The Legacy Administrator's Afternoon

At three in the afternoon, sunlight poured onto the windowsill of the legacy management office like melted honey. Old Lin, a seasoned administrator with twenty years of experience, was staring blankly at the cold numbers on his computer screen: 4.3 million yuan, and an apartment in the city center, unclaimed. This wasn't the largest estate he had handled, but it was the most absurd.

Old Lin adjusted his reading glasses and sighed. In this day and age, someone could actually be "so rich no one wants it," a merciless mockery of the social principle of "men die for wealth." He opened the thick case file, which recorded the life of the deceased Mr. Zhang, a life that was sketchy and brief, much like his quiet existence. No spouse, no children, not even distant relatives could be found.

"Old Zhang, Old Zhang, what did you even live for?" Old Lin muttered, as if asking the air. He picked up his thermos and took a sip of wolfberry tea, a subtle bitterness lingering on his tongue.

"Old Lin, not done yet?" Xiao Li, a new intern in the office, peeked in, interrupting Old Lin's thoughts. Xiao Li was a graduate of a prestigious university, full of curiosity, as if everything in this office could become material for his thesis.

"No, can't find an heir, it's quite bizarre," Old Lin shook his head.

"Then what happens to the money and the apartment?" Xiao Li blinked his inquisitive eyes.

"According to regulations, they'll be confiscated," Old Lin answered matter-of-factly, with a hint of helplessness in his tone.

"Confiscated?" Xiao Li frowned. "Isn't that a waste? Why not directly distribute it to people who need it? Like the elderly in nursing homes or children in impoverished mountain areas."

Old Lin laughed, a slightly bitter laugh. "Xiao Li, you're still too young. That's not how the rules work. This estate has to go through layers of approvals, all sorts of processes. Whether it will actually end up in the hands of those who truly need it, no one can say for sure."

Over the next few days, Old Lin continued to pour over the case file, making calls to numbers that no longer connected. He even started to weave a story of Mr. Zhang in his mind: he might have been a lonely recluse, or an artist suffering from trauma, who poured all his energy into art and life, only to be forgotten by society in the end.

One day, while organizing files, Old Lin stumbled upon a yellowed postcard. On the postcard was a watercolor painting of a solitary old tree against a gray sky. On the back, a delicate line of writing read: "For my resting place." The postmark was from thirty years ago, from a remote mountain village.

Old Lin's heart skipped a beat, this might be a clue. He decided to go to that village himself.

After a bumpy several-hour ride up the mountain road, Old Lin finally arrived at the remote village. The village was small, with only a few dozen households, the houses were dilapidated, and the people lived in poverty. He went door to door asking, trying to find someone connected to the postcard.

Finally, an old woman with a cane told him in a trembling voice, “That was drawn by the Zhang family's child. The Zhang family's child is long gone. He left when he was a kid, went to the city, and never came back.” The old woman pointed to the withered old tree at the village entrance, “This tree used to be so lush, just like the one in the picture drawn by the Zhang family's kid.”

Old Lin looked at the withered tree and suddenly understood everything. He returned to the office, closed the door, and pulled the curtains shut. In the dim light, he turned on his computer and began to modify Mr. Zhang's case file.

"Old Zhang, I know what you want now," Old Lin whispered to the photo on the screen, as if Mr. Zhang was sitting right across from him.

A few days later, a new document concerning the distribution of Mr. Zhang's estate was presented on the desk of the senior leadership. In the document, the enormous estate was divided into two parts: one part was to be used to repair the roads in that remote mountain village, and the other part was to be used to fund local art education programs.

When the new distribution plan was announced, there was an uproar in society, no one could understand how an unclaimed estate would be allocated to such strange places. But Old Lin knew that this was Mr. Zhang's true "resting place."

While everyone's attention was on Mr. Zhang's estate, few noticed that Old Lin had taken the yellowed postcard from the office archives. He carefully placed the postcard in his desk drawer. He would occasionally open the drawer, look at the old tree on the postcard, and feel a strange sense of comfort.

No one noticed that the potted plant on Old Lin’s desk had withered overnight. The species of potted plant was a cactus that never absorbed water.