Eyes That See All

The phone rang three times before Zhang Lei picked up. "Don't bother coming in tomorrow." Wang Defa's voice was half-drowned in background noise—sounded like he was at a dinner party. "Business has been slow. Your position's been cut. Wages will be settled at the end of the month. Come grab your stuff whenever." Zhang Lei stood at the back door of the used car dealership, still holding the rag he'd been wiping down cars with. The March wind cut through the doorway, carrying the smell of motor oil from the repair shop next door. "Wang... Boss Wang, I've been here three years, can't you—" "That's how it is, kid." Wang Defa cut him off, his tone no different from hanging up on a telemarketer. "I'll call you if something comes up." Click. Click. Click. Zhang Lei stood there for a good ten seconds, phone still raised to his ear. Water from the rag trickled down his wrist and dripped onto the concrete. He looked down—today was the third. Rent was due in fourteen days. He draped the rag over a pipe, grabbed the plastic bag of spare clothes by the door, and left. The rain had started without him noticing. It got heavy the moment he stepped out of the alley. Zhang Lei didn't own an umbrella—on a take-home salary of 2,300 yuan a month, umbrellas weren't a habit he could afford. Normally he'd ride his electric scooter home in ten minutes, but it was still plugged into the charger back at the dealership. He hadn't had the nerve to go back for it. So he walked. The old factory district was in the east side of town. From the dealership, it meant cutting across half the city. Zhang Lei held the plastic bag over his head and walked along Binjiang Road. The streetlights were failing—three out, two on, one out—blinking like they were falling asleep. As rainwater seeped down his collar, he thought about the last ten years. Ten years ago he'd graduated high school, couldn't get into college. Drifted around the city for half a year, worked at a couple of factories until they shut down too. Eventually got referred to Defa Used Cars—washing vehicles, hauling parts, occasionally driving a customer's car in. Three years of that. Three thousand a month, though Wang Defa regularly shaved off a few hundred for so-called "vehicle damage fees." Three years of savings, plus the occasional win at the card table, had all gone to his father's medicine. On paper he was still twenty thousand in debt—a loan he'd taken out for driving school that he'd never managed to pay back. His phone buzzed again. Zhang Lei pulled it out and glanced at the screen: another debt collection text. The third one today. He killed the screen and shoved it deep into his pocket. By the time he reached the stretch near the old fertilizer plant, there was nothing on either side but half-demolished factory buildings. No people. No streetlights. The rain was deafening here, hammering against exposed rebar and concrete with a dull roar. Zhang Lei kept his head down and stepped into a puddle that soaked him to mid-calf. He stopped. He couldn't name what he was feeling. It wasn't anger—he didn't feel he had the right to be angry. Wang Defa was the boss; he could fire whoever he wanted. That was just how it worked. It wasn't sadness either—he'd never really developed the habit of being sad. He tried to take a deep breath but couldn't fill his lungs, like someone had stuffed a wet rag inside his chest. Eighteen hundred yuan. That was everything in his bank account. Subtract four hundred for his father's medicine this month. Subtract the five hundred he owed his old classmate Lao Zhou—already two months overdue. That left nine hundred. Nine hundred yuan wouldn't last until the end of the month. Zhang Lei lifted his face to the rain. In the distance, the fertilizer plant's smokestack jutted into the night sky like a middle finger. That's when the world went white. Not bright. White. The entire world turned pure white in a single instant—not the kind of white from lightning striking down from the sky, but the kind that detonates outward from inside your eyeballs. Zhang Lei didn't even have time to react. He felt something slam into his chest like being hit head-on by a truck, then his feet left the ground, and the back of his skull cracked against something hard. Then nothing. He didn't know how long it had been. Consciousness returned on a wave of pain. The back of his head throbbed with a dull pressure. His left knee burned like someone was sanding it from the inside. He was face-down on the ground, half his face submerged in muddy water. The rain had lightened to a fine drizzle, whispering against his ear. Cold. The kind of cold that seeps outward from your bones. He tried to move his fingers. They moved. When he pushed himself up to sitting, his knee clicked audibly. His left leg was so numb it didn't feel like his own. Zhang Lei looked down—the knee of his pants was torn open, a mess of mud and blood. On the ground beside him was a scorch mark that extended two or three meters from where he'd been lying, ending at a fist-sized stone. Dark gray, irregular in shape, its edges burned to a glassy sheen. Lightning? Zhang Lei touched his chest. Nothing visible on the outside of his shirt, but pressing down made his ribs ache. Alive. That's what matters. That was what he was thinking as he braced himself against the ground and stood up. Then he saw something wrong. The plastic bag. The white plastic bag from the dealership, the one with his spare clothes in it. It must have slipped off his head at some point and landed by a puddle about a meter away. Zhang Lei only glanced at it casually—but what he saw wasn't the white exterior of the bag. He saw what was inside. A gray T-shirt, folded, sleeves tucked under the collar. There was a small hole on the chest—the one burned by a cigarette butt last year. Next to it, a pair of rolled-up socks. Black. The heels worn so thin they were practically transparent. The bag wasn't open. It was still tied in a dead knot. Zhang Lei blinked. Still there. Everything inside the bag, clear as day, as if the plastic had turned transparent. He blinked again. Still there. Zhang Lei slowly raised his right hand, spread it open, held it in front of his face. He saw what was beneath the skin—not a bloody mess, but clean outlines like an X-ray. Bones. Five finger bones connected to metacarpals, joint by joint, perfectly clear. His hand was shaking. Not from the cold. The rain had almost stopped. Somewhere in the distance, a train rumbled past. Zhang Lei stood beside the scorch mark, holding up his own hand, staring at things that shouldn't be visible. His mouth opened. No sound came out. His ears were still ringing.