---
The clock showed 5:30 AM when Fang Gongzha opened his eyes.
His room light was still on. His eyes stung. His body felt like he'd been beaten up — even though he'd only been lying on a thin mattress that cost twenty yuan, one he hadn't replaced in four years. The springs were poking through in several places, but he didn't have the money to buy a new one.
He sat up. His neck cracked.
Ah... dizzy.
He didn't sleep well last night. Again. As usual.
His phone showed fifteen unread notifications. All from his class group chat. He didn't need to open them to know what they were — probably about homework due today, or plans to hang out after exams, or photos of his friends having fun at expensive cafes he could never afford to enter.
Gongzha tossed his phone aside. Not now.
He walked to the bathroom. The sink was cracked in the left corner. The mirror was foggy from mold along the edges. The tap water came out slightly brown for the first five seconds — a problem with the old pipes that the landlord never bothered to fix.
He washed his face. Looked at his reflection.
Sunken eyes. Dark circles underneath like bruises. His cheeks were slightly hollow — the result of an irregular diet. His hair was messy, bangs covering his forehead.
So handsome, he thought sarcastically.
He wasn't handsome. He knew that. His face was average — not the type that made people turn their heads twice on the street. His nose was slim and slightly pointed, his eyes black and gentle, but that was it. Nothing special.
And that was fine.
He didn't need to be special.
He just needed to survive today.
---
At 6:30 AM, Gongzha left the house.
His rented room was on the outskirts of Beijing — Mentougou District, near the western hills. Most of the houses here were old, occupied by the elderly or odd-job workers like him. The morning air was still cold, but not cold enough to make him shiver.
He walked to the repair shop where he worked.
Wang's Repair Shop — a simple name for a simple place. The owner, Old Wang, was a man in his fifties with a potbelly and hands covered in black grease. He didn't talk much, but he was kind. He had given Gongzha a job even though he knew Gongzha wasn't yet eighteen.
"You're early," Old Wang said without looking up. His hands were busy with an old motorcycle carburetor.
"Couldn't sleep," Gongzha replied. He took his work apron from the hook.
"You never can sleep."
Gongzha didn't argue.
The shop shift started at 8:00 AM. His tasks: cleaning, fetching parts, sometimes helping remove tires when the other mechanics were busy. Manual labor. Work that didn't require brains. But the pay was enough for food and a little savings.
At noon, he took a break.
He sat on the sidewalk in front of the shop with a lunchbox containing rice and a thin omelet. He ate slowly. His eyes stared at Beijing's gray sky.
I need to pay the hospital bill today, he thought.
The hospital.
That thought always came at times like this — when he was alone, when nothing else was distracting him.
Fang Ranlian.
His younger sister. Fifteen years old. In a coma.
Three years already.
Three years since the car accident that took their parents. Father. Mother. Died at the scene. Ranlian survived — but not fully. Her body was still alive. Her heart still beat. Her lungs still breathed. But her eyes never opened.
The doctors said it was a "severe neurological disorder." Said she might wake up. Might not. Said time would tell.
Three years. Time hadn't told him anything.
Gongzha closed his lunchbox. He hadn't finished it. He saved the rest for tonight.
---
At 4:00 PM, Gongzha left the shop.
Old Wang handed him a thin brown envelope — his weekly wages. Gongzha didn't count it in front of him. He knew what was inside. Enough for a week's food, electricity, and whatever was left for the hospital.
Not enough. Never enough.
But he never complained. There was no point.
At 5:00 PM, he changed clothes. His work clothes were replaced with a worn-out black bomber jacket and cheap sneakers. He took his helmet from the hook.
Delivery shift.
His second job. Delivering packages from one place to another. The app on his phone would give him routes. Customers he didn't know. Addresses that sometimes led to narrow alleys, sometimes to luxury apartments.
This job was flexible. He could choose his hours. But he always chose nights — because night pay was higher.
And he needed every yuan he could get.
At 5:30 PM, Gongzha was on the road.
His motorcycle — an old second-hand bike he'd bought with two years of savings — hummed quietly. Not fast. Not fancy. Just enough to keep him moving.
He delivered the first package to a luxury apartment in Chaoyang District. The customer was a middle-aged woman with an expensive bag and a face mask. She didn't look at Gongzha's face. Just took the package, closed the door.
Alright.
Second package. Third. Fourth.
Five. Six.
The city lights began to turn on. Giant billboards along the streets flickered with colors. Beijing at night looked beautiful — if you had time to look.
Gongzha didn't have time.
His eyes were on the road. His hands on the handlebars. His mind at the hospital.
Today, Ranlian was moved to another room — supposedly for better care. But Gongzha knew it was because his bills were piling up. The hospital wanted to move her to a lower-class ward. A room with eight patients, with nurses too busy to care for one comatose girl.
I'll go there tomorrow, he thought. I'll talk to them tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Always tomorrow.
---
The clock showed 9:30 PM when Gongzha saw the last notification on his app.
One package remaining.
Address: Nanluoguxiang area. An old hutong district with traditional courtyard houses. Narrow streets, sharp turns.
He almost declined. He was tired. His body felt like rubber stretched too far. His eyes stung. His right hand trembled slightly — too much lifting and gripping.
But he needed the money.
One more, he thought. One more, then home.
He pressed "Accept."
---
Nanluoguxiang at night looked like a place forgotten by time.
Traditional courtyard houses stood dark on both sides. The streets were narrow. Streetlights were sparse — some broken, some flickering like sleepy eyes. The atmosphere was silent. Only the sound of his motorcycle broke the stillness.
Gongzha braked.
He looked at the address on his phone, then at the nameplate in front of the house. Old wood. Faded letters.
This is it.
He got off his bike. Kept his helmet on — habit. His shoulder bag with the package hung on his right shoulder.
He walked toward the gate.
Dark.
Too dark.
He was about to press the doorbell when he heard a sound.
Not from inside the house.
From behind.
An engine sound. Loud. Approaching fast. Too fast for such a small street.
Gongzha turned.
Headlights blinded his eyes.
He didn't have time to scream.
---
CRASH!
His body flew.
It felt like being hit by a truck — even though it was just a black car whose license plate he didn't have time to read.
The air left his lungs. His chest felt like it was being squeezed by a giant hand. His head hit something hard — asphalt? sidewalk? a pole? — and his world spun.
He fell.
Sat down. Then fell again.
Blood.
He saw blood on the asphalt.
His blood.
From his head.
From his hands.
Ah...
His mind spun. Hazy.
Ranlian...
He heard the car drive away. It didn't stop. Hit and run.
Ranlian... I'm sorry...
Then everything went dark.
---
He didn't know how long he lay there.
A minute? Ten minutes? An hour?
What he knew was, when he opened his eyes, the sky above him was still dark. The streetlight was still flickering.
And he wasn't dead.
Strange.
He sat up. Slowly. His head was incredibly dizzy. But there was no pain. He touched his head — no wound. No blood. No bump.
He looked at his hands. No wounds. No scratches.
There was blood just now...
He looked at the asphalt beside him.
A red puddle. Blood. Still wet.
His blood.
But no wounds.
How?
He didn't have time to ask. His dizziness was too heavy. The world felt tilted.
He stood up. His legs trembled. He looked at his motorcycle — wrecked. The front was dented. The left mirror was broken.
My bike...
He looked at his shoulder bag. Still there. But the package — the last package he was supposed to deliver — was gone.
Maybe it fell. Maybe it was carried away.
He didn't know.
He didn't care.
What matters is I'm alive.
He walked. Limping. Leaving behind the wrecked motorcycle and the puddle of blood slowly drying.
Out of the narrow alley.
Toward the main road.
Toward brighter lights.
He didn't know that behind him, in that puddle of blood, something had changed.
He didn't know that the bamboo scroll inside the package — which had fallen right into his blood — had glowed, melted, and entered his chest.
He didn't know that from that night on, his body was no longer entirely his own.
He only knew that he wanted to go home.
---
The main road.
Car lights flashed by fast.
Gongzha stood at the roadside, trying to calm his dizziness. His breathing was heavy. The world was still spinning, but not as badly as before.
I need to go home. Sleep. Forget everything. Tomorrow I'll find a new bike — borrow from Old Wang first —
He didn't see the small black car pulling out from a side parking lot.
CRASH!
This time, it wasn't as hard as the first crash. More like a hard shove. But it was enough to knock Gongzha to the ground. His knee scraped. His elbow hurt.
"OH MY GOD! I'M SO SORRY-SORRY-SORRY!"
A woman's voice. Panicked. Loud.
Gongzha looked up.
A young woman — maybe twenty-two, twenty-three — ran out of the car. Short hair. Wearing glasses. A black leather jacket.
Her face was pale.
"Watch out, didn't you see the car? Ah no, my fault, I didn't see... ARE YOU OKAY? BLOOD! THERE'S BLOOD ON YOUR HEAD!"
Blood?
Gongzha touched his head.
His hand came back wet. Red.
Blood. There was no wound earlier. Now there is.
"I... I..."
That was the last thing he remembered before passing out.
---