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.
This was a “check-in” for the approaching New Year, a cycle of colors from different eras painting a vibrant scene. The “Stock God” sat at the table in the front row from start to finish, waving a colorful plastic clapper, guiding the performers to the very center of the spotlight. He shook his head and waved his hands, his brown photochromic glasses revealing not a trace of fatigue.
Two and a half hours later, a 14-year-old “future vocalist” sat quietly next to her grandmother, scrolling through her phone. The students scheduled to perform nearly three hours into the show didn’t just bring their voices from afar—they took the stage in full regalia. Various formal gowns and ethnic minority costumes appeared in turn.
When the singing reached its emotional peak, there was light in their eyes. Joy and sorrow overflowed beyond words; emotions were maxed out as they poured forth stories of their magnificent lives. Amidst the heavy makeup and bright colors, the sound of laughter heralded the vitality of another spring.
“Is Teacher Yu beautiful?” “Beautiful!”
Lin Song passed by a convenience store and bought a cup of soy milk. He felt the hot soy milk here was as rich as cow’s milk, thick enough to coat the tongue. He remembered the rice water his sister used to collect after steaming rice; even with plenty of white sugar added, it was never thick enough, and drinking half a pot would leave a cloying feeling in the throat.
Carrying the soy milk, he went to Dehua Lou to buy a bowl of Hot Dry Noodles. He emphasized to the woman cooking the noodles: no sour beans. He then instructed the auntie frying eggs to make two “undisciplined” eggs without using the round molds. Half-cooked. One poke with a chopstick, and the yolk should run—just right.
It was already deep winter, and the heavy leather curtains hanging at the door of Dehua Lou couldn’t stop the cold wind from pouring into the shop. Lin Song found an empty spot in the innermost corner, a space filled with the warmth radiating from the stove. After finishing his breakfast, he sat there and began scrolling through his phone.
The tissue box nailed to the wall was printed with “Save Paper.” Yet, under the gaze of this prompt, the uncles and aunties would consistently pull out enough tissue to last a full day of toilet visits. Yes, they always remembered to save the paper in their own homes. There was no need to worry about anyone mocking you for taking those dozen extra sheets, and you didn’t need to side-eye me either—I don’t know you anyway.
When dogs in the city go out, their owners must keep them on a leash held tight in hand. Lin Song recalled his childhood in the village, where he would tie a string of firecrackers to a dog’s tail. Once lit, the dog would run incredibly fast. What confused the dog was that the faster it ran, the closer the exploding firecrackers followed. Yet, no matter how far the terrified, soul-shattered dog ran, it always knew the way home.
The RT-Mart across the street was looking more and more like the Hema Fresh in the Jijiahui mall downstairs. They were mutually destroying the hypermarket business models of the past twenty years. Perhaps it isn’t just the past they are destroying, but the future as well. Hmm, if we look ahead with such a narrow perspective, what will the future be?
“Inexplicable” is often just another way of expressing a lack of comprehension, or an inability to comprehend certain things.
Great art exists only in those who are free from the worries of survival and possess creativity.
By the buttons of the elevator on the second basement floor, someone had scrawled in crooked handwriting: “When Heaven is about to confer a great office on this man (typo: ’this’), it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews (typo: ‘strength’) and bones with toil. It exposes his body to hunger (typo: ‘clothes’), and subjects him to extreme poverty (wrong position)! 😊 (confounds his undertakings)”
Following this passage, in a font size twice as large, it looked like the person wanted to write “Cunt” (two characters), but didn’t know how. So, after a few scribbled corrections, they wrote “Bullshit” instead. In a font size half as small, following that, someone wrote: “Run.”
Perhaps this is why we see so much fake news on our phones. A passage from a common textbook, with a typo in every sentence, followed by comments that are vulgar and unbearable. In this way, the method of understanding the world is inevitably chaotic. Consequently, the news that best fits one’s mind is that which is riddled with fallacies.
A new strip of red paper was pasted on the lintel of the elevator shaft. This winter, though the Winter Solstice has passed, it isn’t cold yet.
Lin Song turned on the radio, listening to happy, rhythmic Black music. Thinking of those annoying, trivial matters, he couldn’t bring himself to be happy. Who was it that said, “Rhythm unites the world”? Although it seems so logical, it is ultimately so useless.
We often please ourselves by pleasing others. Especially when walking alone on a cold, rainy night, one might expect to meet a girlfriend carrying a hand warmer. Until one day, mutual pleasing developed into a crucial social attribute: You are happy, so I am happy. Later still, merely pleasing oneself became a kind of anti-social label, stuck to one’s bare back like a medicinal plaster.
Kepler-22b in the Cygnus constellation, 587.1 light-years from Earth. It is also a blue planet. There is water there, perhaps air. It travels along a circular orbit, maintaining a constant temperature of 22°C.