The Clock at the Gas Station

The gas station's bell rings on time, not a real bell, but a system notification sound. Every day at six in the morning, it announces the start of a new day in a mechanical yet slightly excited tone. "Go for it, working stiff!" The cartoon character on the screen waves its fist, its smile frozen, as if mocking.

Li Ming skillfully puts on his work hat, which is printed with "Today's Oil Price: 7.88 yuan/liter". This number changes every day, stimulating his nerves like a stock price. When it goes up, he sighs; when it falls, he feels disappointed, as if he has become a slave to oil prices.

Today's customers seem more agitated than usual. A black SUV stops in front of him, the window rolls down, and a man in a suit says impatiently, "Fill it up! 95!"

"Okay, sir," Li Ming presses the fuel nozzle, and the numbers start jumping. 10 liters, 20 liters, 30 liters... The man’s smartwatch vibrates. He glances at it, and his face becomes even more gloomy. "Why is it so slow? I'm in a hurry!"

Li Ming looks at his watch; indeed, it’s slower than usual by 0.2 seconds. He explains, "Sir, the system has updated; there might be a slight delay."

The man snorts and scans a code with his phone for payment. "Hurry up, my time is valuable!"

Li Ming is stunned by this remark. Time, yes, at the gas station, time seems to stretch endlessly, each second feeling particularly long, until the next customer arrives, repeating similar dialogues and actions.

The next customer is a woman in a fancy dress, who takes selfies in front of her car for three minutes before leisurely walking up to Li Ming. "Hey, add 200 yuan worth of 92, please."

Li Ming does so, and the numbers jump to 200. The woman glances at the fuel gauge, then at Li Ming, with a hint of doubt in her voice, "Strange, it feels like it's a bit less?"

Li Ming explains, "Ma'am, this is precisely measured; it won't be less."

The woman mumbles, "It just feels like it's less, never mind." She picks up her phone and starts taking selfies again, with Li Ming wiping the fuel nozzle in the background.

After that, everything at the gas station becomes a bit off. An old man buys a pack of cigarettes and, when paying, actually reports a string of numbers. Li Ming thinks it's a membership number, but the system shows it as a "contactless transaction." A truck driver says that his fuel consumption yesterday was negative and demands a refund.

More bizarrely, garbled characters begin appearing on the gas station's electronic screens, which then turn into various numbers. The numbers displayed on the fuel nozzles are no longer fuel volumes, but the customers' "credit scores." Li Ming is shocked to find that his score is only "12," pitifully low.

During his lunch break, Li Ming tries to discuss these strange things with his colleagues, but they seem very calm. His colleague Zhang Qiang says, "Li Ming, are you under too much work pressure? Are you hallucinating?"

Another colleague, Wang Mei, while checking the daily profit report on her phone, says, "Today's profit increased by 0.02 percentage points, not bad."

Li Ming feels like he is living in a giant abacus, where everyone is measured precisely by numbers, and all that matters is the jumping of digits.

Before getting off work in the evening, Li Ming decides to fill up his motorcycle one last time. He inserts the fuel nozzle into his motorcycle's gas tank, and on the screen, his "personal residual value" begins to count down: "12, 11, 10..." until "0".

The fuel nozzle makes a "click" sound and stops working. Li Ming's motorcycle also stalls completely, and the screen shows only a red "overdrawn" message.

Li Ming stands there in a daze, looking up at the distance, the sky filled with gray clouds, resembling countless cold numbers. He realizes that this is not just a gas station, but a larger, absurd world built of rules and numbers, and he is just one overdrawn component in it.