Saidoubao is the only person in the company who stands to code and wears a plaid shirt. As soon as he arrived at his desk, the tester shouted: "Saidoubao, you've created another bug!" He didn't answer, just spat out a few lines of logs on the screen and said: "Check the reproduction steps first, then capture a packet." Then he showed three screenshots. The tester shouted even louder on purpose: "You must have broken someone's API again!" Saidoubao opened his eyes wide and said: "How can you slander me out of thin air..." "What slander? I saw the production environment return a 500 error with my own eyes the day before yesterday, and you were still running unit tests locally." Saidoubao blushed, the veins on his forehead bulging, and argued: "Network issues can't be counted as bugs... Network issues! ... Can different environments be counted as bugs?" Following that were incomprehensible words, like "DNS cache," "CDN origin pull," "inconsistent dependency versions," and the like, which made everyone laugh, and the area inside and outside the desks was filled with a joyful atmosphere.

According to rumors, Saidoubao had fixed a few bugs, but never truly eradicated them, and he couldn't write reproduction steps either; so he became poorer and poorer, until he was about to be put on on-call duty. Fortunately, he wrote good comments, so he would look at logs for others to earn a living. The pity was that he had another bad habit: the inability to reproduce the issue. He wouldn't last more than a few days before he and his keyboard and mouse would disappear together. After this happened a few times, there was no one left who would ask him to look at logs. Saidoubao had no choice, so he couldn't avoid occasionally restarting services. But in our team, his character was better than everyone else's; he just never admitted to having any bugs. Although occasionally he failed to reproduce them, he would temporarily put them in the requirements pool, but within a month, he would definitely mark them as "Resolved" and erase Saidoubao's name from the requirements pool.

After Saidoubao had drunk half a cup of coffee, his flushed face gradually returned to normal, and the people around him asked again: "Saidoubao, can you really fix bugs?" Saidoubao looked at the person asking, showing a look of disdain for arguing. They then continued: "How come you can't even get a single P0 task?" Saidoubao immediately showed a dejected and uneasy look, his face covered in gray, and mumbled some things; this time it was all about "intermittent," "concurrency," "timing," "network jitter" and the like, things none of them understood. At this time, everyone laughed, and the area inside and outside the desks was filled with a joyful atmosphere.

During these times, I could laugh along with them, and the team lead would never blame me. And every time the team lead saw Saidoubao, he would often ask him this, making people laugh. Saidoubao knew he couldn't chat with them, so he had to talk to the newcomers. Once he said to me: "Have you written code?" I nodded slightly. He said: "Written code... then I'll test you. The intermittent bug, how do you reproduce it?" I thought to myself, does someone who can't even land a P0 task deserve to test me? So I turned my face away and stopped paying attention. Saidoubao waited for a long time and said very earnestly: "Can't reproduce it? ... I'll teach you, remember! These methods should be remembered. When you do architecture in the future, you'll need them to deflect blame." I thought to myself that I was still far from the architecture level, and our team lead never took intermittent bugs seriously; I was amused and impatient at the same time, and answered him lazily: "Who needs you to teach me, isn't it just asking 'did you clear your cache' first?" Saidoubao looked very happy, tapping his keyboard with his long fingernails and nodding: "Yes, yes! ... There are four ways to clear the cache, do you know them?" I became even more impatient and walked away with a pout. Saidoubao had just dipped his fingernail in coffee, intending to write on the whiteboard, but seeing I wasn't enthusiastic, he sighed again, looking very regretful.

There were a few times when the newcomers from the next team heard the laughter and came over to join the fun, surrounding Saidoubao. He would show them the logs, one line at a time. The newcomers, after reading the logs, still wouldn't leave, their eyes fixed on the screen. Saidoubao panicked, spread his five fingers to cover the screen, leaned over and said: "Not many left, I don't have many left." He straightened up, looked at the logs again, and shook his head to himself: "Not many, not many! How many are there? Not many." And so, the group of newcomers walked away in laughter.

Saidoubao made people so joyful, yet without him, others just went on the same way.

One day, about two or three days before the release, the team lead was slowly settling the accounts and suddenly said: "Saidoubao hasn't been here for a long time. He still owes nineteen reproduction steps!" I also felt that he had indeed been gone for a long time. A frontend developer said: "How could he come? ... He broke his leg." The team lead said: "Oh!" "He's still just as stubborn. This time, he was being foolish and actually said about a production issue, 'It works fine on my end.' Can things in production ever be fine?" "What happened later?" "What happened? First he wrote an incident report, then came the post-mortem. We spent most of the night on the post-mortem, and after that, his performance rating was docked." "And then?" "Then his performance was docked." "What happens when your performance is docked?" "What? ... Who knows? Maybe he transferred to another team." The team lead didn't ask any more and continued to slowly calculate his accounts.

After the release, the autumn wind grew colder every day, nearing the start of winter. I sat leaning against the heater all day, and I needed to wear a cotton-padded jacket. In the afternoon of one day, there were no customers, and I was sitting with my eyes closed. Suddenly I heard a voice: "Can't reproduce it." This voice was extremely low, yet very familiar. When I looked, there was no one there. I stood up and looked out, and there was Saidoubao sitting by the desk facing the screen. His face was black and thin, already in a sorry state; he wore a tattered plaid shirt, sat cross-legged with his legs folded, sitting on a straw mat pad that was tied to his shoulders with a straw rope; seeing me, he said again: "Capture a packet." The team lead also stuck his head out and said: "Saidoubao? You still owe nineteen reproduction steps!" Saidoubao looked up in despair and replied: "This... I'll pay it back next time. This one is a network issue, the logs need to be good." The team lead, just as usual, smiled at him and said: "Saidoubao, you've created another bug!" But this time he didn't argue much, only saying one sentence: "Don't make fun of me!" "Make fun of you? If there weren't any bugs, why would your performance be docked?" Saidoubao said in a low voice: "Network fluctuation, fluc, fluc..." His eyes looked as if he was begging the team lead not to mention it again. By now, several people had gathered, and they and the team lead laughed. I warmed up some coffee, brought it out, and placed it by his keyboard. He pulled four screenshots out of his tattered pocket and placed them in my hand. Seeing his hands were full of dust, I realized he used those hands to change code. Before long, after he finished looking at the logs, he sat there and slowly walked away amidst the laughter of others.

From then on, I didn't see Saidoubao for a long time. By the end of the year, the team lead took down the whiteboard and said: "Saidoubao still owes nineteen reproduction steps!" By the release of the second year, he said again: "Saidoubao still owes nineteen reproduction steps!" But by Mid-Autumn Festival he didn't say it, and by the end of the year he wasn't seen again.

I still haven't seen him to this day—it's likely that Saidoubao has indeed transferred to another team.