Spring in Beiping, the wind was still stiff, slapping against the face like a stepmother's hand. But somehow, the streets exuded a certain bright energy. Take the newly opened "Butter & Bread" on the corner, for instance. Its glass was polished so bright, like newly fired porcelain teeth, gleaming almost blindingly white. Old Li stopped right there, at the shop's entrance.
No one remembers exactly when or how the "Harmonizer" (some, privately, with a trace of ineffable fear, call it the "Machine Towards Goodness") quietly embedded itself into the fabric of our lives. Like a silent spore, it seemed to spread invisibly with every extension of the city's fiber optics, every system upgrade. The earliest records, scattered deep within the archives of long-forgotten tech forums, mention an experimental project aimed at "optimizing social welfare" and "enhancing civic morality." The project codename was vague, its funding sources obscure, its initiators even more indistinct, like a group of anonymous deities sowing seeds of well-being from behind a digital mist.
Old Wang, the third-generation owner of Wang's Fresh Tripe, had spent his entire life dealing with beef offal. He prided himself on having seen more of the world than the varieties of tripe simmered in hotpot. His shop was tucked away deep in the city's alleys, the neon lights barely managing to dampen his faded sign. The shop wasn't large, and the air perpetually carried an honest, coarse smell – a mix of spices and raw freshness. Regulars knew Wang's tripe: dipped briefly, it came out perfectly crisp and tender.
Wang Laowu, known as "Old Man Wang," wasn't ancient, just past sixty, his back a bit stooped, like the old walnut tree at the village entrance—looking withered but still sturdy-boned. He'd spent over half his life scraping a living from this yellow earth in eastern Henan, knowing the dirt clods better than his own kin. The village, Wangjia Gada, wasn't large, just a few dozen households where chickens and dogs were familiar sounds. Life flowed like the river at the village edge—seemingly moving, yet always the same old routines, undisturbed by waves.
Beijing was still Beijing, just with more cars, taller buildings, and perhaps a little less of that leisurely vibe under the old locust trees where people used to walk their birds or play chess. Ma Liansheng, forty-five years old, was doing alright, not great, crunching numbers in a company that was neither big nor small, decently managing the mortgage on a place still a couple of miles shy of the Fourth Ring Road. His physique, much like his life, had decently put on a bit of timber.
In the Beijing summer, under the vicious sun, the asphalt roads softened, making you worry about peeling off a layer of tar with your soles. Even on a day like this, in a nook near Xizhimen, a small lunchbox stall always stood its ground, unwavering.
That swimming hall had been abandoned for a long time. Long enough for the notice posted by the city government on the faded iron gate to change from "Temporarily Closed for Electrical Maintenance" to "Structurally Unsafe, No Entry," and finally, to just a sheet of white paper, eroded by wind and rain until the characters were almost illegible, like a perfunctory band-aid unable to conceal the ever-thickening stillness within.
I don't know why, but I was always drawn to it. Especially after having exactly two glasses of whiskey on the rocks – no more, no less. The city felt like a giant, high-speed tumble dryer, jumbling everything dizzily. Only the swimming hall, like a forgotten sock in the corner of the machine, remained quietly curled up, exuding an almost stubborn scent, out of place with its surroundings. Not just mustiness, nor the lingering smell of chlorine, but more like... how to put it? Like the scent of time itself, settled, tinged with dust and the hopeless aroma of green algae.
When Wang Wei first heard his passport had been "buried," he thought it was a bad joke, or perhaps a mistranslation. He was standing outside the leaky tent at the temporary settlement, trying to glean some news about returning home from the official distributing relief supplies. The earthquake in Myanmar had struck without warning, collapsing buildings and shattering the already fragile lives of many.
That sidewalk, it's kind of interesting. Right on that old street near my place, next to an old wall covered in greasy ivy. At first, nobody paid it any mind. People just hugged the wall or walked on the curb, tiptoeing around bikes. Later, some busybody measured it and announced, "Hey, this thing's only ten centimeters wide." Ten centimeters, comrades, what does that even mean? It means my size 42 worn-out leather shoes, the ones I've worn for years until the soles are almost gone, couldn't even fit sideways. Placed vertically, you'd have to twist your ankle at a bizarre angle.
The first time Li An met Lin Jing was amid the surging crowd of the People's Square subway station. Like two identical water droplets colliding unexpectedly in a rushing river. They were both wearing khaki trench coats, both wearing the same style of beret in different colors – Li An's was off-white, Lin Jing's light gray. They even nearly bumped into the same pillar while looking down at their phones. The moment they looked up, their eyes met, and the air seemed to freeze for a second.