Post-Apocalyptic Development

December 21, 2012, 6:00 p.m., the night sky of Beijing was ablaze with lights, streams of cars weaving through the city in ceaseless motion. Within Chaoyang District, between the second and third ring roads, at No. 5 North Hepingli Street, the news anchor on Channel One was reporting international events: “A mass suicide occurred in Oregon, United States, leaving 185 dead.” … Li Fengyi’s elderly mother, impatient, changed the channel with the remote.

At seventy years old, she belonged to a generation where most were illiterate, unable to understand, nor willing to watch such news. She muttered under her breath, “Why would anyone want to die when they’re alive and well? Back in the year the Japanese devils came, the elders led us in a great escape, and none of us died…”

She only knew how to press the up and down buttons to switch channels, but everywhere she turned, the news was the same. The events of 2012 left her thoroughly vexed. “If it’s not America, it’s Britain, or Italy, or France…” Western countries were regularly struck by mass suicides, and even an old woman who once could barely name two or three foreign countries now knew America, Britain, France, Italy, and the rest.

Li Fengyi happened to return home just as his mother was muttering. He looked to his wife, Wang Shujuan, for explanation.

Wang Shujuan pursed her lips. “2012 again—another mass suicide.”

Li Fengyi slipped off his leather shoes, put on slippers, and asked, “Which country this time?”

Wang Shujuan, holding onto their one-year-old son who was eager to roam, replie