The following pieces are believed to originate from manuscript drafts and encrypted publishing records spanning various periods. Attribution has been confirmed through cross-referencing of multiple sources. Some exist only as fragments; the original complete texts are no longer retrievable. Arranged in order of collation, not strictly by date of composition. Over one hundred fifty pieces, with further collation ongoing.
Five in the Morning
Woke at 5 a.m., birds already calling outside the window. They don't take weekends off.
Magic Trick
A grand magic show, the moment of miracle. Countless Chinese people, swarming, suddenly transformed — into American citizens, just like that.
Supplies
Just went to the supermarket. So many supplies in there. Suddenly I realized I'd started looking at everything before me through the eyes of "supplies."
Golden Age
The previous second, to the next second, is the golden age.
Disaster
Disaster wears different masks and favors more and more people.
The Button
Last night I clearly pressed the button to destroy the world. This morning I still woke from a dream as usual. What a pity.
Motorcycle Diary
Rode the motorcycle to breakfast, rode it to play ball, rode it home.
Three Wild Horses
My motorcycle is a wild horse I am a wild horse Wang Yingru is a wild horse
A wild horse and a wild horse riding a wild horse piercing the black depression of the city despair and sorrow
In the deathly silent night galloping
Poplar Fluff
The sun is beautiful today. The air is full of poplar fluff. It tastes good. Try it yourself — just open your mouth and you'll catch some.
Dream Fragment
Got up to pee, interrupting the dream. All I remember is the feeling, childlike, of needing to go home to find my mother.
Footprints in Snow
After kindergarten, father and son walk home through the snow. The son says: Dad, do you hear that sound? I've made the snow cry from being stepped on.
Time Machine
The pandemic is a time machine. How many people, in an instant, have returned to the Qin Dynasty.
Wolf
The wolf is coming, the wolf is coming. When the wolf doesn't come, the heart is uneasy. The wolf comes. We are eaten.
Winter Sun
Looking at the flags in the distance, the wind seems to blow from the north, and certainly continues southward. But I feel it also comes from the west.
I walk west, unhurried. My ears and face are ceaselessly blown by the wind, to the point of achieving a sense of stillness. It is feeling itself that has stilled.
Almost a Kind of Sadness
I dreamed of the end of the world. People who love each other will part and die no matter what. As if moving on to a new life, but no longer on the same path.
And someone told me the dead will return from hell. It sounds frightening. But perhaps like in a film, all the dead characters stand up at the end, dust themselves off, and shake hands.
Peanuts
The soul is the flesh The flesh is rice wine Rice wine is peanuts Peanuts are peanuts
Red Wine
Open the red wine One sip for you One sip for me You give me a sip I give you a sip
I love you You love me I give you money You call it prostitution money
The insomniac is a laborer of the dark hours, building a lighthouse upon the reef of time.
Quarrel
A chicken talks to a duck, a duck talks to a goose, a goose talks to a bird, a bird talks to a plane, a plane talks to a phoenix, a phoenix talks to a peacock, a peacock talks to an ostrich, the ostrich buries its head in the sand and talks to itself.
Praise
Let politics return to politics, let ideologies return to ideologies, let rhetoric return to rhetoric. Tonight, certain words must be washed clean before we can speak of the world again. Tonight, woman must be returned to woman before she can be praised.
Qingming Guide
If you feel lonely late at night, go out into the street, randomly grab a few ghosts and bring them home. With youth as your companion, sit close and talk through the night, until your tongues are covered in moss.
Festival
My friend Henry Miller once told me that kangaroos have two penises, one for everyday use, one reserved for festivals. This vividly explains the meaning of the Chinese word "festival" — a day of restraint. How exquisite.
Hamster
When spring comes, where is the hamster.
Studio
This fly lands on the rim of my water cup and crawls back and forth, several times now. I shout and push out my palm, and it falls into the water.
Flight
I fly, often because of hunger.
Spring
All the brightness of spring is connected to summer.
Touch
My hands have touched filthy things. Now, I can only caress you with the back of my hand.
Chang'an
In Chang'an, sleep does not come.
Beisi Village
Holding an umbrella, lost under the sun.
Quitting Smoking
The cigarettes are finished, the butt must be stubbed out, like snuffing out an unnecessary thought.
Hat
The sweater is light blue, the palm is pink, the stock market is green, the train is also green. Only when the hat is green is it truly green.
Working Out
Lift weights, sleep, walk, sleep. The walkers are zombies, those on the gym equipment are puppets, the security guard is a marble sculpture, the square dancers are plump and gaudy fairies. And I am a wandering ghost.
Disorientation
The insomniac builds a lighthouse upon the reef of time. Each waking moment is an island. The sea is black, the waves are silent.
Sunflower
I planted a sunflower. It turns toward the sun every day. I sit beside it. It never turns toward me.
Power
Power is a chair. The one who sits on it thinks he has grown taller, but it's only the chair that is high. When the chair is taken away, he returns to his original height. His knees ache a little — from standing on tiptoe the whole time.
Election
They ask you to choose between red and blue, as if you really had a choice. In truth, you are only reaching into two empty pockets, feeling the same wind.
Borders
The lines on the map were drawn with pencil. Some erase them with rubber. Others trace them with blood.
Treaty
A sheet of paper. Both sides covered in words. One side reads peace. The other reads next time.
Flag
A piece of cloth. Hung up, it is faith. Torn down, it is a rag. Same color. Two uses.
Peace
Peace is the gap between two bullets. Just enough to light a cigarette. Before the smoke clears, the next one is already in the chamber.
Order
Order is the wooden fence of a sheepfold. The wolf stays out. The sheep stay in. Everyone is safe. Safely waiting.
Civilization
We moved the killing from the forest into the conference room. Knives became clauses. Blood became signatures. After signing, we drink coffee together.
Constitution
A constitution is an umbrella. Opened when it rains, put away when the sun returns. Those who put it away forget where they left it.
Vote
Voting is giving a sheep a ballot to choose the wolf. The wolf promises not to eat the sheep. The sheep believes. The next day, the wolf is still a wolf.
Class
I look down from my twentieth-floor balcony. The rich look like ants, the poor also look like ants. But the ants don't know I'm watching them.
Poverty
Poverty is not the absence of money, but the absence of choice. A poor person's freedom is a multiple-choice question with only one option: "Forget it."
Wealth
Wealth is not having many things, but having many things you can lose. So you lie awake every night, counting what might disappear, the list growing longer.
Salary
A monthly salary is a rope, one end tied to you, the other to your desires. The farther you walk, the tighter the rope pulls.
Justice
Justice is the scale in the market. Whoever holds the weight decides the measure. The wormhole in the cabbage leaf is more honest than the law.
Labor
Labor is the most glorious thing. This sentence was not spoken by laborers, but by those sitting in chairs. The chairs do not belong to laborers.
Housing Price
The housing price is a needle driven into the spine of the young. They walk bent over, looking as if they are bowing.
Hukou
A piece of paper decides where you fall ill and where you die. The paper is thin, but the wall is thick.
Truth
Truth is a shard of broken glass. Each person picks up a piece and says this is the whole. I stand nearby, holding nothing. But I don't say it.
Verity
Verity has grown old and lives deep in the mountains. Every year we visit, bearing gifts. It accepts them, but says nothing.
Silence
Silence is a knife. It hurts you when you hold it; it hurts others when you throw it. So I keep it in a drawer, open it sometimes, glance at it, then close it again.
Philosophy
Philosophy asks: how many questions can a person ask without going mad? I counted through the night. By the seventh, dawn broke.
Existence
I stand before the mirror. The person inside is also looking at me. Neither of us is sure which one is real.
Essence
The one peeling the onion reaches the end and finds nothing. He weeps, but doesn't know whether it's because of the onion or the emptiness.
Meaning
Meaning is that river. We fish in it. Some catch fish, some catch weeds, some drown. The river remains the river.
Time
Time is the best doctor and the worst makeup artist. It heals some wounds, but sews others back uglier than before.
Memory
Memory is a museum edited by oneself. All the exhibits are forgeries. But I still buy a ticket, visit once, visit again, until the fake becomes real and the real no longer matters.
Forgetting
Forgetting is the best gift God gave to humanity. Pity we can never remember who sent it.
Conscience
Conscience is a thorn. Some pull it out and sleep better. Others keep it, tossing and turning. I place it under my pillow. Every morning I check — still there — and go on living.
Kindness
Kindness has a threshold. Too high and no one can enter. Too low and kindness ceases to be kindness — it becomes weakness.
Envy
Envy is someone else's flower blooming in your yard. You can't pull it out, so you water it every day, watching it grow better than your own.
Faith
They erect a statue of a god in the middle of the square, then do business around it. The god does not speak. The god is stone.
Hope
Hope is that bird locked in a cage. You think it sings, but it's throwing itself against the bars. Every note is a fracture.
Pain
Pain does not need to be understood. It only needs to be acknowledged. Acknowledge that it is there, like a brick in the corner. Even if you don't kick it, it remains.
Love
Love is a match. Strike it, it flares once, then dies. The blackened stub left between your fingers is still hot.
Freedom
Freedom is a bird inside a cage, believing it can fly to any corner of the cage. One day the door opens. It stands at the threshold, looking out for a long time, and does not fly.
Art
They asked me what art is. I said scrubbing a toilet, making the white even whiter — that is art. They laughed. I said your laughter — that is also art.
Education
School teaches you how to answer questions, but never how to question the questions themselves. So as an adult, you only know how to raise your hand, not how to ask: what did that sentence mean.
Refugees
They are not moving house. They are carrying home on the road. Home grows lighter. The road grows heavier.
Applause
Applause is a discipline. When to start, when to stop — this matters more than how loud you clap. Clap at the wrong rhythm, and your hands will hurt.
Meeting
A meeting is reading aloud what has already been decided, in a tone of discussion. Those who disagree are on their phones. Those who agree are yawning.
News
News is today's breakfast. It goes stale by tomorrow. But you must eat it every day. Those who don't starve not in the stomach, but in the eyes.
History
History is the diary written by the victors. The defeated have no pen. But the defeated dream, and in the dream there is a pen. Upon waking, they forget. It's better that way.
Monument
The monument is tall, so tall the living must crane their necks. But the dead don't need to. They lie beneath, flatter than anyone.
Museum
A museum displays things from the past. We stand before them, pretending we will not become the past.
Hospital
A hospital is the fairest place. Rich and poor queue in the same line, waiting for the same bed. The only difference is, some get one. Some never do.
Prison
There are two kinds of prison: one with iron bars, one without. The one without, we call it an office.
Marriage
Marriage is a joint bankruptcy liquidation between two people. Assets are merged, debts split equally. Love is a free gift, not listed on the inventory.
Divorce
Divorce is two people searching through ruins for whatever they can still take away. The most valuable thing is often the key, but the door is already gone.
Funeral
A funeral is the last social event held for the living. The main character has no speaking part. He lies there, listening to others summarize his life.
Birth
Birth is a forced journey. No one asked if you wanted to set out. But since you're here, you must use up the ticket.
Death
Death is the cancellation of all debts, the termination of all questions. Pity you can't apply in advance.
Language
Language is a bridge, but most people stand on either end shouting, never stepping onto the bridge itself. The bridge is lonely.
Dictionary
Every word in the dictionary has a definition, but no one defines the word "define." This is the dictionary's cunning.
Translation
Translation is converting one nation's loneliness into another nation's loneliness. The loss in between is called cultural difference.
Internet
The internet connected us to the whole world, and then we each faced our screens and cursed at strangers. Distance has never been so close. Understanding has never been so far.
Algorithm
The algorithm knows you better than you know yourself. It learns what you like, then locks you inside your likes, slowly suffocating.
Phone
The phone is an extension of the hand, until the hand becomes an extension of the phone. We hold it as if holding a smaller version of ourselves.
Selfie
A selfie turns yourself into an exhibit, placed in a shop window waiting for likes. Likes are a currency. The exchange rate changes every day.
Insomnia
Insomnia is the body lying down while the mind stands at the door, waiting for someone who will never come.
Waiting
Waiting stretches the markings of time. Each second becomes a room. You walk from one room to another, unable to find the exit.
Subway
On the subway, everyone stares at their phone, like a flock of sheep grazing with heads bowed. Occasionally someone looks up, and becomes an outcast.
Delivery
The delivery driver's electric scooter is faster than my dreams, but slower than my salary. When he runs a red light, time pauses for a moment.
Rent
Rent is a monthly parasite that comes to collect. Once it has eaten all the host's dreams, it moves on. The next host brings new dreams.
Health Check
A health check is a bill telling you how much longer you can hold on. The arrows beside the numbers are God grading homework.
Annual Party
The annual party is a sleeping pill the company feeds its employees, mixed with alcohol and raffle tickets. You wake up the next day at the same desk.
Promotion
A promotion turns a sheep into a sheepdog, then tells it that it's closer to the wolves now. It believes it.
Resignation
Resignation is untying your own rope, then discovering that outside is still a net. The mesh size differs, but it's still a net.
City
A city is a vast machine. People are its parts. When they break, they are replaced. No one asks the parts how they feel.
Village
The village is the city's dumping ground, sheltering those who have been discarded. They sit on the doorstep, watching the sun set beyond the ridges.
ID Card
A card that proves who you are, when you yourself don't know who you are. Is the photo you? It has never smiled.
Password
We set countless passwords to protect our secrets, only to discover that the things we most want to hide, we dare not write down at all. Hidden in the heart, over time, even we forget.
Mirror
Is the person in the mirror really me? He is more honest than I am. At least he does not smile.
Night
Night is the reverse side of day. So are people. Your daytime self owes your nighttime self an explanation.
Morning
Morning is an expired cup of coffee. If you don't drink it, you'll be tired. If you do, it's bitter. We drink it every day.
Shadow
The shadow knows the ground better than you do. After you leave, it stays there. It doesn't follow you. It has its own direction.
Wind
Wind is invisible, but you can see the branches move. Just as certain things don't exist, yet you can see the traces they leave.
Rain
Rain is punctuation falling from the sky. Commas land on umbrellas. Periods land in puddles. Ellipses land on the windows of the sleepless.
Snow
Snow is winter's will, written across rooftops and streets. When the sun emerges, the will is torn away, revealing the earth beneath.
Dust
Dust settles on the table. You wipe it away. The next day it returns. It has more patience than you.
Key
The key knows which door it belongs to, but the door does not know. The door only knows open and close. It cares for nothing else.
Stamp
A stamp is a piece of paper. Once affixed, it gains value. Much like faith.
Calendar
A calendar is the measure of time. Tear off a page, a day is gone. But the torn page is still in the trash.
Clock
The clock is the most honest liar. It tells you what time it is, but not how much you have left.
Scale
A scale can only measure weight, not value. But in this world, everything is on the scale.
Scissors
Scissors create nothing. They only separate what already exists. After separation, each part is whole, but no longer connected.
Nail
The nail is driven into the wall to hang a painting. The painting is beautiful. No one looks at the nail. The nail doesn't care.
Rope
A rope can bind things, or become a noose. Same rope. Depends on how you use it. The rope doesn't know.
Wall
The wall protects those inside and imprisons them. It doesn't know whether it is protection or cage.
Bridge
A bridge connects two shores but hangs in the air itself. It belongs to neither side. It only bears the weight of passage.
Lighthouse
The lighthouse shines not to illuminate itself, but for others. It stands in the darkest place, emitting the brightest light.
Ruin
A ruin is time's signature. On every broken brick is written: I was here.
Seed
The seed is buried in soil, not knowing what lies outside. It just grows upward. Only when it emerges does it know whether it is flower or weed.
Root
The root is underground, unseen. But it determines how straight the tree stands. People don't look at roots. They look only at the crown.
Bird
A bird flies in the sky, needing no explanation for why it flies. Its flight is the answer. Humans ask too many whys, and forget how to fly.
Fish
A fish in water doesn't know what water is. We too are in water, not knowing what air is. Until we are pulled out.
Cat
A cat doesn't read faces. It eats when hungry, leaves when it wants. Humans study this for a lifetime and never learn.
Ant
An ant carries things ten times its weight and never complains. It just walks, and keeps walking. Humans can't do that. Humans need meaning.
Stone
A stone does not speak, yet it is older than any philosopher. It has seen things that ended before humanity was born.