After that day, Zhou Qiming began encountering frequent minor deviations.
Nothing serious.
Nothing that disrupted his life.
More often than not, they could hardly even be called "problems."
They were simply things that should have aligned—slightly out of place.
Like his alarm clock.
He was certain he had set it for 7:10.
Yet when he woke up, the screen displayed 7:08.
It hadn't gone off early.
He hadn't misremembered the time.
The alarm had already stopped, as if it had completed its task normally.
He stared at the phone for a moment, then let it go.
In the past, he would have checked.
Scrolled through the settings, confirmed whether he had accidentally changed it the night before.
That morning, he simply turned the phone face down on the bed and got up to wash.
The sound of running water echoed in the cramped bathroom.
While brushing his teeth, he suddenly realized something—
When he had woken up, he hadn't felt his sleep being interrupted.
It felt more like it had ended naturally.
The realization startled him.
He nearly swallowed the foam, spat it out, rinsed again, and looked up at the mirror.
The face staring back at him was the same as ever.
Only now, there seemed to be a little more empty space behind the eyes.
Before leaving, he stood by the door tying his shoelaces.
When he finished the knot, the left lace was noticeably shorter than the right.
He untied it and tried again.
The second time, it was still uneven.
He paused, examining his hands.
His fingers were steady—no tremor, no loss of control.
Yet the repeated appearance of such minor discrepancies stirred a feeling he couldn't quite name.
Not failure.
More like a reduction in precision.
The subway station was as crowded as ever.
When Zhou Qiming swiped his card at the turnstile, it didn't open immediately. A red light flashed, then turned green again.
The person ahead had already walked on.
He remained where he was, waited for the gate to fully reset, and only then stepped forward.
He didn't look back.
He didn't complain.
He noticed that interruptions were bothering him less and less.
The train arrived. Doors opened. The crowd surged forward. He was carried along, his steps requiring no conscious control. At one moment, a thought surfaced—
If he closed his eyes now, nothing bad would probably happen.
The thought made him snap his eyes open.
He realized he had almost done it.
The impulse was brief, but unmistakably real.
As if his body were testing a new default setting.
The commute itself hadn't changed.
The office, his workstation, the system—everything unfolded according to its established routine. The workload remained steady, neither heavy nor light. Just enough.
At ten o'clock, a new system prompt appeared.
[Test Phase Notice]
Please pay attention to "abnormal judgments."
The system will synchronously record manual correction paths.
Zhou Qiming glanced at it and clicked Confirm.
He understood exactly what it meant.
The system was no longer merely learning.
It was calibrating the human.
He began processing tasks.
The judgment process remained smooth, yet he noticed he was reaching the "boundary" more easily than before. Certain cases that he would once have resolved without hesitation now required an extra second.
Not because he doubted right or wrong.
But because the line itself had grown less sharp.
Once he became aware of this, his movements slowed.
The slowness didn't come from fatigue.
It came from expanded choice.
The system provided a recommended judgment, labeled High Confidence.
All he had to do was confirm—or correct it.
Most of the time, he confirmed.
Occasionally, he corrected.
Each time he did, the system hesitated briefly before recording the change.
The process gave him a peculiar sensation—
as if he were informing something unseen:
here, you haven't fully covered this yet.
At lunchtime, he went downstairs.
The corridor connecting Buildings A and B was under repair, forcing a temporary detour. He walked slowly, trailing the crowd. People ahead talked about work, projects, bonuses. He heard them, but none of it stayed with him.
At the cafeteria entrance, he suddenly stopped.
Not because of the crowd.
Not because of the line.
For a brief moment, he wasn't sure why he needed to eat.
The thought was absurd—and fleeting.
Before it could settle, his body moved ahead of it.
Swipe card.
Collect food.
Find a seat.
All routine.
Yet once seated, he ate more slowly than usual.
The food tasted normal—adequately seasoned, nothing wrong.
Still, he couldn't shake the sense that the act of chewing itself felt unnecessary.
The thought made him frown.
He recognized that something about it was off.
To interrupt it, he looked around.
The cafeteria was full. Every table occupied. Conversations overlapped. People scrolled through phones, laughed with colleagues.
Everyone looked firmly present.
Only he seemed to have stepped back half a pace.
Around three in the afternoon, he went to the restroom.
The mirror above the sink was spotless, the light almost too white. After washing his hands, he didn't leave right away. He stood there, watching droplets fall from his fingertips.
It was a scene he had encountered more than once lately.
He realized he was repeating certain actions.
Not deliberately.
More as if drawn by a pattern.
Whenever he stood between "reality" and something else, he instinctively performed small acts of confirmation.
Washing his hands.
Looking into mirrors.
Touching something cold.
These actions allowed him to remain firmly on this side.
When he returned to his workstation, the system chimed.
[Calibration Complete]
Current manual correction rate: 0.7%
The number was slightly lower than yesterday.
Zhou Qiming looked at it without emotion.
He suddenly understood—
he was being rewarded for good behavior.
Not for efficiency.
Not for accuracy.
But because he was deviating less and less.
Before leaving for the day, his supervisor passed behind him and tapped the back of his chair.
"You've been pretty steady lately," the supervisor said.
Zhou Qiming nodded.
It sounded like praise.
But to him, it felt hollow.
He knew exactly what steady meant.
It meant no longer needing attention.
When he stepped out of the building, the sky hadn't fully darkened. Clouds hung low. Streetlights were already on, though it wasn't quite time for them to matter.
He stood at the curb, waiting for the light.
Pedestrians across the street began to move. He didn't follow immediately. Only when someone behind him lightly bumped his bag did he realize the signal had changed.
He stepped forward.
His feet landed on the crosswalk in a steady rhythm.
Halfway across, a brief illusion surfaced—
the road felt slightly longer than before.
Not in distance.
But as if an extra blank interval had been inserted in the middle, forcing an unnecessary confirmation.
He reached the other side and paused.
These deviations were becoming more frequent.
And he wasn't sure
whether it was already too late
to return to his former precision.