“Ughhh... I overslept again.”
A hoarse complaint echoed through the cramped rental room, packed with the faint smell of sweat mingling with the scent of old wood from the wardrobe and guitar strings scattered haphazardly across the floor.
The phone screen suddenly lit up.
6:02 p.m.
The young man sprang out of bed like someone who had done it hundreds, thousands of times before. The moment his hand grabbed a towel, he dragged his feet straight into the bathroom.
Six in the evening. The fading sunlight streamed through the old window in slanted beams, settling over the dust hanging motionless in the air like delicate golden flecks. His day began just as everyone else was shutting down their computers and getting ready to head home.
“I really shouldn’t have browsed the web until noon. I never learn.”
Water from the shower hissed as it struck the floor. He showered in a hurry, but his thoughts weren’t in any rush to follow. They were still stuck on the screen from that morning, on the dozens of tabs left open like windows into a universe that could never be fully closed.
One of his bad habits was that whenever something caught his interest, he would sink into it without realizing it.
Not because he was smart.
Not because he had more focus than other people.
Simply because he wanted to know.
He wanted to know more. Deeper. Farther.
Ever since he moved in with the younger friend he had been close to since childhood, his life felt as though another door had opened. A powerful computer sat in the corner of the room. The wooden desk was plain and ordinary, but to him, it was the library of the entire world.
“Go ahead and use it. I need to work anyway,” his younger friend said.
“What about you?” he asked.
“I already bought a tablet. I was worried you’d get bored, so go ahead and look up whatever you want.”
The words were ordinary, but firm enough to make one person feel as though he had been given a second chance.
When they were children, the two of them had run and played in the same narrow alley, shared snacks, and shared dreams. As they grew up, they went their separate ways. His family moved to another province after his younger sister found a job there, but he chose to stay behind because the small band he had started with his friends still had enough nighttime gigs to get by.
The money was meager. He had no fame, and his talent was nothing special. All he had was a stubborn passion that refused to let go.
At night, he played music in small bars. Guitar strings, drunken voices, and laughter mingled with cigarette smoke drifting lazily above the cramped stage. After finishing work and getting back to his room at one or two in the morning, he would stand in front of the mirror, scream out songs, adjust his vocal tone, listen to his mistakes, and try again.
No teacher. No studio. Just him and the internet.
And the internet never refused to answer his questions. Then it spread.
From music to other things.
“How do you make the best Thai basil stir-fry?” Enter. “What kind of Thai basil should I use?” Enter. “Which is more fragrant, the small leaves or the large ones?” Enter.
Enter. Enter. Enter.
From Thai basil stir-fry to Chinese history, from history to astronomy, from astronomy to fan-repair videos, from fans to black hole theories.
The tabs in his browser kept multiplying. The questions never ran out.
He searched for everything, from the pestle to the warship. His knowledge grew every night, but his life remained right where it was.
“What are you looking at now? Don’t you ever sleep?” his younger friend appeared behind him, his sigh tinged with affection.
“I’m working. It just makes me curious,” he replied.
“Thai basil?” his younger friend asked, looking puzzled.
He chuckled softly and didn’t argue. Explaining it wouldn’t have gotten him anywhere.
Maybe he didn’t want to be great. Maybe he didn’t want to be famous. He simply didn’t want his life to stand still. He didn’t want to sit there one day wondering what he had missed.
That evening, he hurried to get dressed. He threw on a wrinkled black T-shirt, and outside, traffic on the main road at the mouth of the alley roared without pause. Streetlights began flickering on one by one, and the air grew slightly cooler.
“Forgot to put on deodorant, but... screw it.”
He stepped into the street and looked left. A truck was approaching in the distance, its engine rumbling low. It was moving at a moderate speed—he calculated it from experience, since he crossed this road almost every day.
He could make it.
He broke into a run. Wind struck his face, and the hem of his shirt fluttered. Just as he was nearly across, a figure passed through the corner of his vision.
An old woman was walking with her head down, toddling across the road toward the truck. Too slowly.
“Ma’am! Come back!”
His shout was swallowed by the engine noise. People on the traffic island began shouting. Some covered their mouths; others screamed at the top of their lungs. But the old woman kept walking, as though the entire world had no warnings left to give her.
A long blast from the air horn tore through the air.
Time seemed to slow.
Only one question remained in his mind.
Would he let it pass?
His heart pounded so hard his chest hurt. Cold sweat ran down his temples.
If he stayed out of it, he’d be safe. If he got involved, he was taking a risk.
“Whatever happens, happens.”
He turned and ran with all his strength. The muscles in his legs grew taut and burned as the truck drew closer and closer. The prolonged blare of the horn sounded like a pronouncement of judgment.
HOOOOONK!
He slammed into the old woman with all his strength, sending her frail body flying toward the traffic island.
Crash!
The truck swerved, lost control, flipped over, and skidded across the road. The sound of metal grinding against concrete thundered through the air. Glass shattered and scattered like a downpour of clear rain, while the roadside shops were demolished in an instant.
Screams erupted everywhere. Dust and smoke billowed through the air.
He opened his eyes and saw the gray sky above him. He was breathing hard, his heart still racing. A few yards away, the old woman was trying to get up, apparently to ask about the earbuds from some expensive phone brand that she had been wearing in both ears.
“Wow. I thought she was deaf,” he muttered.
People began rushing over as sirens grew louder and louder, eventually stopping right in front of him. A paramedic ran straight toward him while the people around them called out.
“Are you hurt anywhere? That was incredibly brave. You’re really lucky.”
Lucky?
He forced himself up. Pain shot up from his ankle, but it was still bearable.
“I’m okay. Looks like I sprained my ankle, but I can manage,” he replied.
Whoosh.
His injured leg couldn’t support his weight. His body tipped over, and his head slammed into the concrete curb of the traffic island with a sharp crack.
Crack.
The scene before him trembled. The sounds around him gradually faded into the distance, as if he were sinking beneath the water.
He thought of his computer screen, the tabs still open, and the questions he hadn’t searched yet.
There were still so many things he wanted to know. So many words he hadn’t typed yet.
Enter.
But this time,
darkness swallowed everything before he could press it again, along with the thought in his head: “I really should’ve put on deodorant.”