tightly with his left hand, while his right hand unconsciously scratched at the air.
"Medicine...prescribe me some medicine, sleeping pills, or sedatives, anything will do!" The man's voice was hoarse, filled with extreme panic.
Wang Minyu didn't move, his gaze fixed on the man's phone screen.
There's a red countdown timer ticking: 02:14, 02:13...
"Did you hear that?" The man nervously looked around. "A ticking sound. It keeps ticking. I haven't taken any orders, but it's still ticking."
Su Qing peeked out from the second floor and adjusted her black-rimmed glasses: "Severe anxiety accompanied by auditory hallucinations. Heart rate estimated to be over 120, sympathetic nervous system persistently hyperactive."
The man's name is Sun Qiang, a food delivery rider who has been running wildly through the system's algorithms for three years.
Wang Minyu pointed to the wooden stool in front of the counter: "Sit down. Hold out your hand."
Sun Qiang couldn't sit still; his body swayed back and forth like it was made of springs. "I'm out of time! One minute left! I'll be penalized for being late, three yuan! I completed eighty orders today, all gone!"
He suddenly squatted down, hugged his head, and let out a trapped animal-like whimper.
Wang Minyu walked around the counter, stood in front of Sun Qiang, and suddenly struck out, precisely pinching the Shenmen and Neiguan acupoints on the inside of Sun Qiang's wrist. The force was immense.
Sun Qiang groaned, his struggling movements halting for a moment.
In traditional Chinese medicine theory, Shenmen (HT7) governs the heart qi, and Neiguan (PC6) regulates the pericardium.
Wang Minyu used the pressure of his fingertips to forcibly block part of the nerve conduction.
"Guan Shan, take his phone away," Wang Minyu ordered.
Guan Shan walked over and easily snatched the phone from Sun Qiang's convulsing fingers.
The countdown on the screen reached zero, emitting a piercing alarm sound.
Sun Qiang shuddered, his whole body deflated like a punctured balloon, and he collapsed to the ground.
"I was penalized... I was late..." he muttered to himself.
Wang Minyu looked down at him and asked, "How many hours do you run every day?"
"Sixteen... sometimes eighteen. The system says that as long as I run fast enough, I can upgrade to a King Rider and the price per unit will increase by 50 cents." Sun Qiang's eyes were unfocused.
This is a typical problem in modern cities.
Technological systems break down human labor into data packets measured in seconds, and through punishment and tiny rewards, they tame humans into extensions of algorithms.
Sun Qiang wasn't sick; he was being exploited by the system to his physical limits.
Wang Minyu turned to look at the second floor: "Su Qing, can you rewrite the time flow in his phone?"
"Physical rewriting is impossible; that's controlled by the platform server. But I can write a small program and implant it into the underlying logic of his phone." Su Qing's fingers flew across the keyboard. "I can intercept the platform's notification sounds and slow down the countdown display rate on the UI by fifty percent. What he sees as one second is actually 1.5 seconds in the real world."
"Do."
Wang Minyu pulled Sun Qiang up and pressed him down onto the wooden stool.
He turned around and grabbed some medicine from the medicine drawer.
Three qian of Ziziphus jujuba seed, five qian of Poria cocos, two qian of Anemarrhena asphodeloides, one and a half qian of Ligusticum chuanxiong, and one qian of Glycyrrhiza uralensis. This classic Ziziphus jujuba seed decoction is specifically for treating weakness, fatigue, and insomnia.
"Pierre!" Wang Minyu shouted towards the kitchen.
A French chef, wearing an apron covered in flour, peeked out.
"Decoct this medicine. Add some of your caramel sea salt for flavor. The patient needs to replenish sugar quickly, but it shouldn't be too sweet, lest it cause phlegm."
Wang Minyu tossed the medicine packet to Pierre and looked at Sun Qiang again.
"From now on, your time is under my control," Wang Minyu said calmly. "The consultation fee is 10,000 yuan, you can pay it off now. When you're cured, you'll go and do manual labor to pay off the debt."