You might think people here are timid. In 1998, Aunt Tian from the workers' residential compound opposite Liu Zhengliang's home lost her job at the special steel plant. With no means to survive, she wandered onto the pedestrian overpass above the main road. Lanzhou folks have a saying: "The Yellow River has no manhole cover." Meaning if life becomes unbearable, just jump into the Yellow River. Fushun has no Yellow River—it has the Hun River instead. But the current flows too sluggishly, unlike the Yellow River's torrents pouring from the heavens. Jumping in wouldn't carry you seaward never to return; you'd probably just wash up stranded on Panjin's shoals. Aunt Tian later confessed she'd gone to the Hun River's Heping Bridge but feared diving headfirst into the mud with her legs still sticking above the water—undignified, utterly undignified. That's why she chose the overpass.
She looked down and saw nothing but three-wheeled vehicles, commonly called "three-wheel bangers," known locally as "little breezes." Why "little breezes"? Because riding them in summer felt cool with the wind blowing. In winter, they'd stick out a tiny chimney puffing smoke—burning coal for warmth, burning gas for work. All these drivers were laid-off workers. Aunt Tian thought, why should I jump and hit fellow sufferers? She dried her tears and went home to "debate success or failure, life remains bold." She set up a stall selling Sichuan-style Spicy Hot Pot. Business was decent, but nobody eats scalding food in summer heat. You can't run a seasonal business—half the year drinking northwest wind won't do. Fushun, after all, mixes Manchu, Korean, and Han cultures, where anything can be tossed together. She skipped the broth, directly seasoning boiled ingredients—thus Spicy Mix was born. Sichuanese love complex flavors? Fushun folks created multidimensional complexity: numbing, spicy, sour, and sweet all in one dish. Acquiring the taste requires some groundwork. Locals returning home taste mother's cooking; southerners taste stepmother's malice. Aunt Tian later opened dozens of branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, yet still lives in Fushun. When Liu Zhengliang last saw her, her gold chain nearly matched her finger's thickness, her Mink coat wrapping her like a stuffed dumpling.
Meanwhile, laid-off workers in Shenyang invented Grilled Chicken Rack, using coking coal from steel mills—all fuel pilfered from factories. Modern snack packages love labeling "charcoal-grilled," but that's wood charcoal. Back then, skipping coking coal meant missing the industrial punk essence—the steel-furnace ash texture and minimal sulfide emissions. Though coke production is a Class 1 carcinogen, eating coke-grilled chicken racks is different. We grill with steelmaking fervor. When poor, you can't nibble two lamb skewers from dawn till dusk—the metal skewers would spark. But chicken skeletons? Minimal meat, cheap at 0.8 yuan wholesale, sold for 2.5 yuan. They withstand gnawing, paired with beer, lasting all day. Yet grilled chicken racks never became branded. Industrial punk never transformed into replicable commercial opportunity. Those who grilled then still grill now; those who mixed spices became tycoons.
Paths determine fates.
Chapter 2
This time returning to Fushun from Beijing, Liu Zhengliang came by invitation to perform surgery.Liu Zhengliang had a high school classmate named Chen Junnan, who consistently ranked among the bottom five students in their class. When the college entrance exams came around, Liu Zhengliang applied to Peking Union Medical College, while Chen Junnan, following his family's advice, enrolled in a provincial medical school.
After graduation, Chen Junnan skipped graduate studies and returned home early through family connections, becoming a doctor at Fushun Central Hospital. This weekend, Chen Junnan had already scheduled a surgery for Liu Zhengliang. Liu was already on a high-speed train to Shenyang when an emergency case came in - a subarachnoid hemorrhage, preliminarily diagnosed as a cerebral aneurysm. Normally, such emergencies couldn't wait for outside specialists - patients would often deteriorate before experts could even board the train. But this time, it could be handled conveniently as part of the trip. The more Chen Junnan thought about it, the more pleased he became.
Chen Junnan called Liu Zhengliang: "Old Liu, I've got a patient here who needs cerebral aneurysm surgery. To be honest with you, we have all the equipment here, the hardware's fine - it's the people who aren't up to par. This surgery is quite challenging, and doctors at our small local hospital don't dare to operate. Since you're coming anyway, killing two birds with one stone, I'd like to ask you to handle this surgery. You're from Heping Hospital - what we consider difficult surgeries are nothing for you. Right, buddy?"
Liu Zhengliang was familiar with their usual routine, but the formalities couldn't be skipped. He had to politely decline: "Why not send the patient to Shenyang for treatment? The provincial capital can definitely handle it. Besides, we already have a surgery scheduled this weekend, time is tight. Subarachnoid hemorrhages are urgent - they really can't wait for me."
Chen Junnan continued: "Buddy, first of all, the interventional surgery department at Shenyang Military General Hospital has waiting lists now, can't get appointments with the expert directors. Secondly, it just so happens the patient's condition isn't suitable for surgery yet - they can wait. If you take this surgery, you'll make thirty thousand for a quick procedure, how convenient is that? If the surgery succeeds, the family might even give you a red envelope bonus - all going straight into your pocket."
The patient's family was listening right beside Chen Junnan's phone, so Liu Zhengliang had to act somewhat reluctant on his end. This was their understanding - by showing reluctance, the family would concede certain privileges. Having a doctor come all this way to perform surgery meant doing a friend a favor, which limited future bargaining power.
This performance was somewhat challenging for Liu Zhengliang. If not for his vision of perfect married life, he wouldn't want much contact with someone like Chen Junnan. But reality forced him to get used to people like Chen. Reality was interesting that way - if you didn't follow its lead, it would arrange an even more difficult path for you. Whether you liked it or not, you'd have to walk it eventually.Liu Zhengliang and Chen Junnan had a clear division of labor: Chen Junnan was responsible for finding suitable patients in Fushun—those whose families had some money but lacked the connections to secure a spot in China’s top-tier hospitals. You might be a big shot in Fushun, but if you go to any renowned hospital in Beijing, you’ll end up in the hallway at best, or worse, fail to get a bed at all. Chen Junnan would locate such patients and then grandly introduce Liu Zhengliang, describing him as a local boy who had earned his medical doctorate and now worked at Heping Hospital, one of China’s finest. If they doubted his credentials, he’d show them Liu’s medical license, emphasizing, "This is brain surgery, not treating an ingrown toenail. Who would dare mess around without real skill?"
Once Chen Junnan attracted clients, he negotiated a price. Of course, he never worked for free, though he never disclosed his commission to Liu Zhengliang, who never pressed for details. Liu had already earned over a hundred thousand yuan from surgeries costing five to eight thousand each.
In the medical field, this practice has a name: Flying Scalpel.
A few years earlier, when Liu Zhengliang had just started working, his parents began to worry. After all, he was already thirty after completing his doctorate, and his personal life was still unsettled. They urged him to start dating but ignored their own circumstances. The elderly couple had been among the first laid off in 1997 and lived in a Soviet-era workers’ residential building in Fushun’s western district, originally built as part of the Soviet Union’s 156-aid projects to China. They had just transitioned from low-income households to retired workers, with their per capita monthly income rising from 900 to 1,800 yuan, and yet they were already fantasizing about a daughter-in-law.
Liu Zhengliang said, "Mom, with our family’s conditions, what girl would want to be with me?"
His mother retorted, "What’s wrong with our family? Once your grandfather passes, we’ll have two properties. We can live in one and rent out or sell the other. Then we’ll have plenty of space."
Liu replied, "Come on, that old, dilapidated house was built by the Soviets and is older than Dad. And Grandpa’s place was built by the Japanese during the Puppet Manchukuo era. Even the movie star Li Xianglan lived there—it’s as old as her, over ninety years. Who would buy it? If no one buys it, it has no value. How can we talk about family conditions then?"
His mother stubbornly insisted, "In a few years, your grandfather’s house will become an antique. Once it’s demolished in a redevelopment, it’ll be worth a fortune."
Liu said, "Mom, don’t you get it? If it becomes an antique, it can’t be demolished—it has to be preserved as is."
His mother wouldn’t listen. "You don’t understand. Someone will buy it."
Northeasterners have an innate, inexplicable sense of intellectual superiority. Even without education or experience, they believe they have sharp judgment and can see things clearly. This might stem from generations of survival bias among those who ventured into the Northeast: "Look, our ancestors had the foresight to come here and survive when people were starving back in the heartland. They lacked vision! For us in the Northeast, even scattering seeds on the street can yield a harvest—the land is that fertile. How can you argue with that?" So, in their view, things are just as they see them, no need for complicated explanations.
Liu Zhengliang’s parents were exactly like that—extremely self-assured in their superiority.Over a year ago, through a friend's introduction, Liu Zhengliang met a female teacher. Her name isn't important—she only appears twice in this story, so there's no need to know it anyway. She was one year younger than Liu Zhengliang, from Hubei province, a graduate of Beijing Normal University, and taught at a well-known elementary school in Haidian. Teachers often share a common trait: they habitually impart their thoughts and can't help commenting on anything they find unsatisfactory. After dating for about a year, she started lecturing Liu Zhengliang: "We've been together for almost a year now. You need to have a plan for our future together. Do you want to get married or not?"
Liu Zhengliang didn't really have any other choice in how to respond. After all, the woman was already in her thirties—back in Fushun, she wouldn't even be called a "young lady" anymore. A year was enough time to get to know each other, and he really did owe her a clear answer. Liu Zhengliang could only say, "Yes."
The woman said, "Then let's figure it out. We should buy a place in Beijing and settle down. My family can contribute one million, your family can put in one million, and we'll take out a 1.5 million yuan loan. That way, we can get a two-bedroom apartment right away. Let's not buy in Haidian—it's too expensive, with prices around eighty to ninety thousand per square meter. A six or seven million yuan apartment is just too much for us to handle. We'll buy in Changping, in the suburbs. As a teacher, my children will have access to school placements, so we don't need to buy a Haidian school district apartment to attend schools there. Three and a half million will be more than enough."
When she said this, Liu Zhengliang was earning 11,000 yuan a month, and she was making 8,500.
Her calculations were spot on, and every word she said made perfect sense—no hysterics, no unreasonable demands. The only problem was that Liu Zhengliang's family didn't have one million yuan. His mother had been pinning her hopes on his grandfather's old house, which was slated for demolition. It was a two-story building allocated in 1978 as part of a policy restitution, with a floor area of 150 square meters. Thanks to Li Ka-shing being born late, there was no shared area included. Fushun is a city with depleted resources and a declining population. Because this old building was too large and too dated, it would have to be priced 30% below market value. The neighbor next door had listed theirs for 250,000 yuan for over half a year, with no buyers. So, several beads were missing from his mother's abacus of wishful thinking, leaving it completely stuck.
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