# Chapter 026: The Coins Weren’t Stolen
In the summer of 2011, when the customer carried the computer into Xinyu, Ye Yan was at the entrance wiping down a monitor.
The customer didn’t put it on the counter. He set the computer tower by his feet, clutching the repair slip from last time, and asked Ye Yan if he still remembered him.
“It hasn’t even been a week. You said you’d fixed it, so I took it home—and the coins inside were gone.”
Someone next door came out to collect a towel hanging to dry, then froze with a hand in midair. Ye Yan put down the rag, took the slip, and asked him to bring the machine inside. But the customer planted a foot against the tower. He said he’d bring it in, but Ye Yan had better not wipe anything off again, only for them to end up with no explanation.
From behind the counter, Xiaoyezi heard the customer and first looked at Ye Yan’s hands. There was still dust under his fingernails, and sweat had dampened one corner of the work order. She wanted to say they hadn’t touched the customer’s coins, but Ye Yan had already crouched down to steady the computer tower.
“I found the original work order. Today we’ll just figure out what happened. We won’t reinstall anything.”
The work order was tucked among a few from the previous week. That time, the computer kept overheating and shutting down. Ye Yan had cleaned the cooling vents, checked the fan, and saved the customer’s specified work spreadsheet to a storage device the customer had brought. The customer had checked it in person and only took it away after signing. There was no mention of a wallet on the form, but Ye Yan still read through every item, trying to remember which folders he had accessed.
The customer said he’d lost more than eight coins, but the records showed an outgoing transaction he hadn’t made. That morning, he’d tried opening the wallet he’d saved earlier, thinking that if he switched back to it, everything inside would be just as it had been before.
Ye Yan didn’t let the computer connect to the internet. They removed the original drive and set it aside, and carefully stored the specified files and records the customer had agreed to leave with them, following the shop’s usual procedure. By the afternoon, their checks showed that the transaction had been sent over the network and confirmed on the blockchain. The customer recognized several earlier transactions, but insisted he hadn’t made that one.
“Finding the file won’t reverse this transaction.” Ye Yan left the screen visible for him. “The old copy needs to be checked too. Don’t receive anything into it for now.”
The customer sat down, his foot still braced against the empty computer case. After a while, he unfolded the repair form and pointed to the signature line. “Then what’s the point of signing this? The computer’s mine, the files are mine. How was I supposed to know none of this was safe?”
Ye Yan picked up a chair but didn’t sit down. The explanations he’d prepared wouldn’t come out. Instead, he turned and asked Xiaoyezi if she’d found the new program the customer had mentioned.
She had already written down the download page the customer remembered and checked it against several surviving alerts and installation records. On the second night after taking the computer home, he’d seen someone say this program could make calculations faster, so he downloaded it to try. It didn’t seem any faster, but an alert did pop up once. Annoyed by the window, he closed it. After that, the computer started getting slower and slower.
The page wouldn’t open now. Xiaoyezi lined up the date that night with the time of the outgoing transaction, then squeezed in beside Ye Yan, her voice louder than usual. “He installed it after taking the computer home. Look, this is—”
“Don’t focus on this one thing.” Ye Yan pointed to another entry in the records. “Things had been installed on this computer before, too. Knowing what happened first doesn’t tell us what the program actually did.”
Her words caught in her throat. The customer was watching them, and she suddenly hated that this was all she could find. If only she could uncover one more clue—ideally, evidence that pointed straight to someone else—then her father wouldn’t have to stand here holding that old work order.
She tried the download page again, but it still wouldn’t open. The customer couldn’t remember which reply he’d followed to get to the link either. They scrolled back until all that remained were a few unrelated exchanges. She changed “This is definitely it” to “This is very suspicious,” and told the customer that the wallet might have been copied, but they couldn’t identify who had taken the coins or prove exactly what had happened.
When Wu Chunhua arrived, Ye Yan was on the phone with the customer. He’d gone back that afternoon to find another unused empty hard drive, and said he needed the work files by the next day. Ye Yan agreed not to touch the original drive until he came back, then they could discuss repairing the computer.
After hanging up, he told Wu Chunhua what they’d found, then glanced toward the counter.
“I still have some of my own. I could make up a little of it. This only happened after he brought the computer to me for repairs. If I just say we can’t figure it out, I can’t face him.”
Wu Chunhua didn’t open the drawer. First she looked at the old work order, then asked him to point out what they had confirmed and what was still unclear. The customer came back and put down the empty drive. When he heard they were discussing compensation, he immediately said they had to count all eight-odd coins, and account for any increase in value later too. Otherwise, a little compensation today wouldn’t be enough tomorrow.
Ye Yan’s hand, resting on the back of the chair, slowly tightened.
“We’ll record the amount lost this time,” Wu Chunhua said evenly, turning the paper toward the customer. “But we haven’t finished investigating how the coins were lost. A repair technician can’t promise to make up any amount in the future. What Master Ye can do depends on what he finds. First, point out which work files you need urgently tomorrow.”
The customer didn’t immediately touch the pen. Instead, he asked if that meant they’d deny responsibility as soon as the repair was done. Wu Chunhua told him to keep the original work order and the records from this incident. She didn’t write that the shop was absolutely uninvolved, nor did she brush aside the unknown cause as simply a computer virus. She waited for Ye Yan to finish explaining the repair plan before recording what they could deliver this time.
Ye Yan decided not to charge labor for this repair. The customer’s empty drive would be used to restore the work system; the old drive would be kept, and only the specified work files would be transferred—not the installation packages of unknown origin. He said they’d have it done by noon tomorrow, then paused and turned to Junzi.
Junzi was checking a faulty switch on an ordinary computer. After listening, he swapped the positions of two appointment slips on the desk.
“You can have this afternoon and tomorrow morning. The labor’s on the shop. If a small part is actually broken, we can talk about it then. We’re not throwing in a whole pile of parts.” He glanced at the empty drive the customer had brought. “Yours will work, so we’ll do it this way.”
An acquaintance came in and asked if they’d lost someone’s coins. Junzi didn’t yell at the customer either. He carried the computer he was checking over to another table and said they were still investigating. Xinyu would get the customer’s work computer fixed first today. Then he told the acquaintance not to block him while he tested the switch.
Ye Yan restored the system on the empty drive using maintenance files whose sources he had verified as usual. Once the common programs were installed, one work spreadsheet only showed data up to last month, though the customer said he’d edited it just yesterday. Ye Yan didn’t assume that being able to open it meant the job was done. He went back to look for the newer file. Xiaoyezi called someone from another location and found out where it was, then added a folder the customer had forgotten to mention. It wasn’t until evening that the two copies finally matched.
Ye Yan looked up from the screen. His lunchbox was still on the edge of the table, its lid only partly open, and a film of oil had long since formed on the food inside. Xiaoyezi went next door to ask for some hot water, then brought the lunchbox over to him. As he ate, she kept checking the files they needed to test the next day. She was just about to say it was ready to use, but remembered the customer hadn’t come to check it yet and swallowed the words.
She really wanted to make up those eight-odd coins for him. But even when she reached across the table, all she could do was push the lunchbox close enough for him to take without getting up.
After the customer left, Wu Chunhua put the records in a folder and suddenly asked Ye Yan, if he really was going to compensate him, how far back was he planning to go?
“I didn’t agree to make up the whole amount,” he said.
“I heard you.” She stood there for a moment, then grabbed her bag as it started to slide off the stool. “When you say you’ll make up even a little, I know you’ll end up calculating it for ages. You haven’t even worked out how to free up time over the next couple of days, and you’re already thinking about paying him out of your own pocket. I rushed through everything over there to come here today, and I was hoping you’d get to rest for a while.”
Ye Yan didn’t reach for the shallow box under the counter. He wrote down the two tasks they needed to test in the morning and told her they’d hand the computer over at noon and close up for the night. Junzi’s routine repair had already been checked and paid for; the money went into the shop’s accounts. The next computer, which wasn’t urgent, could wait until the following day. When the lights were off and only the one above the repair bench remained, Ye Yan stopped working and didn’t add another task.
A little after eleven the next morning, the customer arrived early and stood at the entrance for a while before unfolding the empty bag.
Ye Yan asked him to open the files he used regularly himself. The spreadsheet he needed most urgently could be read, and the common programs were running too. The customer took out an old handwritten note and added two details while comparing it with the screen. Then he called a colleague and asked them to bring the materials over that afternoon. At last, his voice didn’t sound as harsh as it had the day before.
The customer took back the original drive and the records he wanted to keep. The temporary copy was handled as agreed on the work order, and the customer’s media wasn’t put in the shop’s drawer for test parts. Those eight-odd coins still hadn’t been recovered. When Ye Yan handed over the computer, he made that clear once again. The customer nodded and, this time, didn’t ask him to promise first that he could get them back.
The person who had come out to collect towels the day before was by the door again, asking if the money had been found. With one hand holding the bag open, the customer first said no, then pointed to the computer. “I was worked up yesterday. We haven’t found the money. They said they’d get this fixed, and they did.”
He tried to put the computer tower in the bag, but it was too heavy, and the rim kept folding down. Xiaoyezi reached out to hold it open, while Ye Yan steadied the tower from the other side. They let go together only after the customer had a firm grip on it.
After walking a few steps, the customer turned back and asked how much they charged for inspections, backups, and reinstallations, and whether they could write it down clearly so he could choose for himself.
Junzi said they’d write it up; he didn’t rattle off a list of prices at the door. The customer acknowledged him and carried the computer across the street. Xiaoyezi was still standing by the steps, while Ye Yan had already moved the computer they’d postponed the day before onto the table. She went back and turned the desk lamp inward so he could see the row of cables deep inside the case.