# Chapter 028: Before the Cut
On November 16, 2012, Xiaoyezi was searching through a location guide at the counter and came across the summer maintenance forms as well.
On August 20 and September 3, both at three in the afternoon, she went to the company with Ye Yan as agreed. The employees could now find the files by following the instructions. On the second visit, one directory had moved, so she corrected the directions on the paper. The person in charge also tested the working copy on his own drive. The two visits for the first month were done, and the full 180 yuan was paid. She returned to the shop and had Junzi record it as income. The slip had already been filed with the settled accounts.
Today she was looking for the paper belonging to another client. He had changed where he kept things, but the old instructions still pointed to the original directory. Xiaoyezi had promised to return the updated sheet that afternoon, the one they could follow. She put the maintenance form away, and had just found the paper when someone at the door called out to Ye Yan.
The customer was the one who’d bought an old diskless computer from them the year before last. He’d borrowed money and added several machines since then. His purchase orders were folded so tightly that their edges curled upward when he unfolded them.
“I’m going to pick up the last machine this afternoon. Come take a look.” He spread a few sheets of paper across the repair bench. “Let me leave one of the machines running here. You’re sitting right next to it every day. If anything goes wrong, you can fix it while you’re at it.”
Junzi was pulling a computer due for delivery out from under the bench. There was nowhere to put it, so he had to ask the customer to move his papers first.
“We can test it, but we can’t leave it here. This space is already taken. They’re picking up their computer tomorrow afternoon.”
The customer didn’t seem concerned. He moved the order forms over to the window and said that when the coins generated at the end of the month were cut in half, adding another machine now would mean one more machine’s worth. With prices up, he could pay back what he owed. He really had paid for the equipment; the receipts were right there on the forms. Ye Yan studied them for a long time, then reached out and pressed down a curled corner.
Little Yezi had been looking for a drive letter. At the mention of the end of the month, her pen stopped.
“The halving’s coming soon,” she said.
The customer turned to her and asked whether she thought he should add another machine too. She looked at Ye Yan and nearly nodded. He was wearing his coat, as if he might grab his bag and leave at any moment, so she asked first whether she could come along.
“Will the price go up as soon as the halving’s over?” Ye Yan asked. “Or will we have to wait?”
She remembered the graphs that kept showing up in articles later on, but looking at the question now, she couldn’t even recall whether that first little stretch went up or down.
“I can’t say for those few days.”
Ye Yan handed the purchase orders back to the customer and asked him to wait until the computer by the door had been delivered. He was willing to go take a look at the wiring and the layout, but he didn’t agree to add equipment. Junzi scheduled an inspection for four to five the next afternoon: they’d look at just one machine, then move it out when they were done.
Little Yezi quickly spread out her papers, hoping to verify them before they left. The customer’s media was right at hand, but in the new location there were two folders with similar names, and one contained only an old spreadsheet. She called to ask, but the customer was out and said he’d get back to her later.
By the time Ye Yan slung his tool bag over his shoulder, she had already put on her coat.
“Can we leave a little later?”
The customer was in a hurry to collect his equipment and was waiting outside, urging them on. Ye Yan glanced at the two lines still blank on her desk and said he had a computer to deliver when they got back; if they left late, they wouldn’t make it in time anyway. She took off her coat, draped it over the back of her chair, and picked up the receiver to confirm what time the customer would be available.
When the call connected, the two men outside had just walked past the window. Ye Yan turned his head and said something, but she only caught a glimpse of his profile before turning back to the screen to get the customer to clarify the month on the new file.
That afternoon, following the revised instructions, the customer found the most recent spreadsheet and then went through the steps again on his own. Little Yezi filed the old papers with the job ticket, returned the media, folded the coat from the back of her chair, and put it under the counter.
When he came back, his trouser cuffs were dusty, and there was a roughly sketched layout diagram in his bag. The machines over there were crammed together, with too little room for heat to dissipate. The power connection needed checking too. He gave the diagram to Junzi first, then went to test the computer due for delivery that afternoon.
A tech-savvy friend he’d previously spoken with in the community about versions and connections sent a short reply. Little Yezi had asked him to check the code from back then, and he pointed to the figure of 210,000: the subsidy would drop from fifty to twenty-five, with transaction fees calculated separately. He didn’t answer her question about the market. He only said they’d see how the program executed when the time came.
Ye Yan read it and wrote 210,000 in a blank space on the layout diagram.
The customer was coming back that evening to pick up the diagram. Hearing that he would need to leave even more space, he frowned. He had already borrowed the money and paid for the equipment; he couldn’t skip the trial just because there wasn’t room. He turned to Ye Yan. “You’ve got the skills, and you have coins too. Why spend all your time fixing things for other people?”
Ye Yan took out today’s two job slips and set them where the purchase orders had been. He’d just gone out for a while, and one of the machines had missed a test run. Now they’d have to wait for it to cool down before starting it up again.
“I’d have to pay for the machine now, and keep paying the electricity bill. I’d also have to figure out who’ll keep an eye on it once it’s running. I’d be borrowing money to add another machine, and I still have to do these two jobs. I can’t make people wait until I’ve sold my coins before they can come pick up their computers.”
He wasn’t entirely unmoved. But when he finished speaking, he looked back at the purchase orders.
“I’m not borrowing money to add another machine. I’ll check yours tomorrow. Like Junzi said, we’ll clear a spot for it at the appointed time.”
The customer folded the papers back up and didn’t press him further. He said he still wanted to run the test and would bring the machine in on time tomorrow. He made a point of reminding them not to short him that hour. Junzi agreed, then casually moved a space-hogging cardboard box away from the wall, making room for the machine the next day.
After closing the shop, Ye Yan borrowed some more computer time. Junzi let him look up public posts and submit a claim, and also use the inspection computer to read the old drive inside the counter and verify his receiving address. GLBSE had already shut down, and ASICMINER’s post asked holders to submit claims, with the deadline set for the eighteenth. He took out the deposit, trade, and holdings records he’d kept from August, checked them against the notebook in his bag, filled in his contact email, ten shares, and BTC receiving address, then submitted the claim himself. Wu Chunhua checked that the records all referred to the same transaction. Once she’d verified them, she told him to record the small balance left on the platform separately. The email was sent, but no one had confirmed it yet. He safely ejected the old drive and put it back in its shallow case.
Wu Chunhua put away the verified papers. Seeing Ye Yan still watching the time the email had been sent, she lowered her voice. “You checked before buying, and now you’re checking again. You promised we’d take her to try on cotton shoes today. I took her by myself, but she insisted on waiting for you. She stuck one foot out and hid the other.”
He put the notebook back in his bag and asked whether she’d managed to buy them in the end. She said she had, and that next time he’d have to take her himself. Then she clipped the sent-message record behind the page with the ten shares.
The next afternoon, the customer carried the newly added machine into the shop, with yesterday’s diagram resting on top of the case. Ye Yan finished the computer job he’d already scheduled before hooking up the new machine. Little Yezi was making room at the workstation, but he kept the stool there and turned the desk lamp toward the inside.
“You couldn’t go yesterday. Let’s look at this together today. I’ve set aside four to five.”
She sat back down. As she adjusted the lamp’s neck higher, he reached over from the other side to support it so the lamp head wouldn’t droop. Once they opened the case, they saw a cable lying right against the fan. They shifted the lamp to get a clear look. She steadied the side panel as he’d asked, waited while he untangled the cable, then wrote down the time of the scraping sound they’d just heard.
The customer went to the doorway to make a phone call, and Little Yezi finally got a chance to ask Ye Yan what he’d seen the previous afternoon. Pointing to yesterday’s diagram, he explained how those machines had been arranged and told her to use it as a guide while looking at the exhaust vent in front of them. She crouched too low, so he moved an empty stool beside her legs. Once she sat down, he brought the diagram closer.
She asked how tightly packed those machines had been yesterday. Ye Yan showed her the width, and she compared the case in front of them with the drawing. The more they compared, the less it seemed to match. He finally flipped the diagram over and sketched an outline. When the customer came in and saw it, he thought they’d found another problem. Ye Yan quickly turned the paper back over and laughed. “I’m just telling her about that corner from yesterday.”
They kept testing the machine, and for a while she forgot to ask about the halving. Ye Yan and she took turns noting when the sound occurred. After several start-ups and shutdowns, the scraping didn’t happen again. Before five, he had the customer test it himself, then shut it down normally. Once the fan had come to a complete stop, he removed the test cable.
Junzi came over to take the case and helped the customer carry it to the door. When he came back, he put the computer waiting for repair on the spot they’d just cleared. Little Yezi moved her chair back, but Ye Yan didn’t let her leave. He asked her to move beside him and sort out the cables they’d need tomorrow.
By November 27, the claim for the ten shares was still awaiting confirmation, and there was still nowhere to put the few coins left on GLBSE. Ye Yan shut down the computer after testing it as usual; he didn’t leave it idling all night.
He’d arranged with Junzi to use the internet-connected computer for a while the next day, after finishing the evening computer job, to look at the blockchain records. Little Yezi put away today’s tools, glanced at the appointment sheet, then pulled two stools up to the internet-connected computer: one facing the screen, the other left for him.