# Chapter 020 After It Starts Going Up
The coin-collecting inquiry at the end of May didn’t turn into a business deal. In June, the other side reported a price again. After Ye Yan finished reading it, he went to repair the desktop computer waiting at the front for pickup, and Xiao Yizi didn’t agree on his behalf either.
By mid-July, that person asked again, and the price they were willing to pay was higher than before. In the forum, people were also discussing raising the asking price. A few replies each had their own explanations. Xiao Yizi flipped page after page, and the more she read, the closer she found herself sliding toward the front edge of her chair.
Ye Yan still hadn’t gotten around to it. She had already moved the two rounds of questions to a spot where they could be seen at the same time, tilting her head to look at the repair counter. He was checking a computer that would shut itself down after not long—its case was open. The customer had brought it in that morning, saying they would take it back home to use later that evening.
“See? Someone really is willing to offer more.”
She tried to sound casual, but couldn’t hide the excitement in her voice. Ye Yan came over and leaned down to look. She stepped aside to make room, waiting for him to read the earlier listing too. He didn’t laugh right away, the way he had when he saw the pizza post. Instead, he went behind the counter and found last year’s operating log.
Seven narrow boxes, and nothing after the last one. The sheet had been lying behind the counter for a long time; a faint ring of dust marked its edge. Ye Yan brushed it away with his finger, found a blank spot, wrote down the month they’d shut it off, then worked out the time up to now. His pen paused between the two dates before he wrote a multiplication sign below.
When Xiao Yezi leaned closer, he crossed it out.
“What if we hadn’t shut it down afterward?” Ye Yan kept staring at the sheet. “Who knows how much more we could’ve kept. Back then, we just thought it was taking up a machine. Now people are actually asking about the price.”
She’d thought about that too. So many familiar years crowded into her mind, and she almost told him that if they’d kept it running a little longer, this small change wouldn’t have amounted to much. But Ye Yan had already pushed the sheet beside the screen and turned to ask her: since she always said someone would want it eventually, when would be the right time?
“Let’s wait a little longer.”
“Until the end of this month, or another year?”
She looked at the new quote, half of her earlier excitement still on her face. She could say where things would be a year from now. But if she had to pick a day in the weeks ahead, she couldn’t even say whether the next offer would be higher.
“I can’t say when.”
Ye Yan didn’t press her. He picked up the operating log, looked it over, and folded it along its old crease without adding any figures after the seven boxes. A sound suddenly came from the repair bench, and the screen went black. He hurried over. Xiao Yezi had been about to go sit beside him, but someone at the door rapped their knuckles on the counter.
The visitor wore a short-sleeved shirt and asked if the shop had any cheap secondhand machines. He didn’t care what the case looked like, as long as it could stay on. He’d heard they’d tinkered with Bitcoin here too, so he’d dropped by to take a look. As he spoke, he kept glancing at the tower on the shelf.
Junzi had been counting power cables. Hearing this, he slowed down. “We tried it last year.”
The visitor asked how much they’d kept. From behind the open computer case, Ye Yan said they still had the fifty from back then.
“Fifty?” The man laughed. “You got into it so early, and that’s all you kept?”
Xiao Yezi pushed the webpage into the background. But he hadn’t come just to laugh at them. He told them about some recent offers he’d seen, which were much like the ones she’d just been looking at. He said he’d saved up quite a bit himself and now wanted to find a few more cheap machines and get them running. No one knew how much he actually had. He pulled a roll of cash from his pocket, nodded toward the old machine by the wall, and said he’d take the whole thing, to save the shop the space.
Junzi glanced at the roll of cash and tapped the side of the computer case. Xiao Yezi’s heart tightened, and she was about to speak, but he pulled his hand back and told the visitor not to touch the paper box under the counter.
“That one’s not for sale today. We haven’t sorted out the drive yet. If you want an empty machine, you’ll have to wait until I have time to check it.”
The visitor then asked if he could use the shop’s test station that afternoon. He was willing to pay. This time, Junzi didn’t even put down the power cable. He gestured toward Ye Yan: that machine had to be repaired and tested first. It was due back that evening.
The visitor still thought it was a shame. Pointing at the shelf, he asked how much money they could possibly lose by turning down one small repair job. Junzi picked out two cables that would work and carried them to the repair bench. Only when he came back did he reply that the customer had already made an appointment, and it wouldn’t be right to make them come for nothing.
“You’re too slow at doing business.” The visitor stuffed the money back into his pocket. “I’ll ask around somewhere else.”
He walked to the door, then glanced back at the old machine, still a little reluctant to leave it behind. Junzi didn’t follow him. He lowered his head and tied up the remaining cables. Xiao Yezi watched him go out, then returned to the repair bench. Ye Yan had already removed the cooling fan. Its blades spun freely when turned by hand, but when connected, it would run for a while, then stop, over and over. The shaft was badly stiff.
The customer picking up her machine arrived earlier than agreed. Carrying a bag for the computer tower, she said she had to hurry back after work and asked them to hand it over as soon as it was fixed. Ye Yan had just found a suitable replacement part, and still needed to install it and test it. As soon as Xiao Yezi heard, she pulled out the stool by the door.
She could have waited beside Ye Yan and gone over those few quotes with him again. But the customer had already spread out her bag, ready to take the machine, so Xiao Yezi went over and told her they’d found the problem: the old fan wasn’t spinning steadily, and they were replacing it.
“Will it take long?”
She looked at Ye Yan. He was comparing the mounting points on the two fans and had no hands free to answer. Xiao Yezi didn’t call out to him. She went to Junzi to confirm the price they’d quoted earlier, then brought the replacement part’s box over to show the customer. After the customer sat down, she returned to the parts cabinet, found the screws Ye Yan had just asked for, and cleared a space for the side panel so they wouldn’t have to rummage around when it was time to hand over the machine.
When the machine restarted, the customer stood up to gather her bag. Xiao Yezi stopped her and asked her to wait a little longer. This time, Ye Yan didn’t rush to put the side panel back on either. He let the machine run as it normally would and leaned over to check the fan several times. Before, the screen had always gone black around this point. Now it stayed lit, and air blew out through the heat sink, carrying a faint smell of freshly cleared dust.
The customer sat back down and began telling Junzi that she’d thought the outlet was the problem, but moving to a different one hadn’t helped. Xiao Yezi picked up the conversation, letting Ye Yan stay by the machine. After a while, Ye Yan finally put the side panel back on, pushed the tower over to the counter, and asked her to use it herself for a bit.
After sitting down and testing it, the customer shut the machine down and bent over to open her bag. Ye Yan helped her put the tower inside, holding it steady on both sides. She paid in cash, and Junzi counted out her change. She wanted to ask one more thing about how to keep it from breaking down again, so Junzi walked her to the door and told her not to place the vents right up against a wall, and to bring it back if anything came up. When he returned, he entered the payment in the shop ledger and took the pickup slip off the counter.
Xiao Yezi put the old fan in the scrap-parts box. Ye Yan picked up his cup, but it was already empty. She refilled it with water and couldn’t help bringing up the person who’d said fifty was too little.
“He makes it sound so easy. He just takes the machine and keeps it running.”
Ye Yan blew on the water and looked at the half-sheet of paper sticking out from under the counter. “I was thinking about that too. But last year, we only ran it for those few periods. There’s nothing to calculate for the days it was sitting idle.”
He drank some water and went to look at the next machine. This time, Xiao Yezi didn’t bring the webpage back up. She put the stool the customer had used back in its place first.
Wu Chunhua came by in the evening to reconcile the accounts. She didn’t realize they’d been talking about running the machine again until she saw the operating log Ye Yan had left by the edge of the counter. She picked it up and asked if those marks for electricity usage were from their original test runs. Ye Yan came over and pointed them out to her. Then she looked through Junzi’s expense book and found the electricity bill he’d paid out of pocket for the shop earlier.
Xiao Yezi thought for a moment, then said they’d already collected payment for today’s repair, and the small data job they’d finished earlier had also been entered in the books. Could they pay back that amount first, then see how much was left?
Wu Chunhua didn’t answer right away. She entered the fan used today in the parts ledger, first asking Junzi to set aside its purchase cost. Then she picked out two other invoices that were due and asked him to check whether either had already been paid but not recorded. Junzi checked them one by one, opened the drawer, and counted out the amount owed for the parts. Wu Chunhua just helped him note where the money was going; he was still the one who put it in the bag.
Xiao Yezi had been thinking about getting the machine on the shelf running too. They’d been finishing one job after another lately, and when she saw there was more money in the drawer, she felt they ought to have a little more room to breathe. Only when Junzi took a stack of bills and put it in the parts-payment bag did she realize she hadn’t kept track of which things they still owed money on. The image of that man buying an old machine with a roll of cash came back to her, and she pulled her hand away from the machine on the shelf.
The last person outside asking for a price had left. Wu Chunhua let the door curtain fall, and only then did her voice change.
“I’d just spent the day chasing down a payment, sitting at someone’s place waiting for so long. Then I came back and heard you wanted to run more machines.” She looked at Ye Yan. “At least we had this sheet to show how much we used before. Now, just hearing someone make an offer is enough to make you regret all those days you left them off.”
Ye Yan didn’t argue. He put the sheet with its seven boxes back beside her and let her do the math first.
Once they’d paid back the electricity costs from the old test runs out of the money they’d taken in, the amount left in the drawer to spend shrank at once. Junzi fingered the few bills that remained, reluctant to let them go. He checked the ledger one more time, then put the money aside in a small paper bag of its own.
“We’ll only keep this much.” He set the bag beside the ledger. “Tell me before you run any tests next time. The machines still need to earn money. Don’t let this push out work people are coming to pick up again.”
Wu Chunhua recorded the spending limit in the ledger, leaving the purpose blank and not marking the money as already spent. Xiao Yezi took the ledger and pushed aside her idea of keeping more machines running. She wrote a tiny question mark beside that entry instead.
When they closed up, Junzi put the bag for the parts payment in the clip he’d take with him tomorrow. The small paper bag stayed in the back of the drawer. Ye Yan tucked the operating log into the ledger and reached back to switch off the test machine. The shallow paper box was still under the counter; no one took out the old drive.