16 posts tagged with "Fiction"

The people of this city believe in an unquestionable truth: nine o'clock at night is the boundary dividing states of being. To cross it, entering slumber, is akin to activating an invisible machine, infusing life with order, efficiency, and an indescribable 'correctness'. On street propaganda posters, citizens with serene sleeping faces are bathed in soft moonlight, set against a background of gears and wheat sheaves symbolizing abundance and health. The caption is concise and powerful: "Early Bedtime: The Cheat Code to Perfection."

Lao Ding, Ding Jianguo, felt time slipping through his fingers—not in the metaphorical "time flies" sense, but physically disappearing. This feeling began with the third "adjusted leave" announcement of the year. That A4 sheet, printed like an official red-letter document, was like a cold surgical notice, announcing that his upcoming weekend needed to be cut, moved, and stitched together in exchange for a distant and fragmented "mini-holiday."

Old Liu Tou recently felt a constant tightness in his chest, like a lump of poorly chewed wotou stuck there. That old locust tree at the entrance to the hutong, its leaves had yellowed and greened, greened and yellowed again; it had witnessed Old Liu Tou age from "Little Liu" to "Old Liu," and it had witnessed his son, Minghui, grow from a little tyke into a young man who had made something of himself, gotten into that... oh right, "Intelligent Monkey Academy," a company so bright it dazzled the eyes.

Old Ma, Ma Qingshan – Qingshan on paper, but everyone in the hutong called him Old Ma. Old Ma wasn't old, just past forty, but his back was a bit stooped, the creases at the corners of his eyes like they'd been repeatedly carved by the blunt knife of life: deep, but not sharp. He worked as an accountant in a modest-sized work unit, dealing with numbers every day, adding and subtracting, like abacus beads – regular, but wearing.

Old Wang reckoned this was the most reliable thing he’d done in his entire life. That bit of pension money he'd saved for nearly half his life – he hadn't listened to his wife's nagging about buying some darned "wealth management product," nor had he followed the young folks next door dabbling in some "Eye-Pee-Oh." No, he, Old Wang, had exchanged it for golden nuggets! Real, solid, gleaming yellow nuggets. Heavy in his hand when he clutched them, and tucked under his pillow, they made him sleep more soundly than ever.

In that dusty small town, names, like dust, were easily forgotten. Lin Xiaoqing's name, however, was once the brightest star in town. Her home was a mud-brick house that seemed to tremble with every gust of wind. Her parents were farmers who toiled from dawn till dusk, their sweat watering the barren land and nourishing her seemingly unattainable dream of university. That year, the acceptance letter arrived like a golden dove, flapping its wings as it flew into their humble home. The red seal, the white paper, carried the entirety of a young girl's imagination about the future – sunlit classrooms, vast seas of books, and the hope of escaping this land.

That piece of news, like a stone dropped into the still lake of time, sent ripples spreading rapidly, eventually reaching the forgotten department where Archivist K worked. The President, during an impromptu remark, had expressed a desire for the miraculous—he wanted to meet the ghost allegedly 300 years old and still on the Social Security system's list. The order descended through layers of bureaucracy, finally becoming a memo with blurred ink placed on K's dust-covered desk. Task: Verify and locate Elias Greene, male, allegedly born 172X, currently still a social security beneficiary.

The city, this beast built of steel and glass, devours and disgorges streams of people by day, shimmering with tireless neon lights by night. Skyscraper spires pierce the clouds, as if to seize the secrets of heaven, while beneath their shadows, narrow alleys twist like the tangled intestines of the beast, squirming with humble yet tenacious lives.

In one such alley lived a young woman named Ah Mei. Her dwelling, less a room than a forgotten corner, could only accommodate a bed, a table, and a few stubbornly growing potted plants on the windowsill. Yet, Ah Mei's world was not entirely bleak. She possessed a "treasure"—an iPhone 6, its edges worn, its screen bearing fine scratches. In this age where the latest phones are updated like relentless tides, this old machine, in her hands, glowed with a peculiar light.

I, Wang Er, work in a peculiar place called the "Adolescent Behavioral and Psychological Adjustment Center's Affiliated Specialized Clinic for School Refusal." The name is as long as a train, rumbling over all your romantic notions of teenage rebellion. Spring has arrived, and the poplar catkins outside drift like snow, but the "spring" here consists of kids sneezing, crying, and stubbornly refusing to set foot inside a school. Their numbers are as plentiful as the pollen spread by spring; rumor has it we're nearing the ten thousand visit mark. It truly is one hell of a bumper year.

Beiping's dust, come Saturday, seemed to carry a hint of rest too, lazily tumbling under the sun. But the earth in Old Wang Tou's heart felt like it had been hardened by last night's wind, compacted, unable to breathe.

He huddled in his palm-sized little room in the South City. Old newspapers were pasted onto the window paper, printed with long-outdated foreign company ads, the words almost faded away. Inside, there was a whiff of stale cooking smoke, mixed with a faint scent of mildew. He just sat like that, facing the creaking wooden door, his gaze blank.