After eating and sleeping for a few hours, Su Zhi regained a little bit of strength, and the third project was revised very quickly.
Her slender, elegant fingertips tapped a few keys then paused for a few seconds, but her train of thought remained unbroken as she combed through Ming Can’s fragmented project experiences one by one, turning them into neat and uniform entries.
Ming Can squatted by the bedside, watching her hands move across the keyboard. Her wrist bones still protruded obviously, but at least they weren’t shaking like before.
“Project Three: Appetizing for You Errander-Running Mini Program (2024.09-2024.12)”
“Responsibilities:”
“Responsible for the full-process development of the order module, including publishing, order acceptance, and status tracking.”
“Implemented real-time push for order acceptance based on WebSocket, handling message queues in high-concurrency scenarios.”
“Optimized order list rendering performance, using virtual scrolling to reduce blank screen time.”
Ming Can looked at the last line of text and weakly added: “That virtual scrolling part. I didn’t write it well at the time, and it even bugged out later.”
“And now?” Su Zhi asked.
“It’s good now,” Ming Can smiled with her eyes curved. “When delivering, I was afraid the client would find out and not pay me, so I refactored it all over again overnight.”
Su Zhi’s gaze shifted away from the screen and landed on her face, lingering for two seconds before moving back as the cursor shifted to the next line.
“What else?”
Ming Can: “Nothing else, just these three. All the other ones were random part-time gigs. The pay was too slow for those kinds of things, so I never did them again after that.”
Hearing the words “the pay was too slow,” Su Zhi kept her fingertips suspended over the keyboard without speaking. That subtle emotion was hidden in the depths of her eyes, and she proceeded to read the resume from start to finish, corrected a couple of typos, and then pushed the computer toward Ming Can.
“Take a look.”
Ming Can took the computer and stared at the neat resume on the screen in a somewhat daze. Those pieces of code that she considered completely unpresentable were suddenly optimized by Su Zhi to look… quite professional.
“Su Zhi,” she raised her head with bright eyes, “you are so amazing!”
Su Zhi lowered her eyelids, her expression turning unnatural for an instant. In usual work settings, everyone feared and dreaded her, and no one had ever praised her like this little girl, her eyes curved as she complimented: “Su Zhi, you are so amazing!”
This feeling was very unfamiliar; she wasn’t used to it, but she liked it very much.
Without replying, she lowered her eyes, pulled her hands back, and rested them by her sides.
Ming Can put the computer aside, stood up to stretch her numb muscles, and then bent down to lean closer to her: “Sister, are you hungry? What do you want for dinner?”
Su Zhi’s eyelids lifted slightly as she glanced at her with an indifferent gaze, though Ming Can inexplicably felt she was saying: “You only ever think about eating.”
The next second, a cool, crisp voice suddenly arrived: “What are the Vue lifecycle hooks?”
Ming Can froze, instinctively answering: “beforeCreate, created, beforeMount, mounted, beforeUpdate, updated, beforeDestroy, destroyed.”
“What about activated and deactivated?”
“Those are for keep-alive,” Ming Can answered smoothly. “Used for caching components. activated is triggered when entering a component, and deactivated is triggered when leaving a component.”
“Have you used nextTick?”
“Used it,” Ming Can nodded. “When you want to manipulate the DOM after modifying data, using nextTick lets you get the updated DOM.”
Without stopping, Su Zhi continued asking: “How are axios interceptors used?”
Ming Can: “Request interceptors can add a token before sending a request, and response interceptors can uniformly handle error codes, like 401 redirecting to login.”
“Have you encountered cross-domain issues?”
“Encountered them. The backend configures CORS, or the frontend configures a proxy.”
“How is WebSocket disconnection and reconnection handled?”
“Listen to the close and error events, and attempt to reconnect after they are triggered, setting a retry limit and delay time.”
Su Zhi asked one question, and Ming Can answered one, speaking at a brisk pace without pausing.
As the questioning went on, Su Zhi’s voice slowed down until it finally stopped.
She looked at Ming Can, her gaze holding something very faint and almost imperceptible, resembling surprise, or perhaps… something else.
Ming Can felt a bit uneasy under her gaze: “Wh-what is it? Did I answer incorrectly?”
“No,” Su Zhi said, her voice lighter than before. “All correct.”
Ming Can breathed a sigh of relief, grinning widely with a proud look: “Of course they’re all correct! I remember these knowledge points just by reading them once. Although I haven’t had many opportunities to practice them, once I actually enter a company later on, I’ll be able to get the hang of it very quickly!”
Su Zhi didn’t reply, her gaze still lingering on her face.
After a moment, she lowered her eyes and said in a very small voice: “Pretty good.”
The voice was so soft Ming Can almost missed it.
Realizing what she said, Ming Can bent down and leaned right in front of Su Zhi: “Sister, what did you say?”
Su Zhi ignored her.
Ming Can refused to give up, tilting her head to chase her line of sight: “Su Zhi, did you just praise me? Did you say I’m pretty good?”
Su Zhi averted her gaze, her tone ice-cold: “No.”
“What are you talking about? I heard it, you praised me!” Ming Can smiled, her eyes shining as if lit by lamps. “You praised me for being pretty good! Su Zhi, you praised me!”
Su Zhi closed her eyes, the corners of her lips curving into a very light, very shallow arc.
Ming Can watched, her eyes flashing with amazement. This was the first time since she accepted this part-time job that Su Zhi had smiled at her. No, not just at her, she had never shown any such emotion to anyone else.
It was a cute smile, and also one that made people’s hearts ache.
Ming Can didn’t make a fuss anymore, simply standing by the bedside to look at that very faint trace of a smile on Su Zhi’s bloodless face.
“Sister,” she called out, using a very sweet address, “should we have potato mash for dinner?”
Potato mash—Su Zhi had never heard of such a thing in her life!
She lifted her eyelids, a trace of surprise flickering in her gaze.
Understanding, Ming Can smiled and explained: “Potato mash, a specialty snack from my hometown. Add a little leek flower, and the soup is sour and delicious!”
Su Zhi: (…)
“Let me see if they sell it on Meituan,” Ming Can said as she lowered her head and started flipping through delivery apps. Scrolling page after page, she finally spotted a place selling jiangshui noodles and cried out excitedly: “They actually sell this kind of thing!”
Su Zhi’s thoughts were led back and forth by her shifting emotions. Ming Can tapped into that shop, browsed through it, and failed to find the so-called potato mash, so she found the merchant’s contact info and called the boss directly to communicate. Within a moment, the call was finished.
The smile on Ming Can’s face faded slightly, but when Su Zhi’s gaze turned over, it lit right back up: “The boss said they don’t have potato mash, but they do have jiangshui yuyu. Sister, have you ever eaten that?”
Su Zhi shook her head.
“That’s also super delicious!” Ming Can’s eyes lit up again. “Jiangshui is a kind of sour soup fermented with celery, and the yuyu are made from cornmeal, shaped like little tadpoles, slippery and super delicious. The boss said they’ll give us extra leek flower. I ordered two portions, one spicy and one non-spicy, plus an order of cold shredded potatoes. You can try it when it arrives later, I guarantee it’s amazingly fragrant!”
Watching her dance with excitement, Su Zhi uncontrollably pictured a bunch of black little tadpoles tossed with leek flower in her mind.
Su Zhi: (…)
Her gaze shifted to the person in front of her. She really was just a kid, recovering her energy very quickly. A moment ago she had been squatting by the bed looking pitifully at her resume revisions, and the next second she was bouncing around organizing dinner.
Like a weed with tenacious vitality, capable of taking root in no matter how barren the soil, growing wildly at the slightest hint of sunshine.
“Ming Can,” Su Zhi called out to her.
Ming Can raised her head at the sound, maintaining her brilliant smile.
“After eating, I’m testing you on algorithms,” Su Zhi said.
Hearing that, Ming Can let out an “ah,” putting on a dissatisfied tone.
“Would you really do that, Director Su? Testing someone on algorithms right after they finish eating! Considering I went out of my way to eagerly help you scavenge for food and order such delicious jiangshui yuyu for you, even if I haven’t made any great contributions, I’ve still put in hard labor, and if not hard labor, at least fatigue!”
As she rambled on, Su Zhi merely lifted her eyelids indifferently, her expression clearly spelling out: And so?
Ming Can’s momentum deflated at a visible speed as she muttered softly: “Can we test it tomorrow instead?”
Su Zhi: “No.”
“Why?!” Ming Can exaggerated her expression.
Su Zhi didn’t answer, simply lowering her eyes while unconsciously twisting the corner of the quilt with her fingers.
Watching her movements, Ming Can actually knew very well in her heart that the other person was worrying about her—worrying that her theoretical knowledge was solid while her actual algorithmic skills were lacking, worrying that she would get screened out in tomorrow’s interview, worrying that she wouldn’t land this job opportunity.
“Alright then!” She pouted in feigned reluctance. “Test away, my algorithms are awesome too!”
Su Zhi raised her eyes, a flash of exceptionally faint amusement sweeping through her gaze—the second time she had displayed such an expression. Watching her, Ming Can felt as if something had gently poked the bottom of her heart, light and itchy with an indescribable feeling.
The delivery arrived.
Ming Can bounced over to open the door, lugged back two plastic bags, placed them on the bedside table, unsealed them deftly, and broke apart a pair of disposable chopsticks.
“Dinner is served!” She turned around, adjusted the electric bed upward a bit, set up the small table board, and then carried over the non-spicy bowl of yuyu along with the cold shredded potatoes. “There, the standard setup!”
Su Zhi’s gaze landed on that bowl of yuyu for a few seconds with a hint of surprise.
The jiangshui soup base was a pale grayish-white, floating with a few segments of celery and leek flower, while sunk in the soup were some golden little things—the so-called yuyu, pointed at both ends and round in the middle, half-sunken and half-floating in the soup, indeed resembling little tadpoles.
Ming Can grabbed a small spoon and handed it to her: “See? I told you they look like little tadpoles and you didn’t believe me.”
Su Zhi took the spoon, lowered her eyelids, and stared at those little tadpoles.
Ming Can urged: “Eat quickly, they won’t be chewy if they get cold!”
Su Zhi picked up her spoon, scooped up a spoonful, and hesitated over how to swallow it. Right at that moment, Ming Can had already picked up her own spicy bowl, buried her head, and started eating with slurping sounds.
Su Zhi raised her gaze to look at her for a moment, then mirrored her movements, sliding that piece of yuyu into her mouth bit by bit.