After two years as a junior employee, Xia Lei finally saw his chance for promotion. The person who recognized his talent was the new departmental general manager — a capable Taiwanese female boss.
In foreign companies, everyone called their direct supervisor “boss.” When the Taiwanese female boss came to the mainland for her first posting, it took her quite a while to figure out that “boss” was a context-dependent word with multiple meanings — the person addressed as “boss” might be a workplace superior, a graduate student’s academic advisor, or even a customer that a street vendor was trying to attract. She marveled that the word “boss” had been worn smooth by overuse on the mainland.
On one occasion, the department organized a team-building outing to the newly opened “Cashbox” karaoke venue. The female boss sang “Waves of Gulangyu,” wiping away tears as she sang. Xia Lei handed her a tissue and asked what was wrong. She said she missed home — she had grown up in a military dependents’ village in Keelung, and now that those villages had faded away, she could no longer find her hometown.
Xia Lei nodded vigorously.
The female boss asked why he was nodding. Xia Lei said he felt much the same — he had grown up in a third-tier defense factory, and the environment was not unlike her military village, and now it too was on the verge of fading away. The female boss said that in her village everyone spoke Mandarin, and there was no need to even learn Hokkien. She had always assumed the village would be her hometown, but now she could no longer find it. Xia Lei said his third-tier factory was the same — it had been an industrial enclave, and it was almost bankrupt now, and he too was about to become a person without a hometown. The female boss thought for a moment and said: the great tide of history sweeps everything along, and we are a generation whose hometowns have been swallowed by those waves — all of us have now been scattered and washed up in Shanghai.
This chance conversation lodged Xia Lei in the female boss’s memory. She began giving him more opportunities to distinguish himself, even inviting him to sit in on management-level departmental meetings. Xia Lei did not disappoint — he came thoroughly prepared and with ideas clearly thought through, and on several occasions raised groundbreaking proposals in those meetings. The following year he was promoted from business specialist to business manager. He was no longer the junior employee who had once been sent running errands at everyone’s beck and call; even the cleaning auntie would wipe his desk with extra care.
By the third year’s annual conference, when the Asia-Pacific president raised the localization strategy for the mainland market, Xia Lei caught a faint whiff of impending personnel upheaval. Sure enough, when the new year turned, the Taiwanese female boss was transferred out of Greater China. Xia Lei regretfully saw off his patron and waited for the next boss to take up the post. He knew full well what was coming: every new ruler brings his own court, and the transfer of power inevitably brings organizational restructuring — he would have to endure another grinding period of adjusting upward.
Life in Shanghai always carried an invisible sense of pressure. Everyone in the office towers was calculating their income against rising property prices, while companies perpetually weighed the cost of replacing their workforce. This pressure bred the city’s efficiency and order, but also produced a coldness and distance in human relations.
Xia Lei’s office was in Lujiazui, Pudong. To tourists, Lujiazui was a glamorous top-tier business district, a city that never slept and was packed with skyscrapers as far as the eye could see. But to those in the workforce, Lujiazui was an arena where capital interests clashed, a competitive track driven by targets and KPIs. By seven or eight in the morning, Line 2 carriages were packed with bleary-eyed Lujiazui white-collar workers. Once, an exhausted young office woman had fallen asleep leaning against Xia Lei’s shoulder. As they neared the station, Xia Lei gently nudged her awake and watched her instantly snap back to full alertness, grab her laptop bag and her egg pancake, and charge headlong into yet another brand-new day.
When he was not too busy, Xia Lei would often invite Xiao Dan to take a walk along Shanyin Road in Hongkou.
Unlike the high-pressure modernity of Lujiazui, Shanyin Road had old villas that harbored the faded grandeur of bygone days, alongside the warmth and everyday vitality of city life. The small restaurants along this road were all delicious, and the pedestrians were not in such a hurry. Some little shops would write out their menus neatly on small blackboards — “red bean buns, crab-shell pastries, one yuan fifty cents” — which made them both think of the old canteen back at Xi Tie Cheng.
On an autumn afternoon on Shanyin Road, the two of them walked slowly along, stepping through the yellowing fallen leaves, passing one bookshop, café, and snack stall after another, as plane tree leaves drifted down overhead one by one. Xiao Dan asked Xia Lei: do you think the old Shanghainese are hardworking people?
Xia Lei said: just like the old Beijingers, not particularly hardworking — both just go about living ordinary lives.
Xiao Dan said: right, it’s just about getting through each day.
After walking a little further, Xiao Dan asked Xia Lei again: are you a fatalist agnostic when it comes to destiny?
Xia Lei said: not entirely — I think it’s thirty percent fate and seventy percent effort.
Xiao Dan smiled and said: good thing you didn’t say ninety percent effort — at least you’re leaving Heaven a little face.
Xia Lei said: as long as Heaven gives me a chance, I won’t let it down.
Xiao Dan said approvingly: then here’s wishing you good luck!
The two of them wandered Shanyin Road for half an afternoon. When the time came to part, Xia Lei hesitantly swallowed back a sentence that had risen to his lips. Worried that he might fumble over his words, he began shaking his head involuntarily if he felt even a moment of anxiety.
“What’s the matter?” Xiao Dan looked at Xia Lei, who was shaking his head for no apparent reason.
“It’s nothing…”
“Is there something you want to say?”
“Uh… the bus is coming — let’s cross the road.” Xia Lei took Xiao Dan’s hand in one swift motion.
Once they had crossed to the other side of the road, a sudden impulse flashed through Xia Lei’s mind, and he kept holding Xiao Dan’s hand without letting go.
Xiao Dan gave Xia Lei a slightly startled glance, then dropped her gaze to the tips of her own shoes. A faint sigh drifted through the air. Xia Lei knew she was caught in uncertainty and hesitation. He persisted, gripping her hand more tightly, until he felt his palm go damp with sweat.
Only when the bus arrived at the stop did Xia Lei release her hand to let Xiao Dan board. Once she was on, Xiao Dan looked back at Xia Lei through the window with a pensive expression, as if something was on the tip of her tongue but wouldn’t come out.
Xia Lei waved the bus off, and only then realized his own forehead was damp with sweat too. He walked back and forth along the leaf-strewn road several times, and finally took a deep breath, pulled out his phone, and sent the text message he had been composing — “Let me be your Romeo forever” — with one press of a button.
For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, Xia Lei waited for Xiao Dan’s reply.
The sun tilted west and the moon rose — no message. The moon grew bright and the stars thinned — still no message.
Not until midnight, when the old grandfather clock in the neighbor’s house had struck twelve times, did Xia Lei’s phone screen light up. It was a text from Xiao Dan: “Wishing you good luck” — signed, “Your Juliet.”
Xiao Man came back from town with a bag of daily supplies on his back, heading toward the ward.
Along the way, a middle-aged man stopped him and asked: “Young man, how do I get to Building 3?” Xiao Man said: “Come with me — I happen to be heading back to that ward.” The man asked: “Are you a ward caregiver?” Xiao Man said: “Not at all — I’m a patient myself. Who are you going to see in Building 3?” The man said he wasn’t there to see anyone; his daughter was being admitted today.
The two of them walked to Building 3. The middle-aged man said: “Young man, could you keep an eye on my things while I go get the car?” Xiao Man stood in front of the building and watched his belongings. After a moment, a car pulled up, and the middle-aged man got out with a young woman. The young woman looked at Xiao Man and suddenly called out: “Xiao Man!”
“Chunchun?” Xiao Man was astonished. “You… are being admitted?”
“Yes, things have gotten a bit worse lately.”
Xiao Man helped Chunchun’s father carry the thermos flask and sleeping mat, and together they saw Chunchun settled into the women’s ward. Once everything was in order, Xiao Man said his farewells: “Call for me if you need anything — I’m a long-term resident here and know everyone in the place.”
Chunchun’s father thanked him and sent him off, then turned back and closed the ward door. He said to Chunchun: “Whatever you do, don’t have anything to do with him. This is a psychiatric hospital — it’s full of all sorts of strange and wild characters. It’s dangerous.”
The next morning at breakfast, as the queue formed in the canteen, Xiao Man saw Chunchun at the very back, with people constantly cutting in front of her. He pulled her out of the line and brought her to the staff window, where there was no queue.
“Look after my little sister here — good and heavy, let the ladle sink to the bottom,” Xiao Man said to the porridge-serving auntie.
“Your little sister?” the auntie asked, eyes wide. “Is it hereditary in the family?”
“Nonsense!” Xiao Man angrily banged his tray.
“Oh my, oh my, forgive me for saying the wrong thing — Daling, don’t be upset.” The auntie quickly apologized and ladled out a thick scoop of porridge into Chunchun’s bowl. “Little miss, come back for more if it isn’t enough.”
Chunchun got through the food line in a minute, then sat down and chatted with Xiao Man as they ate.
“Why does everyone call you Daling?” Chunchun asked.
“Because I’m the one responsible for ringing the bell for the ward’s daily schedule.”
“Daling also means ‘dear one,'” Chunchun said. “With everyone calling you that, you must get along well with people.”
“Well, my one virtue is that I don’t annoy anyone.” Xiao Man handed Chunchun half a steamed bun. “Um… can I ask how old you are?”
“Almost twenty.”
“Twenty? That’s quite young to fall ill.”
“But I’ve already attempted suicide twice — can you believe it?” Chunchun asked.
“I believe it,” Xiao Man said. “Our hospital’s children’s ward has many young patients with early-onset schizophrenia — a lot of those kids have tried to take their own lives.”
“I’m not schizophrenic — I have severe depression.”
“Whether it’s schizophrenia or depression, the earlier you treat it the better. Take it one step at a time.”
“Doesn’t it shock you?”
“Of course not. I’m practically a permanent fixture at this psychiatric hospital — I’m genuinely unshockable by now.”
One day, the psychiatric hospital organized a performance for patients in the recovery stage. The performers were reportedly members of the “Longfa Tang” group — people with psychiatric conditions from Taiwan who performed martial arts.
The venue was a theater in the city. Since it was an inter-professional exchange, the audience consisted mostly of medical students and psychiatrists from various hospitals. When Xiao Man and his group of several dozen patients walked into the auditorium, the medical students actually stood up and applauded. Xiao Man, caught up in the excitement, waved his arm back at the students. The head nurse came rushing over to stop him: “Xiao Man, don’t cause a scene! Don’t forget you’re still in your hospital gown!”
The curtain rose, and the Longfa Tang performers rushed onto the stage in two rows, launching into a live martial arts routine called “Song Jiang Formation,” performed with real weapons.
Xiao Man crept forward and settled into a front-row seat, watching and clapping enthusiastically. Before long, another figure slipped over and sat down beside him. In the glow of the stage lighting, Xiao Man recognized it was Chunchun.
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll charge off the stage?” Xiao Man asked, surprised.
“I’m not afraid,” Chunchun said. “I heard there’s going to be a brick-breaking-on-the-chest act later — I want a good close look.”
Now that was a kindred spirit in morbid curiosity! Xiao Man glanced again at Chunchun’s profile, and the more he looked, the more her smiling expression reminded him of Xiao Dan. His thoughts surged and tumbled — he thought of an afternoon ten years ago, a girl’s voice asking him: “You got called scatterbrain and you’re sulking about it?” He seemed to catch again the damp smell of Xi Tie Cheng after rain, the scent of the mixed vegetable salads from the pushcart.
“Hey, hey — Xiao Man, what’s the matter with you?” Seeing Xiao Man frozen as if under a spell, Chunchun patted his face repeatedly.
Xiao Man came back to himself and said: “For just a moment there, I felt like I’d traveled back across more than ten years.”
“How old are you anyway, to have traveled back ten-plus years?” Chunchun asked.
Onstage, the performers had put down their spears and picked up steel tridents, which they swirled through the air. Chunchun watched, absorbed. She asked Xiao Man: “If they charged down at us with those tridents, which way should we run?”
Xiao Man took Chunchun’s hand and said: “The emergency exit is on the right — I’ll run with you.”
Chunchun said with a grin: “Then we’d better stay ready at all times.”
They held hands and watched the rest of the performance together, and it was only when the house lights came up at the end that the two of them let go.
“The program today was a bit short — not that thrilling,” Xiao Man said regretfully.
“Quite right — not even a brick-breaking or a spear-against-the-throat act.”
“What I mean is, I hadn’t finished holding your hand before the program ended.” Xiao Man tilted his head and winked at Chunchun with a smile.
“Oh? And what do you want to do about that?”
“Find some time to talk with you.”
“Talk about what?”
“Anything at all — just one more minute with you.”
“All right then — after dinner, by the flower bed in front of the canteen. You bring me a flower — any flower will do — and I’ll tell you my story.”
After returning from the theater, when Xiao Man got back to the ward, Old Gu was hanging his quilt on the clothesline to dry.
“I’m being discharged the day after tomorrow,” Old Gu said, clipping the quilt in place. “I’m hoping this is the last time I’m ever hospitalized — I never want to come back to this psychiatric hospital again.”
“I’ll be a little sad to see you go. When you’re not in a manic episode, you and I get along really well,” Xiao Man said.
“That’s bipolar disorder for you — the depressive phase tortures yourself, the manic phase tortures everyone else.”
“Speaking of which — can you remember what you said when you were in a manic state?”
“My thoughts were racing then, so I can’t recall the specifics — it must have been things related to my research.”
“You were talking all mystically, saying things like ‘consciousness determines phenomena.'”
“That inference is a bit radical, but I do think that at the very least, consciousness can govern the body.”
“Give me a concrete example then — I’m genuinely curious,” Xiao Man asked. “What exactly is consciousness, that it can govern this and determine that?”
“Let’s take consciousness governing the body. I once saw a patient here at the hospital — if you pulled the pillow out from under his head, his head would still hang suspended in mid-air, without touching the bed.”
“Is that like a hard qigong technique?”
“Not exactly qigong — it was a problem with his consciousness,” Old Gu said. “His mind was under the mistaken impression that the pillow still existed, and as a result the muscles in his neck became rigid, holding the position as if the pillow were still there. The doctors called it hallucinatory muscular rigidity.”
“Even science can be this uncanny?” Xiao Man found it hard to believe.
“Science, religion, philosophy — I’ve studied all of these for a long time, but I still haven’t sorted them out,” Old Gu said. “But one thing is certain: religion has a social function in providing comfort to the individual spirit, because not everyone is willing to face reality.”
“I think I understand,” Xiao Man said. “Isn’t it like being in a relationship? Sometimes a girl will say to her boyfriend, ‘never lie to me, ever’; and other times she’ll say, ‘at least give me a comforting lie.'”
“Are you all right? We’re discussing philosophy and religion, and somehow you’ve circled back to relationships?” Old Gu waved him off.
“I don’t really know what philosophy is — that’s too far above me,” Xiao Man said. “But lately I’ve run into a dilemma of the relationship sort. I feel like a girl I’ve met now is a lot like another girl from ten years ago — and you’ve actually seen both of them.”
In the early evening, the sky was ablaze with the last colors of sunset. Xiao Man bent over the hospital’s flower bed, searching for flowers.
All the other blooms had closed their petals, but the crimson four-o’clocks were still open. Xiao Man had no choice but to pick a few of them, holding them in his hand — they were actually quite pretty, but the name “land mine flower” was really rather unfortunate.
“Ahem!” Chunchun had silently appeared behind Xiao Man, wearing a brand-new dress and skirt, and gave a soft little cough.
“What a beautiful flower fairy!” Seeing Chunchun in her new outfit, Xiao Man couldn’t help but exclaim.
“Where’s my flower?”
“The only things blooming right now are four-o’clocks…”
“Actually, that’s exactly what I wanted,” Chunchun said, taking the flowers from Xiao Man’s hands. “This flower has other names too — it’s also called the rouge flower and the garden jasmine.”
“Oh? You really do know your flowers, flower fairy!”
“I know so many, many flowers. I’ve made a lot of pressed-flower specimens,” Chunchun said, gently stroking a petal. “A perfectly lovely garden jasmine, and you people have been calling it the terrifying ‘land mine flower.'”
“Its seeds look like little land mines — we used to use them as slingshot pellets when we were kids.” Xiao Man peeled out a black seed to show Chunchun.
“This is how us girls played with it as children,” said Chunchun, crushing the petals and rubbing them on her fingernails to demonstrate. “Look how vivid the color is — shall I paint yours?”
“Please don’t, please don’t,” Xiao Man pulled his hands back. “If I go back with ten brilliantly red fingernails, Old Gu will have another manic episode and refuse to be discharged.”
“To be honest, I’m actually a bit envious of Old Gu — at least he has his manic phases,” Chunchun said. “Xiao Man, do you want to hear my story?”
“Of course. I’ve been wondering all along — why did someone as young as you fall into depression?”
“The same pressures that everyone else bears, when they land on me, get amplified several times over,” Chunchun recalled. “Especially those three years I spent at the experimental high school.”
“Tiecity Experimental High School?” Xiao Man asked, surprised. “Old Gu used to teach there. He told me your school operated on a military-style management system, and that it wore out both students and teachers terribly.”
“It wasn’t just exhausting — it was suffocating. Every minute was filled to capacity, every movement was being rushed along,” Chunchun said. “To save time at mealtimes, the canteen only served rice-bowl dishes, and meals were just ten minutes long — after eating you had to run to the classroom. Every floor had an electronic screen counting down the days to the college entrance exam, and all the corridor windows were sealed with iron bars, because every year students jumped.”
Chunchun’s eyes darkened as she spoke, as if the fear of those days was surfacing again: “By the time I got to Year 3, I couldn’t hold on any longer. Every practice exam sent me into a panic, and I would overthink every single word I wrote, terrified of making a mistake on the answer sheet. On Sunday evenings, the thought of the week’s endless exam papers waiting for me filled me with dread. While my classmates were burning the candle at both ends studying, I was burning the candle at both ends in self-reproach. Eventually the self-reproach grew more and more intense, as if the weight of the whole world were pressing on my shoulders — it felt like only dying could bring relief. That was when I started to think about it: should I force myself to keep living, or just draw a line under everything?”
“Once suicidal thoughts had taken hold, that was no longer simply an emotional problem,” Xiao Man said. “You should have seen a psychologist sooner.”
“I didn’t, unfortunately. I only told my parents, and they criticized me for being weak-willed and said I was letting them down. I endured half a semester and genuinely had no one to turn to — I just felt like a superfluous person in this world. Last spring, I was walking across a bridge on my way home from school, and it suddenly struck me: since there was nothing to look forward to, I might as well say goodbye to the world right there. So I climbed onto the bridge railing, ready to jump and start over.”
“Spring is a very dangerous season. The doctors here have said the human psyche is at its most unstable in spring.”
“I didn’t know that at the time. I just felt that living was truly too exhausting, and that drowning might be better. “
“No, no — don’t do that! If you’re going to go, at least pick a different way. No one knows the suffering of choking on water better than I do. I came within a hair of drowning twice in my life — the feeling of holding your breath is unbearable. If it were me, I’d choose anything other than jumping into a river.”
“Yes, I was too impulsive back then. With no one to talk to and my mind in knots, I almost jumped. Luckily, a police car happened to drive onto the bridge just then. The car door opened and two officers jumped out and grabbed me, so the jump didn’t happen. They brought me to the police station and called my parents to come and get me. There were people coming and going in that station — people there for drunk driving, fighting, street fraud. I actually envied them, because they were full of life. Wrong-headed life, maybe, but life all the same. Whereas I felt like a rotting log — not even twenty years old, and already a rotting log.” As she said this, tears fell from the corners of Chunchun’s eyes.
Xiao Man quickly reached out to wipe the tears from Chunchun’s cheeks.
“Look at that — my tears giving me away. My willpower is weak again,” Chunchun began to reproach herself.
“No — this really isn’t a question of willpower. Mental illness can’t be overcome through willpower alone. The doctors have said so: there are only three methods — medication, hospitalization, and avoiding triggers.”
“That’s true. It was only after that suicide attempt that my parents finally accepted that I needed treatment. Before that, they kept telling me about Pavel Korchagin and How the Steel Was Tempered — I just couldn’t take it in. I only felt completely helpless…”
“There will always be strong people and fragile people,” Xiao Man said gently. “Stones have different hardness levels, and people have different capacities for endurance — that’s perfectly normal.”
Chunchun nodded and held back her sobbing.
“Try looking at it from a different angle — you also need to accept the fact of being ill, and that isn’t a bad thing,” Xiao Man added.
“Not a bad thing?”
“That’s right. Once you’re ill, you can let yourself off the hook with a clear conscience. Think about it — who’s going to talk to a sick person about acing exams, career success, keeping up appearances? All those obligations are wiped clean! Chunchun, since you’ve fallen ill, let’s just take life’s path slowly and carefully. Walk slowly — and rest when you’re tired.”
“Xiao Man, thank you. The greatest thing I’ve gained from coming to this hospital may be meeting you.”
“I suggest we form a pair,” Xiao Man said. “If either of us ever gets to the end of our rope one day, we’ll go together. I once researched how to tie a single slipknot for hanging — now I see that won’t be enough. I need to research how to tie a double knot.”
“With you here to talk to me, I won’t want to kill myself,” Chunchun finally broke into laughter through her tears.
“That works too. Then I’ll keep the one knot for myself — and you’ll have to kick the stool away for me.”
“How strange — we started out talking about my suicide, and somehow it’s turned into you wanting to die?”
“Exactly — nobody should die. It makes everyone around them miserable. So let’s both just keep living properly for now!”
Night fell. The fragrance of the lilac trees enveloped the two of them. The ward buildings of the psychiatric hospital lit up one by one, the lamplight falling on their corner of the flower bed.
“Xiao Man, I want to be with you more. When you’re beside me, I feel truly at ease,” Chunchun said, her voice so low it was almost as if she were talking to herself.
“I feel the same way,” Xiao Man said, looking at her, one word at a time: “When your current course of treatment ends, I want… to be discharged together with you!”
“That would be wonderful! After discharge, I’d like to open a flower shop. I love flowers, and I know floral arrangement.”
“Let’s open one together. I happen to have a sum of money on hand — we could use it to start the shop.”
“But you’ve been in the hospital all this time — how would you have money?”
“That’s money I earned by leaping into the sea at the risk of my life. When there’s time, I’ll tell you my story.”