You Are the Code of My Heartbeat

Temperature Cache

Cheng Jian noticed the Post-it on the fridge had moved.

The original note — "Don’t forget to eat pudding!" — used to be in the top-right corner, but now it was centered, with a new pale-yellow sticky note beside it. It featured a childlike sun drawing and the words:

"Today’s outdoor temperature: 28°C."

Cheng Jian stared at the crooked sun for three seconds before adjusting the magnet. She preferred notes arranged at precise right angles, while Lu Wan always slapped them on like colorful patches scattered by hand.

Clattering dishes came from the kitchen. Cheng Jian walked in to find Lu Wan on tiptoe, reaching for a glass jar on the top shelf. Her pajama pants were rolled up to mid-calf, revealing a patch of white ankle still smudged with yesterday’s watercolor paint.

“Need help?” Cheng Jian asked.

Lu Wan turned around, nearly dropping the jar. “This!” She shook the container; dark granules rattled inside. “My mom sent osmanthus honey — perfect with pancakes.”

Cheng Jian took the jar. As their fingers brushed, Lu Wan suddenly gasped.

“Your hands are freezing.” Without waiting, she grabbed Cheng Jian’s wrist, pressing her palm against Cheng Jian’s knuckles. “Like holding a scalpel.”

Cheng Jian froze. Lu Wan’s thumb rested exactly on her pulse — racing beyond the normal threshold monitored by Cheng Jian’s health app.

`Warning: Abnormal Heart Rate. Current Value: 109 bpm`

The smartwatch screen flickered on and off. Lu Wan didn’t seem to notice; she focused instead on warming Cheng Jian’s fingers between her palms, exhaling warm breath that briefly hung in the morning light like mist.

“Better?” she asked.

Cheng Jian looked at their overlapping hands. Lu Wan’s nails were short, with tiny hangnails; her calloused fingertips bore traces of years spent gripping pens. These details were all recorded in Cheng Jian’s `reciprocal_records` database, yet reality felt far more vivid than data.

“Mm.” Cheng Jian murmured, not pulling away.

---

At lunch break, Cheng Jian received an email.

The sender was the company’s tech director. The subject line read plainly: Promotion Review Notice.

She stared at those words until the screen dimmed, reflecting her blurred silhouette — hair slightly longer than three months ago, jawline less tense, lips curved ever so slightly upward in an almost imperceptible smile.

These changes were as subtle as rewritten low-level code, detectable only through version control.

“Cheng Jian!” Lu Wan’s voice rang from the living room. “Look what I found!”

Cheng Jian closed her laptop and stepped out, finding Lu Wan cross-legged on the carpet, flipping through an old photo album Cheng Jian had shoved into a moving box and forgotten.

“This one!” Lu Wan pointed excitedly. “You actually smiled this wide in college!”

In the photo, Cheng Jian stood on a podium, trophy in hand, smiling wider than she remembered — an expression now foreign to her. The background blurred into color blocks, but she stood under spotlight, like a highlighted line of code.

“Back then…” Cheng Jian paused. “I got happy when projects ran smoothly.”

Lu Wan tilted her head. “What about now?”

Now. Cheng Jian recalled last night — Lu Wan sleepily draping her leg over Cheng Jian’s waist like a koala clinging to a tree trunk. She’d gently moved it aside, but as she pulled back, her fingertip had unconsciously brushed Lu Wan’s ankle — where a small mole sat, glowing faintly under moonlight like a period.

“Now my standards are higher,” she said.

Lu Wan blinked, then leaned in suddenly. “Cheng Jian, your ears are red.”

`Warning: Abnormal Heart Rate. Current Value: 115 bpm`

Cheng Jian turned to get water from the kitchen, hearing Lu Wan laugh behind her — a sound like unsealed bubbles floating upward.

---

At 8 PM, Cheng Jian debugged code in the study. Lu Wan knocked and entered with a cup of hot milk.

“Don’t stay up too late.” She placed the cup beside the mousepad; steam fogged Cheng Jian’s glasses.

Cheng Jian removed them to wipe, her gaze drifting unintentionally to Lu Wan’s pajama hem — streaked with cobalt-blue paint, like a meteor slicing across night sky. She remembered the record in `reciprocal_records`:

`hair_color_stains: Cobalt Blue | Burnt Sienna | Madder Red`

“What are you looking at?” Lu Wan followed her gaze. “Oh, got it again…”

She patted the fabric absently. The motion shifted her collar, revealing a small crescent-shaped scar just below her collarbone. In the warm light, it appeared almost transparent.

“What is this?” Cheng Jian gestured.

Lu Wan glanced down. “From falling out of a tree as a kid.” She caught Cheng Jian’s wrist, guiding her finger to touch the mark. “Can you feel it? The doctor said it’ll fade completely in a few years.”

Cheng Jian’s fingertip trembled slightly. The scar felt rougher than surrounding skin — like commented-out code still lingering in the compiler, just no longer executed.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

Lu Wan shook her head. “Long forgot.” She released Cheng Jian’s hand; the collar snapped back, hiding the little crescent. “But you—” She poked Cheng Jian’s forehead. “Always frowning, like debugging the whole world.”

Cheng Jian instinctively relaxed her brow. Lu Wan laughed, ruffling her hair affectionately — a gesture as natural as handling Debug. The health monitor pinged another warning, but Cheng Jian ignored it.

She watched Lu Wan leave, the cobalt-blue paint on her pajamas fading under hallway lights like a meteor burning through atmosphere.

---

Late at night, Cheng Jian lay in bed checking emails.

The promotion review required a three-year technical roadmap. She opened a blank document, fingers hovering above the keyboard — yet no keystrokes came. Moonlight filtered through sheer curtains, casting soft shadows on the floor. Beside her, Lu Wan slept peacefully, hair spread across the pillow, a few strands brushing Cheng Jian’s shoulder — ticklish.

Cheng Jian gently set the laptop aside and brushed the strand away. The movement startled Debug, who rolled off the bed with a soft plop.

Lu Wan mumbled in her sleep, instinctively shifting closer to Cheng Jian. Her knee pressed lightly against Cheng Jian’s thigh, warmth seeping through the thin blanket — like a continuously running warm process.

Cheng Jian didn’t move away.

She reopened the document, typed Technical Roadmap & Personal Development in the title bar, then wrote beneath it:

`1. Optimize heart rate monitoring algorithm, increase abnormal threshold`

As she saved, she heard Lu Wan giggle in her sleep — like receiving a long-expected gift.