The hardworking geniuses in Spent Bullets are the creme de la creme of the meritocracy. Educated in the best schools in Taiwan, they hold lucrative positions in America's big-tech industry, the pinnacle of career prestige. Yet there is a dark side to their relentless focus and achievements. In an age that idolizes success, Terao Tetsuya's piercing collection explores the grotesque contortions of psyches shaped by hypercompetitive systems, where the measure of one's worth is a capacity for suffering--witnessed through the brief, shining life of Jie-Heng, a prodigy who can solve any logic problem but not the problem of human relations. Jie-Heng mostly does what is expected of him, even if it means diminishing his individuality. A young man with no center to ground him, he tries to fit in, yet fails to connect because of other people's fear, misunderstanding, resentment, and obessive adoration. When Jie-Heng's yearning to embrace the void is tragically realized, he leaves behind a host of unanswered questions and complicated feelings

In English, translated from the Chinese