I Am Diagnosed as a Medical Titan

’Where is the money going to come from?!’

This was the first thought to cross Feng Ye’s mind every day the moment he opened his eyes.

He rubbed his eyes. They were so dry and irritated... It was the price he paid for staying up all night, staring at a computer screen. He could feel the chronic problems setting in, even at his young age.

His mother, Wu Lan, had thrown up six times last night, and he’d gotten up to clean it up every single time. He hadn’t slept a wink.

He went out to buy breakfast, and when he returned to her bedside, his mother was already awake.

The chemotherapy and high fever had left her huddled in her hospital gown, looking like a withered leaf.

Feng Ye took the warm buns and plain congee he had just bought from his coat and gently cranked the hospital bed up a little.

"Mom, eat something. We have meat buns this morning. I made sure to pick the ones with less fat."

Wu Lan struggled to turn her head. She looked at her son for a moment before averting her gaze.

Her lips trembled. "Son... I feel like I’m almost better. Let’s have your father handle the discharge papers today. Let’s just go home, okay?"

The hand Feng Ye used to hold the spoon faltered. He then scooped up some congee, blew on it gently, and brought it to Wu Lan’s lips.

"Mom, right now, all you need to do is focus on your treatment. Don’t worry about anything else. The doctor already told us the tumor is shrinking. The Paclitaxel and Cisplatin combination is working. The fever and nausea are just normal side effects—it means the drugs are killing the cancer cells. Just hang in there a little longer. You’ll be all better soon."

"I..."

"Don’t worry about the money," Feng Ye cut in. "I’ll handle it. Your only job right now is to drink this congee. All that matters is that you get well."

Seeing the stubborn look in her son’s eyes, Wu Lan swallowed the congee, but a tear escaped the corner of her eye and soaked into the pillow.

After she finished breakfast, Feng Ye tucked in her blanket, pulled his father aside for a few quick words, then grabbed his battered black backpack and left the room.

He needed money.

He needed it today.

The internet back in 2008 was nowhere near as developed as it would later become, but for a skilled tech professional, channels for monetization already existed.

Feng Ye’s method for making money was simple: he took on freelance coding projects.

It was an era when online freelancing platforms were just starting to emerge.

The outsourcing section of the CSDN Forum, the tech freelance board on the South China Mumei BBS, and sites like the Zhubajie Network were all places Feng Ye constantly monitored for work.

As long as the pay was quick, no project was too tough for him to tackle.

Recently, he had landed a big gig through a referral from an upperclassman on one of the BBS forums.

A small startup team in Tianhe Software Park wanted to develop a web-based card and board game and was in urgent need of a back-end architect proficient in Flex and Python.

Back in 2008, web-based games were just beginning to take off. Among students, anyone who could build a polished front end with Flex while also coding a high-concurrency, low-latency server architecture in Python was a rare find indeed.

A project of this scope was worth at least fifty or sixty thousand at the time, given the market rates.

But the small team’s budget was extremely limited, and they were lowballing every offer.

Feng Ye approached them directly.

They had only one thing to say: "Ten thousand. Five thousand as a deposit, and the rest when the framework is up and running."

Feng Ye took the deal.

He had only one condition: payment was due on the day of delivery.

The other party saw the test code he wrote on the spot and was completely blown away. They sealed the deal immediately.

Today was the day he was due to deliver the project and collect the final payment.

Feng Ye found a secluded flowerbed outside the inpatient ward and took his ThinkPad out of his bag.

He booted it up, connected to his phone’s GPRS network, and confirmed that the final code package he’d sent late last night had been downloaded.

He closed the laptop and dialed the number for his contact at the company, President He.

The phone rang for a long time before it was picked up.

During the long seconds he waited, the words his professor had told him two weeks ago suddenly flashed through Feng Ye’s mind:

"Feng Ye, you’re the most talented student I’ve ever had. If you just continue your studies, your future will be limitless."

’A limitless future.’

The corner of Feng Ye’s mouth twitched into a bitter smile.

’I don’t regret dropping out.’

’What good is a bright future if I can’t even save the mother who raised me?’

As long as he could get this money to pay for his mother’s next round of treatment, he’d be willing to wait tables or even scavenge for trash under an overpass.

He’d be willing.

"Hello? Who is this?"

"President He, it’s me, Feng Ye. Did you get the code package? I’ve run the server and client interaction tests three times; it handles two thousand concurrent users with no issues."

"Oh, Xiaofeng. Yeah, I looked at the code. It’s mostly fine, I guess. But our testers found a small bug. It occasionally drops packets during data sync. That’s a pretty serious issue."

Feng Ye frowned. "I implemented persistence in the underlying message queue I wrote with Python. It won’t drop packets, even with a disconnection and reconnection. The packet loss you’re seeing is most likely caused by a memory leak in your front-end Flash player. All you need to do is add a resource-reclamation mechanism. It’s not an issue with the architecture."

The line went silent for two seconds.

"Look, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. The fact is, the program isn’t running perfectly," President He said with a hollow laugh. "Besides, the big boss isn’t in today. He went to Macau to check on a project, so finance can’t get the signature. How about this: you come by again next Monday, fix those ’little problems’ for us, and we’ll process your payment then."

’Next Monday?’

’Today is Friday.’

Feng Ye’s heart sank.

’If I don’t get that final five thousand today, the hospital will stop Mom’s Paclitaxel infusions tomorrow morning.’

Feng Ye struggled to control his voice. "President He, we had an agreement. Payment in full on the day of delivery. My mom is in the oncology ward right now, waiting for this money to continue her treatment. I’m begging you. Can you please talk to your finance department? Could you even just transfer three thousand for now?"

"Now, Xiaofeng, you’re just not playing by the rules. The company has procedures. We can’t just break protocol because of your personal problems, can we? But... seeing as you’re in a real bind, and I’m a soft-hearted guy, how about this: if you really can’t wait until Monday, I can give you two thousand out of my own pocket. But if I do, we’ll consider the job paid in full. You won’t have to worry about any future issues; I’ll just hire someone else to fix them. Two thousand. I can transfer it right now. Take it or leave it?"