'SEE YOU MORNING' 121 People's Choice

A new week. Lin Yuhui arrived at the office to find that many employees still hadn’t shown up by work time, for reasons unknown. He wasn’t the nosy type, nor did he go around asking what was going on. He just settled in and did his own work.
With the chatterboxes gone and the ones always yelling about finding a partner absent, the office was much quieter. Not just his ears—his mind felt clearer too. Lin Yuhui’s work efficiency improved significantly that morning. After finishing his tasks, he even had time to browse the internet and check how the epidemic was spreading—not the official reports, but netizens’ comments. Everyone believes what they want to believe, and given his life experience, he trusted the ordinary people posting more.
“Oh man, this vaccine feels like a bad cold after getting it,” Dylan muttered as he strode into the office with one sleeve rolled past his shoulder, bare skin exposed.
Oh, Lin Yuhui understood now—they’d probably gone to get the COVID vaccine. A few days ago, Sapphire had sent out a notice collecting who wanted to get vaccinated. He hadn’t signed up because of his poor heart blood supply.
Sure enough, colleagues trickled back one by one. They’d all gone for their first shot.
“Hey Cerise, how do you feel after the vaccine?” Dylan couldn’t help asking everyone who came back.
“I don’t feel much, just a little dizzy,” Cerise mumbled.
“Hey Stephanie, how do you feel? I feel cold then hot, like I’m about to catch something.”
“I feel nothing,” Stephanie didn’t bother with him.
“Hey David, how do you feel after yours?”
“I didn’t get the vaccine. My heart’s bad, I can’t get it.”
“Oh man, if I’d known, I wouldn’t have gotten it either. I feel like I’m getting a cold. I’m not getting the second shot.”
Hearing Dylan’s complaints, Lin Yuhui found it amusing. He’d already shared the relevant information, but Dylan hadn’t researched or thought it through, and now he was regretting it. Lin Yuhui didn’t believe he’d change his mind next time and skip the vaccine. His current choice came from fear, not from understanding what he was afraid of or why—next time, he’d make the same choice driven by the same internal impulse.
“Huh? David, what else did you say about the vaccine last time?” Dylan asked around and came back to Lin Yuhui.
Lin Yuhui didn’t want to engage with someone like that. The man had no judgment—even if you gave him the right information, he might change his mind someday and end up blaming you. So he gave a vague reply, avoiding the technical details:
“It’s really nothing. Different people react differently to vaccines, and different vaccines are different too. The reported side effects are all just individual cases.”
“There are side effects? Oh man, I already got it,” Cerise said from the side.
Lin Yuhui turned and saw Cerise smiling at him.
“You got it, you got it,” Lin Yuhui said with a helpless smile. He’d already told them the relevant information. The rest was their own choice—they’d have to live with the consequences. Lin Yuhui knew they’d go for the second shot, and that side effect data correlated positively with the number of doses. He’d found related cases and data himself and chosen to believe them, but he couldn’t force others to believe too. They had the right to choose what they believed.
Lin Yuhui knew this was like his care for Cerise—she wouldn’t necessarily appreciate it. The morning passed quickly. Then several strangers walked in—the IT department from upstairs, there to collect database user requirements before updating the company database.
The quality and project departments were handling the reception, nothing to do with Lin Yuhui. It seemed to be one woman and two men, sitting across from his desk talking to Stephanie and Laila from the project department about their workflows to determine requirements. But since they had work on their hands, they were talking while working.
Lin Yuhui didn’t understand—this was a great opportunity to improve the IT support system’s functionality and convenience, but Stephanie and Laila weren’t enthusiastic. Was this just how women were? Or was it because the person talking to them was also a woman?
Lin Yuhui glanced up. A petite young woman with wavy shoulder-length hair—hard to tell if it was dyed light brown or natural—wearing a crimson-based floral dress. As he was observing, she happened to turn and look at him. Their eyes met and Lin Yuhui paused for a moment. It was the new girl he’d seen in the cafeteria that day, looked like she’d graduated not long ago, computer science major.
Just a brief look, then Lin Yuhui looked away. He didn’t want his heart to have any more attachments, didn’t want to be so tired, didn’t want to fail anyone because of his situation. And there was his daughter back home—if he started a new life, he couldn’t fully meet her needs. Lin Yuhui always thought too much before taking the first step. Whether it was planning, or worry, or cowardice.
Maybe more realistically, when he’d carried himself through the lowest point of his life alone—illness, poverty—and everyone around him hadn’t helped but instead scolded, humiliated, kicked him while he was down, distanced themselves, took everything from him and left. He didn’t die, didn’t die of illness, didn’t starve, and came back to life. But what was living was just that shell.
Lin Yuhui extinguished that faint light in his heart—too distant and unrealistic—living only in his own world, doing his own thing. But the work conversation between Laila and Dylan next to him was unbearable. They never thought about systematically solving the collaboration problems they encountered, just treating symptoms without addressing root causes, never wanting to close the loopholes in the process logic where errors occurred.
Lin Yuhui stood up and said to Laila across the desk:
“No no no, the work process can’t be like this.” Laila sat there looking at Lin Yuhui, a bit stunned.
Lin Yuhui went on to explain, which also caught the attention of the girl who’d come for the survey:
“Look, that procurement work order you just mentioned was sent from the project department to procurement, but its source is the design department. Now if you can’t get the original design materials and need to substitute, you and procurement can’t just decide this on your own. You need to feed the procurement change information back along the work order path to the design department, let them confirm the change too, or you’ll be held responsible.”
Lin Yuhui’s tone was a bit harsh, because young Laila, though she’d worked at this company for years, really hadn’t thought much about it. Lin Yuhui’s concerned tone was also because he didn’t want Laila to get herself into trouble.
After stating his point, Lin Yuhui shifted his gaze to the girl who’d come for the survey, as if hoping she’d confirm adding this feedback function to the IT system.
When Lin Yuhui looked away again, scanning his other colleagues and preparing to sit down, he realized that his somewhat impassioned speech had made him the focus of everyone’s attention. He wondered too—had his behavior really been that exaggerated?