In a small, nondescript apartment, nestled on the fifth floor of a gray, aging building, there lived a man named Liu Wei. An eternal bachelor, Liu’s world consisted of odd routines and the monotonous comfort of predictability. He adjusted his ties meticulously each morning and shaved his stubble with the reverence of a monk attending to his morning prayers. However, this routine held an insidious secret: his shaving cream was of infamous repute.
“Ah, the harmful shaving cream,” Liu’s friend, Zhang Kai, quipped with a sardonic grin. “Why do you keep using that stuff? They’ll run a documentary on you one day.”
“It’s tradition,” Liu replied, smirking. “Besides, it’s like me—cheap and reliable.”
No sooner had those words left his lips than the world outside shifted imperceptibly. It was the onset of the end days, though to Liu and Zhang, it seemed only the weather had grown more mischievous. The sky turned a shade of mustard gray, the kind that hinted more at unfashionable wallpaper than an atmospheric disturbance.
“末日, my friend,” Zhang mused, peering through the blinds. “The end days. I heard it on the news. Or maybe it was the gossip from the street vendor?”
“Either way, it sounds as plausible as any other news these days,” Liu shrugged, lathering the cream onto his face with practised elegance.
As the radioactive clouds thickened, the city descended into a practical bedlam wrapped in an alluring, Eileen Chang-like haze—both worldly and stark. Barely noticing, Liu continued his morning ritual in quiet defiance of reality, shaving away as though smoothing out the creases of a fatigued life.
Mid-lather, Zhang’s voice broke the ritual. “You know, this cream, it might be the only thing harmful enough to survive whatever apocalypse is upon us. A pity your face won’t, though.”
Liu chuckled, ignoring the ominous tone. “Death by shaving cream—what a legacy I’d leave. My ancestors would be so proud.”
Dialogue loomed heavy, succeeding in their desire to seem nonchalant as monumental chaos eroded the foundations of their world—a fitting tapestry of futility and detached waves of existential humor.
Just as Liu finished, specks of the yellow storm seeped through the window’s edges, encircling the room like ghostly dancers. Both men paused, silence wrapping around them snugly.
“So, what’s your last wish?” Zhang asked, folding his arms over his chest, a sardonic smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“To die with a perfectly shaven face,” Liu replied, wiping the last traces of the cream. “Because in a world that ends in absurd cruelty, veiled under a façade of sanity, the least I can do is maintain appearances.”
The room filled with laughter, laughter that echoed into an uncaring cosmos—black humor clinging to its last human outpost.
As the harmful clouds finally claimed their place in the apartment, Liu and Zhang settled into the calm resolve that irony was perhaps life’s saving grace all along. Even in a shaved world that laughed at them one final time.