My name is Lin Jianping, 38 years old, from Fuzhou.
During the day, I work in an architectural design company looking at drawings. I have been painting buildings for fifteen years, and now I don't know how much longer I can paint them - the real estate industry is very cold.
At seven o'clock in the evening, I drive a taxi.
The mortgage needs to be repaid, parents need to be supported, and two children are waiting to pay school fees. The money "borrowed" by my uncle in those years was enough to pay off half of the mortgage - only later did I find out where the money went, and I never mentioned it again.
Life has to go on.
Behind the steering wheel, I have met all kinds of people: programmers working overtime until early in the morning, middle-aged men holding street lights after drinking too much, family members returning from a night vigil at the hospital, aunts moving with a cage of parrots... Everyone brought their own story with them when they got in the car, and disappeared into the Fuzhou night after getting off.
Those stories occasionally stay in my heart for a while. Sometimes it's a look, sometimes it's a word. When the next passenger got on the bus, his thoughts were interrupted and he continued to drive forward.
This is not a comeback story. There is no golden finger, no overnight success. Just an ordinary middle-aged man, holding the steering wheel and running alone in the most stressful days of life.
Occasionally, when I'm waiting at a red light, I think of the money that was defrauded, and my heart hurts.
Then the green light came on.
The wheels are still turning and the story continues.
Concept: In the era of real estate downturn, an ordinary builder's survival breakthrough