Edition note: An independent English rewriting for readers of Dying to Survive. It preserves the Chinese argument while reorganizing its sequence for an English-language essay. Full-film spoilers.
Cheng Yong owes rent. His father needs an operation. His former wife may take their son abroad. When Lü Shouyi first asks him to import the Indian generic, Cheng refuses because smuggling medicine can put him in prison.
Then the arithmetic of his own life changes his mind.
The film is admirably direct about this beginning. Cheng does not enter the trade after a moral awakening. He buys bottles for hundreds of yuan and sells them for thousands—still far below the legal drug's price, but at a handsome profit. Patients survive and Cheng gets rich. Both statements are true.
Lü connects him to patients. Liu Sihui, a single mother who dances in a nightclub to support her ill daughter, has access to patient groups. Pastor Liu can negotiate in English. Peng Hao, the young man called Yellow Hair, has leukemia and initially steals the drug before joining the operation.
Their motives do not form a heroic creed. They want money, medicine, a child's survival, or simply to perform an act that appears necessary. The disorder of those motives is one of the film's strengths. Public good often begins before the people producing it have acquired noble self-descriptions.
Cheng eventually sells the supply channel to Zhang Changlin, a swindler who threatens to report him. Fear of prison is real, but so is the comfort Cheng now has to lose. He leaves the patients with a man he knows exploits them, takes the payout, and builds a legitimate garment business.
For more than a year, he continues with his life.
When Zhang raises the price and later disappears, patients lose access. Lü's illness advances. Cheng visits him in hospital and stands outside during an agonizing debridement procedure. Later Lü ends his life, believing his treatment and pain will consume the family he hoped to remain alive for.
This death does not teach Cheng a new abstract principle. It destroys the distance that had allowed him to classify the trade as a risky business he was entitled to leave.
Lü was not “a patient population.” He was the man who entered the shop in three masks, ate at Cheng's table, celebrated their first success, and introduced his baby. Cheng had been able to help him. Cheng had also walked away.
After the funeral, he returns to India and reopens the supply. This time he sells at cost. When the source factory is forced to close and retail purchases become more expensive, he continues charging patients only five hundred yuan and covers the difference himself.
The usual arc would call this redemption: a profiteer becomes a saint. The film leaves Cheng more recognizably human. He remains impatient, afraid of prison, and conscious of every invoice. He does not become fearless. He becomes unable to pretend that the consequences belong to strangers.
Guilt is part of that change, but guilt alone cannot explain months of repeated action. He must travel, purchase, organize, lose money, and expose himself again and again. A feeling becomes morally significant only when it acquires a practice.
At trial, Cheng does not claim that selling the unapproved medicine was lawful. He acknowledges the offense and explains that he wanted patients to live. That distinction matters. A person can accept that a rule applies and still force a court—and an audience—to confront what obedience would have meant.
The real-life case that inspired the film ended differently: leukemia patient Lu Yong, who helped fellow patients buy the Indian generic, was ultimately not prosecuted after authorities examined his non-profit conduct and the limited social harm. Cheng is a fictional transformation, not a documentary substitute.
His second return therefore cannot be used as proof that illegal medicine is always virtuous. It asks a narrower question. When the lawful route is inaccessible and a person in front of you will die, how long can “this is not my responsibility” remain a complete answer?
版本说明：中文原作；简体与繁体同页切换。片名、人名、关键情节与过强措辞已作校订。全片剧透。
一间小店。老板叫程勇，店里卖印度神油，生意不行，房租欠了几个月，房东来堵门。
他跟前妻离了婚，儿子要被带出国。他父亲脑子里长了东西，要动手术，要一大笔钱。他一分钱都没有。
那个戴三层口罩的人来找他的时候，他一开始是拒绝的，他说这是走私，要坐牢。后来他答应了，因为他缺钱，而且缺得很急。
这部电影很老实：它从一开始就把程勇的动机摆得清清楚楚。他不是被病人的处境打动了，他不是有什么理想，他是没钱。 后来有一场戏，他自己说过——他不是什么救世主，他就是要挣钱。
事情做起来之后，他需要人手。吕受益，那个来找他的病人，负责牵线。刘思慧，一个在夜店跳舞的单亲妈妈，她女儿也是病人，她手里有很多病友群，能把消息发出去。刘牧师，一位老牧师，会说英语，在印度那边能谈事。黄毛，一个从家里跑出来的年轻病人，在屠宰场干活，他一开始是抢程勇药的那个人，后来留了下来。
这五个人的动机各不相同：程勇要钱；吕受益要活着，他刚有了孩子；刘思慧要给女儿买药；刘牧师说不清楚，他只是觉得这件事该做；黄毛自己就是病人。没有一个人是圣人。
生意做起来了。五百块进的药，他卖五千，病人们排队买，因为正版四万。他赚了很多，给父亲交了手术费，开始有底气跟前妻谈儿子的事。
一个卖假药的人找上门，那个人手里有他走私的证据，提了条件：把这条渠道交出来，否则举报。程勇想了想，同意了。
请看他做这个决定时的处境。他不是被逼到走投无路——他手里有钱了，父亲的手术做了，他可以用这笔钱去做点别的。而他知道接手的那个人是干什么的。 那是个骗子，办讲座，卖假药，坑的就是这些病人。
那顿散伙饭上，几个人闹翻了。黄毛把桌子掀了，吕受益没有说话。程勇说了一句，意思大致是：他不能再干了，他要坐牢的。这句话是真的。
后来他拿那笔钱开了一家服装厂，生意做得不错，有钱了，有正经营生了，跟儿子的关系也缓和了。他不再是那个欠房租的小老板。
而在这一年多里，另一边发生了别的事。那个卖假药的把价钱抬到了两万，病人买不起了；后来那个人也出了事，跑了，那条渠道断了。
有一天，吕受益的妻子找上门来。程勇跟着去了医院，吕受益躺在那里——他的病到了后面的阶段，医生要给他做清创。那个过程很疼。
程勇站在病房外面，隔着门。里面在叫，那声音持续了很久。这场戏没有一句台词，他没有说话，靠着墙站着，电影没有拍他的表情特写。
吕受益后来自己走了。他不愿意再拖下去，他有一个刚会走路的孩子，他选择了不再拖累这个家。
葬礼之后，程勇又飞了一趟印度，重新把渠道接了起来。
这一次的价钱是五百块——进价多少，卖多少。后来印度那家仿制药厂被起诉关掉了，程勇只能从药店零售价买，两千一瓶，而他还是按五百卖。每卖一瓶，他自己贴一千五。
通行的读法是：他良心发现了，他从一个奸商变成了一个英雄。这个读法太顺了。
请看他这一年多是怎么过的。他没有一天在想着回去救人——他开厂，做生意，赚钱，跟儿子处关系，他把那件事放下了。而吕受益死了。
变的是一件具体的事：他认识的一个人，在他能帮忙的时候，他没有帮，然后那个人死了。 那次清创，他站在门外听着；那个婴儿，他见过；那个人是他叫来一起吃过饭的、一起干过活的、一起被他抛下的那一个。这些不是抽象的道理。
“再也没法装作不知道”与“从此成为好人”，不是同一件事。 程勇不是换了一副人格。他仍然会怕、会算账、会发火；改变的是抽象的病人有了吕受益的脸，而他再也无法把自己能够做的事完全推回别人那里。
请看他重新开始之后的样子：他还是会骂人，还是害怕坐牢，还是会算账，他没有变成一个不怕死的人。他做的事情只有一件——每个月飞一趟，把药带回来，按五百块卖出去，自己贴钱。
后来他被抓了。在法庭上，他做了最后陈述，说的意思大致是：他做的事违法，他认，他没有什么好辩解的；他说他就是想让那些人活着。
这一点很要紧：他没有说"这条法律不对"，没有说"我是好人"，没有说"你们应该理解我"。他说：我做的事触犯了当时的法律，我认。然后他说了他为什么做。真实的陆勇案最终获不起诉，程勇与五年刑期都是电影改编，不能拿来替代真实案件。
下一篇写另外几个人。他们每一个都不是圣人，而每一个都有那么一下。
本文所依据的版本为二〇一八年文牧野执导版。