The reason why people suffer is that neither good nor evil is pure enough.
Jiang Cheng stared at Liu Kang, who was squatting outside the alley with his hands covering his face. This big man hadn't shed a tear in many years. His crying was the kind of silent crying, letting the tears fall and form circles on the cement ground before quickly drying and disappearing.
He wasn't evil enough. He went to university from the countryside and worked hard to establish himself in the concrete jungle of the city. Like the wild grass growing in the alley, the wind and rain could only knock down crops, not this kind of grass.
Liu Kang still has a conscience. He was once a young man with dreams of the world, full of passion to pursue his career and try to break the existing rules. Then, the giant tree demon of capital casually shook him down into the mud.
So he dared not be a bird anymore, but became a pebble at the foot of the giant tree. Half of him sank into the soil, while the other half peacefully enjoyed the shade of the tree. He grew stronger and stronger, becoming an appendage of capital, and the giant tree he built became more and more stable and lush.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa's Rashomon metaphorically suggests that the line between good and evil is just a thought away. Liu Kang is a prime example. He thought that even if he questioned his own heart a thousand or ten thousand times, the answer he would get would still be to be evil, because abandoning the shackles of conscience would indeed make him live more freely.
But now he hesitated, wavered. In the dilapidated shantytown, the occasional pedestrian riding an electric scooter stared in astonishment at the two well-dressed men standing by the roadside. Jiang Cheng and Lao Liu seemed to be separated from this forgotten, dark corner of the city; some lived in the light, some in the shadows.
People cannot choose their birth, family, parents, or environment. Liu Kang wants to ask, then what can we choose? It seems we really don't have many opportunities to make decisions! How many times in a lifetime? At least, be brave once before you grow old.
He rubbed his face violently, his trembling hand reaching into his pocket to pull out a cigarette, which he then put in his mouth and took a deep drag to calm his agitated emotions.
“I never imagined that the special drug I launched into the market would have such a story. It is the biggest stain on my entrepreneurial journey. I lost all the investors’ money. I don’t want to recall those dark days. Every time I think about them, I feel suffocated.”
“No,” Jiang Cheng also squatted down beside him and said very seriously, “Maybe in your eyes it’s a stain of business failure, but in the eyes of the patients, you are a bodhisattva who saves them from suffering.”
He held a cigarette between his fingers, glancing forlornly at the garbage heap on the street corner, a paradise swarming with flies.
"A Bodhisattva can't support a company. If it goes bankrupt, it'll have to work in an electronics factory. Maybe the assembly line will just collapse, haha."
The clash between reality and ideals, Jiang Cheng and Liu Kang represent two completely different ideologies. Neither of them is wrong, making it difficult to find flaws in the other's thinking.
"I won't block your proposal, regardless of whether you want to release the drug to the market or not. I'll sign your documents as soon as I get back, and then you can give me the list of drugs you've invested in developing."
Unexpectedly, Jiang Cheng was very frank and honest, and stood up after explaining his considerations.
"I understand your reasoning in inviting me to dinner, but I have to consider my employees. Now is the perfect time to make rapid progress and seize the market. Is it possible for me to abandon my promising future to pursue my ideal world? Would they agree to that?"
"Is it not okay to earn a little less?"
"No." Liu Kang shook his head, his face ashen, his heart hardening almost instantly.
Jiang Cheng leaned against the black sedan, staring intently at him. The two faced off, neither willing to back down, their eyes filled with an unyielding stubbornness. At this moment, Jiang Cheng deeply understood that what he needed to change was not the other person, but the unspoken rules. Only by changing the first one could there be a second.
"Do you know, when I returned to my rural hometown, penniless and destitute, I had nothing but my luggage. Facing my bewildered and frail mother, I dared not tell her I was bankrupt. After staying home for three days, I went to work in a factory to make ends meet. Later, my mother found out anyway. She didn't say anything, but it felt like my heart had been stabbed several times. I swore that I would succeed and make something of myself! My mother passed away during the time I was working. In her eyes, I was still a failure. I didn't even have the money to give her a proper funeral. Do you understand the feeling of being powerless to help someone you've lost?"
Liu Kang clenched his fists, his eyes reddening. He slammed the cigarette butt to the ground, sending sparks flying across the concrete. He wasn't angry at Jiang Cheng; he was angry at himself for actually backing down and giving in!
The harsher the insults, the stronger the armor that protects his heart.
"I...I understand." Jiang Cheng spoke suddenly after a moment, his calm face expressionless. But in his mind, he recalled the test given to him by the technology tree in the name of Laplace's Demon.
He continued, “In your mother’s eyes, you are not a failure. Her doubts may stem from the dejection and despair on your face. Old Li’s wife has lived such a tragic life, suffering from mental illness. What about her daughter? She’s only a teenager, and she’ll be getting married in the future. What about the millions of other patients like her?”
Old Liu was startled, and the image of the girl at the dinner table, eating slowly and deliberately, her face hidden under her hair, suddenly came to mind. The tragedy was about to repeat itself in her life, wasn't it? Fate's torment of her had only just begun.
"What do you need, boundless merit...?"
"No, we should do what we can, okay?"
Having said all he could say, Jiang Cheng grew tired of it, opened the car door, and Liu Kang got in. The two remained silent the entire way, until they parted ways at Kangming Pharmaceutical in the suburbs.
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