Fate

"Who are you?"

My mind was blank, face to face with myself.

He took two steps toward me and stopped, and said flatly: "I'm Tuniu."

"No!" I found myself shouting at him with all the force I had. "How can you be Tuniu? How can you look exactly like me?"

The Tuniu in front of me paused and looked at Second Uncle beside him. They exchanged a glance. Second Uncle opened a drawer in the nearby table and rummaged out a mirror.

The mirror moved slowly in front of my face. A face appeared in it.

Wu Wei's face.

Everything fell apart. My understanding of reality was upended entirely. I opened my eyes and saw what was real — and what was real was more surreal than any dream.

I raised my head and looked at the two of them. "Who am I?"

"Your name is Wu Wei. I'm your friend, and your colleague."

The Tuniu in front of me sat down beside me and began to speak a truth:

"Your name is Wu Wei. You're an art designer at our game company. While we were developing a game called 'Desert Treasure Hunt,' you worked twenty hours straight without eating anything. When you finally finished and the design was signed off, you were so hungry you ate twenty buns. Then you drank half a bottle of water — and it caused your stomach to rupture. You were taken to the ICU and never woke up. The last thing you said to me in the office was: 'Give me some water.'"

"Then I should be in the hospital. Why am I here?"

Tuniu said nothing. Second Uncle, beside him, answered.

"You should have been in the hospital. But your attending physician — a Dr. Xu. She withdrew your treatment without getting the family's signature, and had you discharged. I went to the hospital to demand an explanation — asked her why she'd stopped it, why she'd let him go. She gave me not a single word of explanation and had me thrown out."

Second Uncle went quiet for a moment. His gaze lowered slowly to the scalpel that had fallen on the floor.

"I didn't let her off easy, either."

In that instant, the things I had witnessed during my vegetative months reassembled themselves in my mind: Dr. Xu. The scalpel. The blood on the monitor — all of it real.

I glanced sideways at Tuniu. His face was ashen, his expression rigid.

It wasn't Second Uncle who signed the discharge papers. So who had? I didn't ask that question aloud. I had a more urgent one: "Where is Ruoli?"

Tuniu and Second Uncle looked at each other again, then both lowered their heads in unison. After a long silence, Tuniu let out a slow breath and said: "Ruoli is a good person. After you went in, she never left your side. She had a box of jewellery — her mother's bridal gift. She sold every piece to raise money for your treatment. Now all that's left is the box."

He looked toward something behind me. I turned my head with difficulty. There beside my chair sat the familiar copper box: the oval pattern, the heart-shaped leaves.

"Where is she?" I pressed.

Tuniu continued: "When it happened to you, Ruoli was five months pregnant. She cooked chicken soup every day and came to the hospital every day, carrying the thermal flask and her belly. One day, out on the street, she ran into a man who'd decided to take out his rage on the world—"

The room went completely quiet. Only my own breathing remained.

I didn't cry. I didn't shout. I only heard my heart beat, very slow, very heavy, once, and then again, in my chest.

I thought of the dream: the smell from the thermal flask. Chicken soup. The scent of it had been so familiar: black-bone chicken and kidney beans.

I felt my body trembling without stop. My fingernails pressed hard into the chair's armrest. I fixed my eyes on the copper box and said through clenched teeth: "Give me the box."

Tuniu reached out to get it — Second Uncle stopped him: "Don't upset him any more today. Let him rest first."

I said nothing more. I used every ounce of force I could summon to move my right arm, reaching for the box. Second Uncle didn't stop me. I pulled it into my lap and used the last strength of my left hand to flip the lid open. Inside was a single photograph — I had seen it in the dreams: me and Ruoli together. I pinched the photo between two fingers and turned it over. On the back, in Ruoli's handwriting: "My husband, please wake up! I've already decided on our child's name — Wu Xiaobao."

The characters were faint, as though her hand was trembling as she wrote them, as though she was afraid of pressing too hard and tearing through the paper.

I held the box and looked at the photograph, absolutely still.

Second Uncle said quietly beside me: "The box sat on the table the whole time. Last Sunday it opened by itself — and that's when I found the armrest scratched up."

I said nothing. I looked at the photograph. At the three characters "Wu Xiaobao." I looked for a long, long time.

The photo made the tiniest sound in my hands — the sound of my fingertip pressing into its edge.

Wu Xiaobao. My son. Only I had never met him. He had never met me.

At last I understood the truth — a truth so cruel I couldn't take it in. I even began to regret waking up. My eyes moved to the scalpel on the floor.

Second Uncle opened his mouth as though to say something, then closed it without speaking. He leaned down, picked up the scalpel, and placed it softly in the drawer. The lock clicked shut.

The room went deeply, strangely quiet.

After a long silence, Tuniu cleared his throat softly: "You're awake — that's what matters. Everything can begin again. Get your strength back here first. Come to the city whenever you're ready."

He paused, then shifted to a tone I recognised — the tone of a project briefing: "I'm the company's project lead now. I've got a few new projects on, and I need people. Art background like yours, no one knows the work better. Once you can move, come back directly. I'll set up a position for you — you won't be short-changed."

I looked at him. A rush of questions flashed through my mind: Had Dr. Xu withdrawn my treatment to save the company medical costs? Had she been bribed to do it? Half a year ago Tuniu had still been my colleague — why had he risen to project lead so quickly?

None of these questions came out of my mouth. I only gave Tuniu a small nod.

Tuniu looked satisfied. He clapped my shoulder, stood up. "Good. That's settled. Rest well — I'll come by in a couple of days."

He turned to leave — then stopped. His eyes dropped to the floor. From beneath the table corner, a cockroach had emerged, not small. Tuniu lifted a foot, and with a wet crunch, squashed it flat. He gave it a kick to send it against the wall, and then he was gone from the broken house like a gust of wind.

The crushed cockroach hadn't died. On its back, most of its body destroyed, only two front legs still moved — feebly clawing at the air. No rhythm. No direction.

I watched the cockroach struggling against the wall. And the logical gap that had been bothering me finally answered itself:

My father's name was Wu. My mother's name was Bao. How could my name be Tuniu? How could I deserve to be called Tuniu?

I was only a beast of burden, fit to be slaughtered at any moment. I had believed, at some point, that I was the protagonist of my own story. In the end I found I was a supporting character, written off in less than five episodes.

(End)