Xu Youyuan had just settled into her seat among a group of close friends, removing the neural-access crystal from her temple and barely setting her bag down when the woman across from her dropped a bombshell:
*"We haven’t had sex in two years."*
The statement sent shockwaves through the group.
One friend blurted, *"Two years? Seriously? Not at all? How is that possible? Remember how you two practically wrecked my couch back in the day?"*
*"That was ten years ago,"* Gan replied dryly. She’d been skinny in her youth, and now she was even thinner, with permanent dark circles under her eyes. No matter what she ate, she never seemed to gain weight—skip a meal, though, and she’d faint. A living twig.
Her tone was eerily detached, as if she were discussing someone else’s life.
The others were visibly rattled. *"Ten years or not, you’re still you two. I mean, forget quality—just on a basic level, nothing for two whole years? You and Chen Shu, just cuddling under the blankets like platonic roommates? Impossible! You two were the wildest in our entire circle. Nobody expects you to go all night like you did in your twenties, but come on. Even if it’s not mind-blowing, as long as you’re putting in the effort, it counts."*
*"Nope. Not even that. The last time was miserable, and neither of us brought it up again after."* Gan shrugged.
*"No attempts at all?"*
*"No energy to even try."* Gan sighed. *"Back in our early twenties, we were still in college. Money came from our parents, no jobs, no real responsibilities. Now? Work drains me like a dog. Come home, collapse, do nothing. Sometimes I don’t even get to rest—just one thing after another. The other day, I walked in to find the apartment shredded by Abu. Chen Shu was about to get home, dinner wasn’t even started, and as soon as I finished cleaning up the mess, I stepped in dog crap. Abu’s tail whacked me in the face while I was scrubbing—I nearly lost it."*
*"Wait, hold on. The last time was miserable? How?"* Someone zeroed in on the key detail.
Gan scanned the faces of her oldest friends—people she’d known since middle school, who’d seen her at her best and worst. After a pause, she decided honesty was the best policy. *"Chen Shu fell asleep halfway through. I zoned out too, thinking about the damn leaky toilet. Last month’s water bill was insane, and I still haven’t called the property manager. You know how crappy old complexes are—since we’re renters, not owners, they never take us seriously. I hate dealing with them. Honestly, if Chen Shu hadn’t snored loud enough to wake herself up, we might’ve finished without even noticing how pathetic it was."*
Someone snorted, then immediately got glared into silence.
*"I don’t think that’s the real issue,"* another friend offered gently. *"This stuff happens to every couple, no matter how strong the relationship. You’ve been together ten years, married for five or six, right? The spark fades. You gotta figure out how to bring back some excitement."*
Another disagreed. *"A relationship can’t survive on novelty alone. Ten years in, with decades ahead? No amount of ‘excitement’ lasts forever."*
*"True, but no excitement at all is worse. Listen—it’s not just about novelty. The bigger problem is…"* The friend eyed Gan. *"You and Chen Shu are both stretched thin. Cut out the energy drains. Cooking after work? Who does that anymore? Just order takeout."*
Gan scoffed. *"Chen Shu’s stomach is sensitive. One bite of takeout and she’s on the toilet. She deals with nightmare clients all day—if she’s uncomfortable, she takes it out on me. And I’ve got my own frustrations to deal with."*
*"What frustrations?"*
*"Old Zhang’s blocking my promotion. Until he’s gone, I’m stuck. I’m thirty-two. Thirty-three next year, and that’s counting by East Asian age. My position’s a dead end. If I don’t move up soon, it’s over."*
*"Then switch jobs?"*
*"Easier said than done. You know how the job market is—few openings, stiff competition. I’ve sent out resumes. The good places ignore me; the bad ones aren’t worth it."*
*"How bad?"*
*"Office in the sinkzone. Need I say more?"*
A collective shudder ran through the group. *"Oh hell no. Didn’t they just have a random stabbing spree there? News covered it for a week, then nothing."*
*"My cop friend said the higher-ups are pressuring hard, but the sinkzone precinct’s clueless. No terrorist claims either. Chief resigned in disgrace, and now it’s worse than ever."*
*"Back to Gan and Chen Shu,"* someone steered the conversation. *"No other options besides sinkzone work? Maybe Xu Youyuan can pull strings."*
All eyes turned to Xu Youyuan, but Shi Ye cut in first: *"Different industries, though."*
Gan shook her head. *"I’m in traditional retail. Xu Youyuan’s in gaming—totally different worlds. Brick-and-mortar’s been dying for years. Now it’s all unmanned stores and one-hour delivery. Faster, cheaper, easier returns. My sector’s bleeding jobs. Finding something with comparable pay? Impossible."*
*"Pivot to online sales?"*
*"Zero experience. Who’d hire me?"*
A friend groaned. *"You’re stuck in ‘too good for the bad jobs, not good enough for the great ones’ limbo."*
*"Yep. Exactly."* Gan exhaled. *"Switching careers at my age? Forget it. Even if I wanted to learn, nobody’s training a thirty-something. Can’t move up, can’t move out. Old Zhang’s my personal prison warden. Every path’s a dead end—except one shitty trail leading to a shitty village.*
*"You could say, ‘Suck it up, take a sinkzone job for 20k a month.’ Sure, I wouldn’t starve. But that’s half my current salary. Downgrading hurts. And Chen Shu? She’d never tolerate it."*
*"Still doesn’t explain two years without sex…"*
"Anxiety gnaws at me every day—can’t sleep at night, can’t wake up in the morning, hair falling out in clumps. Who has the energy to even think about *that*? When I go out with her, half the time I don’t even realize she’s there until it’s too late. Turns out neither of us said a word the whole time, both lost in our own heads. Sometimes I remember she’s there and try to strike up a conversation, but it feels exhausting, and it always ends in an argument. Easier to just stay silent."
Gan, sitting next to Xu Youyuan, took a sip of coffee and shook her head. "Gan’s gotten so thin she looks like a stick now."
Gan forced a bitter smile. "A stick that could snap any second. Look at my nails."
She spread her fingers, and her friends leaned in. Her slightly yellowed nails had deep ridges, almost every one of them marked.
"That’s a sign of severe blood deficiency," Shi Ye said. "You need to get checked out properly. Don’t ignore it—what if it’s something worse?"
"I want to, but I don’t have the time or the energy. Can’t muster the motivation for anything."
"Are you depressed?"
"Maybe." Gan lowered her head and finished her black coffee in one gulp.
"I have my struggles, and Chen Shu has hers. We both know the other’s going through it, but neither of us wants to talk about it. We’ve said all there is to say, given all the advice we can. Nothing changes. After a while, you learn it’s all wasted effort, so why bother? The root of it is that I’ve lost my drive. She says I *could* find another way if I wanted to, but I’m just too comfortable to leave my safe little bubble. And she’s right—I didn’t argue. Better to stay at my current job than risk quitting and scraping by in the lower-tier districts. At least here, everything’s familiar, and the salary’s enough to keep me afloat. The thought that I can still barely afford the 15,000-rent each month is the only thing that lets me breathe when I wake up."
"Chen Shu’s disappointed in me. Thinks I’ve got no ambition. And me? I think her mind’s never on us, never on *me*. Forget doing *it*—we barely exchange five words a day. Just two people stuck in the same room, sick of each other."
When Gan finished, the room fell into heavy silence. Everyone sipped their coffee or tea, lost in thought.
The friends were all around the same age, past thirty, standing at life’s crossroads. Every gathering turned into a litany of complaints—always the same three things: health, work, love.
Gan seemed resigned, no longer wrestling with it. The words she’d just spoken had looped in her head hundreds of times, rehearsed in thousands of internal monologues. In the end, it all boiled down to five words: *giving up on everything.*
Xu Youyuan leaned back into the plush sofa cushions. Shi Ye asked if she wanted a latte.
"Just black tea," she said. "Coffee this late will keep me up."
"Gan’s situation isn’t even that bad," Jiang Yun suddenly cut in, her cheeks flushed from two large glasses of wine. Her eyes were fixed blankly on the table, her chest rising and falling as if weighed down by fury. "Two years without sex is better than finding out you’ve got a whole *prairie* growing over your head."
The group turned to her in stunned silence, already piecing it together from her tone. "Wait… Wu Zhuo *cheated* on you?"
Jiang Yun laughed bitterly. "The way I found out? Unbelievable. You’d never guess."
Everyone leaned in.
"Every year, Wu Zhuo’s company has an annual party where spouses are invited. I’ve gone every time—you all know that. Her colleagues all recognize me."
"Last year’s party, I noticed this new girl locking eyes with me for no reason. I asked Wu Zhuo who she was. She said it was just a new hire and asked why I cared. I brushed it off, but something felt off. Couldn’t place it, though, so I forgot about it."
The friends groaned. "*That* look? The one that says ‘I’m the one stealing your girl’?"
Jiang Yun rolled her eyes. "Then, a while back, my dad got sick. I took leave to go back home and stay with him. Normally, Wu Zhuo just lets me take a cab to the station, but this time? She *insisted* on driving me herself. The whole ride, that same weird feeling came back—like déjà vu."
"Wu Zhuo never misses sending me a ‘goodnight’ text. *Never.* Even when I was away, same thing. Every night at 11, give or take fifteen minutes." Jiang Yun took a sip of her friend’s tea, then continued. "At our age, routines don’t break easily. We all know that."
Someone couldn’t resist: "So one night, the text was late?"
Jiang Yun shook her head.
"Didn’t send it at all?"
"No." Her voice turned icy. "She sent it *an hour early.* Said she was tired and going to bed."
The silence that followed was thick with understanding.
"I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Half my mind was on Wu Zhuo and who she was with, but the other half? My dad. The doctors said he needs implanted radiation therapy—cutting-edge stuff, best odds right now. But the cost? Nearly dropped me to my knees. They said with other treatments, his three-year survival rate’s 30%. With this? 80%. Real hope. But the price tag means selling my apartment, draining my savings, and still needing loans. It’d wipe out everything I’ve earned since I started working. And even then, in five years, the risk comes back. The doctor didn’t sugarcoat it: do I trade everything I own for a few more years with my dad?"
"I’m the only one who can make the call. Couldn’t even talk to him about it. And then there’s Wu Zhuo’s mess on top of it all. Just… chaos."
Her friends protested: "Why didn’t you *tell* us?"
"Didn’t want you worrying. Planned to talk when I got back, but instead—" Her voice cracked. "—I came home to *this.*"
