The Loop

Liu Xingzhou sits in the agency counting money, his fingers sliding over the 380-yuan medical exam fee, not looking up. A Jun crouches at the entrance of the labor market, his hand ruined, ID lost, a bald patch on his head, only eight yuan left in his pocket. Old Zhang dies on a park bench; the ambulance comes, the man is gone, the bench is empty. Xiao Yang walks out of the train station, takes a red flyer, and walks through that door—he doesn't know that he's not walking into a factory, but into the loop. The loop contains the agency's legal contracts, the school's internship programs, the scripted dramas of anti-fraud bloggers, and the labor supervision hotline that never gets through. The loop contains the thin walls of monthly rentals, the moldy smell of daily rentals, the charging phones in internet cafes, and the half-eaten steamed bun scattered by the wind under the bridge. The loop also contains those who talk without feeling the pain—'Why didn't you call the police?' 'Why didn't you read the contract carefully?' 'Why don't you work harder?'