That summer noon, Will stepped out of Penn Station, dragging a huge suitcase behind him. Along with the blazing heat came waves of strangers—men and women, tall and short, blue eyes, brown eyes, blonde hair, black hair. Every race. Every age. Every language.

Once again, he arrived in a new place.

Once again, everything reset to zero.

Once again, he had to start over.

Here, no one knew his past. His fluent English used to earn widespread admiration. Now it was just the bare minimum for daily life. His college degrees used to make people marvel. Now nobody cared whether that foreign university was awesome or obscure. And even if it was top-tier, so what? Stand on any street corner in Manhattan and ask. Harvard, Stanford, and MIT graduates are a dime a dozen, New Yorkers would say. In this city, nuclear physicists from Russia, violin virtuosos from Italy, beauty queens from Venezuela—all faded into the crowd, working ordinary jobs and collecting paychecks barely enough to scrape by.

The reward, after giving up every halo of his former life, was that he could finally live as a “normal.” Study as normal. Work as normal. Date as normal. No more hiding. No more pretending. No more explaining.

As a gay man, an immigrant, and an adult, his new life was no longer worth anyone’s curiosity or scrutiny. He maintained a purely transactional relationship with the outside world. Here, as long as the bills were paid, nobody gave a damn how he lived his life. He didn’t have to attach himself to anybody. He didn’t have to please anybody. Nor did he bother paying attention to anybody—except hot white men between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five.

What he cherished most in his new life was the state of mind of American gays. In contrast to their Chinese peers, who were soaked in fear, anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, the American gay community seemed straightforward, confident, dignified, and unapologetic. To them, living as normal came so naturally, as though they had never been given a hard time, as though being gay had always been ordinary.

In truth, it was anything but ordinary. Will had read too many American books, watched too many American films, and followed too much American news. He understood that none of it came for free. An enormous price had been paid for this “ordinary life.”

The United States as a whole was nowhere near as progressive as he had once imagined. New Yorkers and Alabama farmers were practically two different species—they had almost reached reproductive isolation. Washington, D.C.’s elites returned from neighboring West Virginia feeling the need to disinfect themselves from head to toe. Every hostility Will experienced in China—discrimination, rejection, humiliation, and stigmatization—used to be common in America too. The only difference was that America had gone through the baptism of social reflection and change decades earlier.

That baptism was born of years of victories and defeats, sweat, tears, and blood. An entire society debated the gay issue openly, inside and out, until one day in 2015, when the highest authority in the country announced its conclusion, its final decision: From now on, we treat gay people as normal citizens.

Before gay people, American society had gone through similar baptisms for many other groups. The same echo rang throughout history:

From now on, we treat slaves as normal citizens.

From now on, we treat women as normal citizens.

From now on, we treat Chinese immigrants as normal citizens.

……

Gay people are the canaries in the coal mine of civilization. If they cannot live well in a place, then neither can the majority.

Where gay people are not respected, women are not respected either. Women become the second sex. They may be required to cover themselves, please men at all times, and exist as little more than childbearing wombs. They may be denied education, property, and a political voice.

Where gay people are not treated with kindness, children are not treated with kindness either. They are neither valued nor cared for. They may be raised in hatred, exploited by adults, or even turned into weapons to “sacrifice.”

Where gay people are invisible, people with disabilities are invisible too. Physical limitations and imperfections are met with contempt. No wheelchair ramps beside staircases. No tactile paving along sidewalks. No accessible restrooms in public buildings.

And that’s not all.

Where gay people are not protected, powerless animals are not protected either. They are slaughtered brutally, abused cruelly, and killed for amusement. Dogs and cats—humanity’s furry babies—can be abandoned like garbage. Yet their owners and abusers face no consequences whatsoever, because in such countries, animal protection laws simply do not exist.

Where gay people cannot live as normal:

Democracy does not exist. The slogan of that place might as well be: Long Live the Dictator! The country’s leader is absolutely plotting to pass the throne to his son—or his daughter, if no son is available—or his son-in-law, if she is married.

Freedom of speech does not exist. Anyone can be silenced, imprisoned, or killed for posting something online or simply speaking their mind.

In those places, the law of the jungle still rules. Human vulnerability is not tolerated. Society is still built upon conflict, struggle, and scarcity.

In this era, when the internet connects everybody in real time, satellites patrol above our heads nonstop, and flights can carry people to any corner of this planet within a day, humanity has every reason to move beyond its primitive instincts—ignorance, cruelty, and impulsiveness—and treat all living things with kindness.

Gay rights are never just about gay people. They are one thread in the great tide of modern civilization.

Will remembered a quote from his history book: The tide rolls onward—vast and unstoppable.

For decades, he had watched this tide sweep from country to country, society to society, and mind to mind, following a familiar path. It always began in Northern or Western Europe—the Netherlands, Denmark, or Finland—where social experiments showed the world: See? It’s okay. Then the tide swept across the Commonwealth countries—Canada, Britain, and Australia—before reaching Southern Europe and, afterward, the United States.

Once America embraced the tide, its momentum became irresistible. Social change became the norm, the default, the new normal for humanity. From there, the tide swept through the Caribbean, South America, and Eastern Europe with ease, crushing everything in its path.

Of all remaining countries, the one that concerned Will most was, of course, China. Chinese people of recent centuries were known for being conservative, unlike their extraordinary ancestors. Would the tide of civilization ever reach China? Will often wondered. And when it did, would it take the same path America had?

Finally, on the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait, a group of Chinese people stood up. They fought their way through the same process America had: back and forth, victory and defeat, struggle and resistance, sweat, tears, blood, and death. It felt almost unreal—they spoke the same language, yet this was not the China he grew up in. Politically, it had nothing to do with him, yet he was nonetheless swept up in the wave, through his computer screen.

At last, this group of people proved to the world that they had not disgraced the millennia-old Chinese civilization. On a day in 2019, their president announced, in Mandarin, his mother tongue, “From now on, we treat gay people as normal citizens.”

All night long, fireworks set Taipei’s sky ablaze. The whole island blossomed like the radiant peonies of the High Tang—confident, open, and embracing all under Heaven.

So what about the other side of the Strait, where people claimed the same language and the same blood?

Change is never about right or wrong, but about power. He knew that land and its people all too well. The tide of protest, debate, and reconciliation would not arrive anytime soon. As far as he could see, there was only one path to real change: wait for that generation to die.

When the old returned to dust, the new would live by a different set of rules.

There was no need to feel discouraged. For thousands of years, that had always been how the land settled its unresolved debts: the perpetrators died, the victims died—no apology, no reflection, no lessons learned—in the end, time wiped everything clean.

Waiting was the only choice.

The void of time contained every possibility.

Speaking of time, Will had a secret.

Over the years as a junior clerk in the central government, he cooked up countless reports. That was his job. Most of the time, there was no data, no research, no resources, and no one to ask. He could only piece together whatever he found online, like a student cramming for an essay. To his surprise, some of those casual reports were soon distributed from Beijing down through the provinces, cities, counties, districts, and villages as official documents. His scribbles were studied downstream with the reverence of sacred scripture. They became “Orders from the Highest Power,” amplified layer upon layer until they hardened into absurd yet unquestionable government directives.

Maybe that was simply human nature, no different from hairless apes.

So, on the day he resigned—knowing he would probably never return to this place in his lifetime—he decided to play a prank.

In the middle of the government compound stood a towering stone stele. It had been there for six hundred years, proclaiming to Heaven and Earth the eternal glory of a Ming emperor. While no one was watching, he firmly wedged an inscribed titanium plate into a crevice beneath the massive stone base. Then he sealed the gap with concrete, entombing the plate as securely as the mausoleum guarded by the Terracotta Warriors.

Then he turned in his badge and walked toward a new life without looking back.

Maybe decades later, maybe centuries later, the stele would collapse—brought down by war, weather, or accident. The titanium plate would be discovered. People might regard it as nothing more than an amusing artifact. It would end up in a museum or be forgotten in some warehouse, alongside the fallen monument.

Centuries would pass. Generations would be born and die. Museums become ruins. Warehouses turn to dust. The plate would be buried once more.

Two thousand years later, every trace of the twenty-first century had vanished. Even granite had weathered into sand. The plate, however, would inevitably be unearthed again.

Some people might publish meticulously researched papers, demonstrating that the Ming emperor was actually half-human, half-alien, who spoke fluent English.

Some people might passionately promote a “retro lifestyle” based on the plate’s inscription. They claim that by practicing the wisdom of the Ancients, their bodies grow healthier and their souls happier.

Some people—perhaps for fun, perhaps for tax exemption, or simply for they are lunatics—declare it a divine revelation. A new religion would thus be born.

Another thousand years would pass.

By AD 5814, after countless miracles, pilgrimages, inquisitions, crusades, and massacres, with the full weight of civilization behind it—painting, music, literature, sculpture, philosophy, and science… this old religion would finally become the sole, unquestionable, supreme faith of all humankind. Everyone would memorize, recite, and devoutly obey the divine revelations engraved on this titanium plate from the twenty-first century.

The sacred plate read:

Hi. I’m God.

Do as I decreed:

No eating between 5:19 and 6:37.

No drinking whilst clothed below the waist.

No use of the unclean vessel called the Toilet.

No heterosexual intercourse without twelve lawful witnesses.

Whoever breaks these commandments commits an unforgivable sin and will suffer eternal damnation.

Yours,

The Lord

End of Story

Our website www.albertaspen.com is now LIVE!

The Official Site (Join and Subscribe For Free!)

Read more about the Creator’s Note: Who is Albert Aspen?

Check out Albert Aspen’s Audiobooks at Spotify: Albert Aspen Audiobooks.

Only the truth, the truth of real life, the truth of real history, and the truth of real society.

One summer afternoon, as Will sat beneath a towering phoenix tree with a book in his hands, an unexpected realization struck him like lightning: he liked men.

So I must be one of those—what they call—homosexuals, he thought, about three months after his twelfth birthday.

Not once, not even for a single moment, did he feel doubt, confusion, or shame about his sexuality, for right in the next moment, a thought rose from the abyss of his mind: it doesn’t matter.

To Will, it was like stepping into a game and realizing, Oh, my assigned weapon is a rare spear instead of the common sword, so what? The point of this game we call life is to win—and to enjoy playing it—not to obsess over how your equipment differs from everyone else’s.

If anything, he was grateful to have been born Chinese. Unlike countries that weaponized religion against people’s private relationships, China’s millennia-old civilization had left behind countless stories of same-sex love. All one had to do was open a book—like the one resting in his hands.

Read the poem Yue Ren Song. A boatman sang to the prince he loved. Delicate and beautiful, it was written during the Spring and Autumn period, six hundred years before Jesus Christ was born.

Read the chronicles of emperors and their beloved companions—who happened to be men. Take the Han dynasty. Nearly every Han emperor is recorded as having had male favorites. The most celebrated among them was Emperor Wu. While Roman men were exchanging flirtatious glances in public bathhouses, Emperor Wu was resting in the embrace of his many male lovers.

Read the romances of the Ming and Qing dynasties. While in the Far West, Europe knelt before Christianity and condemned same-sex love as a crime punishable by hanging, burning, or exile, young men in Fujian entered relationships that were half brotherhood, half marriage. Before the Rabbit God, they vowed to love one another for life—and, if necessary, to die for one another. In the same town, the celebrated painter, poet, and aristocrat Zheng Banqiao was found lamenting to a friend that he witnessed the beautiful, smooth white buttocks of a handsome young man ruined by a judicial flogging—only to complain, in the very next breath, that young men nowadays courted him only for his money.

Same-sex love appeared throughout Chinese history as naturally as eating, drinking, or sleeping. It was so common, so ordinary, and entirely unremarkable. Anyone who read Chinese classics and literature could hardly miss it. So if a Chinese person does not recognize or appreciate same-sex love, that person must be an uncultured, uneducated, unsophisticated lowlife.

Yes, a person’s view of homosexuality was one of the ways he viewed a person.

“Only straight is normal.”

“I don’t discriminate gay people. I really don’t.”

“You like men, right? So you must like me!”

Anyone who had ever uttered anything along those lines would be immediately dropped into his “human trash bin,” which means they would be forever shut out of his real life and treated merely like extras in a movie, NPCs in a game, cannon fodder on a battlefield. Nothing more.

To the teenage Will, homosexuality itself was never the issue. Growing up in China was more like surviving The Hunger Games than standing trial for one’s sexual orientation. China’s harsh, Spartan environment had one advantage: as long as you finished at the top of the class, teachers and parents alike would leave you alone. The real challenge was navigating the mediocrities around him during his school years, when humanity’s most primitive instincts—ignorance, cruelty, and impulsiveness—were at their peak.

Faggot. Tranny. Eunuch… He heard every slur there was—the Chinese versions, of course.

His exercise books were always torn by someone.

Somebody poured salt into his water bottle.

When he finished practicing a speech in class, no one applauded.

……

Yet he didn’t care.

He smoothed the crinkled pages and taped them back together.

He spat out the salty water and sneered loudly, “Childish!”

He walked off the podium, head held high, leaving them to choke on their own jealousy.

Amid the crossfire of fate, agonizing over whether you liked men or women seemed painfully juvenile. He knew exactly what mattered: to outrun those suckers, one by one, in the race of life. I’m in this classroom because I intend to win the brutal competition ahead—not because I want to be friends with you. He never minded being alone. The Lord was alone too. Who would dare say a word?

From middle school to high school, from college to work, he—the Gay Lord—dominated the rankings from beginning to end, always finishing first. At every crucial stage of selection, he was the only one chosen by “The Bests”: the best high school, the best university, and finally, the best career platform, a position in Beijing within the Central Government, at the age of twenty-one. In a country of 1.4 billion people, there was nowhere higher to climb.

As for the classmates who had given him a hard time, karma took care of everything.

Those who mocked him in middle school ended up in mediocre high schools. By the strict rules of China’s educational pyramid, they could kiss any respectable university goodbye.

Those who ridiculed him in high school never made it beyond an ordinary, local university in River North. By the harsh rules of China’s target-school hierarchy, they could kiss any lucrative career goodbye.

Those who proudly called themselves “normal heterosexuals” in college found themselves still scrambling for jobs after graduation, in the open market. Failing to be selected into the state system before commencement permanently tarnished one’s provenance, meaning they had lost any chance of entering the upper ranks of this power-worshipping society. By the ruthless rules of China’s caste system, they could kiss any possibility of touching a high life, a life called “the people above other people,” goodbye forever.

With every graduation, he cut ties with almost every classmate. There was no reason to look back. He never joined any of their online groups, nor did he care to glimpse—or display—the scenery of lives unfolding in parallel. It was the greatest mercy he could offer those... losers.

He even had reason to thank them. Their prejudice and discrimination had fueled him with an endless supply of hatred, and hatred was a formidable source of strength. When necessary, hatred is far more powerful than love.

The story, however, was only halfway over.

When he finally reached the upper ranks of society and lifted his eyes, he was surprised: there seemed to be an extraordinary number of talented men among gay people, or rather, an extraordinary number of gay people among talented men. They were smart, handsome, accomplished, articulate—the very victors of Darwinian competition, the embodiment of the perfect man. Only around Will did they drop the act and behave like ordinary bitches, even though neither Will nor any of them had ever admitted to being “one of them.”

Youth was fleeting. The best years of boyhood vanished in the blink of an eye. Within a few years, one by one, they had all settled down with women. Their weddings filled the grandest ballrooms of Beijing’s most luxurious hotels. Senior officials from their bureaus served as witnesses. Beneath dazzling spotlights, they stood at the top of society’s pyramid, proudly declaring that they had finally attained life’s ultimate success.

The next step was children, of course.

Then the script diverged. Over the following years, some quietly divorced. Some openly lived double lives. Others tore each other apart, dragging their marriages—and their disgrace—into the workplace.

It was all karma. Those poor women, often raised by conservative and “normal” parents, were taught to believe that the world was simple, that life followed a script: find an honest man, get married, bear children, become a devoted wife. When their husbands gradually stopped touching them, they invariably blamed themselves, never realizing the men they loved were moaning in another man’s bed.

In truth, these stories were the real norm in China. There were tens of millions of them. Leaving one’s country in search of freedom was never a realistic choice for most people. Sooner or later, many gay men chose deception. They dragged innocent women into a lifetime of misery, burying one lie beneath another, creating greater suffering to escape the one already before them. Yet those stories survived only as tabloid gossip and cheap jokes. No one confronted the problem honestly, and no media outlet dared report it under the countless restrictions imposed by the Communist Party’s propaganda authorities.

Will pitied those gay men. But he despised them even more. He would never live like that. He was too proud. If this backward society cannot offer me the life I want, he thought, then I will make my way to one that can.

One day, he found himself ready for a bigger world, mentally and financially.

On that day, he had mastered English to a near-native level. A second language gave him the wings to cross the ocean.

And once again, he made it!

When he finally stood on Fifth Avenue in New York, watching the Pride Parade, he looked out over a sea of people cheering and laughing as rainbow flags rippled through the crowd like waves of color. He felt, for the first time in his life, the warmth of society itself, even though he couldn’t help wondering how much of it was genuine.

To Be Continued…

The Story Continues at Bonus Story II: The Gay and The Lord

Our website www.albertaspen.com is now LIVE!

The Official Site (Join and Subscribe For Free!)

Read more about the Creator’s Note: Who is Albert Aspen?

Check out Albert Aspen’s Audiobooks at Spotify: Albert Aspen Audiobooks.

The Love of My Life—or a Green Card Express?

“Hey, babe! What’s up?” Chris appeared on the phone screen, background blurred. His large and round head perched on a thick neck that seemed to merge directly into his shoulders, making him look like a human-sized panda. Close-cropped sandy hair revealed a receding hairline. The flesh on his cheeks carried the ruddy complexion of someone accustomed to beer, sunlight, or both.

“Hi, dear. You know I never answer ‘What’s up?’” Will replied in a flirtatious tone. As he spoke, the Sativa gummies began to kick in, overtaking the Adderall from two hours earlier and overpowering the Zoloft that had been on duty since morning.

“Why? What’s wrong with ‘What’s up?’”

“It’s the most meaningless question in the English language! You ask it, so technically I should answer, but it’s far too casual to deserve a serious response.” Will pointed a finger upward. “What’s up? The sky. The clouds. The stars. That’s what’s up. People with class would never say ‘What’s up?’ It’s a Redneck-Exclusive greeting.”

“Okay, then.” Chris laughed. “Guess I’m a New Jersey—born redneck.”

“Of course you’re an exception.” A fond smile tugged at the corner of Will’s mouth. “You’re the finest redneck New Jersey has ever produced.” Then he asked, “How are the Canary Islands?”

“It’s fantastic. So warm and sunny here! I’m literally becoming a redneck.” Chris tilted the phone to show the sunburn spreading across his back before asking, “How’s the weather in New York?”

“You know better than I do: sunny as heaven, cold as hell.” Will pursed his lips. “In a New York winter, you can have sunshine or warmth, but never both.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, babe! I wish you could be here with me. I miss you so much.” Chris smiled.

“I wish I could, too, but... you know...” Will shrugged. “With a Chinese passport, I need a visa almost everywhere I go—unless I'm heading to Cuba, or Iran, or North Korea… Wait,” he said, raising a finger. “Actually, scratch North Korea. Kim stopped letting Chinese visitors in visa-free after the pandemic.”

“You’ll get a U.S. passport,” Chris said with a grin, “as long as you marry a citizen, like me...”

“Was that a proposal?” Will leaned closer to the screen. Suddenly, a gust of cold wind slipped down his collar, and he instinctively pulled his wool coat tighter around himself.

“Haha, I ain’t doing nothin’...” Chris said, widening his eyes in mock innocence.

Will looked genuinely offended. “You know bad grammar drives me crazy. I have PTSD from years of English exams!”

“Got ya!” Chris said with a triumphant grin. Then he snapped his fingers. “Right! Your birthday was around this time, wasn’t it? Got any plans?”

“Oh, thank you, dear.” Will smiled. “I stopped celebrating birthdays years ago. That way, I can always tell people I’m twenty-two.” He spread his hands dramatically. “Time is an illusion. So is age.”

“Then happy twenty-second birthday!” Chris let out a laugh. “We’ll celebrate somehow...” As he spoke, a young man walked behind him, briefly tearing a slit in the blurred virtual background. Through it flashed a glimpse of golden sand, blue sky, and the Atlantic sunset beyond before the image sealed itself again.

“Who’s that?” Will asked.

“Oh, that’s... my cousin.” Chris hesitated for a fraction of a second. “He’s driving me to the airport tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Will narrowed his eyes. “But why does your cousin look Asian?”

“Cuz we are Italians—the Chinese of Europe.” Chris attempted to brush it off.

“What?” Will shot back. “You used to tell me Europeans didn’t think Chinese people were cool.”

“They think Chinese people are cool now.” Chris grinned. “These days, people hear you’re Chinese and start marveling at how advanced China has become. But when I tell them I’m American? Half the time I get smirks instead of respect.”

“What about the other half?” Will asked.

“The other half of the time, they mimic the American president’s voice and tell me to ‘Go back to your own country!’ Honestly, if anyone deserves a medal from Beijing, it’s President Downit. He single-handedly boosted China’s image by lowering America’s. Comparison does the rest—”

“Okay, okay, dear. Let’s go with that.” Will cut him off, ending the increasingly elaborate explanation before it could go any further. “When are you coming back?”

“I’ll be back Monday night.” Chris said. “Maybe I can see you on Wednesday?”

“For sure!” Will replied, a smile spreading across his face as he pulled open the door of the pizzeria. “I can’t wait to see you.”

“You too, honey. Mwah.” Chris puckered his lips and blew a kiss before the screen went dark.

Stepping in, Will found only a handful of customers scattered among the booths. The pizza lady rested her elbows on the counter, eyes fixed on him, ready to take the order.

Will’s gaze swept across the large metal trays behind the glass, automatically skipping past every vegan option. I didn’t evolve all the way to human just to eat vegetables.

He wasn't sure whether it was him or the Sativa talking.

Cheese or Margherita? Too basic.

Pepperoni, Meat Lovers, Buffalo Chicken? Too ordinary.

Anything interesting?

Fig & Prosciutto caught his eye. Jammy figs, tangy Gorgonzola, salty prosciutto, peppery arugula, finished with a drizzle of balsamic onions—like an Impressionist painting, as though someone had captured the last colors of summer and baked them onto a crust. It’s not pizza. It’s art!

“Alright,” he said. “Fig it is.”

One slice was never enough. What should the second be?

Pulled Pork Pizza. A new menu item.

“How does it look?”

The pizza lady pointed toward the lower shelf of the display case: a pie topped with guanciale, shredded pork, mozzarella, red peppers, jalapeños, and cilantro over barbecue sauce. Staring at it, one could almost picture a rustic farmhouse basking beneath the Tuscan sun.

“Yes, please.”

A few taps later, the inevitable tipping screen appeared on the payment terminal—the great American ritual.

He remembered when he first came to this country, older students told him 15 percent was enough at restaurants, while haircuts and cab rides only called for a token tip. Years later, 20 percent had become the minimum. Many restaurants even added a “Tip” line on top of a service fee. Especially after the pandemic, tipping spread like a virus. Haircuts, taxis, coffee, takeout, delivery—wherever there was a payment screen, there was a prompt for a tip. Some Americans even took pride in indulging this greed, passing off this warped system of transactions as “American tradition.” At this rate, it won't be long before the IRS adds a “Tip” line to tax returns. After all, IRS agents provide a service too, don't they? And who can guarantee the government pays them a living wage?

Will rolled his eyes inwardly. Keeping his expression 100% neutral, he scrolled all the way to the bottom of the screen.

—No “No Tip” button.

Of course not. That would have made things too easy.

The closest option was “Other,” which opened a blank field waiting for him to enter an amount.

The pizza lady stood right in front of him, watching.

Without the slightest hesitation, Will typed “$0.00” and unapologetically tapped his phone against the card reader.

When he found a booth and sat down, the Sativa had fully taken hold of his mind. Time itself seemed to loosen. A second stretched outward, unfolding into something vast. A minute could feel like an afternoon. Every moment seemed to linger for a century long. He could feel everything: The hum of the refrigerator behind the counter. The scrape of a chair across tile. The warmth rising from the pizza boxes. The faint sting of winter air still trapped in his coat. The loud clack as the pizza lady slammed the cash drawer shut...

Chris always said, “America’s tipping culture is a rotten social habit—every bit as toxic, unnecessary, and foul as as women’s foot-binding in imperial China or the tight-laced corsets of Victorian Europe. It serves no purpose except to make the experience unpleasant.” His position was clear: just put the real price on the menu, and charge exactly what’s written, like other countries on Earth. Every civilized American has a duty to boycott this ridiculous, coercive, out-of-control custom and leave transactions easy, clean-cut, and stress-free. “Make America Gratuity-less Again!”

Always so sharp. So fearless. Offensive if necessary.

God, how much he enjoyed Chris. They shared the same impatience, the same irreverence, and the same refusal to tolerate nonsense.

Whenever some slow-driving grandma held traffic hostage, Chris would lean on the horn while Will stuck his middle finger out the window. “If you’re going to drive slow as fuck, get out of the left lane!”

When a waiter seated them at a cramped table by the bathroom instead of in a decent booth, Will would spend the rest of the meal visibly annoyed, while Chris would leave only a one-dollar tip, along with a note: “This is still too much for a condescending prick. You’re welcome!”

Chris had a thing for Asians. Chinese in particular. His last boyfriend was Chinese. His last, last boyfriend was Chinese. And his last, last, last boyfriend was, still, Chinese. According to Chris himself: “If I’m dating an Asian, why would I choose someone from the vassal states when I can date one directly from the Central Empire?”

Will had no objection whatsoever to Chris’s “yellow fever,” as he was hardly in a position to judge: he adored white men.

Anglo-Saxons. Germans. Gauls. Celts. Romans. He found them all irresistibly beautiful. When he studied European history in college, the only thought occupying his horny mind was: Why are all these magnificently handsome white men so determined to kill one another? He read about wars, invasions, massacres, crusades, dynastic feuds, and centuries of bloodshed, then arrived at the same conclusion every time: If somebody had promoted gay culture a little more aggressively, Europeans might have spent the last two thousand years bathing in peace, beauty, and happy Greek-style sex, instead of repeatedly slaughtering each other. Christianity should really go to the hell it invented!

Will liked almost everything about Chris. Almost everything. Except sex. He couldn’t lie about that.

As endearing as Chris was in his own oversized-panda way, something inside Will recoiled whenever the relationship turned physical. Every time Chris’s considerable bulk came crashing toward him, Will entertained the same fantasy: he would roll neatly out of the way, the mattress split open like a trapdoor, and Chris would vanish into a bottomless abyss, falling forever into the darkness below.

Unfortunately, rolling out of the way was not an option. If he wanted the Freedom from Fear—fear of employers, fear of visa deadlines, fear of Washington’s ever-changing immigration policies—he needed to capture a living, breathing American citizen and convince him to sign a marriage certificate. ASAP.

In a big city like New York, finding a person for some fun was easy, but finding one to get married was not. In fact, it was astonishingly difficult. Young people treated commitment like an unpleasant tax to be postponed. Every eligible bachelor was busy climbing ladders, switching jobs, moving apartments, or chasing new mates. Nobody intended to settle down, until the first unmistakable signs of aging kicked in, which usually happened around thirty-five.

Luckily, Will had already snared Chris. The man checked every box: American citizen, stable job, past thirty-five yet not too old—a criterion on which he was unwilling to compromise. To an immigrant like Will, Chris was less the love of his life than a fast track to a green card.

Which was why he found Chris’s secrecy almost unnecessary. If Chris wanted the occasional fling behind his back, just go ahead and enjoy. As long as the larger arrangement remained intact, Will preferred not to know. Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell!

Suddenly, the lady's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. With his pizza fresh from the oven, he settled back into the booth and immediately grabbed a slice, taking an enormous bite. Any pizza abandoned long enough for the cheese to cool and stiffen was, in his view, an act of disrespect toward one of humanity’s greatest culinary achievements.

End of Episode

Our website www.albertaspen.com is now LIVE!

The Official Site (Join and Subscribe For Free!)

Read more about the Creator’s Note: Who is Albert Aspen?

Check out Albert Aspen’s Audiobooks at Spotify: Albert Aspen Audiobooks.

Thirty Years Later, Nothing Remains the Same

“Thank you, handsome!” the older woman said in Mandarin as she extended her left hand to take back the phone. “Where are you from?” Of course, by “where,” she meant where in China.

“River North Province,” Will replied. “How about you?”

Just then, a hurried passerby cut between them, knocking the device to the ground before continuing on without so much as a glance back.

“Very classy. Asshole! You late for your own funeral?” Will shouted in English at the jerk disappearing into the distance. Then he turned back and asked in Mandarin, “Is it okay?”

The woman bent down, picked the sleek slab up, and checked it over. “Thank Buddha! It’s fine. Phones today are smarter, but far too fragile. Those Motorola bricks back in the 1990s could dent the floor if you dropped one.” Her face darkened again. “Look at people like this. Americans have lost their manners.”

“Well, this is New York,” Will explained. “That person could’ve come from anywhere in the world.”

“You’re right.” She nodded. “That’s why people say, ‘New York is New York. America is America.’” Then, smiling again, she asked, “Do you work nearby, handsome?”

“Yes,” Will replied, shoving his hands into his pockets against the cold.

“Wow, so you’re one of those Wall Street elites!” she exclaimed in Mandarin to her daughter. “How Niu Bee!”

Niu Bee. Perhaps Quentin Tarantino’s favorite Chinese phrase. Translated literally, it meant “cow cunt,” though its actual meaning could not have been further from that: something closer to “fucking awesome.”

Will felt slightly embarrassed. It had been many years since he last heard such a vulgar yet sincere compliment.

“Did you also study here in the United States, handsome?” she probed further.

“Yes. The one uptown,” Will answered, deliberately keeping his reply vague.

The woman gave him a thumbs-up and immediately burst into excited admiration. “Then it must be Columbia University—Ivy League!” She turned to her daughter. “Learn English well, study at an American university, come to New York, get a stable job in one of those tall office buildings, and earn big U.S. dollars. Just like this uncl—” Catching the stiffness in Will’s expression, she quickly corrected herself. “—big brother!”

The woman’s affectionate gushing suddenly reminded Will of his mother. Back when he was a child, in that shabby place he called home, in a life soaked in scarcity, his mother had spoken those exact same words in that exact same tone: Learn English well. Study at an American university. Go to New York. Then get a stable job in one of those bright office towers and earn big U.S. dollars. All at once, the years in between seemed to collapse. He now stood at the far reach of his childhood wish. He had crossed swamps, climbed mountains, and sailed across oceans, all to become an ordinary office worker in New York.

“Thank you. What about you? Visiting as tourists?” Will asked.

“Yes. This is my second time. It’s very difficult to get a visa nowadays, thanks to this U.S. president,” the woman complained.

“Oh? When did you come last time?”

“1996. Thirty years ago.” She shook her head. “This time, everything in New York feels obsolete and rusty. The subways, the airports, the potholes, the cityscape…crazy people everywhere…” She paused before adding, almost matter-of-factly: “Compared to this, Shanghai is far more advanced now.”

“Really?” Will glanced around, realizing he had lived in New York too long to find anything strange anymore.

“Haven’t you gone back to see for yourself?” she asked, equally astonished.

“No. I haven’t been back to China in… years.” Will paused, calculating silently. How many years had it been since he first came to the United States? Two years for his master’s degree, then one year of OPT, followed by three years on an H-1B visa. Now he was already in the second year of his H-1B extension, praying his company might someday show mercy and sponsor his green card…

“By the way, handsome, do you know where we can buy some souvenirs?” the woman asked, smoothly moving on to the next topic.

“I think there’s a gift shop right over there.” Will pointed toward the street corner.

“Oh, no! They’re all ‘Made in China.’ We want to buy products actually made in America. If we carry these all the way back home and our relatives flip them over to see a ‘Yiwu, Zhejiang’ stamp, they’ll laugh us to death.” She curled her lip, mimicking their smug, mocking expressions. “‘Oh wow, so you flew halfway across the world just to buy things made in the next town over?’” Then she looked back at Will, suddenly sincere again. “Is there somewhere else we could try?”

Will thought for a moment, then pointed toward a skyscraper farther south. “See that building? The one with D-O-W-N-I-T on the roof. That’s the famous president’s building. Inside, he even set up a gift shop dedicated entirely to himself.” Will paused slightly before adding: “Those products are probably made in America… I suppose.”

“They are made in China too,” her daughter answered immediately.

“Oh, yes, we just went there,” the woman said. “Those giant-face mugs, those red slogan hats, even the calendars with the whole fake-smiling family—all ‘Made in China.’” She shook her head. “He rails against China every single day, yet apparently can’t manufacture even one of these little knickknacks himself.” Then she asked: “Does America still make anything anymore?”

In the 2020s, the United States looked almost addicted to “Made in China.” From earplugs to loudspeakers, from treadmills to gaming chairs, from Bibles to sex toys, from condoms to baby bottles, from wedding decorations to divorce-paper folders, from Christmas lights to the trash bins used to throw them away. Computers, desks, toilets, mugs, hangers, lamps, even American flags—one way or another, openly or indirectly, almost everything seemed touched by the label: “Made in China.” Materially speaking, the People’s Republic had quietly colonized everyday American life. Which made the question difficult to avoid: What, exactly, did the United States still manufacture?

“Well, why don’t I help you find out?” Will took out his phone and spoke into the AI in English: “Hey AI, what products are still made in the USA nowadays?”

The AI immediately began listing American-made merchandise: AR-15 rifles, F-35 fighter jets, SpaceX rockets…

Will rolled his eyes. “Okay, AI, be realistic,” he muttered. “Just tell me where I can buy some fuc—” He stopped himself and rephrased: “Where can I find some fun ‘Made in America’ souvenirs around Downtown Manhattan?”

He then turned the screen toward the woman. “It says to try Union Square. There’s a small market where local craftspeople sell handmade things. Ordinary Americans making things themselves.” Will paused before adding dryly: “So those should be genuinely OG ‘Made in America.’”

“You are so helpful! Thank you, handsome.” Then the woman pressed on: “Are you married?”

Will almost rolled his eyes to the sky. Older generations never seemed to understand personal boundaries. Give them an inch and they would take a mile—always asking whether you were married, whether you had children... He truly wanted to slam the words in her face: That’s none of your business.

But maintaining an elegant composure, he replied, “Not yet. I am in a relationship.”

“That’s wonderful! A handsome man like you must have girls lining up. Marry a pretty white wife and have a mixed-race baby!” the older woman giggled cheerfully.

This time, Will rolled his eyes to the highest heaven. Still, he kept his composure, pretended to check the time on his phone, then said politely: “Well, I should get back to work. Enjoy your visit. Goodbye!”

Finally, the pizza shop was only a few steps away. Yet the buzz of an incoming video call from “Chris Withers” stopped him in his tracks. A smile immediately spread across his face as he pressed “Accept.”

“Hey, babe! How are you doing?” A man with a warm smile popped onto the screen, his background blurred.

End of Episode

Our website is now LIVE: The Official Site (Join and Subscribe For Free!)

Read more about the Creator’s Note: Who is Albert Aspen?

Check out Albert Aspen’s Audiobooks at Spotify: Albert Aspen Audiobooks.

The Great Question That Haunts Everyone for Life: What to Eat for Lunch?

Stepping out of the office, Will felt a pulse thudding at the base of his skull. It was as if hundreds of rabbits had been loosed inside his chest, ricocheting in every direction, turning his thoughts into a frantic blur.

I shouldn’t have taken two. These psychiatric meds… they’re no better than drugs. They dull the symptoms, but never touch the root. There’s no exit plan in sight—you feel terrible without them, and once you start, the dosage only goes up—how is that any different from drugs?

Lost in thought, Will drifted into the elevator lobby just as a car arrived and its doors slid open. He stepped in, only to realize it was going up. Also inside were an Asian woman and a white man, both dressed in professional suits.

“Does it all have to be done today?” the woman asked, holding a work laptop in her left arm.

“That’s the order from the ‘people up there,’” the man replied.

“That’s a lot of work, with so many details to take care of,” she said.

“Well, it is what it is. It is what it is. Hush…” The man glanced around, noticing others in the elevator—no talking about business here. The elevator stopped at the eighteenth floor, and the two quickly stormed out.

Out of the building, the sun shone overhead; a gust of cold wind swept in, and Will pulled his coat tighter around himself. Damn—January, the coldest month in New York. The stone-paved street of Wall Street was worn smooth by centuries of footsteps. Snow iced the uneven slabs, forcing him to tread carefully so he wouldn’t slip. Will pushed past crowd after crowd of tourists, deliverymen, and office workers, under scaffolding tunnels that stretched in every direction.

In winter, New York has nothing to do with fashion. Everyone was bundled into plump cocoons of heavy coats—except for the occasional pair of yoga pants. Trends repeat themselves like reincarnation: those yoga pants looked strikingly similar to the stirrup pants that swept across China in the 1990s. Women on the street seemed utterly unafraid of the bitter cold freezing their legs. Will couldn’t make sense of it. Why would they choose pants that clung so tightly in the dead of winter? Fashion magazines would never approve of such attire. But who cares? No one read those self-important magazines anymore. Over two decades into the twenty-first century, fashion magazines had become little more than glossy ad catalogs, far removed from the aesthetic authority they once claimed. Few people bothered to carry those heavy volumes home—they took up space, gathered dust, and would inevitably end up in landfills anyway.

Anyway—walking westward, Will kept scrolling on his phone. At that moment, he was preoccupied with the great question that haunts everyone for life: what to eat for lunch.

Head down, he flicked through the options.

That French restaurant on Maiden Lane cost too much, with four dollar signs () next to its name. The absurdly small tables, paired with comically oversized plates, always put him off. Eating there felt like a disciplined detainee waiting for the waiter’s grand arrival—more a compliance test than fine dining. Moreover, given the portions, French cuisine was never suitable for a work lunch.

The food truck at the corner of Gold Street was serving the best American fried chicken in New York City. Golden chicken tenders dipped in premium ranch, crispy fries, juicy coleslaw, and a slice of toast—topped, for good measure, with a small paper American flag. He glanced over and saw a cluster of burly cops gathered out front, laughing among themselves, ignoring the repeated calls of “Order’s ready.” One might easily mistake them for a pack of street thugs if not for the uniforms. At this rate, it would be at least another half hour before his turn. He rolled his eyes and moved on.

There is a decent Italian pasta place over there, Will thought, but pasta is basically just noodles and sauce—too plain.

How about sushi? In this weather? Who eats something that cold and raw? I’m not some barbaric Westerner. He dismissed the idea immediately.

The Mexican diner on William Street was good—a balanced mix of meat and vegetables, with a wide variety of ingredients, and an ordering process that was simple and efficient, almost streamlined. Wait, didn’t I have Mexican yesterday? Better skip it today, then.

Chinese food, hmm. New York’s decent Chinese restaurants were mostly in Flushing or Midtown. As for those in Downtown—Shanghai, Sichuan, Cantonese, or Northern—they were an embarrassment to the dazzling breadth of Chinese cuisine, despite their glowing Google ratings. Restaurants like that wouldn’t last a few months if opened in China. But lucky for them, most Americans had never tasted the real deal. For many, the best they could imagine was General Tso’s chicken—a so-called Chinese dish that General Tso himself would never have recognized. This market of diners, shaped by a vaguely Puritan mindset, tended to be generous in its ratings. As a result, the more a place’s reviews came from non-Chinese customers, the less trustworthy its Google rating became.

Will kept scrolling on his phone. What else was there?

A McDonald’s sat a block away.

Ugh. Who would eat dirt-cheap junk food like that? He frowned in disgust.

Right, there is a pizzeria on Whitehall Street, the best in Downtown. It hit him all at once. Pizza was never a bad choice—maybe not the best, but never the wrong one. He slipped his phone into his pocket, turned left, and headed that way.

As he passed the Charging Bull, his mind wandering, two tourists—a middle-aged woman and her teenage daughter—suddenly stopped him.

“Could you help us take some photos?” the woman asked in standard Mandarin.

Wow! How rude! Will thought. What makes her assume that I am Chinese? I look so international! Yet he didn’t say any of it out loud, simply took the phone and framed them in the shot.

The mother-daughter duo maneuvered around the other tourists—first posing at the bull’s head, gripping its horns; then pressing their hands against its face; then circling behind it and striking a pose as if slapping its raised butt; and finally crouching down to clutch its testicles, smiling at the camera, flashing a V sign, and shouting, “Yeah!” The bull’s brownish body was uniformly dark and weathered, except for its testicles, worn shiny by countless tourists’ touches.

Poor bull, sexually harassed by strangers day after day. If it had a living soul, it would surely be in agony. Then again: because it was constantly groped by hands from all around the world, it would never end up coated in verdigris like the Statue of Liberty. In a sense, it was kept alive by human contact.

End of Episode

Our website is now LIVE: The Official Site (Join and Subscribe For Free!)

Read more about the Creator’s Note: Who is Albert Aspen?

Check out Albert Aspen’s Audiobooks at Spotify: Albert Aspen Audiobooks.

Finally, Finally, New York, New York!

“Office real estate is the future of investing. Who wouldn’t want a stake in it? Take a look out of my window—Manhattan’s iconic skyline is nothing but a forest of soaring office towers: the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, the Chrysler Building… We represent one of the largest funds focused on office real estate in this city, and I am fully confident your investment will be richly rewarded. The outlook is extremely strong. So let me say this to every investor: this is a BULL STORY. A bright future awaits us all.”

Two computer monitors sat on the desk. The left displayed a video-conference interface densely packed with dozens of tiny windows—some dark, others occupied by staring big-heads. The right showed a draft in the Notepad application, with lengthy yet succinct prompt lines.

“Investing in our fund would absolutely be a wise choice. After all, if you don’t invest in a city like New York, where else in the world can you invest? New York is the capital of the entire human world in this era!” A lean young Asian man spoke in fluent American English, with a touch of theatricality in his expression. Earphones in, his pale skin catching a cold metallic luster, his hair cut in a tight skin fade, thin black frames resting on his face, a flawlessly professional smile fixed in place. Only the small crimson mole at the tail of his right eyebrow revealed that this was Little Mouse, decades later.

“We would welcome an increased level of investment from your institution,” he said. Then, suddenly—“New York… Concrete jungle where dreams are made of… There’s nothing you can’t do…” he burst into an Alicia Keys song, a half-step flat but full of excitement, rolling his shoulders toward the camera, fists clenched, as if riffing in jazz, eyes darting to the lyrics on the Notepad app. The staring big-heads on the screen remained utterly unmoved.

Meanwhile, a message popped up in the Microsoft Teams app.

Manager Mark: No need to come across as so desperate, Will.

Little Mouse—no, now his name was Will—reset his expression to composed and professional, then said, “Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.” Suddenly, something ignited from behind his ears across the back of his head. But his mind remained fixed on the meeting.

On the left screen, Mark’s window expanded across the conference grid, showing a white man with a touch of gray in his hair. “Thank you, Will. I’ll now pass things over to Raj from the IT department to explain the technical details of how we communicate sensitive data with stakeholders.”

Then a window bearing the name tag “Rajdeyatabhaisajyaguru, Pamasabbauarimboqi” rose from the cluster of small screens. A round, smiling face with features tied to South Asia began speaking in English—or rather, his version of English.

Will turned off the camera and muted himself, his thumbnail window instantly blacking out. He picked out one side of his earphones, removed his glass frames with no lens, and stretched back. His hand found the base of his skull, kneading slowly. This headache had been haunting the left side for some time—even the faintest emotional strain would switch it on, like a circuit tripping behind his eyes. In the earphone, Raj went on and on. The few words Will could catch were “key data,” “automation,” and “algorithm”…

Although Will had met Raj in the virtual realm regularly over the past few years, sometimes even exchanging and clarifying important details, he still couldn’t fully pronounce Raj’s name, couldn’t quite recognize his face, couldn’t truly understand his speech—and, more importantly, he couldn’t show any of it; otherwise, he would be violating one of the greatest taboos of this globalized age—fake it, though unlikely to make it.

Every time Will had a meeting with Raj, whatever he said, the best way for Will to follow was to guess. Luckily, he had developed a set of safe, ready-made responses: “Thank you so much! I appreciate everything!” “Oh yeah! I trust your professional opinion.” “Absolutely! I agree with you.” “Whatever works. I’m sure it will be fantastic!” “Brilliant perspective. Let’s sort out the details via text later!” Text communication, however, was no easier. Sometimes Will recognized every word Raj wrote, yet still couldn’t grasp the meaning once they formed a sentence; apart from key nouns like money or time, the collocations and idiomatic usages felt entirely different. He fed Raj's words into AI once—and the AI stared back, equally lost. Did we learn the same English at all? Will wondered. Is it that I learned a pirated version—or that he did?

He also had no idea where this Raj was located—maybe somewhere in the United States, Canada, perhaps some city in India, or Nepal even! This great American Inc. had outsourced most of its jobs to the other side of the world anyway. Who gave a damn where he was, as long as he materialized out of the void and fixed whatever broke when a ticket was placed?

The internet had truly changed everything.

Will’s stomach rumbled. He checked the time on Microsoft Teams: 12:00 PM, then glanced to the right, toward the glass-partitioned office of Mark—not there. Great. Will pushed himself out of his chair and walked to the far end of the office, Raj’s voice still going in his earphone.

Stepping into the pantry, he looked around. Two glossy, barista-style coffee machines stood side by side, serving espresso, latte, cappuccino, flat white, café au lait… Beside them, racks displayed dozens of beans from around the world—Colombia, Guatemala, Sumatra, Ethiopia, even Yunnan, China, along with non-coffee options such as Japanese Uji Matcha, Taiwanese Mountain Oolong, British Royal Earl Grey, Indian chai, Belgian chocolate. Next to the rack, which held five kinds of sugar packets and wooden stirrers, stood a row of shiny pump bottles offering syrups—hazelnut, toffee, sugar cookie, caramel, vanilla, sugar-free almond… Snacks lined the opposite counter: kettle chips, Twinkies, frosted cookies, peanut butter bars, cinnamon donuts… American stuff is always so crazily greasy and sweet. To his left sat a round fruit tray—yellow bananas, red strawberries, purple grapes, green apples, pink melon slices. He turned around and pulled open the heavy steel double doors of the refrigerator, like the gates of a vault, and frowned: only a few rows of red cans of Coca-Cola and blue cans of Pepsi remained. The diet sodas, Fanta, orange juice, lemonade, and energy drinks were all gone. The Greek yogurts had vanished; even the flamboyant bottles of ginger kombucha had been taken. He shut the doors and checked the cabinet below the counter: nothing but Oreos, mixed nuts, and raisins. None of it appealed to him. Will reopened the refrigerator, reached behind a stack of lunch boxes, pulled out a bottle of Acqua Panna, and walked back.

They really should restock more frequently, he thought, as he hurriedly grabbed the mouse to shake his status from yellow “away” to green “present.” The glare from the opposite window caught his eye as he lowered himself into his chair; he found himself looking toward it.

Outside the glass wall in front of his desk, across Pine Street, stood another skyscraper—an office building recently converted into residential apartments. Only a few dozen feet away, he could see the unit across from him through its large window. Apparently a new tenant had moved in while Will worked from home these past few days.

The bright midday sun spilled into the apartment, setting the oak floor aglow. Just beyond the reach of the light, a white man, thirtyish, sat sideways at a desk farther inside, on a call. Headphones pressed over his wavy chestnut hair, beard neatly trimmed, bare feet flat on the floor, he was undressed save for dark blue boxer briefs. His broad back muscles caught the reflected light from the floor, as though brushed in cream. Suddenly, he paused. Long fingers curled to hook one side of the headphones off his ear. He said something to the laptop, then closed it. Setting them down, he rose—easily six feet tall—and walked to the far end of the apartment, opening the door. A young woman stood outside, her straight, dark blonde hair falling to her shoulders. She smiled and leaned in, brushing her cheeks against his on both sides. She handed him a red paper bag and stepped in, her fingers rising slowly to her chin, drawing down the long zipper of her cashmere coat. The man set the bag on the desk, turned, and walked straight toward the window. Before his lower body reached the sunlight, Will quickly ducked beneath the cubicle partition.

Three seconds later, Will lifted his head again, only to see that the curtains were already drawn, their skin-toned fabric swaying…

Just then, Raj’s voice finally wound down. Mark said a few words and ended the call. And a message appeared on Microsoft Teams:

Manager Mark: I have to cancel our one-on-one at 1:00 PM.

Will: Okay. No problem!

Manager Mark: HR just squeezed in a required meeting. I need to head to the 18th floor.

Manager Mark: IR is dissatisfied with the sales number, which may impact AUM.

Manager Mark: We’ll come back to this later.

Will: No problem. Thanks for letting me know!

Manager Mark: Hopefully “You Know Who” won’t say anything stupid on social media.

Oh yeah—“You Know Who.”

On a Friday like this, everyone in finance had the same quiet prayer: that “You Know Who” would not say a word online.

“You Know Who” is a figure beyond easy description. He was a bomb with no clock—no one knew when he would go off. The year Will arrived in the United States, while this country still had its grace, “You Know Who” declared his bid for the presidency. Then he really won—and took office—and smashed the American elegance to pieces. Worse still, no one seemed able to rein him in. “You Know Who” would erupt on social media without warning, like a man unmoored. All too often, his erratic outbursts would send the markets into turmoil. And nobodies like Will—ordinary office workers—were left scrambling to absorb the shock: price swings, emergency meetings, report after report.

The internet had truly changed everything.

Will couldn’t understand how a country so proud of its systems could fail to contain a single man. Wasn’t power supposed to be regulated? Then why is he charging around like a loose rhino in a glasshouse?

Anyway, there was nothing he could do—he might as well step out for lunch. Will picked up his wool coat and badge. “Right!” He hurriedly walked to the restroom, took out a plastic bottle, popped two pills into his mouth.

End of Episode

Our website is now LIVE: The Official Site (Join and Subscribe For Free!)

Read more about the Creator’s Note: Who is Albert Aspen?

Check out Albert Aspen’s Audiobooks at Spotify: Albert Aspen Audiobooks.

11 o’clock marks the beginning of the Hour of the Mouse. In Chinese reckoning, a day is divided into twelve units, each spanning two hours and named after the animals of the zodiac. Together, they form an unbroken order, to which all things are bound. At the Hour of the Mouse, the world retreats into the deepest peace of the night, and the energy of Yin—the dim, the passive, the cold, the frail, and the inward—reaches its peak. Yet, within that innermost stillness, in that utter silence, the first trace of Yang—the bright, the active, the hot, the robust, and the outward—begins to rise. By this hour, a new day is already underway.

Little Mouse lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. The bone at the back of his head—the “Rebellious Bone”—pressed against the hard p…

Read more

Yet the wooden bench erupted into percussion, like mallets striking timpani—the roof leaked every time it rained, and the leaks appeared at random, sometimes here, sometimes there. Soon enough, the desk, the floor, the chairs in the inner room, and the washstand joined the percussion, layering in bass drums, side drums, and vibraphones. The family hurried about again, scrambling for whatever pans, pots, buckets, and woks they could find to catch the water dripping from the roof. When his mother was finally able to straighten up, she held a flashlight and called out to Little Mouse, “It’s about time to go to bed …

Read more

Before long, Little Mouse’s homework was done. He pulled out some scrap paper and, using the Oxford textbook as a guide, murmured softly as he practiced his English handwriting. “How do you do?” “How do you do?” “How do you do?” As he tirelessly scribbled away, he thought, “This must be ‘Standard English’—just like Standard Mandarin. If I learn it well, I can understand everyone from everywhere.”

In that parallel world on TV, Wang start…

Read more

“What a whore!” As he stepped back inside, Little Mouse heard his mother curse.

“What did she talk about?” his father asked, taking all the cash he’d earned out of his pocket, stacking it into a neat pile, and handing it to his mother.

His mother paused, set down the spatula, and finally allowed a faint smile to surface. She took the money from his hand, then cast a kittenish glance at the man. “Of course she bragged all about her trip to Beijing, about how hard it was to get a visa to Hong Kong, and then asked me to feed her ‘prince.’” His mother, counting the bills, mimicked Aunt Song’s expression and posture. At last, the tension etched on her face eased—clearly, his mother was satisfied with the day’s takings, and Little Mouse, in turn, let out a breath of relief.

“Is Song still with that thug ‘Old Leopard’?” his father asked.

“I think so. ‘My boyfriend’… hmm, your ‘boyfriend’ has a wife!” his mother scoffed, tucking the cash into her pocket, then giving it two gentle pats, as if soothing a child that was never satisfied.

“At least she got her share of the factory. I heard Old Leopard gave her a stake when he privatized it with that Dong.” His father sat down on a stool for dinner.

“Earning all that money—for what? She’s in her forties and still no man will marry her!” his mother said, staring at the clock. “Children? Don’t even think about it. What good is all that money when a woman ends up like this?”

“People sneer at the poor, not at the whore!” his father said, looking over the dinner table. “No meat?”

“Do you know how much meat costs today? We can’t afford to eat meat at every meal. Tofu is just as tasty!” his mother said. “Did you get the buns?”

“What buns?” his father asked.

“You forgot!” his mother turned and raised her voice, gazing at Little Mouse. “We have nothing to eat because of you!” Her mood shift suddenly from tropical summer to arctic winter. Only then did he remember he had forgotten. He stood frozen, not daring to move, not knowing what to say.

“He’s been busy listening to some Taoist ramble on about superstitious bullshit!” his father added.

“We, the parents, feed you, clothe you, and pay for your schooling—you contribute nothing to this family. Yet you can’t even be bothered to remember something as small as this.” She always assumed the worst of Little Mouse, yet he had lost interest in justifying himself. “Do you know how much work I have to do every single day? I clean the house, do the laundry, cook for you, and still have to tend the stall to make money!” As his mother angrily ticked off her accusations on her fingers, his elder brother pushed the door open and came in, a bag of steamed buns in his hand.

“Oh, Gang-qiang, where did you go?” Taking the plastic bag, his mother asked with concern. She put the buns into the pot to reheat, then stuffed the plastic bag under Little Mouse’s bedding, making yet another dune—even a used crinkly bag might come in handy later, so it couldn’t be wasted.

“I went to hang out with a friend,” his brother replied.

“Hmm, as long as you’re not ‘learning something bad!’” his mother said, placing the buns on a plate. “You sure you’re not ‘learning something bad?’”

Since the end of June, when middle school ended, Little Mouse’s brother Gang-qiang had been disappearing during the day and coming home at dawn. For a talentless teenager who had just finished compulsory education, he had nowhere to go: it was too early to sell his labor, and he was too young to strike out on his own or enlist.

There were very few job opportunities here. The decent ones depended entirely on personal connections and nepotism. The rest were either unsuitable or simply too grueling. And even if he left for a big city, there was no guarantee of a way forward: young, eager labor was oversupplied everywhere. Employers even had a slogan: “China never lacks human labor—if you won’t do it, plenty of others will.”

In this small place, the biggest pitfall for a boy his age was to “learn something bad,” which meant to “go astray”: hanging out with thugs, trying drugs, joining gangs, then fighting, stealing, robbing, and eventually going to jail—after which, by the rules of Chinese society, “life ruined.” His mother was worried, but there was nothing she could do. Education was the only decent way out of this small town, yet he had already been disqualified.

Finally, pulling over small stools, the whole family gathered around the table for dinner. On it were stir-fried napa cabbage with tofu, sliced mustard root dressed with sesame oil, millet porridge, and steamed buns. There were two eggs—one placed beside the father, the other beside Little Mouse.

Little Mouse had been hungry all afternoon, yet the sight of the food stirred no appetite at all: the tofu was burnt, the napa cabbage overcooked and limp, with so much liquid pooling at the bottom that the dish tasted watered down; the mustard root seemed to have been pickled for thousands of years, its saltiness exploding in the mouth like a barrage, and the faint trace of sesame oil tasted like a burial shroud attempting to smother every sense.

No one was allowed to complain. If anyone dared to say the food was not appetizing, the mother would immediately retort, “It’s good enough that I cook for you; it’s good enough that you have something ready to eat. When I was little, there was no food at all. You should feel grateful that someone went through all this work to feed you. If those poor kids in remote mountain villages had food like this, they’d be overjoyed—absolutely thrilled!”

The three men at the table could only force the food down in silence. His father and mother sat on opposite sides, like two stone statues facing each other. The upbeat, feel-good family commercials on TV brazenly clashed with the stagnant air in the room.

“Did Song say she was going to Hong Kong? What is she going there for?” his father finally found a topic to break the silence.

“She said she was going to see a show by some American singer,” his mother replied, chewing.

“Whose show? Is it Michael Jackson?” his brother was intrigued.

“Who knows who!” his mother dismissed, adding a piece of tofu to his bowl.

Then silence fell over the table again; his father and mother had nothing more to say. Little Mouse could not recall ever seeing his parents express affection. There were no hugs, no kisses, no physical touch whatsoever. Of course, they slept in the same bed, but like two revolutionary comrades rather than a loving couple. He even wondered whether he and his brother had truly been born to them, or simply picked out of dumpsters supposedly full of abandoned babies.

Their marriage was a brokered one, a common practice in this place: the only thing that mattered was the consent and approval of both families. The woman could marry into the city, where food supplies were secure and famine was no longer a concern; the man had a stable job, and by finding a rural woman of good standing who could bear children, the major milestones of life were considered accomplished. When they first met, through a matchmaker’s introduction, they sat together and talked for about thirty minutes. The second time they saw each other was at the wedding arranged to marry them.

While the family quietly ate, their eyes fixed on the television, the theme song for A Native of Beijing in New York, a highly popular Chinese TV drama in the 1990s, began to play at eight o’clock. At the episode’s beginning, two lines in Chinese characters appeared, like a couplet, a poem, or a prophecy:

If you love him, bring him to New York, for it’s heaven;

If you hate him, bring him to New York, for it’s hell.

Then the drama began: Wang landed in New York with his wife, Guo. Wang and Guo struggled to stay afloat as immigrants—he took a job washing dishes in the back of a restaurant, while she found work as a seamstress. These two once-privileged “Beijing Citizens” were living a hard life when they first arrived in America.

“You love me, I love you… it’s so disgusting!”—after Wang expressed his admiration for the restaurant’s boss lady, and Guo encountered a white man who showed interest in her—the mother in front of the TV could never approve of such romantic plots. When she was growing up, the only legally permitted entertainment was the “Eight Model Revolutionary Operas and Ballets”—all about revolution, patriotism, and the rejection of individual freedom. She had long opposed Chinese television’s constant airing of programs about America, especially this kind of love-and-kiss-riddled “American capitalist decadence,” worrying about its influence on children. In her youth, textbooks labeled the United States as “American imperialism” and portrayed it as an evil, ruthless war machine that disrupted global peace. What good could ever come from those American imperialists?

As the story unfolded, Wang got the hang of his job and Guo was promoted, and the two began to enjoy a stable life. His mother finally found something about America that she liked. “You should go to New York when grow up, study at that ‘cow university,’ then get a stable job in those bright offices— to make big U.S. dollars!” his mother said. “Just don’t ‘learn something bad.’” Though what counted as “bad” in America had yet to be settled. For Little Mouse, Beijing was remote enough; New York? That must be a world away!

While his mother finished speaking, a rat suddenly darted out of the inner room, scampered across the dining table, and ran under the wooden bench.

“Hurry, catch it! Kill it!” his mother jumped to her feet and yelled. His brother stood up to help, only to accidentally knock the table over; shattered tableware and spilled porridge scattered across the cement floor.

Smack—the father swung his hand and slapped his brother across the back. His brother said nothing, only quickly fetching a broom and dustpan to clean up.

Just then, the rat darted out again from beneath the bench and bolted toward the door. With half a leftover bun in his left hand, Little Mouse snatched up the small iron spade by the wall with his right and rushed out after it.

Passing a stack of napa cabbage, he chased it to the willow stump. The rat stopped and turned around, staring at him with its black eyes. The cold wind made him shudder. All at once, Little Mouse felt a pang of pity for it. He crouched down slowly and extended the leftover bun in his left hand onto the ground in front of it. The rat’s eyes flicked once, and then it darted into the darkness and was gone.

He slammed the iron spade onto the ground with a loud crash, then walked back inside.

“I tried to kill it, but it’s just too fast…” Little Mouse said.

“Always so careless! Now I have to spend money to buy more bowls!” his mother couldn’t stop blaming as she mopped the floor. His brother took the remaining tableware outside to wash.

“We should have a cat or a dog,” Little Mouse suggested strategically, “so it can catch rats.”

“So now I have to feed a pet on top of feeding you every day? Animals are dirty and annoying, and they cost money.” Money again. Little Mouse knew that when his mother brought up the magic word “money,” it was time to shut up.

Finally, his father finished tending the stove and walked into the inner room, while his brother curled up on the bench, staring at the television. “Go do your homework!” his mother ordered while clearing away the table and stools.

Little Mouse sat at the desk and turned on the lamp. He wanted to comfort his brother, but didn’t know how, and knew his brother wouldn’t appreciate it anyway.

The widely accepted parenting method in this place was “Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child.” When Little Mouse was very young, he witnessed his brother being beaten by their parents for various reasons: money going missing from the wallet, not showing enough respect to elders, or failing to achieve the desired exam scores…

Out of shared fear, the two brothers used to be close, but not anymore—especially after Little Mouse began to show extraordinary academic potential. The elder brother gradually came to realize that the second child his parents chose to keep rather than abort was an open admission of “Project Failed, Operation Unsuccessful” on the first child. Of course, the public explanation was always, “My elder son might get lonely when he grows up, so we’re giving him a sibling as a companion,” when in fact, they simply wanted a second chance.

From the mother’s perspective, the younger son was a successful “second shot.” The pregnancy caught her off guard; her first instinct was to abort, given the “Fundamental National Policy.” However, after months of struggle, she decided to take another chance in the “kid lottery.” Now she was very glad about that decision: the second child never caused her any trouble, he excelled at school—she could finally hold her head high at parent meetings—and he didn’t cost much money. There is a Chinese saying that “some children are born to collect debts from their parents, while some are born to repay them.” This younger son, like a perfect investment with minimal input and maximum return, was clearly one who had come to repay.

End of Episode

Our website is now LIVE: The Official Site (Join and Subscribe For Free!)

Read more about the Creator’s Note: Who is Albert Aspen?

Check out Albert Aspen’s Audiobooks at Spotify: Albert Aspen Audiobooks.

Night had fully fallen. Under the hazy streetlights, most of the vendors had packed up, and the street gradually returned to quietness. Little Mouse sat on the edge of the tricycle, still turning over the Taoist’s words in his mind. The light had been too dim for him to see what the old man had written, and the brief five-minute reading left him more confused than reassured—filled with terms he could not understand at all. On this very night, the first domino of your destiny begins to fall. What begins to fall? He could think of nothing. He did, however, wish their homeroom teacher would fall ill so they might enjoy a few relaxed, unsupervised months. His thoughts were broken by the strained grunting of his father as the man pedaled the tricycle with effort. Approaching middle age, he had already begun to stoop.

His father had not always been like this. When he was still working at the state-owned factory, he appeared humorous, cheerful, and talkative. Lik…

Read more

Little Mouse reached the end of the street and spotted his father’s acupuncture stall amid the jumble of vendors. A few squat stools surrounded a collapsible plastic table. On it lay packets of needles, a glass bottle stuffed with cotton balls soaked in alcohol, and an enamel mug whose bright red stamp was deliberately turned outward. A scrap of cardboard served as the sign, the words handwritten in thick strokes: “Experienced Doctor from Trustworthy State Factory.”

Several patients sat waiting, coats loosened and hanging open, one arm extended with needles pricking from the flesh.

“Mom says dinner is ready,” Little Mouse said while glancing to either side of his father’s stall—to the right stood a fortune-telling desk; to the left, a grill sending up curls of lamb-scented smoke.

“Hmm,” the father replied in his usual ambiguous tone. With a slight flick of his left hand, he indicated that Little Mouse should wait. The boy pulled the tricycle aside and perche…

Read more