The doors you thought were closed might be waiting for the courage you've just found.
Zhan
"So, Zhan, how did Uncle Nanjing manage to get you a job? What's so surprising about it? Do you know the kind of people he knows in this country and the connections he has? I'm not saying this because I'm unhappy with my own job, but I've been saying for a while that he should find me one too."
Aunty Shui said, sitting on a chair in Nainai's sitting room, dressing her young son Nan after Bai had given him a bath and putting on his pajamas.
It was nine o'clock at night, and even though it was the lunar new year day, the house had almost returned to its normal state. Everyone had left, including Uncle Nanjing and his family; they had all gone back to the house they stayed in whenever they visited.
Aunty Shui was the only one who remained, not having left to go her own home, using the excuse that her husband was out of town for work. He only had a two-day break and felt he couldn't make the trip back, so he just told her to bear without him and stay. Then there were Uncle Zhong's children, who had come since the day before the lunar new year and insisted on spending another night here because Bai was their favorite person. So, Uncle Zhong left them, saying he would come first thing in the morning to pick them up since they were going to their maternal grandparents' house tomorrow.
Nainai was sitting on a small carpet, while Bai was in the bathroom inside the room with the younger children, giving them their night bath, because the mess from the games they had played in the house since morning was endless.
Zhan was standing by a drawer unit placed in the corner of the room (a corner cabinet) where they kept some of their belongings, like incense and some medicine packets. He had changed his clothes from his daytime ones to his soft purple nightwear. He had tied his hair with a small milk-colored ribbon. The softness of the ribbon lay flat against how he had tied it around his own hair. In his hand was a burner of incense he had barely managed to scoop from the stove's ashes, since no evening meal had been cooked today; the plethora of foods made during the day there still leftovers to eat.
He picked up the incense, lit it, then turned to look at Aunty Shui, who had finished explaining that she was astonished by the job offer letter Zhan had been carrying around since he returned from the Uncles, seeking more clarification.
After Zhan had picked the envelope up and finished reading everything written on it, he had read it but didn't understand. He understood the meaning of everything that was written; what he didn't understand was how that meaning connected to his name, which was attached to the paper.
In his mind, Zhan searched for answers to some questions and found none. When had he ever discussed looking for a job with Uncle Nanjing? Never. When did he submit his documents for this screening they said he passed, as mentioned in the letter? Never. What was the job, and where was this hospital even located? Nothing. And they would pay him two thousand five hundred yuan a month? It was unsettling...
Zhan didn't even remember when he closed the car door and returned to the Uncles.
And Uncle Nanjing had just looked at him, seen him bewildered, and burst out laughing, as he was a very jovial man, unlike Uncle Ruobing, whom one could swear he had never even seen crack a full smile on his face. And it wasn't that you would put him in the category of people with no morals; it was just his nature.
Then Uncle Nanjing explained to him that his friend, who was the Minister of Health for the entire country, was in charge of the contract for this project being implemented across China. So, he had given him his name and told him to include him, since there were two hospitals in Beijing that made the list of selected hospitals for implementing the project.
He said he had even forgotten about it, because it had been nearly five months since they discussed it, and at that time, even the project details weren't finalized until this year. That's why the document was brought to his house, stating that everything was complete regarding the posting for his candidate.
And that was the extent of the explanation he gave him, saying that anything he didn't understand, if he went to the hospital they assigned him to, they would explain it to him.
Zhan knew he should be satisfied with all that explanation, but what he couldn't come to terms with was the large sum of money listed on the paper and the screening they said was conducted, which he knew nothing about. So, he was apprehensive about what kind of job it might be, wondering if there could be trouble since he knew nothing.
Since morning, however, everyone Zhan showed the letter to congratulated him and wished him well. Bai, who took the letter and read it, kept grinning with happiness. When his eyes reached the amount of money listed, he unexpectedly looked at Zhan and winked, as it was clear evidence of how the mere one thousand Zhan received monthly from his current job was secretly used to cover their small needs without them having to bother Nainai... With this new amount, Zhan was certain Bai would pester him with a list of his desires that he had been suppressing, especially now that he was at the age where he felt he was a grown young man.
Zhan came and sat beside Aunty Shui, saying.
"My surprise, Aunty, is about how they even accepted my name when I didn't do any screening. I even did a search now and saw that about a month ago, they were conducting training for all those who were selected for the job."
Aunty Shui looked at him and said.
"That's why I told you Uncle has connections.The Minister himself said he should submit your name, so what other screening would they do for you?"
Nainai turned from her carpet and said.
"Look, I even told him the other day when Uncle came, while he was at work, he was asking me about all of them. I told him Bai was in school and Zhan was at work. He asked me about the job he does, and I told him, including the salary they pay him. He sat there telling me the money was too small, that Zhan should just stop going. I told him no, it's not bad at all, he wouldn't just sit at home doing nothing. So, maybe that's why he find him another job."
"Leave it, Nainai. He thinks we've been working for years and years, and then he outpaces us in salary." Aunty Shui said glaring at Zhan smiling.
Unexpectedly, Zhan smiled, a smile that further brightened his face....a smile many people said they loved to see him make. Because it was different from how many people did theirs; the expression on his face was poised midway between something like tears and laughter at the same time, but if you looked at him, you will knew he was smiling.
"Oh, Aunty, oh Aunty... I'm not like that." Zhan said this, but deep down he felt the unease of the method used to secure this job for him, even though it wasn't a permanent position.
"Oh, well, look at you, you've been repeating this since morning. What incense is this you're burning, for goodness' sake? Since I came to this house yesterday, I've been noticing a new scent that I just can't get out of my nose."
Aunt Shui said, handing Zhan the child she had finished putting his nightclothes on.
Zhan set the burner down, finished with his task, and took the child, saying.
"Everyone who smells this incense says it's pleasant. Even Uncle Zhong, I had to buy some for him because every time he comes in, he says, 'What have you put in this room that smells so nice?'"
Bai, who had just come out of the room with two children following him, each wrapped in a towel, said.
"Aunty Shui, that incense? Oh, just leave it be. There's this elderly woman who visits Nainai; she's old and her years haven't stopped her from being nosy and intrusive. She came and started fussing over the incense, and we had to get some for her. Who knows, wherever you take that incense, it will be a hit."
Nainai shook her head from the side.
"Goodness, Bai. I don't know what is bothering you in this world that you'd deny an old woman the pleasure of a little scent."
Aunty Shui said, "Just find out for me where to get it before my husband returns."
Zhan went to get the container, saying. "Well, it's almost finished, it just has a little left. We just need to buy another one."
Aunty Shui took the container and read the writing on it.
Meens Incense!
Dollor Halluth
She then took her phone and copied the number she saw written at the bottom of the incense container...
"By the way, Zhan, have you shown the job letter to Taichen and the others yet?"
Nainai asked, chewing on an eggplant in her mouth.
Zhan shook his head while Bai, who was patting the children dry after their bath and applying powder, muttered under his breath, 'What's the use of showing them...'
Zhan understood what he meant, but he didn't pay him any mind, continuing to look at Nainai.
"Well, take it now and show them before the night is completely over... I don't want any petty talk, them saying they weren't told, especially since you even showed Noni."
Zhan patted the child on the shoulder and then headed into the room. From his wardrobe, atop his things, he pulled out the brown envelope. His hand simply pulled out the letter again, and he began rereading what was written on it.
He knew life was like a chameleon... A chameleon that changes colors at different times...
If it encounters something dark, it darkens. Or it might even turn black, pitch black!
Other times, it encounters something bright, perhaps even a sharp green! Then it brightens, its skin becoming flawless in the eyes of anyone who looks at it.
What Zhan didn't know right now was, what color was his life about to encounter?
---
"I told you it's not that I have money, Fuyue, so I can't just give you thirty thousand for an outfit for a party. If you're going to the event, just wash your feet and go since you don't have the means."
That was Aunty Hsiao, sitting in one of the chairs in their sitting room while her son Fuyue looked at her with a sullen face, holding a cup of tea that was cooling in his hand.
"Come on, Mom, you know if I don't have that outfit, I can't mingle with my friends. We'll just be moving backwards, as if your efforts in raising me were wasted."
The words were utterly disrespectful, spoken to his own mother, but from Aunty Hsiao to his grandmother Taichen, who was sitting to the side finishing her quiet thoughts, no one saw anything wrong with it. It was even Taichen who looked at him and said.
"Honestly, this partying of yours has started to be enough. Is it always a party? You see, Zhan, aside from his work, only comes home. I hardly ever hear that he went somewhere else."
Fuyue's face grew even more sullen as he shook his head.
"I'm telling you, stop comparing me to those kids in this house, for goodness' sake. I swear, my ears don't even like hearing their names."
Aunty Hsiao also took up her own thread of irritation.
"But Mom, it's Fuyue who has relatives, besides the multitude of friends he has. And them, Zhan, what does he have in this city? In the whole wide world, I've never heard they can gather five people from their parents' family, so where would they go?"
"Mom, for goodness' sake, don't even start talking about them. Now, let me say one thing, just help me with this outfit, please."
"I swear I won't give it. This boyfriend of yours, won't he give it to you? The little things he gives you aren't even enough for you to lower your voice for him when he's around. He'll come to this house, you spend two, three hours together, you're just sitting there flirting, and then he gives you something that you'll need again tomorrow?"
Fuyue became upset again.
"Mom..."
"I'm serious, I swear, I'm starting to get tired of these boyfriends of yours with no substantial movement and no substantial gifts. Look at Mr. Chow, he likes you, there's no advice I haven't given you, you listened and refused. And now, you're already beyond your needs, but it's these guys who have nothing to offer you."
Fuyue pouted, his anger levels skyrocketing.
Aunty Hsiao took a deep breath, then softened her voice so Taichen wouldn't hear them, saying.
"You should just look at how we were struggling in this house, but you won't find a way to secretly cover your own expenses, let alone cover mine."
"Mom, I told you, I won't marry an old man. I swear, I don't want any Mr. Chow, I don't like his type, and besides, there are also young men with money."
"What's stopping you then? Look at your friends here, how many of them married young men who are self-sufficient?"
"Well, Mom, that's why I'm asking you for this outfit. I swear, this Nanji is rich, and his friends who will come definitely have money. If I don't have an outfit, how will I even be noticed there? Their friends, the ones with makeup and outfits, are the ones who get attention..."
Suddenly, Aunty Hsiao's face softened as she looked at him, as if she wouldn't speak, but then she said.
"Well, if that's the case, I'll see what I can do..." She said this, forgetting the argument they were having just moments before.
Fuyue's eyes lit up with happiness at the same moment Zhan knocked on the door of the room. Simultaneously, Fuyue cut off his own smile with a sharp intake of breath, then picked up his phone from nearby and continued pressing it.
Zhan entered with Aunt Shui's son Nan draped over his shoulder, a smile on his face.
Fuyue saw him greeting Aunty Hsiao and Taichen before speaking to him as well, but he just acted as if he hadn't heard and continued pressing on his phone.
"Aunty, it's a job offer letter I came to show you. Uncle Nanjing gave it to me this morning. He said it's for a job at a hospital."
Without warning, Fuyue looked up from his phone, glanced at him, then at Aunty Hsiao's hand as she took the paper. Her face showed not praise, nor sadness , as she said,
"My goodness..."
Taichen also joined in with prayers and expressions of his happiness. Something twisted and tightened in Fuyue's chest all at once. It was something he had thought he would feel for a long time without it happening, but when Aunty Hsiao widened her eyes and said,
"What am I seeing here, Zhan? Two thousand five hundred¥ will be your monthly salary?"
Fuyue didn't know when a wave of something heavy came and pushed aside what he was feeling, making a home in his chest. He felt as if his insides had churned before the weight in his chest made him stop understanding anything.
He just put down his teacup, stretched, and headed towards the room adjacent to the living room, which was their bedroom, just as in Naninai's section, her one room was Zhan and Bai.
If one were to recount his (Fuyue) life from its beginning until now, the thing he would call the greatest challenge in his life was Zhan... He didn't know why, since the day his eyes met Zhan's in this world, even for a split second, he had never felt at ease about the coldness directed at him and his younger sibling in his heart.
They had caused him many things in his life, they had prevented him from achieving many things, because of them he had been looked down upon by many people, including a host of his relatives and even people in whose house he was a son, unlike Zhan and Bai (the orphans Nainai took in, whose story spread everywhere) who had no complete known origin to be established.
But since their childhood, everyone only had eyes for Zhan. If they were in the same place, then Fuyue really had to try hard to be noticed. He never forgot, even when they went door-to-door visiting, wherever they set foot, Zhan and Bai were the only ones in everyone's eyes. Only later would you hear someone ask, "Oh, and Fuyue you are here too?"
In some places, his name wasn't even mentioned until they turned around, as if he was just their follower existing somewhere. There was a day the television was on, and they were watching an Indian drama at home. Even back then, his mind wasn't fully developed, but even so, his heart declared to him that his life was no different from the dancers he was watching. They were there, people were watching them perform the same roles as the main characters, but no one was paying attention to them; a person's attention didn't even fully reach them.
His mother had repeatedly told him that he was a beautiful, fair-skinned boy. He even felt people said it around town. "Wherever a fair-skinned person goes, people's attention turns to him..."
But in his own story, if he were to place his shoulders and Zhan's side by side, these words would be erased like wind wiping away writing in the desert. In reality, it was like twisting a cornstalk; they would turn back to that one, whom even a blind man wouldn't call the fair one.
Fuyue placed his cup on the drawer, his body reflected in the mirror inside the room, then opened the bathroom door and entered. He stood at the sink, looking at his face while his ears listened to Zhan's voice continuing to explain the job he had gotten.
He turned on the tap, scooped water into his hands, and splashed it on his face. His thoughts were only of the day he would get the kind of husband he wanted, get married, gain his freedom, leave this house, have his life elevated, his value increased in everyone's eyes, and put distance between himself and Zhan, so that even people who didn't consider him important would look up at him and know that he had indeed soared to his own hour.
What he didn't know was that the challenges he thought would be the ultimate on his list hadn't even begun yet!
:-*:-*:-*:-*
Sometimes the scariest part isn't losing hope, it's daring to find it again.-
Yibo.
The car was black, a deep, polished black whose newness gleamed within the dark paint's shine. Its windows were completely sealed with a black tint that made the entire vehicle one solid, impenetrable darkness. Even through the front windshield, covered at the top with the same black tint, the only thing your eyes could make out was the driver's hand gripping the steering wheel, filled with the certainty of its destination.
It was a place he could likely find with his eyes closed, even in his sleep, without losing the path etched into his mind for years. Because beyond the headboard of his bed, this place was the only one that held meaning in his mind when everything else became chaotic for him.
He killed the engine the moment its tires stopped within the row of parked cars. His hands hung on the steering wheel, his eyes looking straight ahead, gazing at the entrance he was about to enter...a door that, unless one knew the area, wouldn't necessarily be noticed at first glance, as it was discreetly tucked between another door and the wall of a bank that curved around the back.
His eyes stopped on the signboard bearing the name of the place above it.
TitanFit Gym.
The paths to his relief in life were two. The first, the ease for his heart and spirit, was the meditation that held him every day. The second, the ease for his physical frame, was this place. This place he had long marked as his sanctuary from the time life began teaching him the lesson of its uncertainty. Here he would come to expel every weight he felt coursing through each vein of his body, a weight that, to this day, he didn't know how to translate into a name or a language he himself could understand.
Just as he felt it now, how he felt it emanating from within his heart, spreading to various parts of his body, its weight filling his ears with a kind of roar, a cry for relief.
He closed his eyes slowly, let out a heavy breath, then opened them again and looked towards the entrance before lifting his hand from the wheel, opening the car door, and getting out. He was wearing a white short-sleeved T-shirt and black pants.
He closed the car door without looking at his phone, which was lying on the passenger seat, pressed the lock button on his key fob, and all the car's lights flashed once before the car sealed itself with a definitive thump! Then he turned and covered the distance to the door, stepping inside. The spaciousness and breadth of the place filled his vision as always, as if you hadn't just stepped through that tiny door to find yourself inside.
With a single glance, the man sitting at the receptionist area saw him, turned away, and continued with his work on the computer screen in front of him.
Dr. Yibo own eyes also gave no importance to the people he saw inside. He headed to the left section where his locker was. With two fingers, he pulled off the white T-shirt he was wearing, then turned the key, opened the locker, and pulled out a white bandage roll, proceeding to wrap both his hands with it.
After putting the remainder of the bandage, along with his shirt, back into the locker, he locked it again before his feet turned to the right section, the far end, a spot that had long been his, since he had already paid the gym owners the necessary fee to reserve it for him.
He stopped a short distance away, looking at the black bag hanging from above...the Punching Bag...standing firm! Just as he always found it, having long passed the era where he would come to find it limp and deflated, a remnant of someone else's anger.
It was his alone! That was how he felt about anything that found a dwelling in his heart; it became his alone, lest anything else claim it. He knew the name of this feeling was obsession, and he admitted to being more obsessed than he could possibly explain to anyone. Because of the place this punching bag held in his heart, even if the gym owners now said he had to pay them again to repurchase it with the equivalent of what he had given them before, he could swear that nearly fifty percent of his life's bitterness was shared with this bag.
His feet moved forward slowly. He stopped, continuing to look at it while his mind recited its familiar litany to him.
Here, in this place, he was not a doctor. He was not that skilled surgeon with gifted hands who saved lives.
He was not the doctor praised by the world for his diligence.
Here, his years were stripped away, reverting to that young man...That young man his father did not love.
That young man fate tore from his mother's body, Who struggled immensely before becoming something.
He had no status.
He had no stature.
He had nothing but his fingers,filled with wounds, and the burden of everything he could not utter.
And this bag, right now, was the only thing that didn't care about his credentials and the only thing he could give to.
It was the only thing that wouldn't retreat from him or return his anger to him...
He just clenched both his fists, then pulled back slightly.
The first full blow landed on the bag like a shockwave shaking the world at once, causing it to jerk back, hit the wall behind it, and then swing forward again.
He landed another blow on it, then another.
And then, the images of the weights stuck in his chest began to flash before his eyes, one by one... The night he brought in the first corpse; the girl's face flashed clearly in his eyes, wearing her white dress, now stained and splattered with blood.
He closed his eyes, continuing to deliver blows, one after another, with all his strength and speed, as if the license for his continued existence in this world depended on seeing her final moments.
A second image came, showing him again, holding a second corpse.... His twin brother... A Bo! He was holding his head, which was bleeding profusely, while a crowd gathered around them in the middle of the street...!
His breathing became ragged as he continued to pummel the bag with all the force he could muster from his body.
A third image arrived, carrying his mother's eyes....eyes that bore a significant portion of the guilt he had carried all these years. The light in those eyes flashed in his mind, clear! Like the beam of a flashlight piercing the darkness at once. And instead of feeling the weight in his chest lessen as it usually did, he felt it was still there, solid, without even a crack.
Slowly, his vision shifted to the face standing at the edge of his sight, his father's face... Standing in the darkness, watching him, with the same look he gave him on the day everything ended, the day everything shattered....
He continued to strike the bag, blow after blow, somehow, with everything that could be called a strike... So much so that if someone were standing nearby watching, their eyes wouldn't be able to follow his hands due to how fast they were moving back and forth.
And he didn't know how much time he had spent like that before he finally landed a kind of blow that shook the entire chain holding the bag from above as if it were about to snap.
Then he stopped.
He leaned his back against the wall beside him, his breath coming out with a rapidity that made his chest heave. Sweat was streaming down his back. He slowly opened his eyes and looked at his hands, still clenched; both of them were shaking, shaking badly.
Simultaneously, something akin to fear entered his heart. The kind of fear that makes the heart stop completely! Before it finds the strength to continue beating.
Because the way he felt, even at that moment, nothing had changed. The weight in his chest had not decreased.
The storm in his heart had not subsided. All the series of blows he had landed had expelled nothing but the sweat he felt on his skin.
Unlike previous times when, even before he stopped, everything would pour out, shatter, and drain from his heart like a drenched city.
He looked again at his hands, which were still trembling. What was happening to him? What was happening?
If the method that had always been his refuge had stopped working, then what would he hold onto?
He slowly raised his eyes and looked again at the punching bag, swaying slowly before him, as if it too had understood that today, something had changed. As if it were about to open its mouth and say what the silent space had been trying to tell him...
That perhaps the time had come for him to find a relief stronger than this place. To turn to a different path, a path his heart had never known!
And at that very moment, from inside his car where he had left his phone, in his email inbox, the fourteenth message arrived, bearing the subject:
Surgical Recovery & Reintegration Initiative.(SRRI)
Messages like this had become common on his phone ever since he had answered Mr. Fan Shutong's call and accepted the job offer that he couldn't quite refuse. Because on this side, he had conceded that if the whole world stood on one side, and Professor Shutong stood on the other side with this project, then he would support him without a second thought. For he had already bound him with the sinews of his body, had laid bare what ran through his heart. He felt sealed in metal, melted down any resistance he had mounted against doing the job.
So, since that time, he had been receiving messages preparing for him any information he might need about the job. And since a while back, he had even started reading them one by one, understanding what he was supposed to do.
But today's message was different, for it contained the start date of the project and a list of all the people who would be working under him.
On the third line of the list of names... his name flashed.
Xiao Die Zhan.
Zhanxianyibo💚❤️💛