Old Li had graduated from medical school five years ago. He always fiddled with his small school emblem – a snake coiled around a staff, cold and smooth. Other classmates treated it as a decoration, but Old Li felt that it hid some secrets.

The emblem's design was almost the same as all medical schools. Old Li once asked his teacher what the serpent staff represented. The teacher would always smile and say it was “a symbol of medicine,” “healing the sick and saving the dying.” But Old Li always felt something was wrong. Why was a symbol of healing so cold and devoid of warmth?

At the entrance of a county cinema, Old Li was struggling to carry a long bench into the ticket hall. He was wearing an outdated blue down jacket, with fine beads of sweat on his forehead, and a crumpled movie ticket in his hand - "Ne Zha 2".

The young ticket seller took the ticket with a numb expression. She glanced at Old Li’s bench and said with a flat tone, "Seatless ticket, bring your own seat, please go in."

Old Wang felt like he had become a "trendsetter" for the first time. It wasn't because he bought some trendy new electronic product, or learned some high-tech skill, but because of the small plastic stool he was carrying.

The cinema entrance was crowded with people, all carrying various types of stools – wooden, plastic, tall, short – a motley collection resembling a market. Old Wang looked at his slightly worn-out blue stool he’d fished out from home and suddenly felt a little embarrassed.

Old Wang clutched a crumpled movie ticket, on which the words "Bench Ticket" were clearly printed. He looked around; the cinema lobby was bustling with people, each carrying a variety of benches. There were small plastic stools, bulky wooden benches, and even someone lugging a foldable lounge chair.

"These days, you even have to bring your own equipment to watch a movie," Old Wang muttered. In his hand was an old wooden plank he had found at home, looking rather shabby.

The cold winter wind cut through the gas station like a knife, leaving it deserted. Only the orange glow of the lights illuminated the cold asphalt. Old Wang huddled deeper into his cotton coat, exhaling a puff of white mist. He had been working the night shift at this remote gas station for five years. Since the company introduced robots to replace human workers, it had become a forgotten corner.

Old Wang had given this robot a name, “Little Iron,” even though it was just a cold machine. He still had a habit of talking to it. Tonight, Little Iron was different. It was no longer mechanically repeating “Welcome, please scan to refuel,” but instead making strange noises.

Old Wang sat in his twenty-seventh-floor office at Jinsheng Group, staring blankly at the K-line chart on his computer screen. The price of gold had risen again, like a mad, runaway horse, galloping far ahead. He tapped on the keyboard, trying to turn these frantic numbers into a decent report, but the lines, in his eyes, were like golden fetters around his neck, tightening more and more.

Old Wang was randomly assigned to the dumpling-making session at the annual party. He rubbed his hands, looking at the various colored dumpling fillings in front of him, feeling like an elementary school student attending a handicraft class. The theme of the annual party was "Technology Empowerment," and even making dumplings had to be tech-savvy—each filling was associated with a QR code, and you had to scan the code to know what the filling was.

Old Wang picked up a ball of meat filling with a small QR code attached. He took out his phone, aimed it at the QR code, and with a "beep," a word popped up on the screen: "A17 Data Stream."

Lao Wang, carrying two bags of snacks, struggled through the crowded cinema. It was the first day of the Lunar New Year, and tickets for the Spring Festival movie season were incredibly hard to come by. He had managed to snag tickets two weeks in advance, and today he could finally enjoy the festivities with his wife.

Old Wang sat at his workstation, staring blankly at the blurry screenshot on his computer screen. In the screenshot, a robot on the Spring Festival Gala stage was wearing a flesh-colored pair of tight pants, looking utterly ridiculous under the spotlight.

“Tell me,” Old Wang asked his colleague, Xiao Li, who was sitting next to him, “whose idea was this pair of pants, anyway?”

Old Wang opened a lotus root cake shop in an urban village. It was small, just a fryer and two tables. His lotus root cakes were crispy and delicious, famous far and wide. Every evening, a long queue formed outside the shop, filled with the warmth of everyday life.