I Removed the iPhone Pro From My Cart at Midnight. Here’s What I Saved.

He removed the 8,999‑yuan link from his shopping cart only after the dorm lights were out.
The phone screen was dimmed to its lowest setting so it wouldn’t disturb his roommate across the room. His thumb hovered over “Confirm Remove” for two seconds, then tapped it. He searched again for “iPhone standard edition 256GB,” added one for 5,999, and placed the order. The payment‑success screen lit up briefly. He locked the screen and put the phone face‑down beside his pillow.

The next morning, he told his roommate he’d bought one. “Why didn’t you go for the Pro?” his roommate asked.
“It’s enough,” he said.

He would repeat that answer to different people many times. To his academic advisor: “Budget constraints.” To a high‑school friend: “The Pro is too heavy.” To his family on the phone: “The standard edition already has more performance than I need for four years.” Every reason was true, but none of them captured those two minutes after lights out.

During those two minutes, he did the math.

2,300 yuan – the difference between the standard and the Pro. He opened his notes app and listed item by item: 34 takeout meals, based on the braised‑chicken rice at the backstreet canteen; one high‑speed train ticket home, with enough left to bring his parents a box of oranges; replacing his current Bluetooth earphones, whose left side was already cutting out; or simply keeping the money in his balance, so that when he needed a deposit for his internship apartment next semester, he’d have to ask his family for one less time.

He finished the list and deleted it.

He deleted it because he scrolled through his photo gallery instead. The last outing he took – he zoomed in on a photo, and it wasn’t blurry. The one before that was a shot of a classroom projector screen – the text was perfectly readable. The one before that was today’s cafeteria menu, which he’d taken to show his roommate and ask what to eat. He scrolled further back and remembered that at the start of last semester he had bought a mirrorless camera, thinking the same thing: “I’ll take some nice shots.” He’d used it three times so far: twice for group photos for his student club, once for a test shot.

He closed the gallery.

He had watched review videos. He knew the Pro had a high‑refresh‑rate display, a telephoto lens, and a titanium frame. He could recite some reviewers’ catchphrases: “Once you use it, you can’t go back,” “professional‑grade imaging system,” “worth every penny.” But he also came across a comment left by an office worker who wrote that after buying the Pro, the features he used most were still scanning QR codes and scrolling through short videos: “I spent the money, but I didn’t get any extra happiness; the extra weight, though, I feel every day.”

He had screenshotted that comment. He didn’t save it, but he remembered it.

The phone arrived on a Friday. He unboxed it in the dorm, and his roommate leaned in, saying, “That blue looks nice.” He applied a screen protector, put on a case, powered it on, and started the data transfer. Slowly, everything from his old phone migrated over: WeChat chat logs, the photo gallery, and that notes file – containing more than thirty entries titled “Reasons I Want the Pro.” The longest one, written three months ago, began with: “If I get the Pro, I’ll be able to…”

He didn’t open it. He didn’t delete it, either.

Once the new phone was set up, he opened WeChat. His roommate asked, “How is it?”
“It’s fast,” he said.
Then he locked the screen, set the phone down on the desk, stood up, and went to get a glass of water.

As he passed the balcony, he glanced outside. It was already dark; the streetlights below the dorm building were on, nothing special. He took a sip of water, came back, sat down, opened a food‑delivery app, and added an order of sweet‑and‑sour pork ribs.