On the day Director Wang was taken away, I happened to be in the office next door. In the bottom drawer of that mahogany desk, besides an unopened bird's nest gift box, there were also half a box of fast-acting heart-saving pills scattered about. This detail stuck in my throat like a fish bone — it turns out that these officials who make a ruckus during the day are swallowing tranquilizers to get by at night.

Last year, when I accompanied a relative to the bureau to handle some business, the young man at the counter was scolded mercilessly as soon as he handed in the documents. I peeked in and saw the vice director, with a beer belly, stuffing antihypertensive pills into his mouth, his shiny forehead revealing the blood vessels in his eyes like a spider's web. I heard that he could gamble away seven figures in Macau, yet he couldn't book a first-class seat whenever he traveled with his family — afraid of being photographed and posted online.

During a reunion with old classmates, we talked about the CEO of a certain state-owned enterprise, who owns five properties but has to spend money hiring people to live in them regularly to feign a sense of life. His daughter studies in the UK and doesn’t dare to video call during festivals, fearing she might accidentally slip up and be eavesdropped on. The most ironic part is that during a health check last year, the proportion of the leadership team diagnosed with severe anxiety reached 71%.

"There are deities three feet above," modern cameras are a hundred times more formidable than deities. A former director under investigation confessed that while in office, he always had to pull the curtains three layers down and would sit bolt upright upon hearing police sirens at night. Those gold bars and calligraphy works were too risky to store in a bank and too valuable to be stolen, so he dug out a three-meter-deep "underground vault" in his yard, only to have the foundation collapse and be reported by neighbors.

"Those who collect hundreds of gold cannot sit at ease, and those who accept thousands of gold cannot eat or sleep peacefully." The pain of corrupt individuals, ancient and modern, is surprisingly similar. After all, the human heart beats only so many times per minute; no amount of money can buy a deep night's sleep.