The Video Call on the Seventh Night of My Business Trip: From an Argument to Japanese Tengsu

Chen Bojun stood his suitcase against the wall, the hum of the room's air conditioner drowning out the occasional footsteps in the hallway. It was his seventh night on this business trip. He had barely touched the bento on the desk, taking only two bites. His phone screen lit up with a message from his wife: "When are you coming home?" He replied, "Not sure yet," and placed the phone face down on the desk. After a while, he picked it up again and started a video call.

When the call connected, his wife was in the kitchen putting away dishes, the sound of the range hood in the background. She didn't speak right away, only asked if he had eaten. Bojun said he had. She said, "You always say you've eaten." That sentence stung like a needle. He suddenly felt that all the exhaustion he had built up over the past few days was being dismissed, and his tone turned sharp. He said he was working away from home, not on vacation, so why did every video call have to turn into an interrogation? His wife was silent for a few seconds, then turned the camera toward the counter and said she was taking care of the kid and the house all by herself—she wasn't on vacation either.

They went back and forth, and by the end, both were exhausted. Bojun leaned against the headboard, stared at the ceiling, and said, "I just want someone to listen to me." His wife went quiet on her end too, turned off the faucet, sat down, and said, "Then talk." But for a moment, he didn't know where to begin. He only said that lately he often zoned out during meetings, got winded climbing stairs, slept poorly at night, and felt completely empty whenever he got back to the hotel. After listening, his wife didn't blame him. She just said, "When you're back, let's go get you checked out. Don't let your mind run wild."

Those words put Bojun at ease, and they also reminded him of something he had stumbled across online a few days earlier. He had originally just wanted to look up "what men at this age should really pay attention to," but the search results were flooded with health supplements. One name stuck with him: Japanese Tengsu. He hadn't clicked on it at the time. He just felt that this kind of thing seemed to come up in discussions a lot, yet he wasn't quite sure whether it was a food, a medicine, or something else entirely. He told his wife that he was actually a little curious but afraid of buying and taking things blindly.

His wife's reaction was calmer than he expected. She said curiosity was fine, but he shouldn't play doctor and shouldn't buy something just because others said it worked. She suggested that after he got back, they could make a list of questions together and ask clearly at a clinic or pharmacy. Bojun agreed, and joked that he'd better organize his search history first, or he wouldn't be able to explain things properly. His wife let out a laugh and said, "You can't even finish your bento, and you're going to organize your search history?" The mood lightened just like that.

The next night, Bojun didn't start a video call again. Instead, he sent a message asking his wife which day she'd be free after he returned. She replied with a date and added, "Don't buy anything on your own first. We'll look at it together." He stared at that line for a long time and suddenly felt that the hardest part of this business trip wasn't the work—it was that he wanted to carry everything by himself. He replied, "Okay," then typed out a long message and deleted it, finally sending just a smiley face.

On his last night before returning home, he finished packing and sat on the edge of the bed, rereading the information he had looked up over the past few days. He noticed that many pages were packed with claims, but few mentioned that everyone's situation is different, and no one could guarantee anything. He noted a few questions in his phone's memo app: Should he mention the medication he was currently taking? What were the ingredients listed on the packaging? If it was just a health supplement, how was it different from medicine? He didn't draw any conclusions. He just felt that writing the questions down was more grounding than lying awake at night letting his thoughts spiral.

The day the plane landed, his wife came to pick him up. In the car, they didn't argue again. They only talked about things at the kid's school and where to go over the weekend. Bojun showed his wife the memo. She read through each item and said, "That's the right approach—ask clearly first, then decide whether to buy." Bojun nodded. What was on his mind wasn't any particular product, but the fact that he was finally willing to let someone else share the worry. As for all those dazzling options, he decided to wait until he had asked a professional. There was no rush to make the decision alone in a hotel room.