"You see, isn't this height perfect?" the doctor said with a smile, pointing to the X-ray image. On the image, in the middle of my shin bone, there was a steel rod, like a scar that stretched across.
I stared at the steel rod. It wasn't perfect, it was even a bit ugly. But in the doctor's eyes, it represented the height I had dreamed of, the height accepted by society.
Teacher Zhang has been a bit bothered lately. It's not because of the mountain of exam papers at the end of the semester, nor is it the endless pleasantries of "Teacher, you've worked hard" in the parents' group chat. Instead, it's because he's recently become obsessed with a "new course" – human behavior studies, and a practical one at that.
The location of this course is a bit unusual; it's his colleague Teacher Li's single dormitory. The method is also simple: he installed a pinhole camera in the desk lamp next to Teacher Li's bed.
"You touched my waist!"
This sentence was like a bomb, instantly detonating the crowded subway car.
The gas station's bell rings on time, not a real bell, but a system notification sound. Every day at six in the morning, it announces the start of a new day in a mechanical yet slightly excited tone. "Go for it, working stiff!" The cartoon character on the screen waves its fist, its smile frozen, as if mocking.
Li Ming skillfully puts on his work hat, which is printed with "Today's Oil Price: 7.88 yuan/liter". This number changes every day, stimulating his nerves like a stock price. When it goes up, he sighs; when it falls, he feels disappointed, as if he has become a slave to oil prices.
Zhang Qiang stood in front of the full-length mirror, a slight smile playing on his lips as he gazed at his tall figure. He had paid an unimaginable price for this moment.
A few months ago, he was just an ordinary office worker, standing at 1.68 meters tall, feeling like a sardine in the crowded subway and a replaceable cog in the company machine. He was tired of looking up to others and longed to be the center of attention. So, he sought out the "Highly Customized" company.
Old Li died, quietly and without a sound. Just like the decades he lived, equally silent. When the community members cleaned his room, they found three bank cards and a property certificate, with a total value of nearly five million yuan. But this inheritance became a hot potato, unclaimed.
Old Li was never married, had no children, his parents had passed away early, and he had lost contact with distant relatives. It was as if he had appeared out of thin air in this city, and disappeared just as suddenly, leaving behind a pile of ownerless wealth.
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 Wang's greatest joy after retirement was organizing his "legacy list." This wasn't a traditional will, but a detailed list of every small item in his life: a tea set used for thirty years, each cup with a different chip, like the irreparable regrets in his life; a pile of expired newspapers, recording the boring news of each day, like his monotonous life day after day; and a box of matchboxes he collected in his youth, the patterns on which always reminded him of those blurred past events.
He lived in a small bachelor apartment, the walls a mottled yellow, the window looking out at towering skyscrapers. Old Wang always sat by the window, sipping his strong tea, staring at his list in a daze. The list had been updated dozens of times, the writing becoming denser and denser, like his life, increasingly complicated yet increasingly empty.
Old Wang died, on the winter solstice night, as silently as the withered green ivy on his bedside, frozen and lifeless. No one knows the exact cause of his death, just as no one knows if he ever loved anyone in his life. All he left behind were the cold numbers in his bank account: four million three hundred thousand yuan, and a thirty-square-meter old apartment in the city center.
As usual, Old Wang's "estate" was put on public notice. The notice board was covered with dense small print, like a giant spiderweb, trying to capture anyone related to Old Wang. However, a month passed, then two, then half a year, and apart from a few routine inquiries, no one came forward to claim this “windfall.”
Lao Zhang’s workstation was always piled high with delivery boxes. He was an operations assistant at a live-streaming e-commerce company, and his daily work consisted of unpacking, sorting, and taking photos to send to his colleagues in the live-streaming room. Recently, the company had been heavily promoting a product called “Original Cut Beef Rolls,” which had been selling like hotcakes. The beef roll deliveries he unpacked each day were enough to fill half the office.
Lao Zhang found it a bit strange. The company’s warehouse wasn’t that big, so where did all these beef rolls come from? Curious, he picked up a box. The packaging was exquisite, with the red characters "Original Cut" particularly eye-catching. When he opened it, a rich, meaty aroma wafted out, and the texture looked real. But he felt that something was off, maybe he was just desensitized to the smell of beef after unpacking so many boxes recently.