Volume 1: The Beginner's First Cry Chapter 1: Occasion
I walked alone on the bustling street, unable to find my direction in the noisy crowd coming and going. After all, I am an ordinary person, with ordinary background, ordinary knowledge, and limited by my own character. No matter how hard I worked, I could never have a small piece of sky of my own in this metropolis full of talented people.
I was born in a small town. I am not smart and my family is not rich. A small person like me may only live a simple life. But I am not willing to live a mediocre life. I want to go to college and get out of this backward and poor hometown where my ancestors have lived for generations and get rid of the boring life day after day. At that time, I thought very simply. After graduating from college, I would go to a big city with a developed economy, find a good job, marry a beautiful and virtuous wife, and live a harmonious and beautiful life. At that time, I took everything for granted and could realize it according to my own design. Now looking back, it is really childish and ridiculous. People from small places have not seen much of the world, and they are young and ignorant. Their knowledge is short!
Although I have been working hard, fate played a trick on me and I was admitted to only an ordinary university, a little-known undergraduate college, and my major was also a very popular major - marketing. I indulged myself in disappointment and, like many people, I managed to graduate without any major problems. It was not until I was faced with employment that I felt the tremendous social pressure, but it was too late to regret.
I have been in Shenzhen, the city I long for the most, for two years. I have worked hard, but my stubborn personality makes me unable to flatter my bosses and clients. I am not happy with my work and I can’t achieve anything. I quit after working for a while, and even called it “not bending for a few pieces of silver”. Although my family and friends have repeatedly advised me to do so, I am always stubborn and unrepentant. To this day, I am still hanging around in society and have achieved nothing. It is even difficult for me to make a living.
The warm sunshine shines on me, but my heart is still cold. I just paid one month's rent and there is not much living expenses left. At most, it is just enough to barely survive until the next month. I have almost no confidence in finding a job. I am not qualified for a better job, and my thin body can't do hard work. It seems that the only thing suitable for me is to make a living by "mouth". It's a pity that "it's easy to change the country, but it's hard to change one's nature". I always resist from the bottom of my heart to say such "false" words and be such a "hypocritical" person. I finally received interview notices from several companies. Although I tried my best to show myself and get a chance, in the end, there was no result in the faint words of "waiting for notice".
I was almost at my wit's end, but I still didn't want to give up. It was not easy for my family to support me to go to school. After four years, the expensive tuition fees had almost drained my family's coffers. My parents' health had not been good. They had high blood pressure and diabetes and had to take medicine every day. I really didn't want to cause them any more trouble. I had been hiding my affairs from them. Every time I called, I only told them good news and not bad news. Thinking of their increasingly gray hair and hunched bodies, I felt a wave of hidden pain in my heart. I was really disappointing and had no future.
I know I may be wrong, but the opportunity has been missed. There is no chance to come back. The fittest will survive. Society is cruel and ruthless. Maybe my thoughts and behaviors are really not suitable for the development of this era. Friends advised me that if you are poor, you must change. If you change, you will get through. If you get through, you will get through. Do I have to change? Where is my way out? I don't know. I really don't know.
With a "bang", I was so busy thinking that I didn't notice the movement around me. I staggered. If I hadn't quickly grabbed the fence next to me, I would have had a "close contact" with the ground. Before I could react, a voice shouted at me: "How do you walk like a grown man? You don't walk on the side of the road, but walk in the middle. You walk slowly with three steps and you don't look like a man. Are you going to die? Be careful next time."
Before I finished speaking, a figure rushed past me, and rushed forward without looking back. I was yelled at for no reason: I was walking peacefully, who did I offend? Not only did I almost get knocked over, but I was also made to feel that it was my fault. I walk slowly, but you run so fast, are you in a hurry to reincarnate? I don't look like a man, take off your clothes and compare, who is bigger? But looking at the tall and strong back of the other person, I swallowed the dirty words that were about to come out of my mouth. Forget it, after all, I am also a "four-have" youth with higher education, there is no need to learn from him to make a fool of myself in public, I should pay attention to the impact in public, and I should not argue with him, I should forgive him when I can!
Just as I was about to start walking forward, I found a colorful magazine dropped at my feet. I looked around and found that everyone around me was in a hurry and no one noticed this. I subconsciously picked up the magazine, and I had already judged that it was probably dropped by the rough young man who bumped into me just now. No wonder my eyes seemed to blur when I was about to fall, and I felt something flash by. It turned out to be this magazine that fell out.
In the spirit of returning lost property, I was about to chase after him and return the magazine to its original owner. I looked up at the young man, who was now only a shadow, and hesitated. He was running so fast that I might not be able to catch up with him. Besides, it was just a magazine, not a valuable thing, so there was no need to spend so much effort. Besides, based on his attitude just now, it was not worth helping him. For such an uneducated person, if I chased him and gave him a broken magazine, he might scold me again. It was better to have less trouble than more, so I decided to forget it.
Before I could think clearly, the other party had already run away. Haha, this is just right, no need to think about it anymore. He bumped into me and said something rude to me. This magazine is just an apology. I flipped through it carefully. Wow, it's the latest collector's edition of "Virtual Online Games". One copy costs 100 yuan, which is ridiculously expensive. I heard from Afeng that even so, it is still in short supply and very scarce in the market. Yesterday, he went to more than a dozen places and begged and said all the good things to "squeeze" a copy. It's a pity that he already has one. Otherwise, if I gave him this copy I found, he would be so happy.
The reason why this special issue is so popular is that it introduces a newly developed game, a Western fantasy - Tianxia. Recently, many news media have been flooded with information about Tianxia, and you can often see huge posters of Tianxia on the streets. The top three of last year's "Miss Universe 2014" - French socialite Karenna, Chinese beauty Long Piaopiao, and South African black beauty Lurela, have all become global game spokespersons for Tianxia. In the posters, three stunning beauties, dressed in silver, stand proudly on the top of a snow-capped mountain, overlooking the vast land, and speak astonishingly: Karenna "asks who the heroes of the world are", Long Piaopiao "speaks of heroes, who are heroes", and Lurela "half of the world is women, and women are as good as men", while the countless warriors, mages, elves, dwarves and other passionate children gathered around them are excited, waving all kinds of weapons in their hands, looking up to the sky and shouting in unison "The heroes of the world come from our generation". I don’t know how “Tianxia” was promoted in foreign countries, but it was definitely a success in China. Even a non-player like me couldn’t help but feel my blood boiling when seeing this picture, and couldn’t help but want to be in it. “The world is so beautiful that it attracts countless heroes to compete for it”!
Actually, I don't have much interest in those online games that have been popular in recent years and are made with virtual reality technology. It's not that I'm self-righteous and pretending to be serious. I'm also a young man and I'm curious about these new and exciting fashions. However, this is not like the old traditional games played on desktop computers. At most, you just need a better configuration and it doesn't cost much. Now, just a basic virtual helmet for playing games, the cheapest one costs thirty or forty thousand, plus the expensive monthly card fee, which is something a poor boy like me can't afford. Look at the miserable life of Afeng who often eats steamed buns and pickles and tightens his belt to play games, and you will know that "the world does not belong to the poor."
