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.

Early morning, the sky was off.

Here in Yunnan, the sky lightens late. It was past Mao hour [approx. 5-7 AM], but still dim and grey outside the window. Old Man Zhou got up, shuffled into his slippers, thinking of going to the well in the courtyard to fetch water and wash his face. He pushed open the door and froze.

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.

Wang Erguang, known as Little Wang, wasn't actually little anymore. Pushing fifty, his hair had anxiously whitened halfway on its own. But in this yámen [government office], going by seniority, he still counted as "Little Wang." Who could blame them? He'd joined late. Pulling strings through countless relatives, burning who knows how much incense money, he'd finally managed to snag a shiye bian position in this bland, unremarkable archives department. The iron rice bowl! Thinking of those words, Wang Erguang could chuckle aloud in his sleep. A wife, a child, a warm kàng bed-stove, plus the salary arriving on time each month and those not-too-high, not-too-low benefits – this was Wang Erguang's dream for the latter half of his life, the capital that let him walk tall in the hutong.

By the time the violent tremor from the neighboring country reached our small border town, its force was already spent. The initial swaying was like a weary sigh. Chandeliers swung gently, dust drifting down from the bookshelves like the low murmurs of ancient times disturbed from their slumber. I, Chen, the town library's administrator, was engrossed in a fragmented scroll on ancient geomancy—said to foretell the mysterious connection between shifts in the earth's veins and the ebb and flow of human hearts. Outside the window, the sky was a strange, overly calm grey-blue, as if drained of all emotion before a storm.

The way my husband disappeared was like a drop of water falling on scorching asphalt on a summer afternoon – a sizzle, then evaporated without a trace. No argument, no warning, not even a hastily scribbled farewell note. He just vanished, along with his running shoes by the entryway, a few neatly ironed shirts in the closet, and the seven years we had shared. That was four years ago.

Old Wang, or perhaps, let's just call him Old Wang for now, because his story could happen to any ordinary person named Wang, Li, or Zhang. He had lived most of his life in Shanghai, this enormous, ever-changing city, and possessed a habit as natural as breathing: smoking while walking.

K first noticed the number on the scrolling screen of the commuter subway. A golden yellow number, accompanied by an up or down arrow of the same color, flickered quietly in the crowded, dim carriage. Initially, it was just another fragment in the stream of information, no different from the weather forecast, advertising slogans, or public service announcements. He wasn't even sure what it represented, only vaguely aware it had something to do with the "gold price," a distant and precious metal.

However, the number seemed to have a certain stickiness. The next day, it appeared on the display screen in the office elevator. The number had changed, the arrow pointing downwards, as if carrying a hint of dejection. When he went to the convenience store for a sandwich at noon, the small TV by the cashier was also broadcasting financial news, and that golden number caught his eye again, the arrow jumping upwards fiercely. K felt a strange unease, as if this number was silently seeping into every corner of his life. He didn't own any gold, nor did he care about investments. His salary was just enough to maintain a life that was neither good nor bad, occupying a cubicle in the huge office building like most of his colleagues, processing endless documents that seemed to point towards some grand goal, though what exactly it was, no one could say for sure.

Let me tell you, that day was hot like a giant, clammy hug. The air was thick enough to paste up your throat. Fatty and I were walking down the road to the border, feeling like two slabs of melting butter. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst was, we were covered in "things". Not pimples, not tumors, but live, hard-shelled, still-wriggling turtles. Twenty-eight in total, no more, no less, strapped tightly to our bare chests and backs with wide tape and strips of ragged cloth. Fourteen on me, fourteen on him, like some kind of bizarre, symmetrical torture.

Old Man Zhang has been feeling a bit muddled lately. Not that his mind isn't sharp anymore, but he feels like something about the way life is going isn't quite right, though he can't put his finger on it. It's like the spring wind here in Beijing – blowing through the same familiar hutong entrance, but the smell carried on it is mixed with something else, something a bit pungent, and a bit... unreal.