lcionline Chapter 1 Rebirth in 10
Chapter 1 Rebirth in 10
Lin Shen opened his eyes and saw the water stain on the ceiling of the rented room that had been with him for three years.
It took him three seconds to realize this wasn't a dream.
Beneath me was a hard bed, the sizzling sound of oil from the breakfast stalls downstairs filled my ears, and the damp smell unique to urban villages permeated my nostrils. The screen of my Samsung i9000 beside me was lit, displaying the time.
2010年7月12日，星期一，早上6点45分
He sat up, touched his face, and looked at his hands.
At 22, my skin was firm and had no puffy eye bags from years of staying up late.
At twenty-two, my fingers are slender and flexible, without the occasional dull pain caused by tenosynovitis from years of work.
"Really... back?"
He muttered to himself, then suddenly laughed.
The laughter sounded particularly abrupt in the cramped rented room, yet it carried a sense of release that had been suppressed for many years.
Lin Shen sat on the hard bed, and 37 years of memories flooded back. His name was Lin Shen, an ordinary programmer. After graduating from the Computer Science Department of Shenzhen University in 2010, he joined a small company, struggled for a year, and then entered a medium-sized outsourcing company. After that, he barely squeezed into Tencent through internal referrals, starting from the bottom as a coder.
Diligent and hardworking, he persevered step by step, spending seven years in the WeChat team and eventually becoming a senior engineer. Then he continued to persevere, working overtime, writing code, attending meetings, and writing weekly reports... until one late night in 2025, at the age of thirty-seven, he was still in front of his computer, with an unfinished quarterly summary on the screen.
When I open my eyes again, it will be now.
He wasn't some reborn tech genius, nor did he possess any extraordinary hacking skills. He was just an ordinary, somewhat experienced programmer, carrying with him memories of the industry's future direction over the next decade.
"But this time," he said to the air, "I'm going to live a different life."
"Let's leave the blessings of working overtime to those who need them more."
Just then, my phone vibrated, and a text message popped up:
"Lin Shen! The new version is going live today. Everyone must be there before 7 o'clock! Being late will result in a three-day pay deduction!" It was Project Manager Lao Wu.
Feixun Technology.
His previous life's career also started in a quagmire.
A small company making knock-off social apps, with about thirty people, whose boss promises to go public next year, actually does nothing but copy every feature that can be copied from the market, and then make the programmers stay up all night fixing bugs that are never-ending.
Lin Shen was deeply impressed by this place.
He remembers the helplessness of constantly changing the button to "move 2 pixels to the left," remembers his body starting to give him warning signs after a year, and remembers the disheveled state of his hasty escape.
Lin Shen stared at the screen, his thumb hovering over the delete key for a second, but then mischievously replied.
"Received. Also, I suggest the company purchase better quality coffee; drinking too much instant coffee can easily cause a heart attack and affect the launch schedule."
Old Wu will be furious.
Lin Shen whistled and tossed his phone aside.
This kind of crazy provocation gave him a sense of exhilaration at breaking free from the shackles of his past life, but Lin Shen's real goal was to break free from Feixun as soon as possible.
I washed up, got dressed, and slung my old backpack, which I'd used for four years, over my shoulder.
Before leaving, he glanced back at the partitioned room with a monthly rent of eight hundred, as if it had given his confused rebirth a bit of direction.
"My first goal is to move to a better living environment within six months!"
-----------------
7:20 a.m., Feixun Technology office.
Lin Shen arrived just in time, and as soon as he entered, he smelled the cheap coffee and leftover takeout in the air.
When Lao Wu saw Lin Shen, he was like a shark smelling blood; his face turned ashen as he walked over and shoved his phone screen almost into Lin Shen's face.
"What do you mean? Who are you cursing?"
"Manager Wu, I'm just concerned about the team's health," Lin Shen said with a bright smile. "You see, if someone collapses from exhaustion today, who's going to fix your bugs?"
Old Wu stared at him for two seconds, then suddenly sneered, "Fine, intern, you've got guts. You'll run all one thousand test cases for the testing team today. You're not allowed to leave until you've finished."
"A thousand?" Lin Shen raised an eyebrow. "Just me?"
"Yes, just you alone." Old Wu's tone was full of vengeful satisfaction. "If you can't finish, you'd better finish it even if you have to work through the night!"
The morning meeting begins.
Old Wu stood in front of the whiteboard, waving his arms like a supervisor, the marker in his hand like a whip:
"The testing team found 138 bugs! The tech team must fix them all today! If they're not fixed, we'll work through the night! If there are problems after deployment, all performance bonuses for this month will be reset to zero!"
A deathly silence filled the air as keyboard clicked.
Lin Shen sat down at his corner workstation and turned on his computer. On the screen was the code he had written the night before: a UI tweak for a login button. The product manager insisted on moving it 2 pixels to the left, saying it was more in line with design guidelines.
He was about to open the file.
At this very moment------
An extremely simple interface quietly unfolded in the lower right corner of his field of vision.
It's not an extravagant light screen, but more like a semi-transparent card with minimalist lines and a soft glow.
The "Slacking Off System" is now activated.
Status: Standby
[Slacking off coins: 0]
Current environmental coefficient: 0.4 (low-value repetitive environment)
[Formula for obtaining "Slacking Off Coins": Effective slacking time (minimum 0.1 hours) × Environmental factors]
[Available Features: Not yet unlocked (requires 1 "Slacking Off Coin" to activate basic features)]
Lin Shen was taken aback.
He hadn't expected it at all.
I thought being reborn was already a blessing from heaven, but now, I've even been given a cheat code.
Suppressing his inner elation, Lin Shen focused his gaze on the "environmental coefficient" and the formula.
Time spent slacking off × Environmental factor = Slacking off coins
So, is this a cheat code for cattle and horses?
Alright, since they're like oxen and horses, let them have a good rest.
Now, let's activate the system!
"The forest is deep!"
Old Wu's voice suddenly rang in my ears.
Lin Shen looked up and saw a greasy face close to the screen: "What are you spacing out for? Have you fixed the bug yet?! If you're done, go run the test cases!"
Everyone in the office looked over. They had no idea what was wrong with this diligent intern today, who was flirting with the early-onset Wu so early in the morning.
Lin Shen didn't panic at all; instead, he flashed an excessively bright smile: "Manager Wu, I was just pondering a philosophical question—if a bug isn't fixed, is it still a bug?"
Old Wu was taken aback, then flew into a rage: "What nonsense are you talking about! Get back to work!"
"Okay!"
Lin Shen readily agreed, his voice so loud that the entire office could hear him.
Old Wu left cursing and swearing, clearly still seething with anger.
Once Lao Wu had walked away, Lin Shen looked at the system interface again.
Fishing Coins: 0.
You need to accumulate 1 coin to unlock basic features. In a 0.4 coefficient environment, he needs to slack off for 2.5 hours.
But is it on Feixun?
Interns always have endless tedious work to do, while full-time employees are always sneaking glances at them to see if they're fully occupied. As soon as one task ends, another begins.
Moreover, he was even thinking of resigning today...
System, you've come at the worst possible time. I should have known better than to mess with Old Wu.
In the morning, Lin Shen efficiently handled the few simple bugs assigned to him, which was no challenge for someone with his years of experience.
Afterwards, he went to the testing team to run test cases. During breaks, under the guise of "thinking" and "reading documents," he let his thoughts wander aimlessly: searching for gossip about big companies from the past 10 years on forums, checking current housing prices on local information platforms, and looking for accurate predictions on Tianya...
Around noon, the system finally showed some changes.
[Valid time spent slacking off detected: 0.3 hours]
Current environmental coefficient: 0.4
[Slacking off coins +0.12]
[Cumulative "Slacking Off" Coins: 0.12]
Lin Shen looked at the pitiful 0.12 and his lips twitched.
This is incredibly inefficient! How long will it take to figure this out?
Because he had to switch test cases frequently, and the system's minimum cumulative time was 0.1 hours, he remembered that he was always idling, but the time recorded was only about 20 minutes.
Noon, lunch break.
Lin Shen's colleagues were either sleeping at their desks or ordering takeout together. Lin Shen left the office alone, went downstairs to the convenience store, bought a bottle of water, and then took a slow walk under the shade of the trees on the street.
He deliberately cleared his mind, observed the street scene, and felt the breeze.
However, half an hour later, and an hour later...
The system has not yet notified me that the "Fishing Coins" have been credited to my account.
He didn't start work until 1 p.m., and after slacking off for half an hour, he realized that the system had started accumulating again. He had a vague feeling that the system seemed to only calculate based on working hours.
"What kind of respect are you giving to an employment contract?!"
As Lin Shen was internally complaining, Feixun's server monitoring started showing a flood of red alerts.
"Technical team, find out the cause! If it can't be resolved within 2 hours, everyone work overtime!" Old Wu stood in front of his whiteboard again, waving his arms.
The office was instantly thrown into chaos.
Lin Shen suddenly recalled this incident; it was the first reward he received at Feixun, a commendation from Lao Wu. The reason was a low-level configuration error in the database connection pool, which he had stayed up until 2 a.m. in his previous life to locate from the clues in the logs.
This time, however, he doesn't plan to wait that long, but he will definitely not waste this opportunity.
He needs a "reasonable performance".
Lin Shen decisively raised his hand, his voice not loud but clearly penetrating the noise of the entire office: "Manager Wu, since the problem is to investigate the database, it's too inefficient to have everyone search for a needle in a haystack with their naked eyes."
He paused, looking at Old Wu's anxious face as he turned around, and continued, "I'll request permission to write an automated script that will directly pull all the database logs from the server for the last 24 hours for pattern analysis."
This is much faster than a dozen people staring at screens and blindly searching—of course, if you think having everyone stop what they're doing to 'manually check' is more efficient, then disregard what I said; I still have to run test cases, and if I don't finish running 1, I'll have to stay up all night.
Old Wu's face flushed slightly. He was about to open his mouth to retort, but Lin Shen didn't give him the chance.
"Oh, right," Lin Shen added, as if suddenly remembering something, "the script requires a lot of system resources to run, which might slow down other colleagues' work a bit. But since everyone's currently on hiatus 'investigating,' it shouldn't have a big impact, right, Manager Wu?"
This was an extremely sarcastic remark, essentially a dig at Lao Wu's command abilities.
But Lin Shen also figured it out. Since he had already offended him, he would take the opportunity to slack off and get some interest from Lao Wu. After all, if it weren't for Lin Shen in his previous life, who knows when Feixun would have been able to find out the problem. He was still helping out for the sake of his 2500 yuan internship salary!
Several long-time employees in the office couldn't help but bury their heads, their shoulders trembling slightly.
Old Wu clenched and unclenched his fist, staring intently at Lin Shen, finally squeezing out a few words through gritted teeth: "...You write. I'll give you read-only access."
"Do you have enough permissions?" Lin Shen asked with a "professional" air. "If we can only read part of the logs, the analysis results might be biased. What if we don't find the real cause because of permission issues..."
He didn't finish his sentence, but the meaning was clear: if something goes wrong, it's your responsibility.
Old Wu's temples throbbed; he could almost hear the blood rushing to his head. But now that the server was down, every extra minute wasted cost money, and he couldn't afford to gamble.
"...Highest read-only access." Old Wu practically gritted his teeth as he said it. "Hurry up and write it."
"Alright." Lin Shen turned around and sat back down at his workstation, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he muttered to himself, his voice just loud enough for the people around him to hear, "It would have been so much better if we had done this earlier. Why did we have to drag everyone into this charade... People who didn't know better would think our company had switched to performance art."
Old Wu heard it.
His face was contorted, but he couldn't utter a single word.
Because he knew that every word Lin Shen said was true—his own behavior just now was indeed like a meaningless performance art piece.
What frustrates him most is that he now has to rely on this intern who publicly humiliated him to solve the problem.
With his back to Lao Wu, Lin Shen finally revealed an undisguised smile.
It became.
A task that requires downloading and "analyzing" tens of gigabytes of log files.
The perfect state during script execution: "only wait for the result".
An application that Old Wu was furious about but had no choice but to approve.
Lin Shen opened the terminal, entered the first command, and the progress bar began to slowly crawl.
Then he leaned back, crossed his hands behind his head, and happily started slacking off, watching the system notification that started flashing in the lower right corner of his vision.