The Game of Life

Jiang Chengde had no idea what had just happened, and grabbed two dry pancakes to eat while walking, swallowing them dry without water, feeling almost choked towards the end.

Wearing a long robe in the summer, although the midday sun was not particularly harsh, still, as Jiang Chengde walked, he sweated profusely.

Compared to the bustling Beiping, Outside the Pass was indeed much more desolate. There were hardly any pedestrians on the road, and the shops had little business, with many not even bothering to open their doors. Street vendors idling by their stands, hiding in the shade to keep cool, didn’t even feel like chatting.

In such an environment, Jiang Chengde, in his long robe rushing about, seemed very out of place.

Jiang Feng followed behind Jiang Chengde for what seemed like ages. In an era where the world was measured by footsteps, even short distances felt incredibly far. It wasn’t until Jiang Chengde’s shadow had significantly lengthened that he arrived at the hospital entrance.

The entrance to the hospital was probably the liveliest place Jiang Feng had seen since his arrival. There were women in cheongsams, men in long robes, and rickshaw pullers in short shirts pulling their carts. With its Western architectural style and high archways, Jiang Feng even spotted an ambulance—a white car with a red cross painted on it.

Jiang Chengde was not new to the hospital, moving through the crowd straight to the ward, and even some doctors and nurses recognized him, nodding their heads at each other as they passed.

Outside the ward, Jiang Feng saw the name of Jiang Chengde’s father—Jiang Hengzhong.

Jiang Hengzhong’s chief physician was a foreigner, who stopped Jiang Chengde outside the ward and told him in a mix of Chinese and English that Jiang Hengzhong was undergoing treatment and it would be inconvenient to enter now—the visit or discharge would have to wait a few hours.

Jiang Chengde’s English wasn’t good either; he stumbled through a few disjointed words while struggling to communicate with the chief physician, who could only respond with a mix of Chinese and English gestures. Whether or not the doctor’s message was understood, and to what extent, was simply a matter of luck.

Jiang Feng, who had been listening by the side, understood their conversation— the chief physician was trying to inform Jiang Chengde that Jiang Hengzhong’s smoking cessation was not going too well, and they had to keep increasing the dosage. The price of morphine sulfate was continuously rising, and the money Jiang Chengde had paid was no longer sufficient. However, Mr. Lu had sent over some medical fees recently, so the previous concerns were no longer an issue. But with Jiang Hengzhong’s current condition, he couldn’t be discharged; though taking him out for a few hours would be fine.

The chief physician’s Chinese was as poor as Jiang Chengde’s English, but the words “morphine sulfate” and “money” were pronounced very clearly, causing Jiang Chengde to completely misunderstand.

Jiang Chengde thought the chief physician was reminding him it was time to make a payment, continuously explaining to the physician that he was presently under financial strain and might not be able to produce so much money at once, leading to a communication deadlock between the two, with neither understanding the other.

As they spoke, a nurse came over with the medication.

“Doctor, I’ve brought the morphine sulfate,” said the nurse.

The chief physician nodded, gesturing for her to go in, and said four articulate words in Chinese after “morphine sulfate” and “money”: “Left arm, injection.”

The nurse nodded her understanding and carried the medication into the ward.

As the nurse walked past Jiang Feng, he casually glanced at the tray and was stunned by the label on the morphine sulfate.

Morphine.

A drug more toxic and with a higher potential for addiction than opium.

It was actually being used as a smoking cessation therapy.

Jiang Feng wanted to enter the ward, but then he didn’t have the heart to.

Now he realized why Jiang Hengzhong had died so young at only forty. He had first squandered his wealth on opium and then, in an attempt to quit smoking, they used morphine—a case of fighting poison with poison, tantamount to seeking death.

After a while, the nurse came out of the ward and informed Jiang Chengde that the patient had been administered the morphine sulfate and needed to rest, advising him to wait outside for an hour or two before entering.

The chief physician realized the difficulties in communicating with Jiang Chengde and asked the nurse to find a doctor who spoke Chinese to talk with Jiang Chengde, then left himself.

Before long, the nurse brought over a young doctor to discuss Jiang Hengzhong’s smoking cessation with Jiang Chengde.

“`

The young doctor first explained to Jiang Chengde the progress of Jiang Hengzhong’s smoking cessation, which was beyond his comprehension. He directly told Jiang Chengde that Jiang Hengzhong’s progress was not ideal and asked if he was willing to try a new, more expensive but more effective medication.

“New medication?” Jiang Chengde hesitated, “Isn’t morphine powder already considered very effective?”

“Morphine powder is indeed effective, but it varies from person to person. A new drug with better efficacy has been developed abroad, which is more expensive than morphine powder. It has already been used in Magic City and Beiping with good results,” the young doctor explained, “Our hospital finds it very difficult to get this new medication, but when Mr. Lu came to make a payment some time ago, he mentioned that your family was moving to Beiping. If you go to a hospital there, you can try this new drug for your father.”

“What’s the name of this drug?”

“Heroin.”

Jiang Feng: …

He knew how Jiang Hengzhong died.

When he participated in a drug awareness competition, he reviewed many questions, and he clearly remembered that heroin was originally introduced to China as a smoking cessation medicine. He never imagined that this case would literally happen to his own ancestor.

With things going like this, it would be hard for Jiang Hengzhong not to die.

Just thinking about it, he felt that Jiang Hengzhong was somewhat unlucky. It was his own fault for squandering the family fortune on an opium addiction, but the subsequent morphine and even heroin addiction, followed by his untimely death, seemed like a cruel twist of fate.

After chatting with Jiang Chengde for a while, the young doctor left. Jiang Chengde stood quietly at the door for several hours until a nurse went in to check, confirmed there were no issues, helped Jiang Hengzhong change his clothes, and then brought him out.

“It’s best to bring him back tonight,” the nurse reminded Jiang Chengde.

“Okay,” Jiang Chengde replied.

Jiang Hengzhong was very thin.

Not ordinarily thin, nor thin due to hunger or malnutrition, but emaciated in a pathological and even somewhat frightening way.

From the sleeve peeking out was a hand as thin as a stick, skin and bones, and Jiang Feng could see from the small exposed part of his wrist a dense array of needle marks, indicating the severity of his morphine addiction.

Jiang Hengzhong followed Jiang Chengde out of the hospital, looking very dazed.

“Where are we going?” Jiang Hengzhong asked. He had been quite out of it even before when he was addicted to opium paste, and now after trying to quit smoking, he was even more hazy, sometimes unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Jiang Chengde looked at Jiang Hengzhong, feeling virtually no emotion inside.

Jiang Hengzhong had long ceased to be his father.

From the time he became addicted to opium paste, frequented the opium dens, spent days lying on the couch enveloped in smoke, squandered the family wealth, indirectly caused his mother’s death, and infuriated his grandfather to the point of death, Jiang Hengzhong was no longer the father who had taught him cooking skills and had helped dress him properly.

“Mr. Lu is moving his business to Beiping, and the Taifeng Building will remove its plaque tonight,” Jiang Chengde said.

“Mr. Lu?” Jiang Hengzhong seemed bewildered.

A cold smile appeared on Jiang Chengde’s face, “Have you forgotten? A year ago, wasn’t it you who sold Taifeng Building to Mr. Lu? Along with all of the Jiang Family’s fields and houses, didn’t you sell them all to Mr. Lu to pay off debts?”

“Paying off debts…” Jiang Hengzhong narrowed his eyes.

In the past few years, he had been weaving in and out of reality and fantasy, constantly in a daze, occasionally lucid, in either an opium den or in a hospital, and overall quite mad.

When Jiang Chengde saw him like this, he was as if he saw his grandfather on the deathbed and his mother who had passed away after childbirth. He clenched his fists, struggling to restrain himself from lashing out, and without another word, he walked straight ahead.

“`

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