看风使舵，随波逐流。

茫茫无际的草原上的村庄，仅仅是百年以前，他们也许一辈子都没有走出过这绿色的草原。

On a ThinkPad that had been in service for over 15 years, the code for “Wind Rudder No. 1” finally ran successfully. Three months of back-testing data showed considerable profitability. Hope had never felt so real. In a life spent stumbling through the better part of my years, all rehearsals had taken place within textbooks written by teachers. No matter how many times I verified the calculations, they were always other people’s stories, other people’s scenarios. ...

At Guanshidun, three breakfast shops stood open, side by side. The “Old Jar Pickled Cabbage Hot Dry Noodle Shop” was the one right in the middle. The owner cooking the noodles was a young man wearing a disposable black mask. While boiling noodles, he chatted with the customers, asking if the property management of the used car market across the street had given them any trouble lately. The customers owned a stall in the market and came here for breakfast every day. The small speaker in the shop played a classic pop earworm from days gone by: “Come, come, have a drink, don’t stop until you’re drunk… can’t keep the hurried love by your side…” ...

Teacher Yu’s New Year’s concert was overflowing with a joy reminiscent of the song, “On the Fields of Hope.” The baritone, puffing out his slightly portly frame, controlled his vocal cords with a warm, polished smoothness as he gazed deeply toward a distant hometown. A duet was performed by a man and a woman whose combined ages exceeded 130 years; they meticulously mimicked every gesture of the idols on the cassette covers of their youth. ...

Sister Tony always has a heavy hand when cutting hair. The electric clippers start from the nape of the neck, pushing upward right against the scalp. You can feel the cold touch of the metal; it’s nothing if not clean and sharp. After she finishes buzzing, she politely asks Lin Song, “Is this length okay?” “It’s fine.” You’ve already shaved off the hair on the left side; whether it’s okay or not, that’s how it is. It’s not as if you can leave the hair on the right side unshaved, can you? When walking out of a barbershop, if anyone can tell at a glance that you’ve just had a haircut, it was definitely cut by a “Student Tony” just entering the trade. But if the hair looks natural, as if it hasn’t been cut at all, it was likely the handiwork of a “Master Tony.” To have Master Tony cut your hair, you have to pay an extra ten yuan on top of the member’s price. ...

If you have any good suggestions, please tell me!

He stood there at the intersection, motionless, facing the center of the crossroads no matter which way the traffic light turned green. The morning sun shone on his slightly weathered cheek, illuminating his faint smile. It turned out he was standing there to bask in the sun. When the tall buildings ahead blocked the sun as it moved from east to west, he would walk to the opposite corner where the sunlight still reached, and continue his sunbathing. ...

Following days of gloom, the sun finally revealed itself in the morning. Just past 8:00 AM, the Starbucks barista began scrubbing the ground at the entrance with a bucket of water. Wearing only a green short-sleeved T-shirt, his thin frame faced the north wind, yet he seemed impervious to the cold. A slightly chubby girl sat leaning on a chair brushing her teeth; the shop hadn’t opened yet, and the U-lock still hung on the handle of the glass door. ...

Writing is never about you. It is about whether you can use words to change the world—even if it’s just a small corner of the minds of a few key people. This may sound cold, but it is the most authentic rule of academic writing. Your teachers are not your real readers; they read your work out of obligation. The real-world reader owes you nothing. Similarly, the clichéd goal of “filling a knowledge gap” pales in comparison to the reality of infinite knowledge expansion. What truly matters is solving the “expensive” problems that readers actually care about. This is precisely why interdisciplinary writing is so fraught: if you cannot define “who the reader is,” writing becomes like shooting blindly in the dark. ...

There was dew under the eaves in the early morning. Disturbed by the waving hand of the breakfast stall owner, a fly fell into a freshly filled bowl of doufunao (tofu pudding). The owner’s hands were quick. The spoon, which had just been used for white sugar, deftly scooped the fly out and flicked it onto the sidewalk. She then smoothly pushed the bowl toward an old man who had just paid. The old man, usually quiet, was not the least bit muddled. “Why are you giving me the one with the fly?” “This one isn’t for you. Take the one next to it.” The owner moved the “cleaned” bowl of tofu pudding to the side of the bucket, leaving it for the next customer who paid. ...