“Sleep Bank“

Old Wang has been a bit excited recently because he has finally saved enough "sleep coins."

In this era, sleep is no longer a simple rest, but a tradable resource. Technology has advanced to the point where sleep duration can be accurately measured and extracted, and then converted into "sleep coins." People with sufficient sleep can sell their excess sleep to those who are sleep-deprived, at a significant price, of course.

When Old Wang was young, he almost only slept four or five hours a day for his career, accumulating a pile of "sleep debt." Now that he's retired, he finally has the time to sleep for ten hours every day, like repaying a debt, making up for all the sleep he had lost when he was young. Not only that, he also started to improve his life by selling excess sleep, because the purchasing power of "sleep coins" is quite considerable.

Every morning, he goes to the self-service terminal at the "Sleep Bank" to convert the excess sleep duration from the previous night into "sleep coins." He skillfully places the sleep tracker on his wrist into the scanning area, and the cold voice of the machine sounds: "Dear customer, your sleep duration last night was ten hours and fifteen minutes. After deducting the seven hours of sleep you should have, you can extract three hours and fifteen minutes, for a total of 210 sleep coins." Old Wang nods with satisfaction, thinking that he can add some meat to dinner again.

The "Sleep Bank" is extremely popular. A new social class has formed; those busy elites who need to maintain their energy during the day have to pay a high price to buy sleep. And those who are idle make a living by selling their sleep.

Old Wang also knows a young white-collar worker, Xiao Zhang, who always waits anxiously at the entrance of the "Sleep Bank" with dark circles under his eyes, waiting to buy sleep. Xiao Zhang says: "The competition is too fierce now. I have to work overtime until late every night, and there's no time to sleep at all. Without sleep, it's like a car without fuel; I have to spend money to buy other people's 'fuel'." Old Wang always comforts him, "Don't worry, when you retire, you can be like me, sleeping until you wake up naturally every day, and then sell the excess sleep to earn some pocket money."

Old Wang's life has become more and more comfortable. He has not only paid off his "sleep debt," but also bought a new massage chair with "sleep coins." He sleeps even better at night, and sometimes even intentionally stays up a little later so he can "save" more sleep.

But gradually, Old Wang finds that something seems wrong. He discovers that his body is becoming increasingly sleepy and that he is finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. He goes to the hospital for a checkup, and the doctor tells him that his biological clock is completely disrupted and that his body has become accustomed to sleeping for more than ten hours a day. His physical functions are starting to deteriorate, and this deterioration is irreversible. The doctor finally says: "Your body has come to treat the excess sleep each day as the norm, it's adapting to it, and it's not doing you any good in the long run."

When Old Wang gets home, he looks at himself in the mirror with a tired face and suddenly realizes that something is wrong. He remembers the young elites who work energetically during the day using other people's sleep, yet still stay up late at night; he thinks of himself, who, in order to earn more "sleep coins," has turned himself into a walking corpse.

The next day, Old Wang goes to the "Sleep Bank" again. He puts the tracker on his wrist into the scanning area, and the machine announces: "Dear customer, your sleep duration last night was eleven hours. After deducting the seven hours of sleep you should have, you can extract four hours, for a total of 240 sleep coins."

Old Wang hesitates for a moment. He doesn't click the "Extract" button, but instead clicks the "Donate" option. He donates all four hours of excess sleep, and the system prompts that his sleep will be randomly donated to groups in society who need it.

Looking at his still empty account, Old Wang feels lighter than ever before.

However, he doesn't know that the sleep he donated was randomly matched by the system to a young elite who is working overtime and is preparing to buy sleep. That young elite, after briefly regaining energy, once again enters the endless cycle of overtime... while Old Wang is still sinking into even longer periods of sleep, his body begins to become numb and unresponsive; he just feels that the weather now is very suitable for sleeping.