Chapter 11: Supervised Rest

At two in the afternoon Lu Chen opened the vice president's door and found the couch empty.

The desk chair was empty too.

A pair of socks stuck out from under the desk.

"Eight honest hours," Lu Chen said. "You have logged three and a half."

"Mm," said the floor.

"Clause Two."

Su Yu crawled out backwards with his hair flat on one side and a paper held up in one hand.

It was a doctor's note, on letterhead, and it said, Patient requires frequent rest.

"Supervised rest counts as work," Su Yu said. "It's medical."

Lu Chen read the note.

He read it a second time, slower, and turned it over to check the back.

"Supervised," he said. "By me."

"I assumed."

"Then I am supervising. Lie down. I'll time it."

Su Yu lay down on the carpet, delighted, with his arms folded on his chest.

Lu Chen sat at the desk, opened the notebook, and wrote a line.

"What did you put?" Su Yu asked.

"Four hours, ten minutes of rest. Work done by his own hands: one signature, and a controller plugged into the office television."

Behind the couch, on the low shelf, sat a new game console with a headset hung on its handle.

"It's for stress," Su Yu said.

"The box says Ergonomic Competitive Edition."

"That's a stress category."

The knock was soft and friendly.

Shen Li stood in the doorway in a pale blue shirt, with a thermos in both hands.

"I heard the vice president hasn't been well," he said. "I brought soup. May I have ten minutes?"

Lu Chen stood up, and did not smile.

"Five," he said. "I'll be at the end of the corridor."

He went out and left the door open an inch.

Shen Li set the thermos on the desk and unscrewed it, and the smell of ginger and chicken filled the room.

"I'm not here to be your friend," he said. "I want that clear."