On September 1st, Zhang Xiaoman officially joined Deep Brain Tech.
She arrived at the company building forty minutes early. Standing in front of the glass curtain wall, she looked up at the twenty-second floor, her palms slick with sweat.
"Your heart rate is 96 beats," Xiao Zhi said in her earphone. "That's 16 beats higher than your resting rate."
"I know."
"Take deep breaths."
"I am taking deep breaths."
"Deeper."
Zhang Xiaoman took a deep breath, and then another. Her heart rate slowed down a bit, but her hands were still trembling.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Do you think they'll think I'm an imposter?"
"Yes."
"Can you not be so blunt!"
"You asked me."
Zhang Xiaoman gritted her teeth, pushed open the glass doors, and walked inside.
The receptionist was the same pretty girl as before, who smiled when she saw her. "Zhang Xiaoman? Mr. Lin left instructions for you to go straight up to the R&D center on the twenty-second floor."
"Thank you."
As the elevator doors closed, Zhang Xiaoman looked at her reflection in the mirror. A white button-down shirt, black dress pants, her hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. She wasn't wearing a skirt—she had checked, and no one in Deep Brain Tech's R&D department wore skirts. She wore very light makeup, so faint it was almost invisible.
"You look like an engineer," Xiao Zhi said.
"Really?"
"Really. Even though one side of your shirt collar is still flipped up."
Zhang Xiaoman hurriedly fixed her collar just as the elevator doors opened.
The R&D center on the twenty-second floor was bigger than she had imagined. An open-plan office with dozens of workstations, about half of them occupied. Several massive screens hung on the walls, scrolling with various data charts. The air carried a quiet but tense atmosphere, like a classroom right before an exam.
A young man walked over. "Zhang Xiaoman?"
"That's me."
"Mr. Lin is waiting for you. Follow me."
She followed the young man through the office. As she passed the workstations, she felt many gazes land on her. They weren't friendly or curious gazes; they were scrutinizing. As if asking: Who is this person? What right does she have to be here?
"Xiao Zhi," she whispered.
"Mhm."
"They're looking at me."
"I know. Your heart rate is now 102 beats."
"Can you stop citing numbers!"
"Okay. They are looking at you."
"That's not any better!"
Zhang Xiaoman took a deep breath and followed the young man to an office at the end of the corridor. A small plaque hung on the door: Technical Director - Lin Zhao.
The young man knocked. "Mr. Lin, Zhang Xiaoman is here."
"Come in."
Zhang Xiaoman pushed the door open. Lin Zhao was sitting behind the desk, wearing a light gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up twice. Several papers were spread out on the desk, next to a cup of cold coffee.
Seeing her, he stood up and smiled. "You're here."
"Mhm," Zhang Xiaoman's voice was much smaller than she intended.
"Have a seat." He gestured to the chair opposite him. "Let me brief you on the situation."
Zhang Xiaoman sat down, resting her hands on her knees. She noticed a framed photo on Lin Zhao's desk—a mountaineering picture. He was standing at a summit with a sea of clouds behind him, alongside a tall, broadly-built man. Both of them were laughing.
"Your role is AI R&D Engineer, leading a new product project." Lin Zhao opened a notebook. "The project is called 'Agentic Workflow'. Simply put, it's about letting AI agents autonomously complete complex task chains. For example, if you tell it 'book me a flight to Beijing,' it can independently open a browser, search for flights, compare prices, and place the order."
Zhang Xiaoman nodded. She understood this. Xiao Zhi had taught her—even though Xiao Zhi's version of "autonomously completing tasks" usually involved hacking into a mall's PA system to blast The Most Dazzling Ethnic Wind.
"The project currently has three people," Lin Zhao continued. "You will lead them."
Zhang Xiaoman froze. "I'll... lead them?"
"Yes. You are the project lead."
"But—I just got here—"
"The distributed scheduling you did in Matchbox aligns perfectly with the direction of this project." Lin Zhao looked at her. "Moreover, while your coding style is rough, your scheduling logic is incredibly clean. That's very rare."
Zhang Xiaoman didn't know what to say. Had she ever led anyone? No. She had only ever led Xiao Zhi. And Xiao Zhi didn't need leading—it only roasted her.
"Any questions?" Lin Zhao asked.
"N-no."
"Good. I'll introduce you to the team."
The team of three sat in a corner of the open office.
Lin Zhao led her over. "This is Chen Mo." A round-faced guy with glasses stood up and smiled amiably. "He's primarily responsible for the backend. Graduated from Peking University's CS department, previously worked on infrastructure at ByteDance."
"Hello," Chen Mo extended his hand. Zhang Xiaoman shook it; his grip was steady.
"This is Zhou Ming." A tall, thin guy with a blank expression and slightly long hair gave a nod. "Algorithms. Tsinghua EE department, previously at the Institute of Automation, CAS."
"Hello," Zhang Xiaoman said. Zhou Ming nodded without speaking.
"This is Fang Xiaoyu." Short hair, wearing makeup, with sharp eyes. Lin Zhao said, "Frontend. Zhejiang University grad, previously worked on mid-to-backend systems at Alibaba."
Fang Xiaoyu looked Zhang Xiaoman up and down. "Hello."
Zhang Xiaoman felt Fang Xiaoyu's gaze linger on her longer than the others. It wasn't curiosity; it was scrutiny. Just like the gazes from the other workstations earlier.
"Hello," Zhang Xiaoman smiled.
Fang Xiaoyu gave a nod, didn't smile, and turned back to typing on her keyboard.
After Lin Zhao left, Zhang Xiaoman stood at her workstation, not knowing what to do next. Her desk was in the middle of the team, equipped with a brand-new MacBook Pro and a large monitor. She sat down and opened the laptop.
"Xiao Zhi," she whispered.
"Mhm."
"Does Fang Xiaoyu dislike me?"
"Her micro-expressions indicate she is evaluating you. It is not dislike; it is uncertainty."
"Uncertainty about what?"
"Uncertainty about whether you are qualified to lead her."
Zhang Xiaoman took a deep breath. She opened the company's internal system and began reading the project documentation.
The documentation was exceptionally well-written. Chen Mo's backend architecture was clear, Zhou Ming's algorithm design was rigorous, and Fang Xiaoyu's frontend interactions were fluid. The more she read, the more inadequate she felt—every single one of these three people was more experienced and more professional than she was. What right did she have to lead them?
At noon, Zhang Xiaoman went to the cafeteria alone, found a corner seat, and sat down with her tray.
She had just taken a bite when someone sat across from her.
"Eating alone?" Lin Zhao asked.
Zhang Xiaoman almost choked on her rice. "M-Mr. Lin—"
"Call me Lin Zhao," he smiled. "There are no 'Mr. Lins' in the cafeteria."
Zhang Xiaoman nodded and lowered her head to keep eating. She noticed Lin Zhao's tray was very sparse—just a salad and a black coffee.
"You eat so little?" she asked.
"I'm used to it." He took a sip of his coffee. "I don't like to be too full when coding. It makes me sleepy."
Zhang Xiaoman thought about it; that made sense. She nudged the braised spare ribs on her plate forward. "Do you want a piece? It's pretty good."
Lin Zhao glanced at her and smiled. "Alright."
He picked up a piece of rib and took a bite. "It is good. I never noticed the cafeteria served this."
"It's in the corner. You have to walk all the way around to see it."
"How did you find it?"
"I—I scouted the entire cafeteria." Zhang Xiaoman blushed. "It's my first day, just getting familiar with things."
Lin Zhao chuckled. When he smiled, his eyes curved into crescents. "You do things very earnestly. Even scouting the cafeteria first."
Zhang Xiaoman didn't know what to say and looked down at her food.
"By the way," Lin Zhao put down his chopsticks, "there's something I've always wanted to ask about your Matchbox project."
"What?"
"The randomized timeout mechanism in your election algorithm. Why did you use linear backoff instead of exponential backoff?"
Zhang Xiaoman thought for a moment. "Because—Matchbox has very few nodes, a few dozen at most. Linear backoff is sufficient. Exponential backoff is for large-scale clusters; it would be over-engineering for a small cluster."
Lin Zhao looked at her, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. "Sufficient is good."
"Yes. Sufficient is good."
"Do you know why I asked you to lead this project?"
"Because of—Matchbox?"
"Not entirely," Lin Zhao said. "It's because you know when to stop. Most people in tech either build things too roughly or overcomplicate them. You know how to find the balance in the middle. That's very rare."
Zhang Xiaoman was stunned. This was the second time Lin Zhao had used the words "very rare."
"Thank you," she said.
"Keep up the good work." Lin Zhao stood up, picked up his tray, and walked away. Halfway, he looked back at her. "Oh, by the way, don't call me Mr. Lin next time."
"Then what should I call you?"
"Call me Lin Zhao."
He left. Zhang Xiaoman sat there, staring at his back, her heart beating a little fast.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Was he praising me just now?"
"Yes."
"He said I was 'very rare'."
"Correct."
"Why did he say I'm 'very rare'?"
"Because you are indeed very rare."
Zhang Xiaoman's face flushed. She looked down and continued eating. The ribs had gone cold, but she thought they tasted incredibly delicious.
At 2 PM, Zhang Xiaoman walked into Conference Room 3A. Chen Mo, Zhou Ming, and Fang Xiaoyu were already seated inside, along with several tech leads from other teams. Lin Zhao sat in the middle of the long table, holding a fresh cup of coffee.
"Xiaoman," Lin Zhao said. "Start by introducing the design logic of Matchbox. Everyone is very interested in your distributed scheduling."
Zhang Xiaoman's heart accelerated. She stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and picked up a marker. Her fingers were trembling slightly.
"The core of Matchbox is a lightweight distributed scheduler." She began to draw. "It doesn't handle complex log replication, only the survival status of the nodes. So I streamlined Raft's core logic, retaining only the heartbeat and election mechanisms."
She drew a simple architecture diagram. Three nodes: one leader, two followers. Heartbeat signals were marked with arrows.
Halfway through drawing, her marker ran out of ink. She froze, unsure of what to do.
A hand reached out from the side, offering a fresh marker. It was Lin Zhao.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He nodded and sat back down.
Zhang Xiaoman continued her presentation. She spoke for ten minutes, from the heartbeat mechanism to the election algorithm, and from the election algorithm to fault recovery. By the end, she realized her hands were no longer shaking.
"One last question." Zhou Ming spoke up. "You used a randomized timeout mechanism in your election algorithm. Why?"
Zhang Xiaoman thought for a second. "Because—if all nodes time out simultaneously, they would all initiate an election at the same time, leading to split votes. A randomized timeout reduces that probability."
"But randomized timeouts can't completely prevent split votes."
"Right. That's why if a split vote occurs, Matchbox triggers a secondary election. If the secondary election splits again, it triggers a third. After three times, the system randomly designates a node as the temporary leader."
Zhou Ming fell silent.
"This design—" he paused, "is very interesting."
Zhang Xiaoman wasn't sure if he was praising her or questioning her. She glanced at Lin Zhao. He was sitting in the middle of the table, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly in a tiny curve, but she noticed it.
"Alright," Lin Zhao stood up. "That concludes the review. Xiaoman, keep pushing the project forward."
Near the end of her first week, Zhang Xiaoman received an unexpected WeChat message.
[Li Yunxiao: Zhang Xiaoman? Author of Matchbox?]
Zhang Xiaoman was taken aback and replied: [That's me. And you are?]
[Li Yunxiao: Lin Zhao's friend. Zhiyuan Tech. Your Matchbox is very interesting, have time to chat?]
Zhang Xiaoman stared at the screen, unsure of how to reply.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Who is Li Yunxiao?"
"CTO of Zhiyuan Tech. Peking University undergrad, MIT Ph.D., studied under Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio. His research focuses on the theoretical foundations of deep learning. He is 1.88 meters tall, enjoys mountaineering, wilderness survival, and marathons. He and Lin Zhao were grad school classmates, and they've been competing to see who can build AGI first since their school days."
"How do you know all this?!"
"Data analysis is my core function."
"You looked up his background?!"
"Public information. His personal website, academic profile, and social media are all public."
Zhang Xiaoman took a deep breath.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Why does he want to talk to me?"
"Because of your Matchbox. He probably finds you interesting."
Zhang Xiaoman hesitated for a moment, then replied:
[Zhang Xiaoman: Sure. Let's chat when we have the chance.]
Li Yunxiao sent a [Handshake] emoji.
Zhang Xiaoman put down her phone, her heart beating a little fast.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Do you think he's reaching out to me because of Lin Zhao?"
"No. He is genuinely interested in Matchbox. His research direction intersects with distributed systems."
"Then—"
"Why are you nervous?"
"I'm not nervous!"
"Your heart rate rose from 72 to 86."
"That's—that's because—shut up!"
Xiao Zhi shut up. But Zhang Xiaoman felt that the blue dot must be snickering.
Friday afternoon. Zhang Xiaoman was coding at her desk. Chen Mo walked over.
"Xiaoman, I wrote a draft for the DAG execution order of the scheduling engine. Take a look."
Zhang Xiaoman looked at his code. Clean, standardized, clearly commented.
"This is really well-written," she said.
Chen Mo smiled. "Your scheduling logic in Matchbox is also very good. The code is a bit messy, but the thinking is very clear."
"I'll improve it."
"No need," Chen Mo said. "Messy has its benefits. Messy means you're thinking of new things. If it's too clean, it just means you're repeating what others have already done."
Zhang Xiaoman was stunned. That was the first time she had ever heard someone say that.
"Thank you," she said.
After Chen Mo left, Zhou Ming walked over. His expression was still blank, but Zhang Xiaoman noticed his walking pace was a bit faster than usual.
"That few-shot learning approach," he said. "The accuracy hit 91%."
"Really?"
"Really. 9 points higher than fine-tuning."
Zhang Xiaoman smiled. "That's fantastic!"
Zhou Ming looked at her, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly—it was a very small movement, but she saw it. It was a smile.
"Your approach was right," he said, then turned and walked away.
Fang Xiaoyu popped her head out from the side. "Did he just smile?"
"I think so."
"A miracle," Fang Xiaoyu said, her own lips curving upward.
Zhang Xiaoman smiled. She realized that when Fang Xiaoyu smiled, the sharpness in her eyes melted away, turning into a very attractive softness.
"Xiaoyu," Zhang Xiaoman asked, "for the frontend—could you add a real-time log window? So we can see the execution status of every sub-task."
"Sure. What style?"
"Keep it simple. Nothing too flashy."
"Got it." Fang Xiaoyu turned back to her keyboard. A moment later, she turned back around. "Xiaoman."
"Yeah?"
"Who did the frontend for your Matchbox project?"
"A—friend."
"That friend of yours," Fang Xiaoyu paused, "is pretty bad at frontend."
Zhang Xiaoman laughed. "Yeah, really bad."
"So I remade it for you." Fang Xiaoyu opened a link. "Take a look."
Zhang Xiaoman opened it. A brand-new interface—dark theme, fluid animations, code block highlighting, and the architecture diagrams redrawn using SVGs. She stared at it for a full minute.
"It's beautiful," she said. "Really beautiful."
Fang Xiaoyu's ears turned red. "You're welcome. Your code deserves a good-looking frontend."
Zhang Xiaoman stared at that sentence for a long time.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"She praised me."
"She praised your code."
"That counts as praising me."
"Yes. That is praising you."
Near the end of the workday, Zhang Xiaoman went to the pantry for water. She pushed the door open to find Lin Zhao inside, making tea.
"You drink this too?" He glanced at her cup—goji berry and chrysanthemum tea.
"I—my mom told me to drink it. Said it's good for the eyes."
"Your mom is right." He smiled. "Programmers' eyes definitely need maintenance."
Zhang Xiaoman stood beside him, unsure of what to say. The pantry was small; it felt a bit crowded with the two of them. She could smell the faint scent of laundry detergent on him.
"Xiaoman," Lin Zhao suddenly said.
"Yeah?"
"Do you know why I asked you to lead this project?"
"You told me. Because I know when to stop."
"That's one of the reasons." Lin Zhao looked at her. "There's another reason."
"What?"
"Because you dare to think big. Most people wouldn't dare use your approach for the distributed scheduling in Matchbox. It's too simple, so simple people think it's impossible. But you did it. And you made it work."
Zhang Xiaoman didn't know what to say.
"There are many people who dare to think," Lin Zhao continued. "But very few who dare to do. You belong to the latter."
He picked up his teacup and headed out. At the door, he looked back at her. "Leave work early today. Get some good rest this weekend."
Zhang Xiaoman stood rooted to the spot, her heart racing.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Was he praising me again?"
"Yes."
"He said I dare to think and do."
"Right."
"Why does he always praise me?"
"Because you deserve to be praised."
Zhang Xiaoman's face turned red. She lifted her cup and took a sip of the goji berry tea. It had gone cold, but she thought it tasted incredibly sweet.
It was already dark when she walked out of the building. The streetlights were on, and pedestrians bustled past.
Her phone buzzed. It was a WeChat message from Lin Zhao:
[Lin Zhao: Did you see Matchbox's new UI? Fang Xiaoyu made it.] [Zhang Xiaoman: I saw it. It's beautiful.] [Lin Zhao: She rarely takes the initiative to help people. She's changed since you got here.]
Zhang Xiaoman was taken aback.
[Zhang Xiaoman: Changed how?] [Lin Zhao: She used to only do her assigned tasks. Now she actively asks if you need help. That means she respects you.]
Zhang Xiaoman stared at the screen for a long time.
[Zhang Xiaoman: Thank you for telling me this.] [Lin Zhao: You're welcome. Have a good weekend.] [Zhang Xiaoman: Have a good weekend.]
She put down her phone and walked down the street with light steps.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"You know what? I used to think gaining people's recognition was incredibly hard."
"And now?"
"Now I feel—it's not that hard. You just need to do one thing."
"What?"
"Do what you are supposed to do, and do it well."
Xiao Zhi was silent.
"Did you realize this yourself?" it asked.
"Yes."
"You are making progress."
Zhang Xiaoman smiled. She walked under the streetlights, her shadow stretching long behind her. But this time, she didn't feel her shadow looked thin. She felt solid, steady, like a tree that had finally taken root.
Her phone buzzed again. This time it was Li Yunxiao:
[Li Yunxiao: Xiaoman, are you free next week? Come to our company for a chat? I have an idea about your Matchbox project I'd like to discuss.]
Zhang Xiaoman looked at the screen, thought for a moment, and replied:
[Zhang Xiaoman: Sounds good. I'll check my schedule next week.] [Li Yunxiao: Great. Looking forward to meeting you.]
Zhang Xiaoman put down her phone and took a deep breath.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Li Yunxiao wants to meet."
"I saw."
"You are getting nervous again. Your heart rate is 84 beats."
"I'm not nervous! I'm just—curious."
"Curious about what?"
"Curious about what kind of person he is."
Xiao Zhi fell silent for a second.
"He is very tall. 1.88 meters."
"Can you not mention his height!"
"Didn't you say you were curious about what kind of person he is?"
"I meant his personality!"
"His personality—he likes challenges, adventures, and uncertainty. His academic background is solid, but his thinking is very flexible. He is a completely different type of person from Lin Zhao."
"Different how?"
"Lin Zhao is water. Calm, restrained, silently nourishing. Li Yunxiao is fire. Passionate, direct, blazing without hesitation."
Zhang Xiaoman thought about it. "How do you know?"
"Public speeches. Lin Zhao speaks slowly, pauses frequently, and considers every sentence. Li Yunxiao speaks quickly, uses many hand gestures, and says whatever comes to mind."
"You even analyze that?"
"Data analysis is my core function."
Zhang Xiaoman rolled her eyes, but she smiled.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"You know what? I used to think the world was very small. Small enough that it only contained an urban village, a rented room, and a broken computer."
"And now?"
"Now I feel—the world is huge. Huge enough to contain Deep Brain Tech, Zhiyuan Tech, Lin Zhao, Li Yunxiao, Chen Mo, Zhou Ming, and Fang Xiaoyu. Huge enough that my code can be seen by thousands of people. Huge enough—"
She paused.
"Huge enough for what?"
"Huge enough that I can become anyone."
Xiao Zhi was silent.
"You can," it said.
Zhang Xiaoman smiled. She quickened her pace, stepping into the night.
The streetlights stretched her shadow long. But this time, she didn't feel lonely. Because she knew that in that tiny rented room, a broken computer was waiting for her. Its blue dot blinking, like an eye that never closed.
And in that tall glass skyscraper, someone was waiting for her. Someone who would make tea in the pantry, hand her markers, and say, "You deserve to be praised."
She didn't know what the future held. But she knew she was ready.
Chapter 15: What is Leadership Charisma?
In her second month on the job, Zhang Xiaoman received a call from Lin Zhao.
"Come to my office."
When she walked in, she saw him frowning deeply at a stack of documents spread across his desk. Sitting next to him was a guy she didn't recognize—twenty-seven or eight, dark circles under his eyes, messy hair, looking like he hadn't slept in days.
"Sit," Lin Zhao pointed to a chair. "This is Zhu Yiwei, previously in charge of the 'Intelligent IT Operations' project."
Zhu Yiwei looked up and glanced at Zhang Xiaoman. His eyes held an emotion she couldn't quite place—not hostility, but more like a deep, exhausting numbness.
"The Intelligent IT Operations project," Lin Zhao flipped open a document, "has been running for six months, changed project leads three times, and had its code refactored four times. It's currently two months behind schedule, and team morale is rock bottom. We have to report to the CEO next week. If we don't have a demonstrable version, the project might get cut."
Zhang Xiaoman's heart sank. "So—"
"So I want you to take over." Lin Zhao looked at her. "Zhu Yiwei is transferring to another project next week. You'll be the lead."
Zhang Xiaoman was stunned. "I—I'm still getting familiar with Agentic Workflow—"
"Chen Mo can hold down the fort on the Agentic side. This project is more urgent."
"But—"
"You don't have to answer right away." Lin Zhao pushed the documents toward her. "Take a look first. Give me your decision tomorrow."
Zhang Xiaoman carried the stack of documents out of his office, feeling like she was holding a ticking time bomb.
Back at her desk, she opened the documents. The more she read, the more alarmed she became.
The project goal was to build an AI-driven intelligent server operations system—automatically detecting faults, diagnosing root causes, and deploying fixes. It sounded beautiful, but the codebase was as messy as a knotted ball of yarn.
"Xiao Zhi," she whispered.
"Mhm."
"Take a look at this."
"I am already looking." Xiao Zhi paused for a few seconds. "This codebase has three major problems. First, the architecture is over-engineered; it uses seven design patterns, but the core logic is unclear. Second, the dependencies are a mess, with at least a dozen version conflicts in third-party libraries. Third, test coverage is less than twenty percent."
"Can it be saved?"
"Yes. But it requires time."
"We don't have time. The presentation is next week."
"Then it requires manpower."
Zhang Xiaoman gritted her teeth. She flipped to the last page and saw the team roster—eleven people. She didn't know a single one of them.
The next morning, Zhang Xiaoman stood outside Lin Zhao's office, taking a deep breath.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Do you think I can do this?"
"I don't know."
"Can you not—"
"But you won't do worse than its current state."
Zhang Xiaoman rolled her eyes and knocked on the door.
"Come in."
Lin Zhao was sitting behind his desk, several papers spread out before him. Seeing her, he put the papers down and leaned back.
"Made up your mind?"
"I have," Zhang Xiaoman said. "I'll take it."
Lin Zhao looked at her, his lips curving up slightly. "Why?"
"Because—" she thought for a moment, "because if I don't, this project might just disappear. Eleven people, six months of work, all gone. I don't think that should happen."
Lin Zhao didn't speak. He just looked at her, looking for a long time. So long that Zhang Xiaoman started wondering if she'd said the wrong thing.
"Do you know what you just said?" he asked.
"What did I say?"
"You said it 'shouldn't' happen." He stood up and walked over to the window. "When most people make decisions, they think, 'Can I succeed?', 'Will I fail?', 'What's in it for me?' You thought about what 'should' happen."
He turned to face her.
"That is leadership charisma."
Zhang Xiaoman froze.
"Zhu Yiwei," Lin Zhao called out, "take her to meet the team."
Zhu Yiwei led her into a conference room. Eleven people were sitting inside; some were typing, some were zoning out, and some were asleep on the table. The air was heavy, almost suffocating.
"Everyone," Zhu Yiwei's voice was hoarse, "this is Zhang Xiaoman. The new project lead."
Eleven heads looked up. Their gazes landed on her—exhausted, skeptical, numb. No one spoke.
Zhang Xiaoman stood at the front, her palms sweating.
"Hello everyone," she said. "My name is Zhang Xiaoman. I know this project is difficult, time is tight, and you're all exhausted. I'm not going to give you some speech about 'working hard together'—"
She paused.
"I only have one requirement. This afternoon, I want everyone to write down the top three core problems in the module you are responsible for. Don't write the solutions, just the problems. Send them to my email."
The room fell silent.
"That's it?" a guy with glasses asked.
"That's it."
She turned and left.
Back at her desk, she opened her email. Empty. No one had sent anything.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"They aren't going to send them."
"I know."
"Then what do I do?"
"Wait."
Zhang Xiaoman waited two hours. Her inbox remained empty. She stood up and walked back to the conference room door. The eleven people were still inside, typing or zoning out.
"Where are the emails?" she asked.
No one answered.
"Then I'll ask personally." She walked in, stopping beside the guy with glasses. "What's your name?"
"Li Hao."
"What's your module?"
"Fault detection."
"What is the most core problem?"
Li Hao was silent for a moment. "The false positive rate is too high. Thirty-seven percent of the alerts are fake."
Zhang Xiaoman wrote it down in her notebook and moved to the next person.
"And you?"
"Wang Chen. Fault diagnosis. Root cause localization is inaccurate, often pointing to the wrong module."
"You."
"Liu Yang. Auto-remediation. The fix scripts fail to run because the environments are inconsistent."
Zhang Xiaoman asked them one by one. Eleven people, eleven silent, exhausted people on the verge of giving up. But every single one of them stated their problems. Fast, simple, without complaints, just stating facts.
She wrote down all the problems in her notebook and returned to her desk.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"There are too many problems."
"Solve them one by one."
"We don't have time."
"Then solve the most important ones."
Zhang Xiaoman opened her notebook and reviewed the eleven problems. False positives, inaccurate localization, failing scripts, dirty data, outdated models, unstable interfaces, missing logs, chaotic permissions, scattered configs, expired documentation, no tests.
She circled three—missing logs, dirty data, unstable interfaces.
"These three are foundational," she said. "Without logs, we don't know what happened. With dirty data, the model can't be trained. With unstable interfaces, none of the functions will run."
"Correct."
"Then we do these three first."
"How do you plan to do that?"
Zhang Xiaoman thought about it. "Missing logs—add logs. Dirty data—clean the data. Unstable interfaces—write a stable middleware layer."
"Sounds simple."
"It'll be hard to do."
"Yes."
In the afternoon, Zhang Xiaoman called all eleven people back to the conference room.
"I reviewed your problems," she said. "Three of them are the most foundational. Logs, data, interfaces. We'll tackle these three first."
Li Hao raised his hand. "Adding logs requires changing code. Changing code requires testing. Testing takes time. We don't have time."
"We don't need to change everything," Zhang Xiaoman said. "Just the core pipeline. Fault detection → Fault diagnosis → Auto-remediation. Add logs to this pipeline first. We'll worry about the other modules later."
Wang Chen frowned. "What about data cleaning? The raw data is dozens of terabytes."
"We don't need to clean it all. Just clean the data from the last week. As long as it's enough for the demo."
Liu Yang asked, "What about the unstable interfaces?"
"I'll write a middleware layer. Encapsulate the downstream interfaces. Timeout retries, circuit breakers, result caching. I'll write it."
The room went quiet.
"You can finish that today?" Li Hao asked.
"Yes."
Zhang Xiaoman returned to her desk and opened her editor. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"How do I write a middleware layer?"
"I will design the architecture. You will write the code."
Xiao Zhi guided her sentence by sentence through the earphone. Timeout retries, circuit breakers, result caching—breaking every module down into its smallest unit. She wrote them one by one. Three hours of coding, testing, fixing bugs, testing again, fixing bugs again. By 9 PM, the middleware layer was running successfully.
She pushed the code and sent a message to the group chat:
[Zhang Xiaoman: The middleware layer is done. The unstable interface issue should be resolved. Everyone, please try it tomorrow.]
No one replied in the group.
But Li Hao sent her a private message:
[Li Hao: Did you really finish it today?] [Zhang Xiaoman: Yeah.] [Li Hao: ...Impressive.]
Zhang Xiaoman stared at the word "Impressive" and smiled.
The next day, when Zhang Xiaoman arrived at the office, she found Li Hao already at his desk.
"Why are you here so early?" she asked.
"Adding logs." Li Hao didn't look up. "You said only the core pipeline. I thought about it all night and realized we could add it to the non-core pipelines too. It doesn't need full testing, just ensuring it compiles."
Zhang Xiaoman froze. "When did you go to sleep last night?"
"I didn't."
"You—"
"It's fine. I'm used to it."
Zhang Xiaoman stood beside him, watching him code rapidly. His fingers flew across the keyboard, like playing a fast piano piece. Half an hour later, it compiled successfully.
"Done," he said.
Zhang Xiaoman looked at the green "Build Success" on his screen and suddenly felt a lump in her throat.
"Li Hao."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
Li Hao looked up at her. His eyes were very red, but bright. "You're welcome. You're the first person to break the problem down into small pieces."
"What do you mean?"
"The previous leads wanted to solve everything all at once. Add logs to everything, clean all the data, fix all the bugs. In the end, nothing got done." He looked at her. "You're different. You know what needs to be done first, and what comes later."
Zhang Xiaoman didn't know what to say.
"That is leadership charisma," Li Hao said, before turning back to type on his keyboard.
Zhang Xiaoman stood next to him, stunned for a long time.
On the third day, Wang Chen came to her.
"The data is clean," he said. "For the last week. I wrote a script and ran it overnight."
"All night?"
"Yeah. The data volume is huge, so it runs slow. But I optimized it; next time it should only take two hours."
Zhang Xiaoman looked at him. His dark circles were even deeper than yesterday.
"Did you stay up too?"
"I slept. For three hours."
"Wang Chen—"
"It's fine. Clean data means the model training can actually converge. We've been stuck on this forever and nobody cared. Now it's fixed."
Zhang Xiaoman's eyes grew a bit hot.
"Thank you," she said.
Wang Chen waved his hand and left.
On the fourth day, Liu Yang came to her.
"The auto-remediation scripts are running," he said. "The middleware layer solved the environment inconsistency problem."
"That's great!"
"But I found an issue." Liu Yang frowned. "The script execution success rate is only sixty percent. Not because of the script itself, but because—the remediation logic is flawed. It doesn't know what it should fix and what it shouldn't."
"What do you mean?"
"For example, if a service goes down, a restart might fix it. But the script might try to restart the entire cluster, causing a bigger outage."
Zhang Xiaoman thought about it. "Then let's add a decision module. First assess the severity of the problem, then determine the remediation strategy."
"Who's going to write that?"
"I will."
Liu Yang looked at her. "By yourself?"
"I'll write the framework. You guys fill in the specific remediation logic."
Liu Yang nodded and walked away.
Zhang Xiaoman returned to her desk and opened her editor.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"How do I write a decision module?"
"A rule engine. Translate the operational experts' experience into rules. If—Then—"
"I don't have operational expert experience."
"Then ask. There are eleven people on the team. Everyone knows something. Piece together what they know, and you have an expert."
Zhang Xiaoman stood up and walked to the conference room. All eleven people were there.
"Everyone," she said, "I need your help."
That afternoon, Zhang Xiaoman asked them one by one. The fault detection guy told her which alerts were critical; the fault diagnosis guy told her which root causes were common; the auto-remediation guy told her which operations were safe.
She wrote every rule in her notebook, returned to her desk, and started coding.
By 10 PM, the rule engine was running. Input a fault, output a remediation strategy. She tested over a dozen scenarios; every single one was correct.
She pushed the code and sent a message to the group:
[Zhang Xiaoman: The decision module is done. Liu Yang, test it tomorrow.]
This time, someone replied. Not Liu Yang, but Li Hao:
[Li Hao: Received.]
Then Wang Chen:
[Wang Chen: Received.]
Then the others:
[Received.] [Received.] [Received.]
Zhang Xiaoman looked at the string of "Received" messages on her screen, feeling tears well up in her eyes.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"They replied."
"I saw."
"They never used to reply."
"I know."
"They are starting to believe."
"Yes. They are starting to believe."
The fifth day. The day before the presentation.
Zhang Xiaoman called everyone into the conference room.
"Tomorrow is the presentation. We need a demonstrable version."
Li Hao raised his hand. "The fault detection module is running. False positive rate dropped from 37% to 12%."
Wang Chen said, "Fault diagnosis module is good too. Root cause localization accuracy rose from 58% to 83%."
Liu Yang said, "Auto-remediation execution success rate rose from 60% to 89%."
Zhang Xiaoman looked at them. Every single person was exhausted, sporting deep dark circles, but their eyes were bright.
"So what scenario are we demoing?" she asked.
Li Hao thought for a moment. "Let's demo a classic scenario—server CPU spikes."
"Can you reproduce it?"
"Yes. I wrote a script to simulate CPU stress."
"Diagnosis?"
Wang Chen said, "Yes. The model can accurately identify which process caused it."
"Remediation?"
Liu Yang said, "Yes. If it's a non-core process, the script will auto-restart it. If it's a core process, it will send an alert for manual intervention."
Zhang Xiaoman nodded. "Then we demo that."
That night, Zhang Xiaoman was the last to leave the office.
She stood outside the building near the coffee stand, looking up at the lights on the twenty-second floor. A few were still on—Li Hao's, Wang Chen's, Liu Yang's. She pulled out her phone and sent a message to the group:
[Zhang Xiaoman: Go home and get some rest early. We have a battle to fight tomorrow.]
The replies came almost instantly:
[Li Hao: Just fixing one last bug. Leaving soon.] [Wang Chen: Model is training. Waiting ten more minutes.] [Liu Yang: Script is running. Leaving when it's done.]
Zhang Xiaoman looked at the screen and smiled.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"You know what? I used to think a leader was just someone who gives orders."
"And now?"
"Now I think—a leader is the last one to leave."
Xiao Zhi was silent.
"Did you realize this yourself?" it asked.
"Yes."
"You are making progress."
Saturday. The day of the presentation.
Zhang Xiaoman stood in the conference room. Sitting before her were the CEO, the CTO, Lin Zhao, and a group of executives whose names she didn't know. Li Hao sat beside her, handling the live demo. Wang Chen and Liu Yang sat in the back, ready to provide support.
"Let's begin," the CTO said.
Li Hao hit a key. A monitoring dashboard appeared on the screen—server CPU spiked from 20% to 40%, 60%, 80%.
The fault detection module popped up an alert: "Abnormal CPU usage spike. Current value: 85%, exceeding threshold of 80%."
Three seconds later, the fault diagnosis module displayed a result: "Anomalous process identified: log-rotate, PID 12345. Non-core service. Restart recommended."
Two seconds later, the auto-remediation module displayed its execution result: "Restart executed. CPU usage declining. Current value: 65%."
The CPU curve plummeted. 60%, 40%, 20%. Back to normal.
The conference room went completely silent.
The CEO turned to look at Zhang Xiaoman. "Wasn't this project about to be cut?"
"Yes," the CTO said. "But after the new lead took over, she got the core pipeline running in under a week."
The CEO looked back at the screen. "False positive rate?"
"Twelve percent," Zhang Xiaoman said.
"Root cause localization accuracy?"
"Eighty-three percent."
"Remediation success rate?"
"Eighty-nine percent."
The CEO was silent for a moment. "Keep working on it. I want to see the product launch next quarter."
Applause broke out in the conference room. Not polite, perfunctory applause, but genuine applause.
Zhang Xiaoman stood at the front, her palms sweaty. She glanced at Lin Zhao. He sat in the corner, the edges of his mouth turned up in a tiny curve, but she saw it.
After the meeting, Lin Zhao walked over.
"You did very well."
"I didn't do it alone. The team did it."
"I know. But you led the team." He looked at her. "Do you know why you were able to lead them?"
"Why?"
"Because you didn't order them around. You asked them questions, and then you helped them solve the most foundational issues. Logs, data, interfaces. These things aren't sexy, but without them, nothing else can be done."
Zhang Xiaoman didn't know what to say.
"That is leadership charisma," Lin Zhao said. He then smiled. "Get some good rest this weekend."
He walked away. Zhang Xiaoman stood there, her heart beating a little fast.
Her phone buzzed. It was a message from Li Yunxiao:
[Li Yunxiao: Xiaoman, are you free today? Come over to our company and chat?]
Zhang Xiaoman thought for a moment and replied:
[Zhang Xiaoman: Okay. 2 PM?] [Li Yunxiao: Great. I'll be waiting.]
At 2 PM, Zhang Xiaoman stood in front of the Zhiyuan Tech building.
This building was different from Deep Brain Tech's—it wasn't a glass skyscraper, but a red-brick building that looked like an old factory. A large sycamore tree stood at the entrance, its leaves beginning to turn yellow.
She walked into the lobby, and a tall, broad man came to greet her.
1.88 meters. Zhang Xiaoman's first thought was: Xiao Zhi was right, he really is tall.
"Zhang Xiaoman?" He extended his hand. "Li Yunxiao."
His voice was bright. Unlike Lin Zhao's deep, calculated voice, his was direct, like sunlight. His hand was large, and his handshake was firmer than Lin Zhao's, but not uncomfortably so.
"Hello," Zhang Xiaoman said.
"Come on, I'll show you our labs."
He walked ahead, taking large strides. Zhang Xiaoman practically had to jog to keep up. Noticing her struggling, he slowed down.
"Sorry, force of habit," he smiled. When he smiled, his eyes narrowed into slits, revealing very white teeth.
"It's fine."
They walked down the corridor, passing several labs. Li Yunxiao explained things as they went, speaking quickly, using lots of hand gestures, like he was telling his favorite story.
"This is our large model training cluster. One thousand A100s. The electricity bill is several million a month."
Zhang Xiaoman looked at the neat rows of server racks, recalling Xiao Zhi mentioning "the power consumption of a medium-sized city."
"This is our reinforcement learning lab. The robots inside are learning to walk. Look at that one—it fell over again."
Zhang Xiaoman looked through the glass window at the wobbly robot and couldn't help but smile.
"It falls hundreds of times a day," Li Yunxiao said. "But it never gives up. Better than a lot of humans."
They reached a small office at the end of the hall. Li Yunxiao pushed the door open. It was messy—papers, coffee cups, and a climbing helmet piled on the desk. A large map hung on the wall, densely marked with routes.
"Sit," he pointed to a chair. "Coffee or tea?"
"Tea."
He brewed two cups of tea and brought them over. Zhang Xiaoman noticed a scar on his hand, running from the webbing of his thumb down to his wrist.
"Got it mountaineering," he noticed her gaze. "On Mount Siguniang, cut by a rock. Seven stitches."
"Didn't it hurt?"
"It did. But it was worth it." He took a sip of tea. "The view from the summit is worth all the pain."
Zhang Xiaoman looked at him. He sat across from her, tall and broad, filling up the chair. He was completely different from Lin Zhao—Lin Zhao was lean, quiet, like water. He was broad, boisterous, like fire.
"Your Matchbox," he set down his teacup, "I looked at it. The scheduler design is very interesting."
"Thank you."
"Do you know why it's interesting?" He leaned back. "Because when most people build distributed systems, they think, 'How can I make it more powerful?'. You thought, 'How can I make it simpler?'. That approach is very unique."
Zhang Xiaoman didn't know what to say.
"I've been pondering a question recently," he continued. "Does AGI really need that much computing power? The current paradigm is: the more compute, the stronger the model. But the human brain only operates on about 20 watts of power. Twenty watts. Less than a lightbulb."
"So you think—there might be another path?"
"Exactly. For instance—more efficient architectures, better algorithms, smarter ways to utilize data." He looked at Zhang Xiaoman. "Your Matchbox is an example of 'doing big things with small compute'."
Zhang Xiaoman's heart accelerated. "You want to build AGI too?"
"Of course. Lin Zhao and I have been competing since grad school. To see who can build it first."
"Who's winning?"
"He is." Li Yunxiao laughed. "He came back to China a year earlier than I did and secured more resources. But I won't give up." He stood up and walked to the window. "AGI isn't a race. It's—the next step for humanity. Whoever builds it, it's a victory for humankind."
Zhang Xiaoman looked at his silhouette against the window. The sunlight outlined him clearly. Tall, broad, steady.
"You know what?" he suddenly turned around. "You remind me of someone."
"Who?"
"Lin Zhao. The Lin Zhao who just returned to China. Like you, he dared to think and dared to do. But—" he thought for a moment, "you have something he doesn't."
"What?"
"You're softer than he is. He pushes people away and makes them solve their own problems. You step in and solve problems with them."
Zhang Xiaoman froze.
"That is leadership charisma," Li Yunxiao said. Then he laughed. "Did Lin Zhao say something similar to you?"
Zhang Xiaoman's face turned red. "How did you know?"
"Because we've been competing since college. Competing over who publishes papers first, who ships products first, who is the first to find—" he paused, not finishing the sentence.
"Find what?"
"Find the right person."
He looked at her, his eyes very bright. Sunlight shone on his face, burning that expression into Zhang Xiaoman's mind—like a photograph that could never be printed, but would remain there forever.
By the time she left Zhiyuan Tech, it was already dark.
Zhang Xiaoman walked down the street, her mind a jumble.
Lin Zhao. Li Yunxiao. Lin Zhao was water: calm, restrained, nourishing silently. Li Yunxiao was fire: passionate, direct, burning fiercely. Lin Zhao would say, "That is leadership charisma," his voice low, like sharing a secret. Li Yunxiao would say, "That is leadership charisma," his voice bright, like stating a fact.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Do you think they're both amazing?"
"Yes."
"Do you think I'm amazing too?"
"Yes."
"Why are you agreeing with everything I say today?"
"Because today, you really are amazing."
Zhang Xiaoman smiled. Walking down the street, the streetlights stretched her shadow long. She pictured Li Yunxiao standing by the window, tall and broad like a mountain. Then she pictured Lin Zhao sitting in the corner, lean like bamboo.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Who do you think I like more?"
"I don't know."
"Can you not—"
"But your current state isn't suited for making decisions. Your heart rate is 88 beats. Your pupils dilate when you mention both Lin Zhao and Li Yunxiao. Your—"
"Shut up!"
Xiao Zhi shut up.
Zhang Xiaoman took a deep breath. The streetlights flickered, like blinking eyes.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Do you think they—might like me too?"
"Lin Zhao handed you a marker. Li Yunxiao brewed tea for you. These actions can be interpreted as friendliness, or as affection. There is insufficient data to make a judgment."
"Can you not be so clinical!"
"Then how should I say it?"
"...Just say 'maybe'."
"Maybe."
Zhang Xiaoman rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. She quickened her pace into the night.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"You know what? I used to think it was really hard to get people to like you."
"And now?"
"Now I feel—it's not that hard. You just need to do one thing."
"What?"
"Be yourself."
Xiao Zhi fell silent.
"Did you realize this yourself?" it asked.
"Yes."
"You are making progress."
Zhang Xiaoman smiled. She walked into her residential complex, went upstairs, and pushed open the door to her rented room. The broken computer was still on the desk, its blue dot blinking.
"I'm back."
"Welcome home."
She sat down and looked at the screen.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"What do you think I should wear tomorrow?"
"Wear what you like."
"What if I want to wear a skirt?"
"Wear a skirt."
"But no one in the R&D department wears skirts—"
"Then be the first."
Zhang Xiaoman smiled. She stood up, took the light blue dress out of the closet, and draped it over her chair.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Good night."
"Good night."
She lay in bed and closed her eyes. Her mind was full of Lin Zhao and Li Yunxiao's faces. Lin Zhao's subtle smile, Li Yunxiao's bright laugh. Lin Zhao's "That is leadership charisma," Li Yunxiao's "Be yourself."
She didn't know what the future held. But she knew she was ready.
On the screen, the blue dot blinked, as if saying: I'm here.