It started with a lukewarm beer and a WeChat message from my college roommate. On Friday night, as usual, I bought a canned beer and a bag of peanuts from the convenience store, preparing to while away the start of another weekend alone. The screen lit up. It was Xiaoyun. She sent a screenshot with a message: "Meiling, when did you become an actress? And in such a hit drama!"

Old Wang, or as the neighbors more familiarly called him, "Master Wang," ran a tiny watch repair shop. It felt like an old-fashioned pocket watch forgotten in the city's breast pocket, its hands lazy, yet stubbornly recording the passage of time. Squeezed between a noisy Mala Tang stall and a clothing store perpetually having a clearance sale, the shop seemed out of place, like an old scholar insisting on writing letters in archaic script.

Now, what do you make of this?

At four in the morning, I woke punctually. The sky outside was an unimaginative grey, like an old rag washed over and over. Making coffee, toasting two slices of bread – this was an unshakeable ritual. Usually at this time, "Mustard" – my cat, a fellow with a mottled coat and eyes that always held a hint of philosophical contemplation – would appear promptly at the kitchen door, meowing in a tone that was just right, neither fawning nor distant, reminding me it was his breakfast time.

But not today.

The weather in Sang Town, lately, always seemed covered in a layer of unwashable gray. Not that there wasn't sun; the sun was there, hanging brightly in the sky, yet it couldn't penetrate that invisible haze. When it fell on people's bodies and faces, it was merely tepid, unable to stir the slightest vitality. The townspeople, too, were much like the weather; their eyeballs were alive, able to move, to see, but looking around, there was nothing novel to behold, so they retreated back inwards, hidden beneath half-closed eyelids, as if this could conserve some energy.

Li Hui sat behind the large desk, the hazy silhouette of this southern city visible outside her window. The steel and concrete jungle shimmered faintly in the unique misty dampness of the plum rain season. The case files spread across her desk emitted a mixed scent of paper and ink, a smell she had grown accustomed to over the past fifteen years. She was now Lawyer Li, known for her calm demeanor and rigorous logic, particularly adept at handling "minor cases" involving procedural justice. No one knew that the starting point of her chosen path stemmed from an acceptance letter that had never reached her hands.

Xiao Shi is a programmer, writing code in Shenzhen. In this place, the buildings are tall enough to pierce the heavens, and the rent is high enough to pierce one's courage. Xiao Shi lacks courage, at least the courage to dedicate the bulk of his monthly salary to supporting a pigeon coop. So, he doesn't live in a pigeon coop; he lives in a Deepal G318. The car, domestic, electric, isn't exactly small – better than some Hong Kong subdivided flats, at least. He's been living like this for four years, like an urban nomad, or perhaps, like a sardine packed in a tin can.

Our place here used to have a nickname, the "Unofficial Reserve Base for the World's Toy Factory." Later, officials thought it lacked elegance and changed it in documents to the "Red Star Industrial Demonstration Zone." But privately, especially when spitting foam at the dinner table while reminiscing about the glorious past, everyone still habitually called it "Rust Town." The name fits, carrying a sense of helplessness and滄桑 (vicissitudes/weathered look) like oxidized metal. Rust Town, well, as the name implies, now only rust remains. It wasn't always like this. Back then, the town was like a hyperactive spinning top, buzzing non-stop day and night, specializing in manufacturing happiness for those blond-haired, blue-eyed kids across the ocean – plastic ones, plush ones, battery-operated ones that could sing and dance, you name it.

The city, this vast labyrinth built of steel and glass, exhales weary neon and clamor at dusk. And deep within the maze, behind an unremarkable window, lived Old Wang. Old Wang, a name as common as a roadside pebble, his existence too, like a pebble, swept along by the torrent of the times, submerged in a corner of the metropolis. He was once a diligent cog in a factory, polishing away half his life in exchange for the tranquility of this small room in his later years, and a string of digits in his passbook—modest, yet enough to console his declining days.

Lao Ma felt this place was a bit like a huge, cold cement box. He hadn't thought that way when they first bought it. Back then, the sales lady's words were sweet as honey. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, shining on the exquisite little model houses on the sand table, bright and full of hope. One million one hundred ninety thousand yuan. It emptied half a lifetime's savings and saddled them with a thirty-year mortgage, but Lao Ma and his wife, Ma Sao, felt it was worth it! For their son's future schooling, for a stable nest for their old age, for putting down roots in this big city – this cement box was their "home," their tangible, heavy future.