Chapter 78 - 66: You Have Stories, I Have Wine

It was Monday afternoon, and the overcast sky had cleared up.

When quitting time came, everyone in Hengtong Mansion was talking about the sudden death in the risk control department—a heart attack.

The moment the latest news arrived from the hospital, obituary notices began circulating through the various department WeChat groups.

The obituary was delicately worded. It essentially said that an unexpected incident had occurred in the risk control department that morning, that the company’s leadership had already visited the hospital to offer their condolences, and it reminded all employees to pay attention to their health, maintain a regular schedule, and exercise to prevent similar tragedies.

Judging by the writing style and format, it was likely a template the PR department had hastily pulled from the internet.

The elevators at quitting time were packed with the usual hurried, white-collar workers, but the topic of conversation had shifted from the typical gossip about entertainment and finance to things like: "Did you hear? Someone on the 17th floor died!"

"I saw the video! So terrifying!"

"They said it was a heart attack. He was gone in minutes."

"What? Gone in just a few minutes? That settles it. I’m getting a full check-up this weekend."

"I heard a fancy new gym opened nearby. I think they have a grand opening discount. We should go sign up tomorrow, what do you say?"

"..."

People these days are all the same, packed together like sardines in a can.

Squeezed into cramped offices, trapped inside their own information bubbles.

No one pays any mind to tragedy until it lands on their own doorstep.

Only when a life was so suddenly and vividly extinguished did these sharply dressed office drones finally get a wake-up call about their own mortality.

Of course, Chen Jue had no idea how many of them would actually follow through.

After stepping out of the elevator, he climbed into his SUV, still in a daze.

The jolt from a cigarette was clearly not enough to lift the gloom that had settled over him.

Once in the car, he called Jiang Zhe. A simple, "I’m in a bad mood. Let’s go for a drink," was all it took to summon his best friend and college roommate.

He didn’t choose the Jingtang Club this time.

With a colleague having just died, going to the Jingtang Club for a spa day and buffet with the girls felt wildly inappropriate. Instead, he picked a vegetarian place on Binjiang Road.

The healthy eating trend had slowly made its way into Hang City over the past few years. While hearty barbecue joints and live seafood restaurants were still thriving, a number of places specializing in vegetarian and steamed dishes had also popped up on every corner.

"Old Si, what’s gotten into you?"

"Have you seen the light? Started eating vegetarian like a monk?" Jiang Zhe asked, eyeing him suspiciously as he entered the place, called the Vegetarian Restaurant.

The decor was excellent—quaint and classic. Though it flew the banner of vegetarian cuisine, it still served alcohol.

Chen Jue found an outdoor table with a river view. He sat down without saying much, ordered a few tasty vegetarian dishes, and then asked the waiter for two bottles of beer.

"You got a smoke?" Chen Jue asked, pouring Jiang Zhe a beer and then filling his own glass.

"Yeah! Of course!"

"A guy like me, working construction sites? How could I not have smokes?" Seeing the troubled look on Chen Jue’s face, Jiang Zhe quickly pulled a pack from his pocket.

Chen Jue wasn’t picky. He took one, lit it, and smoked in silence.

"Old Si, what the hell happened?"

"You look like you just got dumped."

"Wait, that’s not right! You don’t even have a girlfriend... Don’t tell me you’ve been secretly seeing someone behind our backs?" Jiang Zhe was curious. In all their years in Hang City, he’d never seen Chen Jue this withdrawn.

Chen Jue took a final, deep drag and exhaled a plume of smoke.

He finished the cigarette, then picked up his glass and downed the beer in one go. Only then did he tell him about Shen Shikun dying right in front of his eyes.

Jiang Zhe fell silent. He couldn’t believe a normal day at the office had ended in someone’s death.

He raised his own glass, clinked it against Chen Jue’s, and downed his drink. Then he lit a cigarette of his own and began to smoke, enveloping himself in a cloud.

"Sigh... what can you even say? Your colleague kicked the bucket. It’s not your fault."

"Life is all up to fate anyway. Remember that outdoor site my company was working on for that rich dude? Someone died there recently, too. A worker fell off the scaffolding..." Jiang Zhe began to recount his own work stories, trying to console him.

...

And so it went. One would take a drink, the other would light a smoke. They picked at the hot dishes as they arrived, their thoughts drifting on the cool autumn breeze blowing in from the river. Gradually, more and more stories were told.

It turned out this wasn’t the first time Chen Jue had watched someone die.

When Chen Jue was in middle school, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. His family sold everything they owned, but it wasn’t enough to save her.

In high school, his grandparents passed away from illness as well.

But Chen Jue had been young then, a teenager. His worldview hadn’t fully formed, and he couldn’t truly comprehend the pain of losing a loved one.

It wasn’t until he saw Fatty Bai, Shen Shikun, collapse and die right in front of him that all those old, unpleasant memories began to surface.

"Jiang the Second, tell me... what’s the point of being alive?"

"You struggle your ass off, you’re almost thirty, and before you even get to enjoy the good life, you can just... be gone." Chen Jue put down his glass, his eyes filled with confusion.

"What else is there to life?"

"You live for something to hope for, of course!"

"You don’t have a family yet, so you wouldn’t get it. Once you’re married, have a home, have kids... then you’ll know what life is." Jiang Zhe clinked glasses with him again, offering his own perspective.

Ever since his own business venture had failed, Jiang Zhe had poured all his energy into work, all to pay the mortgage and provide for his family.

He worked overtime every day, rushing to finish designs, but the feeling he got when he came home to his wife and two adorable children made him feel immeasurably happy.

A happy family and healthy children—that was Jiang Zhe’s purpose in life. It was a purpose shared by countless ordinary people who sought nothing more than a peaceful and stable life.

’Something to hope for?’

Chen Jue muttered the phrase, the confusion in his eyes only deepening. ’Then what is it that I’m hoping for?’

...

The dinner failed to resolve Chen Jue’s inner conflict. In fact, it just ended up bumming Jiang Zhe out as well.

The pack of cigarettes he’d just bought that afternoon had been completely bummed by Old Si, the same idiot who was always swearing he was going to quit.

Since they had been drinking, they both called for designated drivers to take them home.

Back at his apartment, Chen Jue took a hot shower, which helped to clear his groggy head.

Feeling cooped up in his room, Chen Jue threw on a jacket, pocketed a few decks of cards, and headed up to the rooftop.

In the distance, the office buildings of the CBD glittered, their lights like stars. Countless wage slaves just like him were still burning the midnight oil inside.

Below, the ceaseless flow of traffic and the lively, bustling street-front shops showcased the vibrant charm of Hang City, one of the new first-tier cities.

Staring at the scene before him, standing at the edge of the roof with the night wind whipping past, Chen Jue couldn’t help but mutter, "Humanity... so magnificent, yet so fragile."

We can build such magnificent skyscrapers, invent vehicles that cross continents in a day, reach for the moon in the heavens, and plumb the depths of the ocean, yet we can’t even fully cure something as simple as a heart attack.

We can only watch, helpless, as one vibrant life after another is lost to sickness and accidents.

A wave of melancholy washed over him. He opened a box of cards, took a few out, and began flinging them one by one toward the city skyline.

The powerfully thrown cards spun through the glittering night, slicing through the air. They flew for dozens, even a hundred meters, before a gust of wind caught them, sending them tumbling out of control, fluttering down toward the streets below.

Watching the cards flutter away, Chen Jue slowly came to a realization.

He felt people were like playing cards. Money and status determined their value; personality and temperament decided their suit.

The force of the throw determined their destination and their range.

It was like a person in this world, adrift in the churning sea of humanity, swept forward by time, by their surroundings, by their emotions.

They keep moving until they meet the fickle winds of fate—illness, accident, or old age—which finally determines their ultimate resting place.

But if you wanted a card to fly farther and more steadily through the night sky, its value and suit were secondary. The most important things were the card’s own material and weight.

If you put a person in the card’s place, then that material and weight would be their body, their health.

Take Fatty Bai, Shen Shikun, who had died so suddenly. If he hadn’t been addicted to greasy food, if he had exercised, maintained a good sleep schedule, not stayed up all night, not spent ages on the toilet scrolling on his phone, maybe even taken a day off from work to rest at home...

...perhaps he wouldn’t have had that sudden heart attack today. Perhaps he wouldn’t have lost his young life in a matter of minutes, a victim of his own unhealthy habits.

——————

[DING!]

[You have witnessed death firsthand and received a powerful mental stimulus. Your amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus have undergone a complex emotional fluctuation. You seem to have reached an epiphany. Your mental stress has been released. Your willpower has increased.]

[Spirit Attribute +0.01]

——————

’It went up again?’

Chen Jue looked at the new notification on his panel, then glanced at the various city night owls below before flinging the last card in his hand into the air.

The night wind had blown away the last of his buzz. His mind was much clearer now, and he was beginning to understand what Jiang Zhe meant when he said people live for something to hope for.

"My hope, my purpose... I guess it’s to have a healthy body, a free and unshackled heart, and to find an interesting soulmate to share it all with..." Chen Jue whispered his newfound wish to the night sky.

After saying it aloud, Chen Jue felt the heavy gloom in his heart lighten considerably.

He didn’t linger on the roof. He rushed back downstairs, as the scattered playing cards below had already earned him a scolding and a protest from the sanitation lady.