The cold moonlight shone down on the demolition zone of Baigezhuang, illuminating ruins that looked like they'd been bombed by missiles multiple times.
It was the same collapsed building where Jiang Tao had previously rescued Sun Xiaobao.
The same slab of concrete, the same person.
Sun Xiaobao had once again been pinned down by the very same slab that had trapped him before.
Last time, after Jiang Tao saved him, he left in a hurry.
Sun Xiaobao hadn't had the chance to take the ten or so pounds of scrap rebar he'd collected.
After recovering at home, the more he thought about it, the more he felt it was a pity.
Ten pounds of rebar, at current scrap metal prices, could fetch over ten yuan. What a waste to leave it behind!
So, Sun Xiaobao returned to the site, revisiting old haunts.
Fortunately, hardly anyone came to this place, and he easily found the rebar he'd left behind.
Then, with itchy hands, he couldn't resist tugging at a few pieces of rebar he hadn't managed to pull free last time.
And then…
The familiar happened again.
With a loud *crash*, Sun Xiaobao was pinned down once more!
His position was almost identical to the last time!
Over the past couple of days, suffering from hunger and cold, he was so famished that he felt a bit delirious.
He was starting to wonder if the time Jiang Tao saved him a few days ago was just a hallucination.
Perhaps no one had ever come to rescue him.
Maybe it was just a vision he had before death?
How could someone get crushed by the same slab in the same place *twice*?
The more Sun Xiaobao thought about it, the more he was convinced it was probably his imagination. No one would come to save a lonely old man like him.
Enduring the intense hunger gnawing at his stomach, Sun Xiaobao quietly thought to himself that his life was probably going to end here.
As the saying goes, "At sixty-six, if you don't die, you lose a piece of flesh."
It seemed he was fated to face this calamity, unable to make it past the age of sixty-six.
Reflecting on his sixty-six years, Sun Xiaobao felt his life had been nothing but hardship, filled with suffering.
His mother died in childbirth when he was born, leaving him motherless from the start.
He was raised by his father, who fed him through toil and struggle.
At fifteen, his father died in a traffic accident.
At twenty-six, through the introduction of clan elders, he got married and took a wife.
But his wife also died in childbirth.
He raised his son alone and even arranged a marriage for him.
But his son, after losing a million yuan in the stock market, took his own life by "flying a kite" from a rooftop.
His daughter-in-law abandoned their three-year-old grandson and ran off.
Sun Xiaobao supported his grandson's education for twenty years, finally seeing him graduate from university.
But on graduation day, his grandson sacrificed himself to save someone from drowning.
In sixty-six years, Sun Xiaobao had buried his mother, father, wife, son, and grandson.
The successive deaths of his loved ones sapped his courage to live, leaving him depressed and listless.
Sun Xiaobao drowned his sorrows in alcohol daily, becoming Baigezhuang's infamous drunkard.
Before Baigezhuang was demolished, though he didn't have much money, the family of the girl his grandson saved was wealthy.
The girl's father sent him a case of Maotai, a pack of tea, and three cartons of premium cigarettes every month.
This went on for over a decade and continued to this day.
In earlier years, Sun Xiaobao drank and smoked all the gifts himself.
But in the last three or four years, he had a change of heart, quit smoking and drinking, and started accumulating a stockpile at home.
At his age, he wasn't skilled at much and wasn't willing to work as a security guard, feeling like he'd be treated like a servant.
So, he picked up his father's old trade and started scavenging for scrap.
Say what you will, the job wasn't glamorous, but it was free and easy.
He could earn four or five thousand yuan a month, more than he'd make as a security guard!
In recent years, with Baigezhuang's demolition, Sun Xiaobao's old house, which was quite large, earned him five apartments and several hundred thousand yuan in cash.
In a sense, Sun Xiaobao had achieved the financial freedom that many young people dreamed of.
His assets were enough to let him live out his days comfortably.
But Sun Xiaobao was born with a restless spirit and couldn't sit idle.
When he had nothing to do, he'd get headaches or fevers, or he'd be overwhelmed by thoughts of his departed loved ones.
So, even with a worry-free life, he insisted on pursuing his "career."
Despite working tirelessly day in and day out, through all seasons, his health had actually improved.
Case in point: after being pinned under a two-to-three-hundred-pound concrete slab for over two days, not only was he still alive, but he had the energy to let his mind wander.
"Sigh… it's all fate!"
"This old man's lifetime of suffering is finally over."
"I hope in my next life, I'll be reborn into a good family and suffer a bit less!"
Just as Sun Xiaobao closed his eyes in despair, preparing for death, he suddenly heard footsteps approaching.
A hallucination—it must be another hallucination.
Who would come to a godforsaken place like this in the middle of the night?
Even hearing the sound, Sun Xiaobao couldn't be bothered to call for help, thinking he might as well die like this.
Suddenly, a beam of flashlight light shone on his face.
"Holy crap, Grandpa Sun, it's you again! Are you revisiting old haunts or what?"
Seeing Sun Xiaobao pinned under the slab, Jiang Tao knew it wasn't polite to laugh at the moment, but he couldn't help it.
This place looked more and more familiar—wasn't this the exact spot where he saved Grandpa Sun last time?
He was starting to wonder if Grandpa Sun was trying to end it all, deliberately putting himself under that slab.
"Huh? You're…"
Hearing Jiang Tao's voice, Sun Xiaobao found it familiar and opened his eyes to look at him.
"It's me, Grandpa Sun! Jiang Tao! We met a couple of days ago."
As he spoke, Jiang Tao stepped over to Sun Xiaobao's side.
For the old man, the concrete slab was as heavy as the Five-Finger Mountain.
But for a strong, young man like Jiang Tao, who often did physical labor, it was nothing.
Bending down and exerting some effort, Jiang Tao lifted the slab that was pinning most of Sun Xiaobao's body and propped it against a nearby broken wall.
"Get up and let's check if you're hurt anywhere. Can you stand? Can you walk?"
As Sun Xiaobao sat there, still dazed, Jiang Tao helped him up from the ground.
After a quick check, aside from being weak in the legs from hunger, Sun Xiaobao didn't seem to have any major injuries.
Jiang Tao wasn't sure whether to call Grandpa Sun lucky or unlucky.
On one hand, he was lucky: he'd fallen in the same spot and been pinned by the same slab twice, nearly dying both times.
On the other hand, he was unlucky: Jiang Tao had triggered intelligence about him twice and successfully rescued him both times.
"Holy crap, it's really you, Little Jiang! I thought I was dreaming!"
By now, Sun Xiaobao finally confirmed he wasn't dreaming—he was saved!
Jiang Tao teased with a grin, "I don't think you're dreaming; you're hallucinating from hunger!"
"You're right about that! Little Jiang, you got anything to eat on you?"
"My stomach's burning a hole through itself with all that acid!"
After the excitement, the intense hunger hit again, and Sun Xiaobao felt a searing pain in his stomach.
Two days without food—six missed meals—that kind of misery was something you'd only understand if you'd been through it.
"I've got something, I've got something. Drink some water first, and here's a sausage to tide you over."
As he spoke, Jiang Tao handed Sun Xiaobao his thermos and a sausage he pulled from his pocket.