The Unclaimable Free Order

K discovered the notification on a tired Tuesday morning. On his phone screen, a stubborn red dot glowed in the top-right corner of the familiar orange shopping app icon. "Congratulations!" a push notification popped up, "You've won a free order qualification in the 'Everything Carnival' event! Click for details."

K stared at the words, feeling no excitement, only a faint annoyance. He had worked late into the night and now just wanted a cup of coffee, not to deal with what was most likely some kind of coupon trap. He hadn't bought anything on Taobao yesterday, nor did he recall participating in any "Everything Carnival." But the notification was so certain, carrying an unquestionable official tone, as if K's win was some predetermined, inevitable event.

He tapped on it. The interface switched, loaded slowly, and finally settled on an extremely crudely designed page. There were no product images, no order number, only a larger line of text: "Your free order qualification is confirmed. Please proceed with the claim procedures as soon as possible." Below it was a greyed-out, unclickable button labeled "Processing."

K felt a slight dizziness. What procedures? Claiming what? He tried to go back, but the app froze. After restarting his phone, the notification vanished, but the red dot on the app icon remained. He opened the app; the homepage showed no information about the free order. He searched through "My Orders," "Coupons," and "Message Center" to no avail. It was as if the notification had never existed, except for that stubborn red dot and a lingering doubt in K's mind.

In the following days, the matter became like a small thorn embedded in K's daily life. The red dot appeared and disappeared sporadically, lighting up when he didn't need his phone, hiding when he urgently tried to check. He started subconsciously refreshing the app during work breaks, as if awaiting an important verdict. He tried contacting customer service, but whether choosing the chatbot or a human agent, the conversation would always be interrupted at a critical point or be redirected to a generic help page explaining "what is a free order," at the bottom of which read: "For specific free order details, please refer to your winning notification." Which notification? The one that had disappeared?

One afternoon, he received an email with no sender address, titled "Regarding Your Free Order Qualification Matter - Interim Confirmation." The body contained only one sentence: "Please bring the original and three copies of your valid identification, two recent passport-style photos (blue background), and a statement of your understanding of the concept of 'Everything' (no less than 500 words) to the 'Qualification Review Office' for preliminary verification within three working days." There was no address at the end of the email, only a blurry map thumbnail pointing to an area of the city K had never heard of, which seemed to contain only industrial ruins.

K felt it was absurd, but more than that, a sense of powerlessness, of being pulled along. Why should he go through so much trouble for some inexplicable "free order"? The concept of "Everything"? This was practically a philosophical examination. He wanted to ignore the email, but the red dot on the app icon seemed to have become an eye, silently watching him, reminding him of an unfinished, mandatory task.

Acting as if possessed, he began preparing the materials. When photocopying his ID, the copy shop owner asked curiously, "Mr. K, what important matter are you handling?" K mumbled something about a lucky draw. The owner laughed, "These promotions are so complicated nowadays. Before, prizes were just mailed directly. Now they make you run your legs off."

Writing the statement on "Everything" gave him a headache. He sat at his desk, facing the blank document, feeling like a student awaiting judgment. He wrote and deleted, deleted and wrote, finally haphazardly piecing together some thoughts on the universe, life, and consumerism that felt incoherent even to himself.

On the third day, he took half a day off work and followed the blurry map to find the "Qualification Review Office." The place was even more remote than he had imagined. The bus only went within a few kilometers, and the rest of the way required walking through several demolition sites. He finally found a solitary, small concrete building with no signs, only a rusty iron door left ajar.

K pushed the door open. Inside, the light was dim, the air filled with the smell of dust and old paper. A long corridor stretched ahead, lined with closed doors. At the end of the corridor sat an old man in a grey uniform, typing away at an old-fashioned typewriter.

"Hello," K began cautiously, "I received an email asking me to come here for the free order qualification verification."

The old man looked up, his eyes behind the glasses cloudy and indifferent. "Which department notified you?"

"The email didn't specify a department, only the 'Qualification Review Office'," K said, handing over the printed email.

The old man took the email, glanced at it without really looking, and tossed it into a nearby wastebasket that was nearly overflowing. "The notification method was incorrect," he said. "You should have received an internal triplicate form, not this kind of email. Email is an unofficial channel; we don't recognize it here."

"But..." K felt a surge of despair, "the email explicitly told me to come here."

"Regulations are regulations," the old man waved his hand impatiently. "You need to first find that 'unofficial channel' that sent you the email, have them issue you the official triplicate form. Then, bring the triplicate form back here to queue for an appointment. Appointments for today are already full. Try asking again tomorrow."

"How am I supposed to find the channel that sent the email?" K pressed.

The old man shrugged, lowered his head, and resumed typing, the monotonous clacking filling the air. He ignored K completely.

K stood frozen, feeling a chill. He looked around; the doors along the corridor remained shut, as if hiding countless bureaucrats like this old man, executing sets of rigid and absurd rules incomprehensible to outsiders. The ID copies, photos, and the statement on "Everything" in his hand now seemed utterly ridiculous.

He walked out of the small building into the blinding sunlight. He took out his phone; the red dot on the orange app icon was still lit, like a silent mockery. He suddenly understood: this "free order" was perhaps not about getting something for free at all, but about a process – a process of making him constantly prove himself, constantly run around, constantly be denied, until finally being completely tamed by this invisible system. The price of the "free order" might be himself.

He walked back wearily, his steps heavy. He didn't know what to do next. Should he give up on this absurd "free order" and let that red dot remain an eternal, unresolved mystery? Or should he continue searching for that "unofficial channel," obtain that damned "triplicate form," and return to this labyrinth until he exhausted his last ounce of energy?

He looked up at the sky. It was grey and overcast, like a vast, cold curtain. He felt like a fly caught in a spider's web; no matter how much he struggled, he would only become more entangled in the invisible threads. And the name of that web might be "Life," perhaps "The System," or perhaps, simply "Taobao Free Order." The red dot remained on his phone screen, shining quietly, persistently.