Ji Tan had never imagined that a simple subway ride could be so fraught with danger. At any moment, he might die of sheer social embarrassment.
Rationally, Ji Tan kept reminding himself that his brother wasn’t mentally well and that he should avoid chatting with him in crowded places. But here was the brother he hadn’t seen in three years, back from the dead. He couldn’t help talking to him.
This led to one serious consequence: the uncle sitting beside them missed his stop.
Through their intermittent conversation, Ji Tan pieced together the circumstances of the two brothers whose lives he had stepped into here in City A.
The Ji family had once been fairly well-off, with a nice home in central Xili District. Later, however, their father took up gambling. He sold the house, sold the car, and finally even tried to sell his wife. Unable to endure it, their mother fled with the last few things of value. Their father then turned his attention to Ji Tan, who was only sixteen at the time.
The rest of the story was cut short by a heartfelt cry of “Holy shit!” from the uncle, who had been listening in rapt attention.
By the time they watched him flee the eggplant train like a gust of wind and turned back, Ji Sinan refused to continue.
“He won’t be coming back. Don’t concern yourself with any of that.” At the mention of their father, a man worse than a beast, Ji Sinan’s face turned cold. For an instant, he seemed lucid. Then he shut down the conversation and concentrated on wiping the seat beside him. Only after wiping it seven times did he tell Ji Tan to sit.
Ji Tan could roughly guess what had happened afterward. Ji Sinan, still at university then, had taken his younger brother and run away as well. They moved into the slums, studying and working part-time. Later, Ji Sinan graduated and found a respectable job. Just as life was about to improve for the brothers, he suddenly lost his mind.
“What exactly happened?”
Ji Tan couldn’t believe that a medical student who had managed to keep himself and his younger brother alive in the slums would suddenly fall apart for no reason. And what was that “sanity level” Sister Xu had mentioned? It didn’t sound like an ordinary psychiatric illness.
Ji Sinan adjusted his silver-rimmed glasses, which had a broken temple held together with tape and were missing their lenses. After thinking seriously, he said, “From a professional perspective, asking a psychiatric patient why they developed a psychiatric disorder is unreasonable.”
Ji Tan: “…”
“From a personal perspective, I don’t remember.” Ji Sinan handed his cracked phone to his younger brother, indicating that he could examine it however he liked.
There was no password on the phone, nor anything useful. The notes app was empty. In the call log, the person he called most often was labeled “Little Brother,” and the oldest record went back only three months.
In other words, the phone had been replaced three months ago.
City A’s phone apps were bizarre. It was bad enough that there were no messaging apps. There wasn’t even text messaging! That made no sense at all.
Suddenly remembering the city’s lone social-media app, Ji Tan hurriedly opened it to investigate… No private messaging feature! The app developers seemed terrified that citizens might communicate privately. Apparently the internet was only meant for gossip.
Ji Sinan’s account contained a few photographs from his university days. Perhaps to keep their gambling-addicted father from tracking them down, he’d stopped posting about his life after graduation, sharing only the occasional academic question.
[Does a mechanical heart affect the stability of one’s sanity level?]
[An analysis of the irreversible nature of drug-induced memory loss]
The comments were all medical discussions, with almost no casual conversation about Ji Sinan’s personal life. Perhaps his classmates and colleagues knew about his family situation and avoided mentioning anything from real life on social media.
After combing through the account carefully for half an hour, Ji Tan finally found an ordinary personal greeting.
[Xia Wanqing: Dr. Ji, you’re amazing! I’ll come find you in a little while to discuss this research topic.]
Ji Tan’s eyebrows rose slowly. He looked at Ji Sinan, who was sitting with his head bowed, repeatedly taping the good temple of his glasses, and nudged him with an elbow. “Who’s Xia Wanqing?”
“A colleague.” Ji Sinan put his glasses back on.
“Really? I don’t believe you.” Ji Tan pouted. What ordinary colleague talked in such an intimate way? There had to be something going on.
The subway announcement sounded. “Killed Yet? reminds you that we have arrived at Clearbright Life Center Station. Please let passengers off before boarding, ride courteously, and do not engage in fights inside the station.”¹
Elio’s Note ¹: “Killed Yet?” is a morbid twist on “Hungry Yet?”, the name of a well-known Chinese food-delivery platform. The subway announcement turns it into a familiar-sounding transit-service name.
Ji Sinan pointed to the station sign. “A colleague from here.”
Ji Tan shot to his feet. “What did you say? You used to be a doctor at the Clearbright Life Center?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I…”
They had taken two buses and ridden the subway for almost an hour, only to arrive at his brother’s former workplace. Ji Tan was in despair. He circled his brother anxiously. “Let’s go to another hospital!”
Nobody wanted to show up in front of former colleagues with an illness or injury they found embarrassing. Imagine if Ji Tan developed a psychiatric disorder and went back to Xie Zhi’s company. What would the director of the neighboring department, who had always been at odds with him, think? Or the rival who had spread rumors that he’d slept his way to the top? Or the subordinates who admired and respected him so much?
His glorious reputation as the youngest director! His lifetime of achievements as a leader in the field! His authority, his beauty, his sterling character! All of it would vanish into smoke!
Standing before the Clearbright Life Center, a building resembling an enormous version of the Louvre’s glass pyramid, Ji Sinan calmly adjusted his glasses with the broken temple. He had no idea what his younger brother was worried about.
“If you’ve developed a psychiatric disorder, that’s all the more reason to visit your old workplace,” Ji Sinan said in his warm, gentle voice, as if it were perfectly obvious.
That made Ji Tan wonder if he was simply too vain, unwilling to face former colleagues if he developed a psychiatric disorder. He took out his phone and called Xie Zhi’s Western District number, intending to ask about the Clearbright medical center.
The call connected, but what came out of Ji Tan’s mouth was an entirely different question. “If you developed a psychiatric disorder, would you still be willing to go somewhere people knew you?”
“Of course,” Xie Zhi replied without a moment’s hesitation. “If I didn’t take advantage of it to beat the hell out of people I can’t stand, when else would I get the chance?”
“…”
“Hey, hey, hey!” While Ji Tan stood there dumbfounded, his brother had already walked through the Clearbright Life Center’s entrance and collided with two doctors coming the other way.
The two doctors, a man and a woman in white coats, were coming downstairs chatting and laughing. When they saw Ji Sinan striding in, they immediately approached him.
Then the male doctor collided with Ji Sinan, whose glasses had no lenses.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Dr. Ji?” The man took the opportunity to shove Ji Sinan, lifting his chin high.
Ji Sinan staggered, then studied the man’s face carefully. “Little Zheng.”
The female doctor said with a gleeful smile, “Dr. Ji, I’ve got good news for you. Dr. Zheng has your position now.”
Ji Sinan straightened up, slammed his shoulder hard into Dr. Zheng, and said, “Congratulations.”
Dr. Zheng stumbled sideways, eyes widening. “Ji Sinan! You’ve got some nerve!”
Ji Tan hurried over and caught hold of Dr. Zheng, smiling apologetically. “Sorry about that. My brother has some compulsive symptoms right now. Once he starts a movement, he has to repeat it seven times.”
“Huh?” Before Dr. Zheng could react, the tall Ji Sinan charged into him again like a bear ramming a tree. His arms, strengthened by repairing mechanical limbs at Quick Knife Clinic, drove a solid blow straight into his former colleague’s chest.
The female doctor stood frozen. Only after Ji Sinan delivered the final shoulder charge did she come to her senses and rush over screaming, “Dr. Zheng, are you all right?”
“Cough, cough, cough! I’m fine, Wanwan. A weakling like Ji Sinan? Cough… He’s nothing… cough… to me… Urgh!” Dr. Zheng coughed so violently that he finally retched.
“Sorry about that, Little Zheng.” Ji Sinan stood there looking innocent and apologized three times.
Dr. Zheng straightened, his face livid, and shot Ji Tan a vicious glare.
Ji Tan sheepishly let go of Dr. Zheng’s arm and stood beside his brother, adopting an identical expression of innocence. “Sorry, Brother Former Colleague. You’re a doctor, so you can understand, right?”
“Ji Sinan, this is the only way you can vent your anger now,” Dr. Zheng said, straightening his clothes and recovering his confidence. “Here’s something else for you: those lunches you used to bring Wanwan? I ate every single one! Hahaha!”
The female doctor looked bashful and gave the man a little punch.
Wanwan… That had to be Xia Wanqing from his brother’s social-media account!
Ji Tan understood.
Ji Tan was disappointed.
Ji Tan was utterly shaken.
He’d thought she might become his sister-in-law. Instead, she was a freeloader! Mooching off his brother’s research, mooching off his lunches. What a fraud!
Ji Tan fixed his older brother with a look that said I’m so disappointed in you. Lowering his voice, he fumed, “Ji Sinan, you’ve been out here acting like someone’s simp! Don’t tell people you know me!”
Ji Sinan: “Didn’t you say nothing I did could ever disgust you?”
Ji Tan: “Being a simp is where I draw the line!”
Brotherly affection was thinner than paper. How cruel the world was to a poor simp’s heart. Ji Sinan sighed and could only explain, “I gave her food because she was poor. It was all leftovers from your breakfast.”
Strictly speaking, it hadn’t been scraps left at the bottom of Ji Tan’s bowl. It was extra food from the pot, the same food Ji Sinan had packed for his own lunch. But his explanation sounded a little odd. His voice was neither particularly loud nor soft, just loud enough for passing medical staff to hear.
Xia Wanqing and Dr. Zheng stood rooted to the spot.
And it wasn’t over. Ji Sinan hadn’t wanted to argue, but once he’d said something, he had to repeat it twice more. So he had no choice but to take his younger brother by the hand and leave, saying as they walked, “I gave her food because she was poor. It was all leftovers from your breakfast…”
His voice was gentle and unhurried yet strong enough to carry, spreading along their path and echoing through the high-ceilinged lobby beneath its glass roof. The sound lingered on and on, with no end in sight.