Old Wang opened a "Fortune Recycling Station" in a corner of a waste recycling center on the edge of the city. To put it nicely, it's recycling, but in reality, it's just reselling. Reselling what? Certainly not bottles and cans, but the "Five Blessings" that Alipay promotes every Spring Festival.

These days, who cares about those few yuan in red envelopes? Old Wang knows that people collect blessings for the sake of the excitement and the sense of ritual. But Old Wang doesn't think that way. He thinks it's a big business.

“Add episodes! Add episodes! Add episodes!”

On Little Li's computer screen, the barrage was filled with the words “add episodes,” so dense that it seemed to burst the screen.

Old Wang was a well-known "Fu collector" in his company. Every year during Alipay's Five Fu collection event, he would get as excited as if he had been injected with chicken blood, searching everywhere. This year was no exception. He opened Alipay on time every day, scanned for Fu characters, watered energy trees, and wished he could poke a hole through his phone screen.

This year was different. Alipay had launched a "Universal Rare Card." The official promotion stated that this card could be used to randomly redeem any Fu card, greatly increasing the probability of collecting all five Fu. Old Wang, of course, was no exception. He put in all his effort, running around, and asking people to scan his Fu characters. Finally, on the last day of the event, he got what he wanted, a golden, sparkling Universal Card.

Old Wang has recently become obsessed with "inner strength" courses.

It started when the company organized a "corporate culture" training session. The main speaker was a so-called spiritual mentor, who spoke eloquently on the stage: “People with inner strength should have a positive attitude, embrace change, not be afraid of challenges, and dare to take responsibility...”

At the company's year-end party, the lights were dim, and the air was filled with the scent of cheap perfume and the subtle aroma of alcohol. The host, a greasy middle-aged man, was announcing the winner of the "Annual Best Creative Award" in his high-pitched voice.

"She is the pride of our company! She is the epitome of innovative thinking! She is our administrative assistant, Li Wei!"

Old John, a retired firefighter, habitually sat on the porch of his small cabin at the foot of the mountains in the evening, gazing at the distant peaks. Today, the sky was an unusually deep red; it wasn't the sunset glow, but a wildfire. Since that "redirected" fire, he had been watching like this every day, a nameless feeling always weighing on his heart.

Autumn in Los Angeles, even the air is burning.

The wildfires are like runaway wild horses, ravaging the edge of the city. On television news, the smoke billows, the flames lick at the hillsides, a scene of the apocalypse.

Autumn in Los Angeles, with a hint of dryness. The distant hills begin to smoke, like a kettle of boiling water.

An old man sits on his rickety wooden chair, gazing at the distant firelight, clutching a crumpled insurance policy in his hand, his last hope. His name is Carl, one of the few remaining residents at the foot of the mountain, the other neighbors having either moved away or gone bankrupt.

Old Wang paced back and forth in front of the express station, constantly rubbing his hands together, sweat beading on his forehead. This was the third time this week he had come here, all for two boxes of yogurt.

Two weeks ago, his wife, Xiao Li, a housewife who was keen on making friends online, suddenly told him that she needed to send two boxes of yogurt to a "friend from afar." "He's been very caring to me," Xiao Li explained, "He even taught me how to post food videos on short-video platforms last time."

Old Wang has been feeling anxious lately, not because of his mortgage or KPIs, but because his daughter has become obsessed with a strange thing—a wish lighthouse.

This lighthouse isn't an antique or a tourist attraction; it's a luminous structure, a full nine meters tall, standing on the top floor of a newly built high-end office building in the city center. It’s said that if you make a wish facing it, your wish is more likely to come true.