The night air in Yangcheng held a peculiar chill, the kind that seeped not into the skin, but into the very marrow of one's soul. It was well past midnight, and the city's neon heartbeat had slowed to a lethargic thrum. Under the sickly orange glow of a solitary streetlamp, Michael sat slumped on the cold, gritty curb. His entire body was a single, throbbing ache, a symphony of exhaustion conducted by the relentless grind of the past week. Sleep, that fickle mistress, had abandoned him entirely after the phone call that shattered his world. Instead of lying comatose as he might have in his previous life, he had forced himself under an icy deluge of water, the shock a poor substitute for rest, and had then pushed his sputtering scooter—his trusty, dilapidated 'little donkey'—to its absolute limits.
A crushing, invisible weight pressed down on him, a mountain of debt with usurious interest that seemed to suck the very air from his lungs. Every waking moment was haunted by it, making proper sleep an impossible luxury. His only conceivable path to salvation was a monumental sale, a commission large enough to appease the voracious appetite of the loan sharks. So, he ran. He ran like a man possessed.
The ghost of a different solution, a terrifyingly alluring one, had flickered at the edges of his mind more than once: the emerald vortex. One more trip to that other world, one more risky grab for something valuable. But the memory of the Ogre's rancid breath and the minotaur's unyielding grip was still vividly fresh. The thought of ending up as some creature's dinner, or worse, captured and tortured for information about a non-existent "high-tier Vault," at the tender age of twenty-six, without ever having experienced anything resembling a lasting relationship, felt like the ultimate cosmic joke. The sheer, pathetic injustice of it was enough to quash the idea every time. It wasn't a risk; it was a suicide mission.
Today, the odometer on his scooter had witnessed over a hundred additional kilometers of desperate hustle. From the first pale light of dawn until well after the city had drowned itself in the artificial brilliance of ten o'clock, he had been in motion. His sustenance had been a single, greasy plate of goose fried rice, costing a mere six yuan—a king's ransom from the hundred-odd yuan that was all that remained in his possession after emptying his account for his mother's surgery. Every expense now was calculated with a miser's precision; even fuel for the scooter had become a significant budgetary concern.
The fruit of today's relentless labor was a contract worth just over fifty-one thousand yuan. His two percent commission would be a little over a thousand. A sum that, weeks ago, would have filled him with a sense of accomplishment. Now, it was a drop in a vast, leaking bucket, not even making a dent in the interest payments that were already accruing like a ticking time bomb. He had returned to his cramped, rented room and mechanically consumed a packet of instant noodles, the artificial sourness of the "old坛pickle" flavor coating his tongue. Then, without even the energy to wash away the grime of the day, he had collapsed onto his bed, falling into a sleep so profound it was more akin to a temporary death.
In the hazy moments before unconsciousness claimed him, a bitter thought had surfaced: all the times he'd blamed the market, complained about how tough business was—it was all a convenient excuse. If he had applied even half of this desperate energy in the past, he'd have been promoted long ago.
The following days bled into one another, a monotonous cycle of frantic activity. Each day yielded one or two small orders, the largest being a paltry twenty-thousand-yuan deal. The metaphorical sands of time were slipping through his fingers, and with each passing grain, the pressure within him mounted, a silent scream building in his chest.
At 7:25 PM, he was in the remote town of Xinzhen, standing outside a shabby agricultural supply store. The owner, a wizened man everyone called Uncle Min, watched as Michael struggled to kick-start his reluctant scooter. "A-Biao," the old man said, his voice rough but genuine. "You've worked like an ox for me all day. It's late. Come, eat dinner with my family before you head back."
The offer was sincere. The old man had seen this young man labor tirelessly, unloading ten tons of fertilizer without complaint, even refusing the proffered bottles of water, drinking from his own supply. Human hearts are made of flesh, and such effort deserved gratitude.
Michael, after a final, successful kick that sent the engine sputtering to life, managed a weak, grateful smile. "Thank you, Uncle Min. Your kindness is truly appreciated. But I must decline. The journey back is long, and the road is dark." With a twist of the throttle, he guided the scooter into the swallowing darkness beyond the town's feeble lights. A free meal was a luxury he craved, but Xinzhen was remote, the farthest-flung town in the Yangcheng district. The ride back, even at top speed, was an hour and a half of treacherous, poorly lit roads. There was no time to spare.
Dinner would be another packet of noodles from the wholesale box he'd invested in days prior. It had to last.
The fifty-one-thousand-yuan order he'd secured today was his largest in this frantic campaign. Yet, as he navigated the unlit country roads, the scooter's feeble headlight casting a jittery pool of illumination on the asphalt, his mood was not triumphant, but profoundly conflicted. It was still not enough. Not nearly enough.
The hinterlands of Yangcheng, an agricultural city, grew deathly quiet after nightfall. The only signs of life were the occasional, dim lights from farmhouses set far back from the road, their doors and windows tightly shut against the world. The wind, whistling past his ears, was his only companion as he desperately racked his brain for a solution. He had visited every conceivable contact, every potential client on his mental list. Where could he possibly find this mythical, large-order "whale" of a customer? The mental map offered no new destinations, and a frantic, helpless agitation began to simmer within him.
His frantic thoughts were interrupted by a violent, juddering shudder that ran through the scooter's frame. Before he could even react, the handlebars twisted violently in his grip. The world tilted, and with a sickening crunch of plastic and metal, he and the scooter crashed onto the hard, unforgiving road.
In the pitch blackness, the fall was disorienting and painful. But the true wave of despair hit as he clambered to his feet and inspected his vehicle. The front tire was completely, irrevocably flat. He looked around desperately. The nearest light was a distant, mocking pinprick, perhaps a mile or two away. The memory of a repair shop surfaced in his mind, but it was kilometers back, and at this hour, it would be long closed.
In silence, a profound, weary silence, he righted the heavy scooter and began to push. The weight of the machine felt symbolic, a physical manifestation of his crumbling circumstances. Each step was an effort, a dull, grinding protest of muscle and will. The feeling of abject failure was a taste more bitter than the noodles he'd consumed.
It was past two in the morning when the distant, false galaxy of Yangcheng's city lights finally emerged. He had pushed the dead weight of the scooter for what felt like an eternity, his knuckles rapping futilely on the shuttered doors of two repair shops along the way. The urban glow was a taunting promise of warmth and rest that remained frustratingly out of reach. His body was a hollow shell, utterly drained of the last dregs of its strength.
Abandoning all pretense, he let the scooter's kickstand sink onto the pavement near a garishly lit storefront and sank onto the cold steps of a building. The sign above him, "Good Fortune Baths & Massage," blazed with neon intensity, a cruel reminder of a different era. He had been here once, months ago, thinking nothing of spending two hundred yuan on a soak and a massage, considering it a reasonable indulgence. Now, the memory felt like an obscene waste. He fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes, extracting the last one. The flame of his lighter trembled as he brought it to the tip.
He had taken precisely two drags when a voice, laced with contempt, cut through the night. "Hey! You! Scram! This isn't a park bench for beggars. Get lost!"
Michael turned his head slowly. A security guard from the bathhouse was glaring at him, the same man who, on his previous visit, had greeted him with an obsequious, dog-like smile. The sheer, blatant hypocrisy ignited a sudden, white-hot fury in Michael's chest. He wanted to spring to his feet, to drive his fist into the man's sneering face.
But as he tried to rise, his legs buckled, soft and useless as over-cooked noodles. The long, punishing walk had drained him of all physical strength. The fight died before it could begin. Clenching his jaw so tight it ached, he dropped the precious, half-smoked cigarette, ground it under his heel with more force than necessary, and wordlessly manhandled his scooter away from the steps, parking it under the shadow of a tree some fifty meters away.
There, shrouded in darkness, the twenty-six-year-old man sank to his haunches, covered his face with his grimy hands, and wept. It was a silent, shuddering convulsion, all the more violent for its lack of sound. The tears carved clean paths through the dust and grime on his cheeks.
For half an hour, he remained there, the weight of his powerlessness pressing him down. Then, the storm passed. He wiped his face roughly on the sleeve of his jacket, the fabric rough against his skin. He looked back towards the bathhouse, where the guard was now leisurely smoking, a picture of smug indifference.
A strange, cold calm settled over him. The fear, the hesitation, the pride—it all evaporated, leaving behind a crystalline, terrifying resolve. The vow he'd made to himself—"Whoever goes through that portal again is a grandson"—echoed in his mind, now sounding childish and naive. He had finally grasped a fundamental, ugly truth of the world: everyone struggling at the bottom, everyone just trying to survive, was, in one way or another, somebody's grandson. Dignity was a currency he could no longer afford.
He would go back. He would throw caution to the wind . He would gamble his life in that other, terrifying world. Either he would vanish without a trace there, a nameless casualty in some bizarre, alternate reality, or he would return with the means to wipe his slate clean, to look down on the likes of that security guard from an unimaginable height.
With a new, grim purpose, he gripped the handles of his broken scooter and began the long, final push towards his rented room. The path was clear now. There were no more choices to make.