It was dusk, and a single lightbulb hung from the ceiling. Wang picked one at random, and walked inside.

He crossed the highway abutting the hospital and stopped beneath the vast concrete hull of an elevated railway line, where a row of funeral services shops stood as filthy and forlorn as slum brothels. Wang hung up and returned to his mother.ДЄ few hours later, Wang tried a different tack. вЂњThen why are you in such a rush?вЂќ he said. The employee put him on hold, and after a few minutes, another picked up. Wang said that his mother was still alive, though she could pass away at any moment. A hospital worker recommended that he call the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, the cityвЂ™s best-known resting place. Like most of his generation, he was born under ChinaвЂ™s one-child policy, and with no siblings, he forced himself to begin planning for his motherвЂ™s death. His motherвЂ™s sickness was like a powerful lens, focusing his frustrations вЂ“ the cityвЂ™s choking air pollution, his own stagnating career вЂ“ into a single, stinging beam.Д®ventually, a doctor recommended that Wang begin вЂњmaking preparationsвЂќ. He worried he might lose his job as a marketing director at Lashou, a Beijing-based online company. Seeing his mother suffer, Wang grew depressed. She deflated like a balloon вЂ“ 5kg down, then 10, then 20. Weeks became months, and WangвЂ™s mother underwent 17 rounds of chemotherapy. After doctors diagnosed his mother with cancer, Wang paid a vast sum to secure her a bed at the Beijing Cancer hospital, perhaps the cityвЂ™s finest. WangвЂ™s own creation myth began in a Beijing hospital in early 2012. They are the Chinese strivers who have transformed Beijing into a city of startup dreams вЂ“ entrepreneurs such as Robin Li, who rose from peasant roots to found the search giant Baidu, and Jack Ma, the former English teacher who founded the internet trading company Alibaba. His heroes were forged in garages, dorm rooms and cheap flats. W ang Dan is a genial 34-year-old man with a soft, bulldog-like face and a quiet enthusiasm for the next thing coming.

Fallen leaves ghost on the shore