Chapter 7: So Tell Me, What’s Supposed to Be So Expensive? 😡

“Xiao Lin, the rent’s already two months overdue. 😡”

Auntie Wang, the landlady, called through the thin composite door.
Her tone was gentle, but the words cut into Lin Yu’s harsh reality like a blunt knife.

After a pause, Lin Yu poked his head out, his face plastered with a guilty, pitiful smile. 😟

“Sis Wang, can you give me just two more days…?
And, uh, hasn’t the utility bill gotten more expensive lately? 😔”

“What do you mean, more expensive? It’s been the same price for years! Don’t go spouting nonsense with your eyes wide open! 😒”

“Collecting rent isn’t easy, okay? Stop talking nonsense… It’s always been ten for water, four for electricity. Where’s the increase?
Three months’ deposit, one month rent, that’s always been the rule. Where’s the increase? 😓”

“Sometimes you need to ask yourself why things are the way they are, don’t you think?
Has your salary gone up in all these years?
Have you been working seriously?
Well!? 😀”

“Anyway, this is your final notice.
If I don’t see your payment this week, I’ll have security clear out your room.”

With that, she muttered to herself and turned away.
On her way down the hall, she tore off one of those random “locksmith/drain cleaning” flyers that someone had stuck to the door.

“……”

Lin Yu closed the door in silence and pressed his hand to his forehead.

He was twenty-six this year.
His peers were already established in their careers, while he was still officially registered with Xinhai City’s Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security as a “flexibly employed worker.”

When he first came here, he had been filled with hope.
A college graduate should be able to carve out a place for himself, right?

Reality had slapped him hard.

Xinhai City was an international metropolis.
It wasn’t short on elites, nor was it short on cheap labor.

Every single job opening drew hordes of competitors.

Lin Yu had seen it with his own eyes—an applicant telling HR during an interview:

“I’ve had my ovaries surgically removed so I can devote myself fully to work.
No more menstrual cycles to affect my efficiency, no chance of pregnancy either.
I hope your company will give me the opportunity to contribute!”

And then…

“My salary can be half of everyone else’s… No, I think during the probation period I should actually pay the company to work!
I hope the company gives me a chance to prove myself!
Training fees? I can take out a loan! Mm-hmm!”

Lin Yu couldn’t tell anymore—had he gone insane, or had the whole world?

At best, he managed to slip into a few small-time companies, hanging on for a few months at a time before being swept out again by the last-place elimination system.

After a string of failures, he collapsed.
Took a whole year off, a “gap year.”

The cost was steep—

He could no longer find a proper job.

“Heh, Mr. Lin, why would we overlook so many excellent fresh graduates just to hire a washed-up has-been who took a year off?”

The HR’s polite smile bristled with disdain.

“At your age, here in Xinhai City, you’re already too old.
Think it over carefully.”

Lin Yu had hated that bastard HR.
But deep down, he couldn’t deny the truth in those words.

That was Xinhai City.
A place where young people burned their youth like charcoal to fuel its prosperity.

And in the end, most of them, unable to afford homes, had nothing to show for it.

They’d be cast out, like employees laid off by a company, forced to “graduate” from the city.

“Sigh… 🤦‍”

Lin Yu felt himself devolving into a useless shut-in.
Maybe this was all his life would ever amount to.

He reached for a bucket of cheap New Farmers United instant noodles.
With his finger, he scraped the last bit of seasoning powder from the bottom and shoved it into his mouth.

A burst of industrial-grade saltiness exploded across his tongue, so cheap it made him gag.

That was lunch—if you could call it that.

This miserable routine had already lasted a week.
How much longer would it go on?

He didn’t know.
Maybe until the day he couldn’t even afford instant noodles anymore.

His savings were nearly gone, and he had no face left to ask his parents for money.

(Should I just go back and take the civil service exam? But… would I even pass?
Back home there are hundreds competing too…)

“Sigh…”

He licked the flavor of instant noodles off his lips and glanced around at his den.

His home was in the B7 sector—one of the infamous “Beehive” cheap rental complexes on the city’s edge.

Xinhai City was a state-level “Model Experimental Zone” built atop a colossal man-made island.
There were no “urban villages” here; every inch of land was neatly planned.

The “Beehives” were the last refuge for failures in this perfect city—cramped, suffocating, but still breathing space.

“Buzz—buzz—”

His battered old phone, screen cracked like a spiderweb, vibrated.

The caller ID displayed one word: “Mom.”
Like a verdict, heavy with expectations.

He drew a deep breath, as though walking to the execution ground, and tapped “Answer.”

“Xiaoyu! Have you eaten?”
His mother Zhang Lihua’s voice boomed, full of unstoppable concern.

“I have. Eating with friends outside,” Lin Yu lied without flinching, his voice carrying a fatigue even he didn’t notice.

“Good… good. By the way, how’s the job hunt?”

“Still looking. Sent out a bunch of resumes, waiting on replies.”

“You’d better hurry, son!” her tone shot upward, sharp as a knife.
“Look at your sister! Xiaoxue’s only in her first year of grad school, and she’s already working on a RuiKang Biotech project with her advisor.
Her monthly stipend is higher than your father’s pension!
She’s the pride of this family! And you—graduated for years, and you still can’t even feed yourself?”

Lin Xue.
His younger sister.
A genius who embodied every parent’s dream of “someone else’s child.”

Lin Yu didn’t resent her.
He only loathed the way his parents compared them, again and again—branding him a “failure,” searing the word into him like a red-hot iron.

After a long silence, his father Lin Jianguo’s deep, impatient voice came through:

“Enough! Stop nagging! Let him figure it out himself!”

“Fine, fine, I won’t nag,” his mother relented, only to switch to a sharper blade.
“Son, if it really doesn’t work out… come back and take the civil service exam.
We don’t have to stay in a big city, do we?
Or check out labor dispatch.
It’s tiring, sure, but at least it’s government-backed, stable…”

Lin Yu mumbled a few half-hearted “yeah, yeah”s, then used “low battery” as an excuse to end the call.

The room sank back into silence.

He exhaled heavily, unlocked his phone, and instinctively opened Tieba.
He entered the cesspool known as the “Xinhai City Unemployment Bar.”

Ever since he’d stopped finding work and lived off savings and odd online gigs, this place had become one of his few refuges.

The pinned thread was from the moderators: [The one and only official matchmaking group—benefits inside!]
Hundreds of replies followed: “Added, please approve!”

Scrolling down, it was wall-to-wall laments like his own.

[Title: Is it really impossible for a law major to find work? At the law firm, even as an intern I don’t get paid. They just complain that my coffee’s bad.]

—1F: Welcome to the real world’s beating.
—2F: A college grad, really going to work as a waiter? My classmate, a broadcasting major, now runs a “virtual idol borderline group stream.” He made six figures last month.
—3F: ID please, for the group stream. Bless you, good sir.

That last reply stabbed Lin Yu right through the heart.

He suddenly remembered a classmate.
Couldn’t find work because of a speech impediment, flipped fries for a while, then donned a pink-haired anime avatar for streaming.
Overnight success.

Back then, Lin Yu had mocked him for being aimless.
Now Lin Yu himself couldn’t even pay rent.

What will people sell just to survive?

Their kidneys? Their body?

He didn’t know.
But he felt himself inching closer to the answer.

He shut down Tieba and, like a zombie, swiped open DouDou.

He knew full well the short videos were spiritual opium.
But for a moment, they numbed him.
Made him forget he too was trash.

Dancing girls, gaming clips, skits, memes scrolled past.

He stopped on a “Three minutes to watch a whole movie” clip, ready to lose himself—

When an ad suddenly cuts in.

The visuals were odd.

First, a brightly lit high-tech campus.
Young people, neatly dressed, smiling as they handled sophisticated equipment.

Then, a clean dorm.
Roommates gathered happily around a hot pot.

No voiceover.
Just lines of text floating across the screen with soft background music.

[Are you young and full of energy?]

[Are you healthy, with no bad habits?]

[Do you… long for a stable, high-paying job where you can realize your self-worth?]

By this point, Lin Yu’s lip curled.

(Another scam ad. Same old script. Next they’ll flash “We’re one big happy family” across the screen.)

He sneered and flicked his finger upward to skip.

But then—he froze.

The next lines made his hand stop mid-swipe, suspended in the air.

[Probationary base salary: ¥20,000 / month]

[After confirmation, no ceiling on comprehensive pay.]

[Benefits: Full insurance, meals included, quarterly bonus, year-end bonus, accident coverage.]

Lin Yu’s eyes widened.

He read it again.
And again.
Four zeros.
No mistake.

Twenty thousand.
Per month.

(…Are you kidding me?!)

He almost laughed out loud.

What a clumsy scam.

Even the top programmers at SkyDome Group, fresh out of elite universities, didn’t start at this number.

This wasn’t recruitment.
This was throwing money around.

A scam.

One thousand percent.
Ten thousand percent.

They’d lure you into some no-name “campus,” harvest your kidneys, drain your blood, sell your organs.

He pressed his thumb harder, ready to fling the ad away forever.

But just then, a notification popped up at the top of the screen—

[Dear customer, your savings account ending in xxxx has a balance of: ¥17.35.]

Seventeen yuan and thirty-five cents.

The number struck Lin Yu’s reason like a hammer of ice.

He stared at the “¥20,000” and back at his “¥17.35.”

One voice screamed: Fake! Trap! Run!

But another whispered, weak yet stubborn: …What if it’s real?

If it were real, next month’s rent would be covered.

No—half a year’s rent would be covered.

He could pay Auntie Wang right away.
No more “gentle ultimatums.”

He could even send money home.
Maybe then, when his parents scolded him, it would sting a little less.

He could… live like a human being.

Even if just for a month.

His fingers trembled.
Reason and desire fought like gods and demons in his skull.

He remembered Auntie Wang’s ultimatum.

He remembered his mother’s voice, disappointment masked as concern.

He remembered his sister’s eyes, sharp with disdain.

He remembered the last scrap of instant noodle seasoning, bitter and salty on his tongue.

He lost.

Lost to those cold digits: 17.35.

“…Even if it’s a scam, I’ll take it.”

Lin Yu muttered under his breath, like a vow hurled at this rotten world.

“Besides, Xinhai City’s so safe… S-surely nothing will go wrong, right?”