The Shadow of Potato Chips

At one point, Li Wei's life was carved up by an almost standardized rhythm. Like most of the "digital laborers" busy in the office buildings of big cities in this era, his coordinates were clearly fixed between his commuting route, his cubicle, and that small but "fully equipped" rented apartment. And along this seemingly monotonous line, there were always some tiny, shining nodes offering him brief solace and energy. One of them was buying a bag of Lay's cucumber-flavored potato chips at the convenience store downstairs after work every Friday.

It was a ritual. The crisp "crinkle" sound when tearing open the bag was his trumpet call announcing the end of the work week; the "crunch" sound as his fingers picked up the first thin crisp and brought it to his mouth was a tiny rebellion against the heavy pressure of life. Potato chips, this cheap happiness mass-replicated on industrial assembly lines, for Li Wei, were not just snacks, but more like a stabilizer, a small, precisely predictable happiness in a world full of uncertainty. He could even clearly recall pulling all-nighters to finish papers in college, surviving on bag after bag of Lay's in various flavors. This brand had accompanied him through almost his entire youth and the first few years after entering society, like a silent old friend.

Until that Tuesday morning.

As usual, Li Wei was scrolling through his phone on the subway, when a news headline pushed to his screen exploded like a micro-bomb in his muddled consciousness: "Lay's Potato Chips Exposed for Containing Carcinogenic Additive". His heart sank abruptly, and his fingers clicked on it involuntarily. The report, illustrated with images and text, cited a test report from some unknown organization, pointing out that the content of a substance called "acrylamide" exceeded the standard in certain batches of Lay's potato chips, and this substance was classified by the "International Agency for Research on Cancer" as "probably carcinogenic to humans".

The swaying of the subway car seemed to intensify, and the noisy chatter of the crowd around him felt as if filtered through frosted glass. Li Wei felt a wave of dizziness. He read the report over and over, each word stinging his nerves like a needle. "Probably," "potential risk," "long-term excessive consumption"... these vague and suggestive terms, far from alleviating his fear, instead spread rapidly like ink dropped into clear water, forming a vast, intangible shadow.

That day, Li Wei's work efficiency was abysmal. He couldn't concentrate; the tempting "crunch" of potato chips echoed repeatedly in his mind, but now the sound carried a sinister resonance. He started trying to recall just how many bags of chips he had eaten, from college until now – the number was likely enough to fill his small room. Was every chew, every swallow, planting hidden dangers for his body's future? He felt a dull ache in his stomach, as if those invisible "acrylamide" molecules were secretly gathering and expanding inside him.

Over the next few days, the incident quickly fermented online. Lay's official quickly released a statement, worded rigorously and standardly, emphasizing that its products met national standards, that acrylamide is a substance commonly produced during high-temperature cooking and its levels were within safe limits, and accusing the related reports of being misleading. Various "experts" and "science popularizers" also entered the fray, some defending the brand, others continuing to fuel the panic. Information flooded in like a tide, hard to discern truth from falsehood, often contradictory.

This was precisely what made Li Wei feel most profoundly helpless. He felt like a prisoner lost in a vast labyrinth, where every passage that seemed like an exit ultimately led to more questions and unease. What were the national standards? How were the safe limits defined? For an individual, were those "probable" risks a one-percent chance or a one-in-a-million chance? And how could such probabilities comfort a specific, living being?

He began to observe the people around him. In the office, people still casually opened bags of chips to share during afternoon tea; in the convenience store, Lay's chips remained prominently displayed, with a steady stream of buyers. The world didn't seem to have changed its course because of this news. This made Li Wei feel a profound sense of absurdity and loneliness. Was he overreacting, or were others too numb? Or perhaps, this was simply the norm of modern life – where, in the torrent of capital and information, the tiny fears and struggles of individuals are destined to be submerged and forgotten?

He thought about the stories surrounding corporate growth and brand building. How much capital, wisdom, and time does it take to build a brand? How does it penetrate the daily lives of hundreds of millions of consumers through advertising, channels, and packaging, becoming a habit, even a cultural symbol? Yet, a sudden crisis of trust could shake its foundations in an instant. Behind this lies the precise calculation of business logic, the cold game of market rules. But for ordinary consumers like Li Wei, what he felt wasn't the grand business narrative, but concrete, personal anxiety.

It was as if he heard a voice whispering in his ear: We live in a world surrounded by symbols and labels. We consume not just the product itself, but also the meaning, promise, and imagination it carries. When this promise is questioned, when familiar symbols suddenly reveal unfamiliar or even dangerous faces, a hole appears in the web of meaning we rely on to orient ourselves. This hole can be more terrifying than the carcinogen itself.

Li Wei started suffering from insomnia. In the darkness, the potato chip bag seemed to gleam faintly in the corner; the smiling potato mascot figure now looked somewhat eerie. He felt like a character from Kafka, drawn into an inexplicable situation, facing an invisible, intangible, yet omnipresent "judgment". He wanted to find definitive answers, to attain ultimate security, but found it was all in vain. Science has its limits, standards have their flexibility, corporations have their interests to consider, and he had only a fragile, finite body and a heart increasingly occupied by fear.

He tried looking for alternatives. Switch to another brand of chips? But who could guarantee they were definitely safe? Or give up all snacks altogether? But didn't that mean depriving himself of one of life's few pleasures, surrendering completely to that formless fear? He found himself caught in a paradox: the excessive fear of risk itself constituted a kind of damage to life.

Eventually, the storm gradually subsided. New hot topics replaced potato chips, and public attention quickly shifted. In the supermarkets, Lay's chips continued to sell well, as if nothing had happened. Li Wei never bought Lay's chips again, nor indeed any brand of potato chips. He hadn't found clear answers, nor had he achieved inner peace. It was just that the "crunch" sound, which once represented simple joy, had disappeared from his life.

Occasionally, on his way home late after working overtime, he would see the mountains of potato chips stacked in the convenience store window, under the lights, the colorful bags looked particularly tempting. But he would just glance quickly and quicken his pace. He knew that some things, once broken, are hard to put back together. It wasn't just trust in a bag of chips, but a complex, unspeakable feeling towards this efficient, convenient, yet anxiety-ridden modern commercial civilization. The shadow of the potato chips hadn't dissipated; it silently merged into the background of Li Wei's life, becoming one of the many unsettling reflections cast by this era onto his heart – subtle, yet undeniably real. Life went on, only that once easily obtainable, cheap happiness was now tinged with a bitterness that was hard to shake off.