His father's list said Linlin Pharmacy, and it took three nights of asking to understand why
On a weekend evening, A-Hong went back to his hometown for dinner. Just before he left, his father pulled a folded slip of paper from a drawer and said, "When you have time, help me buy the things written on this. I can't read those words." The paper bore his father's usual ballpoint handwriting. The first few lines read soy sauce, toothpaste, batteries, but the last line had the name of a store, followed by a few items that had been crossed out and rewritten. A-Hong stared at that line for a long time. His first thought wasn't curiosity—it was caution.
He took a photo of the slip and only examined it carefully after returning to his rented room. In the crossed-out section, he could vaguely make out the character "藤," with the two small characters "日本" beside it. He thought of those messages relatives had been passing around in the family group chat a while back, with headlines more ala...