Ke Cheng opened his eyes and looked at the electronic clock beside him.
It was exactly six o'clock. It was already light out. Summer days were always long, and the cicadas had yet to wake. Everything around him was quiet save for the faint rustle of the sanitation worker's broom sweeping across the concrete.
"Good morning."
He said it to his reflection in the mirror, then picked up a pen and crossed out today's date on the calendar.
He had survived another day.
Ever since leaving the hospital, Ke Cheng had felt as if time, which had once been stagnant, had begun flowing again.
Although his body still sometimes hurt terribly—so terribly that he wanted to end his life at once—hope continued to support Ke Cheng and keep him going.
After going downstairs, Ke Cheng prepared to jog.
He saw the old man next door exercising in the morning. The old man saw him too, and his gaze turned somewhat strange.
"Little Ke, are you feeling all right?"
It was indeed somewhat odd for a seventy-year-old man to ask a thirty-year-old young man whether he was feeling well.
But the old man had truly heard that Ke Cheng was suffering from a terminal illness and had gone to the hospital for treatment, never to return. At the time, he had even mentioned it to his chess friends. Everyone reminded one another to take care of their health, but in the end, those who smoked continued smoking, and those who drank continued drinking.
So when he saw Ke Cheng had moved back in, he found it quite astonishing. While chatting with his fishing buddies, he wondered whether medical technology had really advanced so far that even cancer could be cured.
"Not bad."
Ke Cheng answered him, then began jogging after warming