Chapter Five: Stationed at Qianfo Town

(1/3)
(Part One)
Qianfo Town falls under the jurisdiction of Tongyuan City, with its administrative center located in Qianfo Village on the eastern bank of a river bend along the Jialing River.

The Jialing River flows from north to south through this area, then turns southeast briefly before swinging southwest again, forming a vast horseshoe-shaped bay. The terrain here is relatively gentle, and the once-rushing river waters soften noticeably upon reaching this spot.

A stream named Jianxi runs east to west, dividing Qianfo Village into northern and southern halves before merging into the Jialing River. A stone bridge spans Jianxi, crossing which one can reach the northern half of the village.

The village’s residences cluster along both banks of Jianxi: two-story stone houses resembling small castles, aged and weathered; two-story wooden structures darkened from years of exposure to smoke and fire; and low, mud-walled adobe dwellings. Most roofs feature asymmetrical gable styles, covered with small bluish tiles and extended eaves offering shelter from sun and rain. The narrow paths between houses are paved with stones of varying sizes, winding unevenly along the hillside. Nestled against the mountain and river, the homes rise and fall in an orderly yet varied fashion, forming a typical mountainous town of eastern Sichuan, evidently weathered by centuries of storms and seasons.

Over countless ages, the combined erosion from the river and the stream has caused the river valley at their confluence to sink, exposing bare rock and creating two near-vertical cliffs facing each other across Jianxi. Each cliff rises over ten meters high.

Atop each cliff stands a massive ginkgo tree, like twin sentinels guarding Qianfo Village. Each tree towers over thirty meters, with trunks so thick that three adults holding hands are barely able to encircle them. Their lush crowns spread over more than a hundred square meters, resembling giant umbrellas shading the ground and naturally forming two sheltered viewing platforms on the cliff tops.

It is midsummer, the sun blazing, and many mountain villagers sit beneath the trees, admiring the mountains, gazing at the river, cooling off, and chatting.

Driver Liu Bo explains that these two ginkgo trees are nearly 500 years old. Remarkably, the one on the north bank of Jianxi is male, while its counterpart on the south bank is female. The pair stand across the stream like the Cowherd and Weaver Girl, companions for centuries. They are the most prominent landmarks of Qianfo Town; mention Qianfo and everyone knows these towering male and female ginkgo trees. As for why the town is named “Qianfo” — “Thousand Buddhas” — Liu Bo cannot say, since there are no Buddha statues in the town.

Perhaps, Qin Ke muses, a grand temple once stood here long ago, now lost to time.

The telephone exchange equipment room for Qianfo Town sits atop a small hillside about 300 meters from the female ginkgo tree on Jianxi’s south bank. It is a two-story brick and concrete building with whitewashed walls, no gabled roof, and a starkly different style from the village dwellings, making it quite conspicuous.

It is already past three in the afternoon. With a task at hand, Qin Ke pays little mind to the village scenery and briskly enters the two-story building.

The first floor houses the postal service counter, the town branch director’s office, a diesel generator room, and a cable distribution rack connecting to user lines. The telephone exchange equipment room is upstairs, alongside rooms for battery storage, the technician’s office, a duty room, a lounge, and a storage room.

Chen Ming, the technician, has been waiting in his office for some time. After exchanging pleasantries, Qin Ke listens again as Chen Ming recounts the equipment issues—essentially matching what Li Jun had reported.

Qin Ke asks no further questions and proceeds to the equipment room to inspect the hardware status.

The device is a nearly two-thousand-line digital program-controlled telephone exchange supplied by Company A. Qin Ke methodically inspects it from all sides, then opens the cabinet door. The indicator lights on the circuit boards all blink green; no red alarms are lit. The adjacent fiber optic transmission equipment and power supply units also operate normally.

To facilitate call testing, Qin Ke instructs Chen Ming to pull three pairs of telephone lines from the user cable distribution rack on the first floor up to the second floor, connecting them to three digital phones placed on the operating desk.

He then asks Luo Tong to test various call services: local calls within Qianfo Town, calls within the Tongyuan area, domestic long-distance calls, special service calls, and several new business calls. All tests return normal results, indicating that at least for now, the equipment operates without fault.

After a moment’s thought, Qin Ke tells Li Jun: “Engineer Li, the three of us will now be based here in Qianfo Town. Even if you remain here, you won’t be of much help to us. You may return to Tongyuan and wait for our updates in the office. Chen Ming lives in Qianfo Village; if we need anything, we will reach out to him.”

Li Jun agrees with Qin Ke’s logic, bids a few instructions to Chen Ming, and then departs Qianfo Town with driver Liu Bo.

Before leaving, Li Jun says to Qin Ke, “Engineer Qin, thank you for your efforts.”

Qin Ke smiles and replies, “Engineer Li, this is our duty and we do not shirk from it. Just wait for our news.”

(Part Two)
After Li Jun’s departure, Qin Ke sits before the computer controlling the equipment and logs into the system, beginning a meticulous examination of the software’s operational status. His first task is to review the system’s alarm history, checking each alert carefully. Luo Tong, Sun Shuqiang, and Chen Ming observe nearby, taking notes as needed.

He first examines the alarms generated today, noting some ordinary alerts that do not affect system operation. He thus judges that no issues as reported by Chen Ming occurred today. Confirming with Chen Ming, the technician states that no user complaints have come in today.

Next, Qin Ke reviews yesterday’s alarm history and finds a “soft restart” alarm at 9:24 a.m., though no cause is specified.

Company A’s equipment has three types of system startups, which Qin Ke explains to Luo Tong, Sun Shuqiang, and Chen Ming in turn.

The first is a “cold start,” which occurs when the device powers on after a complete shutdown, such as following a prolonged power outage that exhausts battery reserves. This is rare because the diesel generator usually prevents full power loss.

The second is a “warm start,” a manual restart triggered by software maintenance commands at the board level. This interrupts user service but is quicker than a cold start. Typically, technicians do not initiate this unless guided by Company A engineers during serious faults.

The third is a “soft restart,” triggered by the system’s self-check detecting a fault in a software module, which then attempts self-correction by restarting that module. This causes the shortest interruption, the least impact on users, but is noticeable to anyone on a call.

Qin Ke asks Chen Ming if any user complaints were received yesterday; Chen Ming confirms none were reported.

Scanning prior days’ alarms, Qin Ke finds repeated “soft restart” alarms, sometimes once or twice daily, always without explicit causes.

Cross-referencing user complaint dates and times with these alarms, Qin Ke finds a perfect match: every complaint coincides with a “soft restart” alarm, though the times differ slightly and sometimes do not align exactly.

He concludes that user service interruptions result from these “soft restarts.” In other words, the “soft restart” causes the service disruption, leading to delayed or missed user complaints—or users may not notice or choose not to report the issue. Chen Ming’s lack of complaints yesterday falls into one of these latter cases.

The question remains: what triggers these “soft restarts”?

Qin Ke closes his eyes, drawing upon experience and equipment knowledge to search his mind for the culprit behind these alarms, but finds no answer.

He opens his eyes and looks to Luo Tong, Sun Shuqiang, and Chen Ming for insight, but all shake their heads.

Deciding not to waste time guessing, Qin Ke resolves to follow the alarm trail methodically, peeling back layers to uncover the root cause.

He carefully reviews the system’s definitions and thresholds for “soft restart” but finds nothing revealing. Checking the configuration and descriptions of various call service timers also yields no anomalies. These parameters remain at default settings, seldom altered.

Pondering further, Qin Ke determines to examine all manually configurable data controlling call services. He instructs Luo Tong, Sun Shuqiang, and Chen Ming that he will approach this as if setting up the equipment for the first time—step by step, verifying every configurable control parameter with a skeptical eye, trusting only what he sees, to uncover the cause of the equipment’s issues.

(Part Three)
Qin Ke focuses intently, working with unwavering concentration.

He discovers many configuration entries are irregular—not enough to impair operation but enough to confuse future maintenance personnel. Asking Sun Shuqiang who configured the system data, Sun Shuqiang replies he does not know. Qin Ke feels that as a service engineer, Sun Shuqiang should at least know the equipment’s history to perform well. Qin Ke silently shakes his head without comment.

Chen Ming, likely the most familiar with the device’s background, confirms that Li Jun and others jointly completed the data configuration.

Qin Ke is surprised: “Shouldn’t Company A’s engineers be responsible for installation and tuning?”

Chen Ming explains, “Engineer Qin, the leadership set a strict deadline for equipment commissioning. With so many devices, simultaneous deployments were necessary. Company A’s engineers were insufficient in number to meet our needs, so they quickly trained a batch of our technicians who worked alongside them. The Qianfo Town equipment was assigned to Li Jun.”

Hearing this, Qin Ke suspects the device’s troubles are not accidental. He muses that professional work should be done by professionals; otherwise, problems are inevitable. He refrains from criticizing the telecom leadership or Li Jun, instead returning his focus to the maintenance computer to conduct a more thorough examination.

Qin Ke decides against immediately correcting all irregular configuration data, explaining that maintaining the current system data intact is essential to observe the next “soft restart” alarm. If he alters settings now, he cannot determine which change affects system behavior when the next alarm occurs.

He inspects each data item carefully, wary of missing any suspicious point. When encountering irregular configurations, he instructs the others to record details and provides guidance on proper settings.

The volume of required corrections exhausts Luo Tong’s patience. He suggests, “Qin, this is too time-consuming. Since we can’t find the root cause now, why not just reinstall the system software? That way, we can batch configure all the correct data quickly and solve the problem faster.”

Qin Ke smiles at Luo Tong’s impatience: “Your method is faster and easier and might fix the problem, but then we won’t truly understand the root cause. How would you explain that to the client? How would you report it to the company? Do you think the client would accept ‘irregular configuration data found, so we reinstalled the software’ as a valid conclusion? I doubt even you would be convinced.”

Luo Tong admits, “I concede it’s not convincing, but we have no other options.”

Qin Ke replies firmly, “I disagree. Who says we have no options? What we’re doing now is clarifying all current configuration data. Patience is key; this work won’t be wasted. Step by step, we will find the root cause. Besides, if we found the cause immediately, how would we showcase our technical skills?”

Patting Luo Tong’s shoulder, Qin Ke continues, “Only an hour has passed; we still have 71 hours before the deadline. Strategically, underestimate the enemy; tactically, respect them. In technical work, we must do the same—have confidence in ourselves but work meticulously and thoroughly.”

Qin Ke patiently encourages Luo Tong, boosting his confidence to solve the problem.

After two hours, Qin Ke finishes reviewing all system data. Luo Tong, Sun Shuqiang, and Chen Ming have filled several pages of notes.

He then analyzes the current system call volume. It is not peak time; call traffic is low.

He also checks the processor load on the call-handling boards, which is similarly minimal.

Next, he inspects the system’s storage disk space, finding ample free capacity.

Finally, he examines detailed billing data, the client’s top concern, ensuring no billing errors exist—any such errors would be catastrophic and invite compensation claims.

Completing these checks, Qin Ke stretches and stands; it is nearly 6 p.m.

He assigns the next steps to Luo Tong and Sun Shuqiang: “Tonight, we must monitor the equipment continuously without interruption. Each of us will take two-hour shifts, rotating. First, catch the next ‘soft restart’ alarm and notify me immediately. Second, record system call volume and main processor load every hour.”

To Chen Ming, he says, “Engineer Chen, we’ll cover your night shift. You can go home and rest. If anything urgent arises, I will call you.”

Chen Ming agrees, “Alright. Contact me anytime; I’ll be ready. Engineer Qin, thanks to you three for your hard work tonight. It’s dinner time now; let’s eat. Li Jun told me that Director Fang instructed me to ensure you’re well fed and rested.”

Qin Ke smiles, “Thanks to Director Fang for his concern. Keep dinner simple—we still have work ahead tonight.”

Chen Ming leads the three to a restaurant on Qianfo Village’s street. After dinner, Chen Ming returns home while the trio heads back to the exchange to resume work.

Luo Tong eagerly volunteers for the first watch shift. Qin Ke wants Sun Shuqiang to rest, but he insists on staying to accompany Luo Tong and learn from him. Qin Ke does not press further and consents.

Luo Tong says, “Qin, you should rest a bit. Don’t worry—we’ll complete the tasks you assigned perfectly.”

Qin Ke smiles, “Luo Tong, I trust your ability and dedication. I’m not tired yet; I’ll take a walk by the river. I won’t go far—call me anytime if needed.”

With that, Qin Ke steps out of the building and strolls toward the Jialing River’s edge.

(End of 3/3)