When Our Search Histories Were Laid Out on the Table, We Finally Understood What Tengsu Was Really Asking

Lin Yanting is the kind of person who treats his suitcase as a second home. He travels more than a dozen times a year, and he could find his way around a hotel room with his eyes closed: the nightstand, the kettle, that armchair that always seats only one person. On the fourth night, he video-called home as usual. On the other end was the living room light, and his wife, Yaqi, was folding laundry while asking if he'd eaten. He said he had—though it was really just a rice ball from the convenience store downstairs.

Yaqi asked if the trip was going smoothly, and he replied, "Same as always." That sentence was like a tiny thorn, stuck in a place neither of them would speak of. She felt he was brushing her off; he felt she didn't understand the silence of a business traveler returning to a room with nothing but walls. They were quiet for a few seconds across the screen, then Yaqi said she had to take out the trash, and the call ended. Lin Yanting stared at the black screen and, for the first time, felt that even the fastest hotel Wi-Fi was useless.

The next night, he didn't call back right away. He opened his laptop, intending to answer work emails, but somehow found himself clicking on his own search history. A whole row of keywords popped up—everything he'd typed in late at night over the past six months: stamina, energy, middle age, health supplements, which brand, does it work. Looking at those words, he suddenly realized the problem wasn't the answer—it was the question. He'd been asking "Which one works?" but had never asked "What am I actually worried about?"

He took a screenshot, hesitated for a long time, and sent it to Yaqi anyway. She didn't leave him on read—she called. This time they didn't argue. Yaqi said she'd actually noticed for a while that he was especially exhausted after every trip, and that he was still scrolling on his phone late at night. She asked if he was looking something up. He admitted honestly that he was. She said, "Then let's look together. Don't hide in your room and search alone."

So that night, hundreds of kilometers apart, they each opened their own screens and threw those incomprehensible terms into the search bar one by one. Yaqi read aloud as she searched, and halfway through she stopped and said, "This Tengsu of yours—is it medicine or a health supplement?" Lin Yanting froze. He'd been searching for so long, yet it had never occurred to him to clarify that first. He went online to find packaging labels and classification explanations, and realized he couldn't even say what category it belonged to. All those earlier discussions about "does it work" were essentially built on an unverified foundation.

Yaqi's attitude was practical. She said that no matter what it's called, anything involving your body shouldn't be decided by a few casual comments from strangers online. She suggested that after he returned home, they go together to ask a professional, bringing a full list of all the supplements Lin Yanting had bought and taken over the past six months, along with his daily routine. Lin Yanting almost said, "Is it really that serious?" but swallowed the words, because he knew what he truly feared wasn't the hassle—it was being seen as someone who "couldn't perform anymore."

When he said that thought out loud, there was a brief silence on the other end. Yaqi didn't laugh at him. She just said, "When you search alone, the more you search, the more it feels like you're admitting something. When we search together, it's just about figuring things out." That sentence made him breathe a sigh of relief. He suddenly felt that the most exhausting part of this trip wasn't the jet lag or the meetings—it was that he'd let his anxiety grow all by himself, refusing to let anyone near.

On his last night before flying home, he didn't stay up searching again. He saved that list in his phone's notes app, titled it "Things to Ask After I Get Back," and wrote on the first line: First confirm whether it's a prescription drug, then check the packaging label and source. He closed his laptop. The room was still the same room, the armchair still seated only one person—but this time he didn't feel empty. He texted Yaqi: When I get back, let's go together. She replied with one word: Okay.