Cixin Liu - Death's End

Four years of undergraduate life came to an end. Tianming failed to get into graduate school, but Cheng Xin easily got accepted into the graduate program at their university. She went home for the summer after graduation, but Tianming lingered on campus. His only goal was to see her again at the start of the new school year. Since he wasn’t allowed to stay in the dorms, he rented a room nearby and tried to find a job in the city. He sent out countless copies of his résumé and went to interview after interview, but nothing resulted. Before he knew it, the summer was over.

Tianming returned to campus, but couldn’t find Cheng Xin. He carefully made some inquiries, and found out that she and her advisor had gone to the school’s graduate institute at the Academy of Spaceflight Technology in Shanghai, where she would finish her graduate studies. That was also the day Tianming finally found a job at a new company founded for civil aerospace technology transfer that desperately needed qualified engineers.

Just like that, Tianming’s sun left him. With a wintery heart, he entered real life in society.

He pressed 2.

Do you wish to terminate your life? For yes, select 4. For no, select 0.

Right after he started working, he had been happy for a while. He discovered that, compared to his competitive peers in school, people in the business world were far more tolerant and easier to deal with. He even thought his days of being isolated and aloof were over. But after winding up on the losing end of a few office political maneuvers and bad deals, he understood the cruelties of the real world, and became nostalgic for campus life. Once again, he retreated into his shell and set himself apart from the crowd. Of course, the consequences for his career were disastrous. Even in a state-owned enterprise like his company, competition was intense. If you kept to yourself, you had no chance of advancement. Year after year, he fell farther and farther behind.

During that time, Tianming dated two women, but the relationships fizzled quickly. It wasn’t that Cheng Xin already occupied his heart: For him, she would always be the sun behind a veil of clouds. All he wanted was to look at her, to feel her light and warmth. He dared not dream of taking a step toward her. He never even sought out news about her. He guessed, based on her intelligence, that she would go for a Ph.D., but he made no conjectures about her personal life. The main barrier between him and women was his own withdrawn personality. He struggled to build his own life, but it was too difficult.

Fundamentally, Tianming was not suited to live in society, nor out of it. He lacked the ability to thrive in society, but also the resources to ignore it. All he could do was hang on to the edge, suffering. He had no idea where he was headed in life.

But then, he saw the end of the road.

He pressed 4.

Do you wish to terminate your life? For yes, select 1. For no, select 0.

By the time his lung cancer was discovered, it was already late stage. Maybe there had been an earlier misdiagnosis. Lung cancer was one of those cancers that spread fast in the body, so he didn’t have much time left.

As he left the hospital, he wasn’t scared. The only emotion he felt was loneliness. His alienation had been building up, but had been held back by an invisible dam. It was a kind of equilibrium that he could endure. But now, the dam had collapsed, and the weight of years of accumulated loneliness overwhelmed him like a dark ocean. He could not bear it.

He wanted to see Cheng Xin.

Without hesitation, he bought a plane ticket and flew to Shanghai that afternoon. By the time his taxi arrived at his destination, his fervor had cooled somewhat. He told himself that, as someone about to die, he shouldn’t bother her. He wouldn’t even let her know of his presence. He just wanted to look at her once from afar, like a drowning man struggling to take one last breath before sinking down forever.

Standing in front of the gate to the Academy of Spaceflight Technology, he calmed down even more. He saw how irrational his own actions of the past few hours had been. Even if Cheng Xin had gone on to obtain a Ph.D., she would be finished with her studies by now, and she might not even be working here. He spoke to the guard in front of the door and found out that there were more than twenty thousand people working at the academy, and he had to know the exact department if he wanted to find someone. He had lost touch with his classmates, and had no more information to give the guard.

He felt weak and out of breath, and he sat down a little ways from the gate.

It was still possible that Cheng Xin did work here. It was almost the end of the workday, and if he waited here, he might see her.

The gate to the academy complex was very wide. Large golden characters engraved into the short black wall next to it gave the formal name for the place, which had expanded greatly since its early days. Wouldn’t such a large complex have more than one entrance? With an effort, he got up and asked the guard again. Indeed, there were four more entrances.

Slowly, he walked back to his place, sat down, and waited. He had no other choice.

The odds were against him: Cheng Xin would still have to be working here after graduation; to be at the office, instead of away on business; to pick this door, as opposed to four others, when she got out of work.

This moment resembled the rest of his life: a dedicated watch for a slim, slim ray of hope.

It was the end of the workday. People began to depart the complex: some walking, some on bikes, some in cars. The stream of people and vehicles grew, and then shrank. After an hour, only a few stragglers remained.

Cheng Xin never passed.

He was certain that he would not have missed her, even if she drove. That meant that she was no longer working here, or maybe she hadn’t come to work today, or maybe she had used another entrance.

The setting sun stretched out the shadows of buildings and trees, like numerous arms extended toward him in pity.

He remained where he was until it was completely dark. He didn’t remember how he managed to hail a taxi to bring him to the airport, how he flew back to his city, how he returned to his company-owned single dormitory.

He felt he was already dead.

He pressed 1.

Do you wish to terminate your life? This is your last prompt. For yes, select 3. For no, select 0.

What would he want as his epitaph? He wasn’t even sure he would get a tomb. It was expensive to buy a burial plot near Beijing. Even if his father wanted to buy him one, his sister would probably disagree—she was still alive, and she didn’t even own a home! Most likely, his ashes would be stored in a cubby in the wall at Babaoshan People’s Cemetery. But if he were to have a tombstone, he would like it to say:

He came; he loved; he gave her a star; he left.

He pressed 3.

There was a commotion on the other side of the glass. Just as Tianming was pressing the mouse button, the door to the euthanasia room flew open and a group of people rushed in.

In the lead was the director, who dashed for the switch that would turn off the automatic injector. The hospital executive that followed him went and yanked the injector’s power cord out of the wall. After them came the nurse, who pulled the tube attached to the needle in Tianming’s arm so hard that he winced from the sharp pain as the needle was jerked out.

Everyone gathered around the tube to examine it.

“That was close! None of the drugs went into him,” someone said.

Then the nurse began to bandage up Tianming’s bleeding left arm.

Only one person stood outside the door to the euthanasia room.