My name is Lu Yuan. I'm forty-two years old, and I've been grinding away in the corporate salt mines for eighteen years. I figured I'd cruise through to retirement, collect my pension, and call it a life. Then, on a perfectly unremarkable Tuesday, reality hauled off and slapped me right across the face.
That morning I did what I always do — grabbed a cup of instant coffee and bolted into the office. Except I didn't quite stick the landing. The coffee went flying and splashed all over Director Zhang Feng's mirror-polished leather shoes. Zhang Feng's face went darker than the bottom of a wok in about half a second, and I could see this was going sideways fast, so I started bowing and scraping immediately. "Director Zhang, I am so sorry — a big man like yourself surely won't hold a small thing like this against me—"
Meanwhile, inside my head: *It's a pair of shoes, man. Are you really this petty?*
Who could have known that cup of coffee would be the fuse that blew up my career? Turns out Zhang Feng really was exactly that petty.
That afternoon he called me into his office.
He was sitting there with his legs crossed, twirling a pen between his fingers — the spitting image of a TV drama villain.
"Old Lu," he said, "the company's restructuring toward a younger demographic — you know how it is. Fresh blood comes in, some seats have to open up." He paused, then kept going. "You've been around a while. We'll settle up at the minimum statutory severance. Let's part on good terms. You're a company veteran — I'm sure you won't make things awkward for everyone."
I stared at his gleaming shoes and dug my fingernails into my palm until they left crescent-shaped dents. So that coffee this morning wasn't an accident — it was a death warrant. Half a cup of instant coffee, and he's handing me the *Deluxe Unemployment Package*? If I'd known it would come to this, I should've aimed for that greasy face of his and upended the whole mug — grounds and all.
But when you're middle-aged, where do you find the nerve to flip a table? I ground my back molars together, swallowed the fire in my chest, and stretched my mouth into something that resembled a smile. "Director Zhang is absolutely right. I should be making way for the younger generation." Inside, though, I was mentally feeding every ancestor of his — going all the way back to the Qing dynasty and forward to his yet-unborn grandchildren — one by one into a coffee grinder, set to maximum.
By the time I shuffled out of his office wearing my funeral face, a ring of colleagues had already gathered at the door, circling like vultures over a carcass.
The receptionist had her phone up, beauty filter cranked to full blast, livestreaming: "Fam! Witness history! The company fossil just got discontinued!" In the corner, two junior staffers who'd been bumming my instant noodles for years were cracking sunflower seeds and editorializing: "Man, Old Lu really caught a bad one — gets fired *and* has to wipe the coffee off Zhang's shoes. Ha!"
The real masterpiece was Sister Li from the break room. She squeezed to the front row, wolfberry thermos in hand, then immediately fired off a message to the family group chat: *SHOCKING: Someone fired at the company today! Scene like a palace drama!* And because that wasn't enough, she added: *Thank God it wasn't me. Amitabha.*
As for my cactus — the one I'd tended for eight years — it was being tossed around like a ball, while a cluster of interns bet on who could knock off the most spines. Intern Xiao Wang tried to squeeze through carrying a cardboard box, and someone cheerfully blocked him: "Move it, you're blocking our shot! Don't ruin the termination footage!"
Watching this circus, I suddenly felt exactly like a monkey on display at the zoo.
I went back to my desk, packed up my things, and walked out of the building feeling like someone had reached in and yanked my soul out. The coffee stain on the back collar of my suit had dried into a crusty ridge, and with every step it scratched at the back of my neck like a tiny insect, until I wanted to rip the whole jacket off and use it to mop the street.
My phone was going berserk in my trouser pocket. I pulled it out: eighteen missed calls from my wife. Eighteen. That wasn't a missed call log — that was a kill chain. I took a deep breath, did some rapid emotional bracing, and pressed answer with a trembling thumb.
"Lu Yuan! Where the hell have you been?! Xiao Chuan's school needs the after-care fee — why hasn't your salary hit the account yet?!" My wife Lin Yao's voice blasted out of the earpiece and set my eardrums ringing.
I squinted up at the grey, smoggy sky and said through clenched teeth, "Finance at the company had a little hiccup. It'll definitely come through tomorrow." The moment the words left my mouth I wanted to slap myself twice. *I'm unemployed.* The severance Zhang Feng had handed me would barely keep me fed for a few days. Where exactly was "tomorrow's money" supposed to materialise from? Rob a bank? With this body of mine, I'd never even make it to the counter — I'd be pinned to the floor by a fifty-something security guard before anyone called the police, and the bank would probably give the guy a commendation for it.
I was trudging down the street, mind in knots, when a sharp *crack crack crack* sounded from somewhere above my head.
I looked up. Oh boy. Half a billboard, riddled with rust, was swaying in the wind, its steel frame groaning and wheezing — exactly like my ancient electric fan at home, sounding like it might fly apart at any moment. My legs moved before my brain did. I sprinted — and promptly caught my foot on something, went down face-first, and ate pavement.
I lay there in the dirt, twisted my head around, and watched helplessly as the billboard came screaming down toward me. *Well, that's it*, I thought. *I'm about to become Lu Yuan-brand meat paste. Might even make the news. I've already got the headline: "Middle-Aged Man Loses Job, Then Silenced by Billboard." Poetic, really, in the most miserable way possible.*
I closed my eyes and waited to die.
And then — nothing. A cool sensation on my chest. No searing pain.
I cracked one eye open, very carefully. The billboard was suspended less than ten centimetres from the tip of my nose, its edge sharp enough to peel an apple. I could make out every flake of peeling paint on its surface, and a tiny spider picking its way across it in no particular hurry, spinning its web as if mocking my pathetic state.
Even stranger: there was a bronze ring on my palm that I was absolutely certain hadn't been there a moment ago. Engraved on it, in crooked, uneven characters, were the words — *Foundation-Building Is a Joy*. Droplets of blood clung to the ring, catching the sunlight with an eerie gleam. I had no idea where I'd bled; must have been from the fall.