My childhood friend works as a food delivery rider in Beijing. He’d been at it for three years and thought he had nerves of steel. But that one order this spring made him delete his account entirely.
It was past 2 AM when the system assigned him an address in an old hutong courtyard in Dongcheng District. The strange thing was, that yard had been plastered with “demolition” notices for ages – nobody was supposed to be living there.
He called the number, and an old lady’s voice answered, slow and gentle: “Just leave it at the door, the money’s already paid.” He didn’t think much of it, hung the food bag on the doorknob, took a photo as proof, and was about to leave.
As he turned, he noticed a slip of paper tucked under the door gap. Thinking it was a review card, he picked it up. It read: “Thank you, young man, for making the trip. Take this money and buy yourself something to eat.”
He rolled his eyes – where was the cash? But when he looked down, he was clutching a crumpled red banknote printed with “Bank of Paradise” and a face value of 100 million yuan.
He threw the note and the money away, jumped on his e-bike, and sped out of the hutong. The next day, he deliberately went back to check – the door had no doorknob at all, only a rusty iron lock with a faded red cloth tied around it.
Later, an old man at the hutong entrance told him that before Liberation, the courtyard was home to a childless widow. Every Chinese New Year’s Eve, she would leave food for passing beggars. One New Year’s Eve, she froze to death at the doorstep waiting for someone to come. Since then, every spring, someone would receive a “tip” at her door in the dead of night.
Since that night, my friend has never taken another 2 AM order.