On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the sun streamed through the window, casting a warm glow on the old wooden floor. A few coins and a crisp hundred-yuan bill lay scattered on the floor, gleaming brightly in the sunlight. I, a post-00s girl who had just turned twenty, was sitting on the floor, rubbing my sore knees.
Yesterday, I kowtowed 888 times.
The stage lights slowly dimmed, leaving only a spotlight shining on the center of the stage. He, no, it, gracefully bent over, making a perfect curtain call pose. The applause of the entire audience was thunderous and long-lasting.
“Perfect!” In the control room, the project leader, Lao Wang, excitedly slapped the table, his face beaming with pride. “This is the most successful performance of our ‘Transcend’ series! ‘AI Dance King’, indeed!”
"Oh, look, look! This 'Jilin Changbai Mountain' outfit is so grand!"
The stage lights went out, and backstage was a mess. Props lay scattered everywhere, staff were busy cleaning up, and the air was filled with various instructions and complaints. In a corner, however, a robot numbered "Spring Festival Gala 037" was meticulously conducting a self-check. Its body was silver, and faint red lights flickered at its joints, like a warrior who had just finished a battle.
"037, you performed well today, successfully stealing the show." A middle-aged man in work clothes walked over and patted the robot's metal shell, his tone laced with tired relief. He was Lao Wang, the technician responsible for maintaining the robots, and also 037's only "friend."
The noise of the Spring Festival Gala hadn't completely faded, and the firecracker debris scattered around the neighborhood, like shattered dreams, reminded people that the New Year was passing. Li Mei rubbed her hands, red from the cold, and looked up at the red socks hanging on her balcony, the color resembling the red envelope her mother had given her.
Old Li was used to giving his son a big red envelope on New Year's Eve for good luck. In previous years, they were always bulky, tangible ones, wrapped in brand-new red paper, heavy and filled with human touch. This year was different. His son was far overseas, so he could only send an electronic red envelope.
He opened his phone, found his son on WeChat, hesitated for a moment, tapped on the red envelope, and typed in the auspicious number "888". At the moment he confirmed sending it, he felt like something was missing. He missed the texture of the red paper, the ritual of handing it over, and the joy his son would have when receiving the envelope.
Three days after the Spring Festival Gala ended, Lao Liu was still muttering about the show on the subway. "What the heck, these days, even robots are on stage." The middle-aged man next to him pushed up his glasses, didn't respond, and just quietly browsed the news on his phone.
"Look at this robot, what's it even doing there? Just standing there like a wooden stake," Lao Liu continued to complain, habitually gesturing in the air with his finger. "The strangest thing is, what's up with its eyebrows? Two bare patches, kind of creepy."
Old Wang, wearing a pair of glasses polished to a shine, sat on his creaky rattan chair. It was New Year's Eve, the sounds of firecrackers rose and fell outside the window, but inside, it was eerily quiet. He stared at his phone screen, which was densely populated with pop-up notifications for various red envelopes.
Old Wang, a retired teacher in his fifties, had recently become obsessed with grabbing red envelopes. Not the kind of small change in WeChat groups, but a newly popular "immersive red envelope rain" in the city.
This red envelope rain requires wearing special AR glasses in a designated area to experience. When you put on the glasses, you see gold ingots and red envelopes flying all over the sky. Reach out and you can "grab" money, which is directly deposited into your electronic account. For this, Old Wang specially bought a new pair of AR glasses and also enrolled in a "digital life" training class for the elderly.
The clatter of keyboard clicks echoed in the empty office. It was New Year's Eve, and the occasional sounds of firecrackers outside made the office seem even more silent. Lao Zhang, a senior programmer, was staring at the dense code on the screen, his brow furrowed. He wasn't working overtime voluntarily, but rather "voluntarily compelled" – the company, in response to the call for "triple pay," had arranged for a group of people to work overtime on New Year's Eve, under the guise of "contributing to the country's information technology."
Lao Zhang stared at the variables on the screen, but his mind was calculating today's overtime pay. Triple pay! All in all, this year wouldn't be a waste. He rubbed his hands together and continued to type code. Although he couldn't smell the fragrance of the New Year's Eve dinner at home, the constantly updating numbers on the screen gave him a sense of comfort.