16 posts tagged with "Short Story"

Old Wang felt that the city's neon lights sometimes glowed like a death warrant. Especially that letter from the bank – black ink on white paper, politely worded, yet more chilling than the winter wind. If he didn't clear the three months of overdue mortgage payments, his pigeonhole of a home would soon have a foreclosure sign hung on it.

His territory was the entrance to a small alley, not bustling with prosperity, but thick with the smoke and life of the everyday. A greasy sign, bearing the five crooked characters "Old Wang's Braised Goose," served as his sole landmark in this vast metropolis. As dusk settled, the large pot, used for over a decade, would begin to bubble and steam. The rich aroma of the braising liquid, mingling star anise, cinnamon, and some undisclosed secret spice, was the most familiar comfort to the neighborhood folks and the workers returning late.

Old Wang at the Civil Affairs Bureau's Marriage Registration Office was nearing retirement. He had sat in this palm-sized place for nearly thirty years. The red booklets and green booklets that passed through his hands, if stacked up, would probably reach half a person's height. The red booklets signified celebration, their gilt characters slightly dazzling in the sun; the green booklets were a bit duller in color, like the water of a late autumn pond – no ripples on the surface, but things were pressed underneath.

Recently, a new regulation came in, saying that for marriage or divorce, looking at the hukou booklet (household registration booklet) was no longer required.

Old Wang, full name Wang Fugui, though that name was probably the most unreliable inheritance his parents could have given him. In this steel-jungle city, he was more like a malnourished old tree, barely putting down roots in a cramped rental apartment. Today was Qingming Festival. The traffic outside remained noisy, but Old Wang's room was filled with a unique smoky aroma—not cooking fumes from the kitchen, but the incense of ancestor veneration.

I heard the news in a jazz bar. The television was hanging in the corner of the bar, silently playing the news. The anchorwoman had a beautiful face, her lips moving, uttering words like "century baby" and "passed away." I stared at the scrolling subtitles at the bottom of the screen, confirming the authenticity of the news.

Old fisherman Zhang San had no hobbies in his life, except he loved to go out to sea on his rickety boat at dusk. He didn't fish to sell them, it was purely for fun. As he put it, "Chatting with the sea is more comfortable than chatting with people."

These days, even sleep has become a luxury.

These days, it's really crazy! Gold is going insane, with a different price every day. I mean, can you eat gold? Can you wear it? But this thing has driven people completely nuts.

Li Mei stared at the bright red numbers on her phone screen: 2000.00. Not a loss, but a profit. On her very first day of trading gold, she had made two thousand yuan. This should have been a moment of celebration, but instead, a secret fear, like a vine, wrapped itself around her heart.

She remembered Old Zhang's warning from work: "Nothing good comes for free. Money that comes this easily is probably dirty." Old Zhang was known at work as a "stick-in-the-mud," always clutching a yellowed copy of Das Kapital and skeptical of everything new. Li Mei had initially scoffed at his words, but now they felt like needles, pricking her with anxiety.

Chicken number 9527 opened its eyes.

To be precise, it didn't know if it had "opened" its eyes, because there was no light. There was only the endless sound of clashing metal, and an indescribable, humid, nauseating smell. It instinctively felt that it was in a narrow space, surrounded by beings like itself – crowded, trembling, exuding the same fear.

These days, even celebrating the New Year is like abacus beads – you have to flick them to make them move. It's called a holiday, but it's more like "shifting" days. It's always the same number of days, but they insist on piecing them together, calling it the elegant name of "Tiaoxiu" (adjusted rest days). Ha, Tiaoxiu, Tiaoxiu, it adjusts people into anxiety and rests them until they haven't rested at all!