4 posts tagged with "Social"

Liu Wenhai, or Teacher Liu, as he was more accustomed to being called, was counting down silently in his heart. Forty-seven days left. In forty-seven days, he could step down from this lectern he had stood behind for over thirty years, clutching the pension—not hefty, but enough for him to retire to the countryside—and tend to the small vegetable garden he had long planned. Sunshine, soil, and the freedom of doing nothing—for an old teacher earning two thousand yuan a month and renting a cramped room on the city's edge, it was practically a preview of paradise.

Old Pierre was an optimist, or at least he seemed to be. On the French Navy's nuclear submarine "Dawn," he was responsible for cleaning the toilets. It wasn't a glamorous job, but Old Pierre always hummed a little tune as he scrubbed the toilets until they gleamed, as if he were completing a work of art. His optimism was like a thin film, enveloping the damp air inside this steel behemoth.

Every day, he would open his pedometer app. A free app called "Vitality Life" recorded his steps and calories burned. This app did more than it claimed. It recorded location, altitude, and movement trajectory. Inside the submarine, Pierre's "movement trajectory" looked comical; he traversed the narrow corridors back and forth like a lost crab.

At six-thirty in the morning, before the alarm clock went off, Anqi was already awake. To be precise, it was her subconscious "short video alarm clock" that woke her up. She didn't even need to open her eyes to feel the vibration of the phone beside her pillow, a vibration like some invisible command, making her immediately reach out and light up the screen.

The familiar interface popped up, the brightly colored icons jumping on the screen like a group of excited little sprites. She opened TikTok, which had become almost the first thing she did every day, more important than brushing her teeth or washing her face. The first video pushed to her today was "2025's Trendiest Makeup," and Anqi skillfully followed the steps in the video, applying various colors of cosmetics to her face.

Lunch break arrived, and Old Wang stared at his phone screen, waiting for his lunch, a double beef rice bowl. The phone app showed that the delivery person had arrived downstairs, but there was no knock on the door. He opened the door, and the corridor was empty, with only a faint fragrance lingering in the air.

Old Wang frowned and checked his phone. The order status showed "Delivered." He called the delivery person, but there was no answer. He began to feel irritable, hungry and tired, this was the moment he looked forward to the most every day.