Section Chief Wang had grown somewhat gaunt lately, his eyes sunken, as if something were gnawing at his spirit day and night. Those familiar with him merely assumed he was "busy with official duties, toiling for the nation." When occasional inquiries about his well-being were made, he would just wave a hand, revealing a smile that was both bitter and seemingly profound. No one knew that what truly robbed him of sleep and appetite wasn't the mountain of files piled on his office desk, but a silent, crouching "beast" in the basement of his old apartment building.

Six seventeen in the morning. The alarm hadn't gone off yet, but I was awake. Outside the window, the sky was a thin, washed-out blue-gray, like something laundered too many times, carrying a hint of hungover fatigue. This city is always like that, waking up reluctantly. It seemed my body housed its own alarm clock, more precise and more stubborn than the mechanical thing on the bedside table.

He, let us call him K, or more precisely, Archivist G/T 718, couldn't recall when he began working in the archives of the General Administration of Customs, a place as vast as the Library of Babel. The days were like impressions made repeatedly with the same stamp, blurred and identical. His duty was to receive, classify, and file the announcements concerning tariff adjustments that arrived like snowflakes from every corner of the world. These announcements, initially scattered whispers, gradually gathered into a clamorous torrent, eventually crescendoing into a continuous, deafening roar.

Li Wei felt that ever since he and Xiao Fang broke up, his desktop WeChat had turned into a malevolent ghost court, and he was the sole defendant, charged with "attempting to forget."

No one quite remembers the exact date, perhaps it was at the end of an unusually damp plum rain season, or maybe just some unremarkable afternoon forgotten in the dust of time, but in any case, the news about Dr. K and his legendary thesis spread quietly, like a silent mold, through the ancient and solemn corridors of the university. Three months, merely three months, and he had completed a doctoral thesis running to one hundred and forty thousand words. This in itself was nearly miraculous, enough to make seasoned scholars, those who had spent lifetimes poring over texts, feel unease and envy. However, what was truly dizzying was the report spat out by the cold machine—Plagiarism Rate: 0.1%.

That afternoon, like any other afternoon, was unremarkable, perhaps even a bit tedious. Faint motes of dust floated in the air, along with the hesitant warmth of impending early summer. I had just finished a rather uninteresting translation job and was walking home, headphones on, listening to Bill Evans's "Waltz for Debby." As I passed the Mixue Bingcheng on the corner, a sense of wrongness, like a small pebble dropped precisely into the calm surface of my consciousness, made itself felt.

K first noticed the fridge magnet on the partition of his colleague Wang's office cubicle. It was a brightly colored, slightly clumsy-looking cartoon character, grinning an overly brilliant smile, with a nonsensical motivational phrase printed beside it, something like "Keep it up today, duck!" or similar. K only glanced at it at the time, feeling rather indifferent, even thinking such things were childish. The office cubicle was already cramped; sticking something like this on it made it seem even more crowded, almost... desperate. A kind of futile desperation, trying to combat monotonous reality with cheap colors and slogans.

The thick gold chain around Zhang Wei's neck, once a totem of his sense of security, now felt like a cold fetter, tightening its grip with every plunge of the gold price on the screen, restricting his breath inch by inch.

It was last year, when the price of gold was soaring, breaking one historic high after another, that Zhang Wei joined the frenzy. He wasn't wealthy, just a hardworking middle-aged man scraping by in the city, having saved up some hard-earned money. Seeing his neighbors, colleagues, and even the grannies doing square dancing talking about gold, the anxiety of "losing out if you don't buy now" spread rapidly like a virus. It was a typical individual choice amidst the tides of the era, as described by Wu Xiaobo—less rational investment, more a panic hedge against an uncertain future, coupled with a faint hope for upward mobility.

When Wang Jianguo received the water bill, he initially thought it was a misprinted joke. On the off-white paper, in neat standard font, a string of numbers was clearly printed: 39,390 yuan. The payment deadline was next Wednesday. He read it three times, then checked his phone calendar again. Yes, it had only been eighteen days since they moved into this new home, into which they had poured half a lifetime's savings.

Lixiang, much like the nearly withered jasmine on her windowsill, was an inconspicuous speck of green in this concrete jungle. She worked as a clerk in a medium-sized trading company, her days filled with typing, photocopying, and making tea that was never quite hot enough for the boss. Life felt like a rusty conveyor belt, carrying her from sunrise to sunset. Her only hope, her only thing to look forward to, was Liang Yu.