The western district of Yangcheng in the late morning sun was a symphony of mundane chaos. The air vibrated with the bass thrum of traffic, the tinny blare of scooter horns, and the distant, rhythmic clang of construction. Michael stood on the dusty curb, squinting at a storefront under a sign that screamed, in cheerful, red block letters: FIRST LUCK PRE-OWNED AUTOS. The gaudy promise of the sign was undercut by the line of vehicles parked haphazardly on the pavement—a sad collection of dented sedans, a minivan with a cracked headlight weeping condensation, and a Jeep Wrangler whose "off-road" credentials consisted primarily of rust.
"A-Biao! Over here! Come, have some tea!"
The voice, bright and artificially sweet, cut through the diesel haze. A young woman in her late twenties leaned in the doorway, one hand on her hip. She wore a fitted, knee-length skirt suit in a shade of powder blue that seemed to defy the surrounding grime. A practiced, customer-service smile was plastered on her face. This was A-Juan, the wife of a friend-of-a-friend. The connection was tenuous, a single strand in the vast, sticky web of guanxi, but in Michael's world, it was a strand you pulled.
Inside, the "office" was a glorified closet dominated by a cheap laminate desk, a bubbling electric kettle, and the pervasive smell of cheap carpet cleaner and stale cigarette smoke. A-Juan moved with a fussy efficiency, rinsing cups with hot water from a thermos. The late morning sun, filtered through a window streaked with city filth, illuminated the dust motes dancing above a stack of smudged vehicle history reports.
"So, A-Biao," she began, the words as smooth as the oolong she poured, "what are we looking for today? You have fantastictiming. A beauty just came in. A BMW. Seven years young, one careful owner, full service history. For you, a price that will make you think you're robbing me." Her eyes gleamed with the prospect of a healthy commission.
Michael took a sip of the bitter, over-brewed tea. The fantasy—a sleek German sedan, the smell of fake leather, the envious glances—flickered for a nanosecond before being extinguished by the cold, hard numbers in his bank account and the even harder realities of interdimensional logistics.
"Actually," he said, setting the cup down with a decisive click, "I need a Wuling Sunshine. The van. For hauling goods. It's the only thing I'm interested in."
A-Juan's smile didn't vanish; it simply cooled by several degrees, solidifying into something polite and mercantile. The BMW fantasy evaporated from the room, leaving behind the scent of disappointment and cheap tea. "A… Wuling," she repeated, the word tasting bland. "Practical."
Thus commenced the haggling, a dry, unromantic dance devoid of the passion usually reserved for dream cars. Specifications were debated—engine size, mileage, the presence of a functioning radio (a luxury). History was questioned—was it previously a delivery vehicle for a pungent seafood restaurant? The dance concluded two hours and several cups of tannic tea later. For the princely sum of twenty-four thousand yuan, Michael Gao became the owner of a five-year-old, base-model Wuling Sunshine minivan. Its color was a non-committal beige that hid dirt well. Its most notable feature was a long, shallow dent running along the passenger-side sliding door, as if grazed by a careless giant. It had manual windows, a gearbox that required a firm, persuasive hand, and, as Michael would discover minutes after driving off the lot, no air conditioning.
The handover of paperwork was brisk. A-Juan's earlier warmth had fully dissipated, replaced by the crisp efficiency of a transaction concluded. The invitation to lunch, a standard post-deal ritual, was notably absent. Michael found he didn't mind at all.
Sliding behind the wheel for the first time was an event stripped of Hollywood glamour, yet profoundly significant. The vinyl seat was hot from the sun. The steering wheel felt thin, the plastic cheap. He turned the key; the engine coughed to life with a sound like shaking a box of bolts, then settled into a steady, agricultural grumble. He pulled gingerly into the traffic, the van's high stance and vague steering making him feel like the captain of a small, underpowered barge.
A strange, philosophical mood settled over him as he navigated the midday snarl. When you're a boy, he mused, you dream of Ferraris. The scream of the engine, the blur of speed. In university, you lower your sights to a BMW, a Mercedes—a badge of success. And then you grow up. You buy a Wuling Sunshine.He patted the dashboard. And you know what? It's perfect.It was a tank. It sipped fuel. With the rear seats removed, it could swallow a shocking amount of cargo. It was, for his peculiar purposes, a tool of genius.
The revelation of the missing air conditioning, as the stagnant, petrol-scented heat of the city closed in around the van, was a blow. He cranked the window down, a hot, gritty wind immediately whipping in. That witch A-Juan, he thought, not without affection. Another heartbreaker. Well played.
Yet, even sweating in his new metal box, the afternoon revealed the van's humble magic. His phone rang—a shipment of fifty cases of pesticide had arrived at the freight depot. Normally, this meant frantic calls to hire a truck, advanced payment, and begging the company for reimbursement that never quite covered the cost. Today, he simply drove to the depot, loaded the boxes himself (the van's cavernous interior swallowing them with ease), and delivered them directly. He did the math afterwards: after fuel, he was eighty yuan richer. It was a small, concrete victory. The Wuling had already begun to earn its keep.
By four o'clock, the delivery was done. On a whim, he called his manager, Zhang Zhong, expecting a reprimand for his unexplained absence. Instead, he received vague praise for his "recent productive activity." The disconnect was dizzying. He was living two lives, and in this one, he was somehow ahead.
The idea seized him with the force of inspiration. Why wait?The portal was his to command. The van was packed with potential. He could go now. A few days in the Wasteland, and he could be back for breakfast.
He drove the van back to his building, parked illegally on the curb, and with a set of borrowed wrenches, spent a sweaty twenty minutes unbolting and removing the two rear benches. The interior was now a blank, metallic cavern. The potential was palpable.
His first stop for supplies was the hardware wholesale market on the city's edge. He moved with a new, purposeful energy. He bought not for a sales quota, but for a duchy. His purchases were pragmatic, foundational: picks, shovels, crowbars, sledgehammers—the brutal poetry of manual labor. Then, the heavier items: a deep-well submersible pump, a grumbling, yellow diesel generator, two hundred meters of reinforced hose. The water. It was the key. The thought of those in Cinder Town hoarding and filtering their own washwater sickened him. If the well produced, the aquifer was there. He would give them abundance.
The van sagged on its springs as he loaded the generator. Next, he stopped at the fuel station adjacent to the market, filling three new twenty-five-liter jerry cans with diesel and loading two large tubs of engine oil and heavy grease. The van now smelled of rubber, metal, and petroleum, a perfume of industry.
Finally, as the sun began to dip, casting long shadows, he found himself parked outside a wholesale snack distributor. He sat for a moment, wrestling with a demon. The image of Zach's hopeful, monstrous face floated before him. The creature had asked for one thing: the "Feast of Many Flavors." The "glorious slop soup." The memory of the reeking buckets from Auntie Fatty's kitchen rose in his mind. He had won a small moral victory by not stopping there today. He could do better.
He walked into the distributor's warehouse, a vast, fluorescent-lit space stacked to the ceiling with cardboard castles of snacks. The owner, a man with a bored expression and a calculator permanently attached to his hand, looked up.
"I need cheap snacks," Michael said, his voice low. "The spicy strips. The… the things that are about to expire. Or just have."
The owner's eyes, previously glazed, sharpened. He glanced around the empty warehouse, then back at Michael. A slow, knowing smile spread across his face. He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur.
"Walk with me," he said, gesturing towards a heavy curtain that partitioned off a back room. "Let's talk inside."