Chapter 1: The Price of Tomorrow
Every morning at six a.m., it was only the people who could not afford to sleep yet who owned the city.
The roads of Chongqing are bustling with energy.
Steam is rising from the small restaurants preparing breakfast, buses are traveling through the narrow streets, and the first rush of workers is walking toward the metro station with cups of soy milk in their hands.
And there was an old electric bike covered with scratches roaming along the roads.
Its owner was wearing an old delivery jacket.
Lin Yuan.
He received a notification on his phone even before he reached the end of the street.
New order received.
With a sigh, he pressed the accelerator. "I hope this customer does not live on the 20th floor," he thought.
However, the navigation on his phone crushed his hopes right away.
Destination: Building 18, Unit C, 22nd Floor.
"Of course."
Twenty minutes later, he found himself standing in front of the apartment door, slightly out of breath, for the elevator was out of order, and he had to go up twenty-two floors with two bags of hot food.
He rang the doorbell.
But there was no answer.
He pressed it again.
After some time, the sleepy young man opened the door holding his phone.
"You sure took your time!"
Lin Yuan glanced at the stairs that were waiting for him on his way out before he forced a smile to his lips.
"I apologize for the delay. Here's the food you ordered."
The customer grabbed the packages without uttering another word and slammed the door behind him.
As if triggered by the door being closed, Lin Yuan's phone beeped in his pocket.
Customer Rating : 3 stars
He stared in disbelief at the screen.
"...Three stars?!"
He laughed quietly to himself.
"I guess I'll have to work on my speed next time."
There was no anger in his tone: only the understanding of how things are in the real life.
Having worked as a delivery driver for almost two years, Lin Yuan had learned something very important.
Some customers will never appreciate your effort but will definitely notice and comment on your mistakes.
During the whole morning, the temperature was above thirty degrees.
Sweat ran down Lin Yuan's back under his jacket while he parked his bike in front of yet another restaurant.
Inside, cooks were yelling over the noise coming out from the burning cookware and delivery drivers were gathered around the pickup area.
"Order 451!"
"Coming!"
"Who ordered spicy fish?"
Lin Yuan raised his hand.
"That's me."
The restaurant owner gave him a package and apologized.
"I'm sorry for the delay."
"No worries."
"It'll affect your delivery time."
Lin Yuan shrugged.
"I don't bother arguing with the timer anymore."
The owner laughed.
"Young people worry too much."
Lin Yuan grinned but didn't reply.
If he had a delay in arriving, the app would cut pay.
If he had unhappy customers, the app wouldn't pay.
If he lost food, it would deduct more money.
If the bike had a fault . . . It would be a greater loss.
Everything, in a way, translated to monetary value.
There were moments he wondered if breathing cost him something.
The rush had just ended at 4.
Lin Yuan found a shady place below a bridge and went to grab a snack.
He bought a bottle of water and two steamed buns, which in total cost him nine yuan.
He found a seat of a pavement and had his buns while observing expensive cars.
He noticed a fancy black car coming to a stop at one of the stoplights.
Thanks to a tinted window, Lin Yuan saw a man that seemed to be around his father's age, and was enjoying the conversation through a headset.
When the traffic light indicated to go ahead, the stylish vehicle moved ahead and disappeared.
Lin Yuan finished his last bun.
He did not envy the gentleman but something else altogether, the exceptional sense of freedom.
The choice to choose when to earn more money.
The freedom to take time away from making any calculations.
Money has never drawn Lin Yuan's attention. What he was interested in was what money could get him.
At night, the vibration of the urban environment was entirely new.
The buildings seemed to be shining stars that came down to earth.
Restaurants were full of guests, street musicians played music near the bank of the river, and tourists laughed as they took pictures of the skyline.
Lin Yuan was standing on a pedestrian bridge over the Yangtze River.
This view always remained new for him.
Whenever he got tired of life, he came here.
He didn't come because his problems disappeared at all.
He came because they started looking so small from there.
His phone rang.
It was the message from the supervisor of the storehouse.
There is a need for two persons today at a double rate of salary. Are you interested?
He was staring at the message for a long time.
He was already feeling tired and heavy.
Nevertheless, he typed one word…
Coming.
It was nearly midnight when he unlocked the door of the apartment finally.
The room was smaller than the toilet of the storehouse.
There was a narrow bed in the room, a foldable table, and a small kitchenette in the corner of the room.
The wallpaper had been falling apart for years, and the window would not close properly in winter.
Still…It was his.
Lin Yuan shrugged off his coat and went inside the house, putting the keys on the table.
The silence filled the air.
The TV wasn't on. No one spoke with him. Nobody asked how his day was.
Only white noise from the fridge in the background.
He logged into his mobile banking app.
He saw a balance of ¥8,462 there.
That's what months of saving looked like on the account. Would it be worth working so hard?
After looking at the number, he chuckled.
"Money is still the same old story..." Lin Yuan said.
He picked a notebook with the ideas from the drawer.
Not poems. Not journal entries.
Simple business ideas.
Some were absurd like pet food vending machines or mobile car wash.
Something even daydreams about ideas had remained recorded.
Most of them, however, had calculations - estimates of expenses, profit, and risks accompanying them.
Every few weeks he crossed another idea off the list.
Not because it was bad, Because he couldn't afford to start it.
Lin Yuan leafed through the pages of the notebook before reaching the last page.
The words "How do rich people make money in their sleep?" were written in great prominence.
Many answers were copied from various sources of information.
Investment.
Real estate.
Royalty.
Company.
Asset.
The page was dirty with markings in different colors in that it was hard to read.
Lin Yuan, smiled to himself.
People resulted in thinking that poor people dreamed of high-end cars, but for Lin Yuan, his dream was to wake up without an alarm clock.
That night, sleep did not come to him.
The room felt too warm although the window was opened.
He turned to find his laptop and had it started up despite the noise it was making.
He began watching a video.
In the middle of the video, he noticed a recommendation about a video entitled "Five Unbelievable Things Found in Chinese Caves."
"This is peculiar," he thought to himself.
When he clicked, the video showed mere people examining caves and deserted mines.
Though some people didn't find any interesting things, others found only caves.
One of the teams worked for almost 12 hours to find nothing in the cave.
Something that one team was excited about was peculiar and strange crystals.
Someone else stumbles upon antique pieces of pottery and instantly notifies the authorities.
The responses are more intriguing than the video.
"I have been exploring for about six years. I have never found anything worth of interest, but my journeys are priceless."
"Our team found out some fossils last summer in Guizhou."
"You can find amazing limestone caves in Yunnan if you know where to find them."
Yunnan...
Lin Yuan has checked what this term means.
In a couple of minutes, many travelling blogs, exploring forums, and discussions on hiking appeared on the screen.
There was one idea that captured Lin Yuan.
A post had a picture of a remote cave situated far in the mountains.
"The locals do not go here often. The formations are nice, though the paths are rough."
Lin Yuan went closer to the screen.
One of the commentators joked, "Perhaps a treasure is hidden there."
Another one commented, "If there were something interesting, it would have been discovered in the past."
The last statement is probably right. However, he was still gazing at the photo.
It was not the idea of gold that caught his attention. It was an opportunity.
He had waited for changes in life for many years, but nothing happened.
Perhaps there was nothing to find in that cave after all. Perhaps he was going back with sore legs and nothing to show for it.
But trying is different from waiting.
He slowly shut his computer. Outside the city lights were stretching for miles.
"So...." he murmured to himself, "...what's the worst that might happen?"
The question hung in the air.
And for the first time in months, he smiled excitedly.
Tomorrow he was going to start saving up for his trip to Yunnan.
Not because he believed luck had finally come into his life.
But because he had decided to start looking for it.
Far away from Chongqing, beyond a mountain that had not seen the sun for centuries...
Something was waiting in complete darkness. Patient, Silent.
Maybe expecting someone.
Not a hero, not a king but just a boy who didn't want to spend his life waiting for something good to happen.