Golden Tremor

Lao Wang hadn't been sleeping soundly lately. It wasn't due to physical ailments or neighborly disputes; what troubled him was something intangible yet weighty – gold.

Before retiring, Lao Wang had spent his entire life working as a fitter in a state-owned factory with unremarkable performance. His life resembled the file in his hands: precise, repetitive, but it had also worn down his sharp edges and passion. Retirement brought even simpler days: tending flowers, playing chess, heading to the park to chat about trivial matters with old friends. That is, until he started paying attention to gold.

It began by chance. Analysts on the financial news channel spoke effusively, K-line charts flickered red and green on the screen, provoking some latent desire like an electrocardiogram. The host, in a near-sermonizing tone, spoke of "risk aversion," "value preservation," and "a hard currency that transcends cycles." Lao Wang took it to heart. Having lived through most of his life, experienced eras of material scarcity, and witnessed the panic of bursting bubbles, he possessed an almost instinctual craving for the very idea of "security."

And so, he converted the bulk of his life savings – money originally set aside for potential illnesses or to help his children and grandchildren – into a heavy gold bar. He wrapped it carefully in red velvet cloth and hid it in a secret compartment beneath the floorboards under his bed. Every night before sleeping, he had to check on it; the cool, hard touch seemed to offer a sliver of illusory solace.

But soon, this solace morphed into anxiety. He began to monitor the ever-fluctuating number on his phone screen constantly, akin to chasing a first love. When the gold price rose, he'd breathe a brief sigh of relief, as if his foresight had been validated. When it fell, he grew restless, his heart feeling seized by the K-line chart, plummeting along with the green downward trendline. He stopped going to the park, the chessboard gathered dust, and his old friends complained he'd become "obsessed with money." He would just smile sheepishly, thinking inwardly: "What do you people understand? This concerns my life savings."

What truly made him feel the "tremor" were the past few weeks. The price of gold behaved like a roller coaster: one day hovering near historic highs, prompting widespread talk of a "Golden Age," the next day potentially plummeting sharply without warning. News headlines turned sensational accordingly – "Gold's Great Tremor," "Long Squeeze Stampede," "Market Bloodbath."

This "tremor" wasn't merely the fluctuation of numbers on a screen; it seemed to morph into a physical sensation, permeating Lao Wang's daily life. The hand lifting his rice bowl would tremble slightly, as if the bowl contained not rice, but precarious wealth ready to be overturned. Lying in bed at night, he could distinctly hear his own heartbeat, its rhythm strangely overlapping with the remembered dull thud of the gold bar hitting the floor. He even began to feel that the gold bar itself, beneath the floorboards, was vibrating faintly, like a living creature emitting an uneasy hum in the darkness.

The world around him also took on a bizarre quality. Elderly ladies in the residential community, usually preoccupied only with square dancing and their grandchildren, now huddled downstairs discussing "the impact of the international situation on gold prices." The butcher at the wet market, wielding a greasy cleaver in one hand, sighed while staring at the quotes on his phone screen with the other. Even his grandson, who had just started university, asked him conspiratorially during a holiday break, "Grandpa, I hear trading gold is really profitable these days?"

Lao Wang felt a sense of the absurd. Gold, this metal that had slumbered in the Earth's depths for eons, could neither be eaten nor worn, nor could it provide knowledge or emotional fulfillment. Its value seemed entirely assigned by a group of people he had never met, according to rules he couldn't comprehend, manifested through numbers on a screen. And now, he, along with countless others like him, willingly allowed themselves to be led by the nose by this string of digits, their emotions fluctuating with its ups and downs, their lives thrown into disquietude by it.

One afternoon, the gold price plummeted again. Lao Wang stared at his phone screen; the green number felt like an icy awl piercing his final psychological barrier. He stood up abruptly, dashed into the bedroom, pried open the floorboard, and retrieved the red velvet bundle. With trembling hands, he unwrapped the cloth. The gold bar lay in his palm, still just as heavy, just as cold, possessing the same dull sheen.

He raised it before his eyes, scrutinizing it. Was this the object in which he had entrusted all his sense of security? It appeared no different from yesterday, or from the day he had bought it. But why, simply because a number on a distant screen had changed, did its perceived weight in his mind seem so diminished? It even faintly evoked a stinging sense of shame.

He suddenly recalled the characters in Kafka's novels – those small, insignificant individuals trapped by intangible rules, monolithic institutions, and absurd logic, spinning in labyrinths, ultimately losing themselves. He felt, at this moment, like one of them. He wasn't ensnared by a specific bureaucratic entity, but by a far larger, more intangible system – the modern financial system, or perhaps, the web of value woven from collective human desire and fear – and he was firmly caught within it.

Holding the gold bar, he walked to the window. Outside, the sunshine was perfect, children were laughing and playing downstairs, the leaves shone verdantly – everything was brimming with vitality and certainty. And yet, this piece of metal in his hand represented so much uncertainty and anxiety.

This golden tremor – was it the gold itself trembling, or the heart of its holder? Lao Wang began to wonder for the first time: what was the "security" he truly craved? Was it this cold piece of metal, or something more internal, more enduring?

He didn't make an immediate decision whether to sell it or continue holding it. He simply rewrapped the gold bar in the velvet cloth, but instead of returning it to the hidden compartment under the bed, he placed it on his desk, in a conspicuous spot. Perhaps, he thought, he needed to look at it every day, to remind himself of this absurd "tremor," to prompt himself to contemplate the true source of value.

The sunlight from the window struck the gold bar, reflecting a dazzling glare. Lao Wang squinted. He felt a sense of fatigue, yet also a strange calm. The market's tremor continued, but it seemed some part of his inner self had ceased its synchronous vibration. He knew that this myth surrounding gold, and the deeper human predicaments it mirrored, was far from over. And he was merely an insignificant individual within this vast enigma, just beginning to attempt to comprehend the rules.