Rebirth 2006: the King of Scrap Pickers

At the age of sixty, Jiang Yuan died alone in the ward. I have been collecting rags all my life. My daughter died of leukemia, she didn't save any money, and her lungs were broken first. What he was thinking about before closing his eyes was that stamp - the one he sold as scrap paper on August 17, 2006. Seventeen years later, it cost 870,000 yuan. The biggest money in his life was thrown away by him. Open your eyes again, August 17, 2006. Under my feet were the terrazzo floor tiles from the Shajiao Village scrap station, which was so cold that it stung my feet. Outside the window is an old alley that has not yet been demolished. Bedsheets are hanging out to dry, wild cats are running around, and the smoke from deep-fried dough sticks is rising upstairs. The pile of old books and newspapers soaked in water is still piled in the backyard. The stamps are still inside. He was in no hurry to sell the stamp. Because he found that something was wrong with his eyes—picking up an object at random, its material, age, and true value would appear out of thin air before his eyes. Old newspapers, rotten wood, rusty iron boxes, every piece of "junk" turned into a number in his eyes. The urban village is going to be demolished. The people from the demolition office ran faster than the scavengers. Neighbors throw valuable old items out as trash. The bosses of the Antique City looked down upon the scrap collector and didn't even raise an eyelid when he came in. No one knows what is buried under this old demolished building. What is hidden in those things that people throw away as junk. No one knows that this rag-tag man's brain contains a map of the next thirty years.