Shimen City, first floor of the City First Hospital's inpatient building.
It was noon, right at lunchtime, and the families of inpatients were all heading downstairs to get food. A crowd had gathered at the first-floor elevators, all of them patients' family members holding meal containers and various takeout lunches, waiting to go up.
Wu Jun tried to squeeze his way in several times but couldn't make it onto an elevator. To make matters worse, someone had spilled millet porridge on his pant leg.
He watched as the two elevators, packed with people, began their slow ascent, stopping at every floor. 'They'll probably do the same on the way down,' he thought. 'It'll take an eternity for one to get back here.'
The worst part was, as the two elevators ascended, the crowd, which had just thinned out slightly, swelled up again in less than a minute.
Wu Jun thought despairingly, 'Even if I wait an eternity for an elevator to finally come down, I probably still won't be able to squeeze my way on.'
"Forget it, I'll just take the stairs." Pulling a tissue from his pocket, he wiped the millet porridge from his pant leg, squeezed out of the crowd, and headed for the nearby stairwell.
A month ago, Wu Jun's father, Wu Guangqiang, had an accident while felling a large, dead tree in the mountain forest his family leased. He was crushed under it, with half his body pinned beneath the trunk.
After their initial panic, the other workers managed to push the tree off him. They put the blood-soaked Wu Guangqiang in a motorized trike and rushed him to the county hospital.
His skull was damaged, a whole row of ribs was broken, and his shoulder blade was fractured. The injuries were far from ordinary; they were critical.
The light above the emergency room door blinked for more than ten hours. The doctors at the county hospital managed to pull Wu Guangqiang back from the Ghost Gate, but just barely. He was then urgently transferred to Shimen City First Hospital, which had better medical facilities and was located several dozen kilometers from Ping Shan County.
After a month of treatment, the total costs came to just over 200,000. Wu Guangqiang's condition had stabilized, but he remained in a coma.
A craniotomy was scheduled for the beginning of next month. The surgical fees were 300,000, and whether or not he would ever wake up hinged on this operation.
If the surgery was successful, there was a 30% chance he would regain consciousness. Without it, he would spend the rest of his life on a nutrient drip, a man in a vegetative state.
Wu Jun and his mother, Ma Dongmei, had emptied their family's savings. Swallowing their pride, they borrowed from every relative and friend they could think of. Even so, they had only managed to scrape together a little over 200,000, leaving them with a shortfall of more than 80,000.
They needed to raise the remaining 80,000 before the second craniotomy. All told, Wu Jun and his mother had less than a month.
Panting, Wu Jun reached the 14th floor and paused to catch his breath. His father's room was just one floor above.
He was about to power through the last flight of stairs when he suddenly heard voices from overhead. And one of them was a voice Wu Jun knew all too well.
It was his mother's voice.
"Ma'am, please, don't worry about me. You eat it. I don't have a big appetite anyway, this is plenty."
Hearing his mother's voice, Wu Jun felt a sharp pang in his chest, as if someone had viciously squeezed his heart.
"My dear, I heard about your family's situation. It's a terrible disaster, and I know the costs are high, but you can't skimp this much. Just one steamed bun for a meal? A ghost couldn't survive on that! You're going to work yourself into the ground!"
"I can't help you with the big stuff, but buying you a simple meal is the least I can do. Don't be so formal with me now. Go on, eat."
"Ma'am, really... I couldn't."
"If you don't eat it, I'll just have to throw it in the trash. I've already eaten downstairs."
"Okay, I'll eat. I'll eat. Thank you... Thank you so much."
Wu Jun's legs felt as if they were filled with lead. He gripped the handrail, tilted his head back, and looked up at a scene he would never forget for as long as he lived.
His mother was huddled on the stairwell landing, wiping away tears with the same right hand that clutched half a steamed bun. Choking back a sob, she reached out her left hand and took a disposable plastic food container from a woman in a cleaner's uniform.
Wu Jun's eyes instantly reddened. He forced himself to turn away, leaning against the wall on the 14th-floor landing as tears streamed uncontrollably down his cheeks.
'When Dad was fighting for his life, I had to be the man of the house. I couldn't fall apart. I had to comfort Mom, give her hope. I couldn't cry.'
'When I was scraping the money together, I was the pillar of our family. I had to swallow my pride, go out, and borrow from everyone. I couldn't cry.'
But now, seeing his mother eating just a single steamed bun per meal to save money—so little that even the cleaning lady couldn't stand to see it and had to buy her a meal—Wu Jun felt the floodgates break.
'If only I were more capable, my family wouldn't have been reduced to this.'
The self-reproach was suffocating.
Never in his life had Wu Jun felt such an intense, burning desire to make money. To make big money. To make more money than he could ever spend.
'He wanted his dad in the best hospital, in the most expensive ward, with the best doctors, receiving the most advanced treatments in the world.'
'He wanted his mom to eat well at every meal and never have to worry about money again.'
'Money really is a wonderful thing.'
'Money isn't omnipotent, but it can open up a thousand different possibilities.'
The 80,000 for the surgery was the first obstacle. If the operation was a success, the rehabilitation therapy to follow would be another bottomless pit of expenses.
But, as a son, as long as his father had even a sliver of hope, as long as he was still breathing, he couldn't give up—not even if it meant losing everything.
Hearing the stairwell above him fall silent, Wu Jun knew his mother and the cleaning lady had left. He composed himself, pushed thoughts of money to the back of his mind, and headed back downstairs.
The small shop in the hospital basement was much more expensive than stores outside. He left the hospital grounds, bought a big bag of bread, ham, and some vacuum-packed chicken drumettes, and only then did he return.
This time, he was lucky enough to get an elevator. Wu Jun got off at the 15th floor and headed toward Room 1521.
As he entered the hospital room, Wu Jun saw his mother walk out of the en-suite washroom. Her eyes were red, and her face was still damp. Their gazes locked.
"Jun, what are you doing here? Is it alright to leave the store with no one watching it?"
Ma Dongmei said, wiping her hands on her clothes, "I can keep an eye on things here by myself. That little store of yours is our family's biggest source of income now. You need to take it more seriously, you can't be as laid-back as you used to be."
Wu Jun placed the large bag he was carrying into a cabinet by the door, then turned around. "Mom, I've made up my mind. I'm going to sell the store. That should be enough to cover the 80,000 for the surgery."
"Jun..." Ma Dongmei's eyes reddened again at his words. "Jun, if you sell the store, what will you do? You haven't done any other kind of work these last few years; you can't handle that kind of hardship. Why don't... why don't I go talk to your aunts and your uncle again."
Wu Jun shook his head. "Mom, you know what things are like for my three aunts and my uncle. They've already done everything they can. Let's not put them in a difficult position again."
"That little store may not make a lot of money, but it's a steady income. We've already borrowed so much from everyone. If you sell the store on top of that, how are you going to get by?"
"Your father and I... we're dragging you down..." Ma Dongmei said, her eyes welling up as she wiped at their corners.
"Don't say that, Mom. You and Dad raised me. It's time for me to do something for our family. Everything's going to be okay." Wu Jun wrapped an arm around his mother's shoulders to comfort her, but this only made her cry harder.
Ma Dongmei pleaded with Wu Jun, urging him to think of his own future. She said that she and Wu Guangqiang were old and useless now, subtly hinting that if it really came to it, they should just stop the treatment.
But Wu Jun's mind was made up. They had to continue the treatment, no matter the cost. If they gave up, he would never be able to live with himself.
At 9 PM, before he left, Wu Jun did his best to soothe his mother, reminding her to eat properly.
The bread, ham, and other food he had bought earlier would be enough for three days. He told his mother he would come back then.
He spent some time talking to his comatose father, telling him not to give up, promising that he wouldn't give up either.
Perhaps his father could hear him, as two tears streamed from the corners of his eyes, which Wu Jun gently wiped away.
He said goodbye to his mom and left the hospital.
He took a bus back to the Tianyuan Community, a residential complex located at the intersection of the Northwest Second Ring Road in Shimen City's Xinhua District.
Wu Jun had gone to university in Shimen City and stayed after graduating.
After graduation, he worked for two years, saved up, and opened his small convenience store. He had been running it for three stable years now and had built up a loyal customer base.
After paying for rent and his own monthly expenses, the small store brought in a stable profit of between 4,500 and 5,000 a month.
In the month before the New Year, when people were buying holiday goods and gift boxes for visiting family and friends, Wu Jun's income would double, allowing him to have a comfortable holiday as well.
In Shimen City, where the average salary was around 3,000, his income was more than enough to get by, even if he wasn't rich.
Most importantly, he didn't have a boss to answer to, no manager's moods to navigate, and no colleagues to scheme against.
The job was relaxed and comfortable, and it had made Wu Jun a little complacent.
It was already past ten o'clock when he reached the entrance to his store. He would normally be closed by this time anyway, and since he was back late, Wu Jun didn't bother opening up.
He fumbled for his key, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. Without turning on the lights, he navigated by feel, weaving through the store's shelves to a bedroom in the very back.
The store was on the ground floor of an apartment building. It had originally been a standard three-bedroom apartment; the living room and two of the bedrooms were now filled with shelves, leaving one bedroom for him to live in. It was a live-work space, complete with a small kitchen, which conveniently saved him from having to pay for a separate apartment.
He went into the room and flipped on the light. A glance at his phone showed it was down to the last bar of battery, with a low-power warning displayed.
Wu Jun grabbed the end of the charging cable from his nightstand and casually went to plug it into his phone.
POP! With a muffled sound like a firecracker, a jolt shot through Wu Jun's hand. He watched as the phone he was holding emitted a puff of black smoke before the screen went completely dark. The acrid smell of a burnt circuit board filled the room.
The phone was clearly fried. At this critical moment, when he was desperate for money, when he was pinching every single penny, his phone had to go and die on him.
"When it rains, it pours," Wu Jun lamented, tossing the fried phone into the trash can by the wall.
He slumped onto the bed, a look of defeat on his face, and began to seriously consider selling the store.
The store's rent was 60,000 a year, paid two years in advance. He still had a full year left on the lease, which, all told, was worth 60,000 right there, not even counting a transfer fee.
As for the inventory, while there were no big-ticket items, all the odds and ends added up to another 20,000.
If he didn't ask for a transfer fee, it should be easy to offload. It was a turnkey operation; whoever took over could start earning money immediately.
Wu Jun wouldn't even be considering selling the store if he weren't absolutely desperate.
Running a small convenience store meant he was out of the wind, rain, and sun. The income was stable, and the longer he ran it, the more regulars he got. It was the kind of job a person could comfortably work until retirement.
'Dad's surgery is the priority. Everything will be okay,' Wu Jun told himself after a long moment of contemplation. He decided he would go to a copy shop the next day to print up some "Business for Sale" signs.
He turned off the light, plunging the room into pitch darkness. Wu Jun was just about to go to sleep.
Suddenly, a faint light from the direction of the trash can caught his eye.
'Didn't the phone just fry itself and let out a cloud of smoke?' he thought.
'What's making that light?'
Wu Jun flipped the light back on, swung himself out of bed, and walked over to the trash can, his face a mask of confusion.
To his astonishment, Wu Jun discovered that the phone—the same one that had gone completely black just moments ago—had its screen lit up again. And it was loading something.