September 18, 2013, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province.
Han Heng’s rented room contained neither chairs nor tables. Furniture requiring space was simply too expensive for Shenzhen, not in its individual price, but in the exorbitant cost of the space it occupied. His windowless rental provided no natural light, and a faint, persistent smell of mildew permeated the air year-round, a scent Han Heng had long since grown accustomed to. The room measured a mere five square meters; after accommodating a single bed and a wardrobe, there was hardly any room left. An en-suite bathroom was an unthinkable luxury; the toilet was shared among six rooms, and one might even face a queue just to relieve themselves in the morning.
Yet, Han Heng was entirely content with his dwelling, for it was incredibly cheap, costing only five hundred yuan a month, with utilities calculated separately. In his hometown in Guangxi, five hundred yuan could secure a decent two-bedroom apartment, but this was Shenzhen. For the same work, his monthly salary in his hometown of Laibin City in Guangxi Province might reach two thousand yuan at most, whereas in Shenzhen, he could earn over seven thousand.
This was by no means an exorbitant salary; Shenzhen teemed with jobs paying far more. Still, Han Heng felt satisfied, acknowledging his own capabilities. He knew he might not ascend the ranks, but he wouldn’t sink too low either.
Living in Shenzhen was a struggle; everything was costly, every aspect demanded money. During his university days, McDonald’s was an occasional treat, but in Shenzhen, it had become the restaurant of the destitute. A McDonald’s value meal, costing just over ten yuan, could fill one’s stomach, while a proper ‘fly-restaurant’ might charge twenty yuan for a dish that might not even be enough. Han Heng knew of an ultra-cheap noodle shop three or four kilometers away, where a large bowl of noodles, topped with a spoonful of shredded duck, cost only three yuan. Yet, he merely knew of its existence; he never went there. That noodle shop, three kilometers from his home, was as distant as a fried chicken joint in America—something he’d heard of but never once experienced.
It seemed to exist in another dimension, a mere legend.
Han Heng remained unfazed. He ate at the hospital cafeteria, and while the employee meals were notoriously bad, they were free. As a single man, having a roof over his head and an affordable place to eat was sufficient. Recently, he had read online posts about Shenzhen’s Sanhe district, where a large number of ‘Sanhe gods’ congregated. They worked only day jobs, toiling for a single day to afford three days of playing at internet cafes, and when exhaustion struck and money ran out, they’d simply collapse wherever they stood. Shenzhen, after all, was never cold enough to freeze anyone to death, and the city’s magnetic pull ensured these individuals could always find enough work to return to the internet cafes.
Han Heng was adept at drifting through life. As a relatively rare male nurse, he understood the art of coasting when the opportunity arose. However, the nursing profession itself was inherently demanding; no matter how skilled one was at slacking off, the exhaustion would inevitably come, and with it, meager pay. At least Han Heng hadn’t sunk to the level of living like a ‘Sanhe god.’
Han Heng felt a sense of bewilderment, his life constantly shrouded in fog. He seemed to glimpse something in the distance, but whenever he reached out to grasp it, his hands found nothing. He knew this feeling was emptiness, a lack of direction. Many paths seemed to stretch before him, yet each one appeared to end abruptly, its conclusion visible from the very start. He could even envision his work at forty, and again at fifty.
Han Heng had also considered marriage, and with it, children. But his girlfriend after university had left him, citing his lack of money and ordinary looks, convinced their future held no promise. They had broken up casually.
‘Let her go,’ he had thought. ‘The road stretches out before us, and we each choose our own path.’
Han Heng didn’t dwell on his past. What was past was past; it couldn’t be changed. Since it had happened, it no longer mattered, insignificant to the point of being unworthy of mention. Now, Han Heng couldn’t even recall his ex-girlfriend’s face.
It was nearing midnight, but Han Heng was still awake. He sat cross-legged on his bed, shirtless, making a phone call. His dirty clothes, unwashed, hung carelessly from the headboard, heavy with the smell of sweat. The person on the other end was a friend from the hospital, a female nurse from another department. She wasn’t his girlfriend; she merely used him as an emotional dumping ground. While Han Heng enjoyed gossip, especially about those around him, and didn’t mind his sleep being disturbed, this woman usually treated him like background noise. Now, with a favor to ask, she called without regard for the time, acting as if she were entitled to his immediate attention.
Even with Han Heng’s good temper, being woken up for a call just as he was about to sleep, only to be annoyed for over half an hour by her tearful, rambling complaints, was starting to wear thin.
“No, seriously, sis, how old are you? I think you’re only two years younger than Li Baoshu, right? You’re upset now? You just can’t find anyone better, so you want me to put in a good word for you, to help you reconcile? Seriously, what’s my relationship with you?”
Han Heng spoke, scratching his foot, his words a rapid-fire barrage that momentarily silenced the person on the other end. Her sobbing ceased for a few seconds before she resumed wailing at the top of her lungs.
“Han Heng, please, will you help me? I swear, I’ll never again…”
“First, tell me, what’s my relationship with you?”
The woman stammered again, and Han Heng sighed.
“We have no relationship. You added me on WeChat only because you wanted to communicate with Li Baoshu at any time. You constantly block him, test him with all sorts of ridiculous things, block him when he fails your tests, then ask me to contact Brother Baoshu. Do you think I’m part of your little ‘game’?”
“No, Han Heng, listen to me, it’s not what you think!”
“I don’t need to listen to you; most of what you say are lies. Don’t delude yourself. Brother Baoshu is absolutely fed up with you. Even if he wasn’t, I’m certainly fed up with watching it.”
Han Heng scraped a large chunk of dirt from his foot, sniffed it, then clapped his hands together.
“Last time he took leave to ask you out for dinner, you refused vehemently. Then, once he went into surgery, you kept calling him, demanding he come out to be with you. What kind of person are you? You really know how to pick your moments. You’re a nurse; don’t you know how busy doctors get?”
“No, I just felt that if I went out with him as soon as he asked, it would make me seem cheap. If I came out every time he asked, wouldn’t I be too easy? He should know to ask me in advance!”
“What kind of person are you? You’re cheap? How much cheaper can you get? I’m speechless. And the last time you blocked him and made me pass messages, that was just last week. What was the reason this time?”
“I had my period and my stomach hurt, and he wouldn’t come to be with me. He just told me to take painkillers.”
The woman’s voice, tinged with resentment, came through the phone, making Han Heng’s scalp prickle with disgust.
“Damn it, what kind of pampered young lady are you? As if you’ve never had a period before? You could tolerate it before, but now that you have a boyfriend, you can’t? You utterly clueless thing, you’re just a country bumpkin who came to Shenzhen to make a living. Li Baoshu has a house and a household registration here. What are you? If you don’t marry him, how will you stay here in a few years? Is your brain made of porridge?”
“Are you a local? Do you have a household registration? Can you stay here? Do you have the right to criticize me?”
The woman grew agitated, firing off four rhetorical questions in a row, like a common street quarrel.
“No, I can’t. But I’ll save up enough money and go back to my hometown, where I can coast along with my work experience from here. I’m not relying on marriage to earn money.”
Han Heng chuckled, a smirk on his face, clearly showing his disdain for the person on the other end of the line. Her mind lacked multi-threaded processing capabilities; some of her ideas were utterly baffling to Han Heng. She had managed to snag Li Baoshu, who had a local household registration and didn’t even mind her being foolish, yet she acted terribly all the time, demanding that he guess her every whim—her thoughts, her likes, her dislikes. If he guessed correctly, there was no reward; if he guessed wrong, she’d sulk. This woman had just babbled on about a whole lot of nothing, and to Han Heng, it sounded like she was creating problems where none existed. Towards the end, he even wondered if Li Baoshu’s temper was too good, to have tolerated her for so long.
This foolish woman was truly something else. When a man was willing to reason with her, she’d act unreasonably. Now that Li Baoshu refused to reason, she was frantic. She had finally pushed a good man to become cold-hearted, squandering a perfectly good hand of cards.
“What do you mean? Are you insulting me? What do you mean, ‘relying on marriage to earn money’?”
“Alright, I know what you’re thinking. You can’t find anyone else with a Shenzhen household registration, right? Even if you did, you’d find a whole list of faults to pick at. It’s not impossible for me to help you put in a good word, but even if I gave you the chance, you wouldn’t know how to use it. Look at you, always beating around the bush, always making Brother Baoshu guess. Why would he guess what you’re thinking?”
“Boyfriends should indulge their girlfriends!”
“You idiot, who could possibly guess what you’re thinking? What kind of nonsense have you been reading? You’ve read too many ‘chicken soup for the soul’ articles and brainwashed yourself silly. Your thoughts and actions lack any logic whatsoever. Why would you think a mere nurse like me could persuade him?”
Han Heng laughed heartily. He felt satisfied after his outburst, then hung up and blocked her. No longer sleepy, he opened his QQ account to check his group chats.
Muzigu had posted two pictures. Today, they had seen two exceptionally beautiful girls at a small restaurant and had secretly taken two photos to share in the ‘Chusheng Family’ group chat. Han Heng saw the photos. Even with the ‘death angle’ of a slanted, candid shot, it didn’t diminish the slightest bit of the two women’s stunning beauty. They were truly gorgeous. Han Heng had never seen girls this beautiful in his entire life, not even on TV or computers. Especially the one with the larger bust; though only her profile was visible, and she looked a bit silly gnawing on a duck leg, it only made her appear more charmingly naive. Just looking at the candid photos, Han Heng felt a reaction.
The group chat was filled with a bunch of ruffians urging Muzigu to strike up a conversation, but Muzigu was stubborn and refused to engage. Someone in the group had even ‘human-fleshed’ the two beautiful girls. The one with the larger bust attended Nanling City Experimental High School, and the one with the gentle smile attended Nanling City First Middle School. There were numerous posts about both girls on their respective school forums, and the group member even uncovered that they might be sisters. The user who had identified Qin Zixin and Tang Manwen then dumped all the photos they found into the ‘Chusheng Family’ group chat, and Han Heng downloaded them one by one. The group owner, Grand Master Hunyuan, was probably busy today, as they were unusually quiet, not uttering a single word. Ordinarily, ‘they’ would make several flirtatious remarks upon seeing pictures of pretty girls in the group.