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Dancing with shackles

     Most entrepreneurs have become "angelic," projecting an image of wealth and power, their bodies bulging with "fat." A single trip is enough for them to coquettishly proclaim, "I'm escaping the city!" They livestream their journeys, inviting endless commentary. They seem eager to spread hypocrisy and extravagance along the winding road to prosperity, making it bloom everywhere.

    People today, regarding the city, this magnificent coral palace, though fragmented, still adorn it with overflowing beauty. Some choose to live in cramped quarters, enduring the city's inexplicable inversion, feigning wealth while enjoying "acupuncture"—for the rich, this is health maintenance; for those struggling to make ends meet, it's a painful reality. Others, even with glaring wounds all over their bodies, proudly joke, job-hopping, self-deprecation ingrained in their very being. But even more despicable are those rigid, lifeless individuals who, without any injection of life-giving energy, dare to quietly crawl out of their coffins, resembling walking corpses.

    "Escape the city!"

    It's said so casually, like letting out a silent fart in public—no need to pull up your pants and leave, no need to bow your head and apologize to everyone. The ancients spent most of their lives contemplating this, summing it up in the phrase, "I built my hut in the midst of human habitation, yet there is no noise of carriages and horses." The ancients only forgot about carriages and horses; modern people seem to have forgotten this chaotic, colorful city that pierces their very bones with steel and concrete from the ground up. And these aren't the unconventional avant-garde types, but a bunch of outwardly accommodating but inwardly principled entrepreneurs. Oh, "escape" isn't about having a lobster shell left in your mouth after a meal and saying you're tired of the good things in life. It's not about the blood-red cherries still rippling in your wine glass, confidently proclaiming, "Of all the waters in the world, none is higher than a cup; of all rivers flowing to it, none is greater than the stomach; it never overflows." I'm just that detached from worldly affairs.

    I'm looking at the scenery; you're looking at me. I feel the scenery is far away, but your digital self is very close.

    This is a portrait of modern people. Someone once said, "The difference between freedom and unbridled behavior is like the difference between a dog and a wolf. They may look alike, but their natures are vastly different. One is restrained and bound by boundaries; the other is unrestrained and unbound by boundaries." Actually, I'd like to add the difference between freedom and pseudo-freedom: it's like the difference between a human and a transvestite. A human can do anything and do nothing; a transvestite does what they can and cannot do, and deliberately does what they cannot do. Travel has become a jigsaw puzzle. There are photos of meals; even if you see a fly in your food and can't swallow it, you still post it on WeChat to disgust others. There are pictures of walking—two feet, a weary shadow, a heart-pounding gasp at the interplay of light and shadow. If you see beauty, you cut it out; if you see ugliness, you lick your saliva and stick it on, letting friends and family see how we, the elite, use cameras to capture the eye's eye.

    On this gloomy stage shrouded in curtains, the modern people of the city are all wound up, ticking away, waiting for the string to snap, for them to fall apart in a crash. The wealthy puppets began recruiting, eager to escape the stage, hoarsely shouting the strongest cry of the era: "Escape!" But they forgot the heavy shackles binding their feet, the other end held by a money "pole," taking root in the land of the communication age. Finally, that small, eerie stage was placed in a cobweb-covered, stinking tomb. Forgotten…

    Another reply: "I'm also escaping the city~"

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