The Record of Cultivation in a Sand Table

When Chen Liang collapsed onto the sofa in his rented apartment, his bank balance was just enough to support three months of "doing nothing." At thirty-five, he'd quit his dead-end job, and his days were like the dust gathering on the windowsill: completely uneventful.

That changed when he spotted a sand table at a secondhand stall. The edges of the wooden box were worn smooth, and crooked mud-brick houses were embedded in the fine sand. A few tiny figures, no bigger than fingernails, were so emaciated they were barely more than outlines. Their eyes were sunken, and they clutched empty clay jars, clearly living through a famine. On a whim, he paid for the "miniature landscape of suffering" and set it on the corner of his desk.

He woke up thirsty in the middle of the night and saw a faint glow of fire flickering inside the sand table. The little people were moving, supporting one another as they dug through the sand. One had collapsed from hunger, while another wiped away tears with a sleeve. Chen Liang's heart tightened, and he put in half a bread crumb.

The next moment, chaos broke out in the sand table. The little people kowtowed furiously before the "food from heaven." A gaunt woman clutched her child and wailed, treating the finger of the "giant" as a divine oracle. Watching the light rekindle in their eyes as they shared the crumbs, Chen Liang suddenly felt that his aimless days might have gained a little weight and meaning after all.