Days Behind the Wheel

Old Wei stopped the car under a lamppost and turned off the engine. Not to pick up a fare, but to take a breather. Dusk was just settling in, the evening rush hour hadn't fully died down, and the car headlights on the street merged into a dazzling river. He leaned back against the seat, neck tilted up, eyes fixed on the patch of worn-shiny velvet on the car's ceiling. After driving all day, his back felt too stiff to straighten.

His car was a white electric vehicle, bought for ride-hailing work. Three years now. The car body bore numerous small scratches and scrapes, like wrinkles on a face, etched by the days. Every morning, he was out before five, not finishing until eleven or twelve at night. When tired, he'd snatch a nap in the car. When hungry, he'd grab a bing (flatbread) from a roadside stall or fix a bowl of instant noodles, slurping it down just to get by. City dwellers wouldn't understand – this car wasn't just his tool for earning a living; sometimes, it was his mobile home. A tin can holding his exhaustion, his complaints, and that little sliver of hope for the next day.

His phone pinged—a new ride request. Old Wei sat up straight, rubbed his eyes, and restarted the car. The navigation voice announced, "In five hundred meters, turn right onto XX Road." He’d been listening to that voice for three years; it was more familiar than his wife's. Sometimes, he thought the navigation was dense, insisting on a long detour when there was an obvious shortcut. The platform's rule was: follow the navigation, it keeps a record, it's safer. Old Wei muttered to himself, Follow you, sure, but who's paying for the extra gas—oh, right, electricity? Yet, he didn't dare ignore it. His rating, completion time, acceptance rate—these figures felt like an invisible whip, constantly driving him onward, forbidding him to stop.

Today, he picked up a chatty old lady. The moment she settled in, she asked, "Driver, driving this car all day, how much do you make?" Old Wei mumbled vaguely, "Depends on luck, hard to say." The old lady perked up, "I saw in the news, there was a driver who made 700,000 yuan in three years! Wow, that's quite something! Driver, if you push yourself, you could do it too!"

Seven hundred thousand. Old Wei felt a sting inside. He’d run the numbers himself. Three years of rising early and working late, covering nearly two hundred thousand kilometers, circling this city over and over. Electricity bills, maintenance, insurance, traffic fines, plus his elderly mother's medicine costs back home, his son's tuition... after subtracting all the odds and ends, what he actually took home was just payment for toil. That 700,000 was for the headlines, shining brightly like the moon in the sky – pretty to look at, but utterly out of reach. It was someone else's myth, not his reality.

He recalled when he first arrived in the city, thinking driving meant freedom, that more work meant more pay. Only after driving for a long time did he truly grasp the flavor of it. The steering wheel he held felt like it wasn't entirely his own. Where he drove, when he drove, which passengers he accepted – most of it was decided by that phone screen. He felt like a component fitted into the vast machinery of the city, just spinning along with it, ceaselessly spinning. Sometimes, late at night on deserted roads, he'd experience a flicker of disorientation, losing track of where he was or where he was supposed to be going.

One night, around midnight, he gave a ride to a drunken young man. The man was dressed smartly in a suit and tie. He slumped in the back seat, mumbling semi-consciously, "...Pointless... It's all fake..." Old Wei said nothing. Upon arrival, the young man stumbled out. While pulling out cash, a 100-yuan bill dropped to the ground. He didn't bother picking it up and staggered off. Old Wei carefully parked, got out, retrieved the banknote, and caught up to return it. The young man waved a dismissive hand, his eyes glazed, slurring, "It's yours, Driver... It's tough for everyone..."

Old Wei held the banknote, an unnameable emotion stirring within him. Yeah, life is tough for everyone. He carefully folded the bill and tucked it into his breast pocket. It wasn't greed; it just felt... heavy.

The car turned into a narrow alleyway flanked by old apartment buildings. Warm light glowed from windows, carrying the scent of home-cooked meals. Old Wei slowed the car. Through one window, he saw a woman rolling out dough for noodles on a board, a small child beside her gripping the sill and looking outside. He didn't know why, but a wave of poignant sadness washed over him. He thought of his wife back in their village; she'd likely finished cooking dinner by now, perhaps waiting for his call. But he couldn't stop working yet. He was still two fares short of hitting his daily revenue target.

Ping. His phone sounded again. Another order. Old Wei took a deep breath, wound the window up a bit more to block the homey aromas from outside. He shifted into gear. The car glided silently out of the alley, merging back into the river of headlights. The steering wheel hummed faintly in his grasp, both familiar and strange. This life behind the wheel, it had to continue. As for that 700,000 yuan? Let it remain a story in the news. His life was measured out fare by fare; it was the calluses on his hands from the wheel, the instant noodles consumed alone in the dead of night, the sound of his wife and child snoring softly when he finally returned home. This life, it had its bitterness, its harshness. But if you chewed on it long enough, perhaps there was a hint, a barely detectable sweet aftertaste. Like the tea leaves in his thermos, brewed over and over – strong, bitter, yet somehow bracing. He had to keep driving. Tomorrow, he'd drive again.