84 posts tagged with "Society"

Li Mingrui felt like he had been thrown into the spin cycle of fate, spinning at high speed, dizzy, and finally slammed against the wall of reality with a "thud."

In those days, knowledge was still encased in paper shells, like fragile cicada exuviae, waiting to be ripped open to release the so-called "fate." But fate, you know, is like Schrödinger's cat; before the box is opened, it both exists and doesn't exist.

The truck driver, Old Wang, was a taciturn man with more wrinkles on his face than the roads he'd traveled. He drove his dilapidated Jiefang truck, carrying a load of answer sheets that determined the fate of countless people, bumping along the national highway. He felt like a fertility god, except he wasn't delivering babies, but rather the ethereal "future."

The sun slanted westward, casting a diagonal light into the narrow alley, dyeing the nameless yellow flowers in the corner a golden hue. Li Sijiu, a native Beijinger, was pushing his electric scooter, ready to start his day's "battle."

"Hey, Sijiu, what's new today?" Aunt Wang from the grocery store poked her head out, still clutching a handful of sunflower seeds.

On the day the CPPCC meeting closed, the sky in Beijing was as gray as a crumpled old newspaper. I walked slowly along Chang'an Avenue, my tail dragging listlessly on the ground. Actually, I'm not human, I'm a cat, a gray and white stray that's been wandering this city for who knows how long.

Someone said that this year's agenda included the issue of basic pensions for peasants, saying it would be raised to 600 yuan. Six hundred yuan, I tilted my head, what kind of concept is that? How many cans of cat food could it buy? Or, how many decent nights could it provide, without having to rummage through garbage cans for rotten fish bones?

The spring of 2024 arrived with more clamor than usual.

The sky was as gloomy as a rag soaked in ink, pressing down on the city of Beiping like a gray haze. Pedestrians on the street huddled in their clothes, hurrying along, afraid of being chilled by the cold weather. The teahouse on the roadside, however, was bustling with activity, filled with the sound of voices, the aroma of tea, and a mix of idle chatter.

Lao Li stared at the number on the screen, his brows furrowed like a twisted rope.

Old Wang rubbed his hands together, bowing three times to the dark, hulking "Kitchen God" in the kitchen. It wasn't a wooden statue, nor a printed New Year picture, but a smart speaker with a screen.

Old Wang, the Stove God, has been very bothered lately. The Jade Emperor approved his descent to investigate public sentiment, euphemistically calling it "experiencing the human touch." He was overjoyed, thinking he'd see wisps of smoke rising from chimneys and hear cheerful laughter. But what did he find? On his first day, he was almost run over by a food delivery guy.

He transformed into a middle-aged programmer named Wang Ming, who was woken up by his alarm clock at 7:30 AM every morning. He'd hastily shove a few bites of bread into his mouth, then squeeze onto the subway to begin his daily "cultivation." Wang Ming’s "workstation" was in a transparent glass cubicle. He could see everyone in the cubicles across from him buried in their work, with only the clatter of keyboards rising and falling.

"Gold, it's gone up again today!"

Old Wang muttered to himself, holding his thermos mug, staring at the glaring numbers on the computer screen. He worked at "Gleaming Gold" company, whose main business was gold jewelry. But Old Wang wasn't a designer, nor a salesperson; he was just an ordinary clerk in charge of data entry. His daily task was to input the real-time gold prices and inventory data of various jewelry items into the company's internal network system.