Chapter Two: A Headless Fly

Zhang Fan regretted not slapping himself. The job fair was over, and now he could only rely on himself.

He’d never considered the path of postgraduate studies; every day was spent hustling for tuition and living expenses, barely scraping by in each subject to avoid failing. Coming from a small town, Zhang Fan’s English was abysmal. He always muddled through English exams thanks to slips of paper passed around by his dorm mates. On top of that, his younger sister was about to enter her senior year of high school, preparing for the college entrance exam, and as her brother, Zhang Fan had to think about her future and their gradually aging parents.

He rode a battered bicycle nobody else wanted, combing the city for work. Top-tier hospitals weren’t even worth considering; without provincial connections, a mere undergraduate could forget about it. Public hospitals were equally hopeless: though there were annual recruitment exams, for someone without connections, it was harder than winning the lottery.

The options were few: poking around the city’s edges for small hospitals, community clinics, and private practices. Though Lanzhou was in the northwest, it was still a provincial capital. Zhang Fan spent his days cycling to remote areas in search of hospitals, his legs thinning from exhaustion, yet still without a job.

Medicine was a profession with strict entry requirements, the foremost being the Physician’s License, which could only be obtained a year after graduation. Practicing without it was illegal.

Private hospitals only hired licensed doctors who could immediately work and generate profit. A freshly graduated student, looking dusty and worn as if he were a migrant laborer rather than a doctor, was invariably turned away.

Zhang Fan was helpless. Every penny saved mattered, so he cycled everywhere, sacrificing his appearance for frugality. In a society that judged by appearances, Zhang Fan felt lost.

He left the dorm before dawn, returning after dark, and after a week, still had no hope. He couldn’t eat, spent sleepless nights, and grew visibly gaunt, his cheekbones standing out. Of the six in his dorm, two had secured postgraduate spots and were off traveling. The others were either visiting girlfriends or back home. Only Zhang Fan remained.

Lying in bed at night, Zhang Fan felt bitter toward his university. “Why did you have to expand enrollment? If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten into medical school. Maybe I’d have worked outside for a few years and struck it rich.”

He was resigned, blaming fate. Luck wasn’t always on his side, but sometimes fortune smiled. The university had expanded enrollment, hoping to attract more applicants in future years. Employment rates were the gold standard—if graduates were unemployed, who would attend? So the school pulled strings to secure jobs for students. Quality aside, any placement counted as employment.

The year 2008 was one of great joy and sorrow for China—a devastating earthquake in Sichuan, followed by the triumphant Beijing Olympics.

The medical college in Gansu also underwent major changes. Responding to national policy, the province’s only key university merged with the medical college. A third-tier school suddenly became a “211” university. The first year after the merger, the university was determined to keep the medical college’s employment rate high; they couldn’t let a third-tier school tarnish the 211 brand. Thus, they organized a Westward Support program, placing graduates in remote county hospitals.

Gansu was already in the northwest, but China was vast, with regions even further west. Being a 211 university helped secure placements in distant county hospitals, providing opportunities for hundreds.

Zhang Fan was among them. His homeroom teacher handed him a work contract and a two-thousand-yuan Westward Support stipend from the school. Zhang Fan was bewildered—he was being sent all the way to the national border. The teacher explained: he could refuse, but this was his last chance. Otherwise, there’d be nowhere for him to even register for the Physician’s License exam. It was far, but the salary was good, and the school was giving extra subsidies!

With both intimidation and encouragement, Zhang Fan signed the papers. It was a task; the teacher had never been so invested in him.

Helpless, Zhang Fan had no choice but to go to the frontier. His sister was a good student; he couldn’t let her future suffer. Far or not, at least he’d be a government employee—a real doctor! With a job secured, Zhang Fan packed his things and went home.

His family lived about a hundred kilometers from the provincial capital, in a small county. There was no highway, only a bumpy provincial road; the bus took over three hours, stopping and starting, to reach home.

Since starting university, Zhang Fan rarely returned home, busy with part-time work. His parents were resigned about his job prospects; without going to the frontier, there was nowhere to work, but if he did go, it was over two thousand kilometers away, almost touching the border with the neighboring Stan country.

The contract was signed, and Zhang Fan accepted his fate. After all, it was still Chinese territory, and he'd heard the place was scenic, dubbed "Little Jiangnan of the Frontier." Still, he felt shortchanged—after struggling to reach a quasi-second-tier city, he was being dispatched to a fifth-tier city on graduation. By investment standards, this was a failed venture.

Before leaving, Zhang Fan and his father visited their ancestral graves in the old hometown, helped out at home for a few days, and secretly slipped his sister a thousand yuan. Seeing her tearful eyes, Zhang Fan pinched her cheeks. “Little crybaby, what’s there to cry about? Your brother’s going to work and earn money, not to war. You must study hard, aim for Tsinghua or Peking University—don’t follow me into a third-tier school, struggling to find a good job.”

“When will you come back to see me and Mom and Dad? It’s so far away. I don’t want you to go,” Zhang Yu asked, clinging to her brother’s sleeve as she had when she was young.

“Oh, my silly little sister. When your brother’s working and earning loads, I’ll fly back and forth—just two hours to return. Stop crying. I’m leaving, so listen to Mom and Dad, and don’t let your studies suffer.”

“I’m not silly! I don’t want your money if you’re going so far away.”

“Take it—now that you’re grown, spend a little on yourself, don’t be stingy. You know your brother, right? Never short on cash. Take it, or I’ll get mad.”

The clattering train carried Zhang Fan westward.

If you ignored the temperature, the vast western wilderness was indistinguishable between winter and summer. Not a speck of green in sight—little rain in summer, scant snow in winter, just one color: earth yellow. The hard seat left Zhang Fan’s legs numb; he had no interest in playing cards with strangers. His mind, blank, was filled with vague uncertainty and hope for the future as the train took him farther and farther away.

The train could only take him to the frontier’s capital. Zhang Fan’s destination, Quark County, had no rail service, and was over six hundred kilometers from the frontier capital. He would have to take a sleeper bus overnight to finally arrive.