Chapter One: Zhang Fan, Short on Money

University life is as varied as the people living it. Some lose themselves in indulgence, some find themselves in a whirlwind of fleeting romances and wild nights, but most stick to the straight path, quietly completing their studies and graduating with a diploma in hand.

In the height of summer in the northern province, even though the temperature soared to thirty degrees, standing in the shade of the trees still brought a coolness. Yet Zhang Fan, a fifth-year clinical medicine student, felt nothing of it as he stood beneath the branches. The past days of anxiety had left him sleepless and with cold sores at the corners of his mouth. While others were already preparing their resumes, Zhang Fan couldn't bring himself to think about the future. He had yet to receive his diploma.

Zhang Fan came from a humble family; both parents were laid-off workers, and he had a sister seven years his junior. When he received his university acceptance letter, it was only through the help of relatives and friends that the family managed to scrape together his tuition and fees. Once in university, Zhang Fan didn't rely solely on his parents. He took part in work-study programs, and after evening classes, he would sell instant noodles, sausages, and eggs he'd bought wholesale from the market. It was just enough to cover his tuition and living expenses, and he managed to get through four years of university.

But in the final year, as though fate wished to add to his life experience, disaster struck at home again and again. First, his father, who worked odd jobs at a chemical plant, scalded his foot. After two weeks of conservative treatment in the county hospital, the attending physician—face numb with indifference—informed them that he needed to be transferred to a provincial hospital, as the county hospital couldn't treat him. It was a waste of money and time. No sooner had his father been discharged than his mother suffered a perforated appendix. The surgery was successful, but it left Zhang Fan with no money for tuition. No tuition, no diploma.

In recent years, his relatives had helped as much as they could, and Zhang Fan was too embarrassed to ask them again. He had to come up with something on his own. With graduation approaching, the school only held a few final lectures, leaving him with time to spare. During the days, Zhang Fan hauled bricks at construction sites; at night, he posted flyers for agents, working tirelessly for more than twenty days. Still, he was more than two thousand short of the tuition.

With graduation imminent and no other options left, Zhang Fan gritted his teeth and returned to the dormitory.

Of course, his dorm mates didn’t have money either, and it was impossible for them to lend to him. But university was not a high school in a small town—there were plenty of wealthy students. With graduation near, many were letting loose, and the more bored and gambling-prone among them had started organizing games in the dorms. The stakes weren’t high, but with bad luck, it was easy to lose two or three hundred in a day. With so many people, the sums added up.

Zhang Fan wasn’t there to test his luck; he had a special skill. His hometown was a small mountain village in the northwest, where generations of farmers had worked the land. Producing even a few workers was enough to make the village proud.

It was from such a village that the family’s most famous figure emerged—Zhang Fan’s uncle. In his youth, his uncle was reckless and idle, notorious for petty theft and troublemaking. One year, after injuring the son of a neighboring village chief in a fight, he fled for fear of retaliation.

When Zhang Fan was about ten, his uncle suddenly returned home, seemingly changed—a reformed man, no longer involved in any mischief. Zhang Fan, as a child, loved to follow him around.

Having traveled far and wide, his uncle had many stories to tell and knew sleight-of-hand tricks. With a deck of cards, he could perform all sorts of flourishes. He didn’t show off in front of adults, but to the adoring eyes of children, perhaps out of nostalgia, he’d often amuse a young Zhang Fan with card tricks, and Zhang Fan learned most of them.

As he grew older, Zhang Fan realized these were cheating techniques used in gambling. Out of boredom, he would often fiddle with cards, practicing the moves.

One year, during New Year’s, Zhang Fan returned to the village and joined the young men playing cards. Unable to resist, he played and won a tidy sum. Someone with a loose tongue told his father, who gave Zhang Fan a beating that left him bedridden for three days. His father wasn’t well-educated and believed in corporal punishment. Since then, Zhang Fan never gambled again—the memory was carved deep.

The Clinical Medicine Department was the largest in the medical school, with many wealthy students who often organized games of Mahjong or Golden Flower. They played with such abandon that they’d skip meals. In the early 2000s, food delivery was not yet widespread; whenever there was gambling, Zhang Fan would bring instant noodles to sell. He knew exactly which dorms hosted games.

Dorm 504 was a gathering place for gamblers. When Zhang Fan knocked, someone inside, likely hungry, called out, “Peddler, you’ve been slacking lately. If you don’t come, I’m going to starve. Hurry—two packs of braised noodles and two eggs.” Because of the “Fan” in his name, and his habit of selling instant noodles up and down the halls, the nickname “Peddler” stuck.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy lately and haven’t restocked. Graduation’s coming, and seeing you all playing so lively, I thought I’d join in.” Four years as a student peddler had taught Zhang Fan the harshness of society; every word he spoke was laced with a cautious smile.

“Wow, it’s rare for the Peddler to play! Make some room for him,” someone said, and the seven or eight present cleared a space. They were playing Golden Flower—three cards each, three of a kind being the “bomb,” with the triple aces highest and triple twos lowest, followed by straights and so on. Zhang Fan joined, played a few rounds, observed the others, and soon had them figured out.

Finally, he got a good hand. After a modest win, he began to shuffle the cards. His real skill was in shuffling. None of the students present were professionals, and though he hadn’t played in years, cheating a few undergraduates was easy. He won two or three hundred a day, never more. It was a small crowd—if he wiped the floor with them, no one would ever play with him again. No one likes to lose all the time.

After twenty days, he had scraped together enough for tuition. Zhang Fan handed over the stack of cash, and with the receipt in hand, he felt a surge of mixed emotion. Every year, he worked himself to the bone, just to make enough for tuition and living expenses. Yet a few nights of taking shortcuts brought it all in at once.

He felt a deep sense of helplessness. If not for his father’s beating, perhaps he would have abandoned medicine for gambling. In those twenty days, he worked construction by day, plotted at night how to cheat undetected, and drove himself to exhaustion. In all this, he completely forgot about the job fair.

In his class, apart from three or four students with guaranteed spots for graduate study, and a few with connections who could stay in the provincial capital, most were headed to county hospitals or company clinics. Even to get a job at a county hospital, one needed connections and months of networking—something Zhang Fan, barely scraping by, could not afford. For him, the job fair was crucial—a chance to find work at a larger, more reputable company, even if only as a pharmaceutical rep.

Missing the job fair, Zhang Fan was at a loss. He had his diploma, but nowhere to work.