1: Chapter 1 Unemployment

(Parallel universe. Any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental!)

Shu City, an office building.

"I claimed this computer tower first, put it down!"

"Pah! Wang Mazhi, you're telling me you claimed it first at a time like this? Whoever carries it away owns it!"

"Xiao Liu, that bastard Lai Gouzi's desk isn't worth much. Come on, let's carry it down, sell it, and split the money."

...

Early this morning, HR posted a message in the company group: The boss, Mr. Lai... no, he's successfully promoted to 'Lai Gouzi' now, that bastard actually ran off with the funds and his Sister-in-law.

As for the reason for his flight, everyone more or less had an idea.

The economic climate had been poor for the past two years, and the company suffered heavy losses.

“But that's no damn reason for that bastard to pack up and bolt.” Chen Sheng, who arrived late due to a traffic accident, saw the 'raid the landlord, divide the land' activity nearing its end and grew furious...

Well, he was furious for just a moment before quickly joining the 'gluttonous' feast.

Routers, kettles, power strips...

Others might look down on these small items, but after a round of scavenging, Chen Sheng's laptop backpack was stuffed to the brim.

Selling these on a second-hand platform would still bring in a decent amount of money.

Dripping with sweat, he walked out of the office—which looked like it had been ransacked—alongside the equally sweaty crowd. He bid farewell to everyone with a bitter smile. Standing at the entrance of the office building, Chen Sheng watched the heavy traffic on the street, momentarily lost as to where to go next.

Look for a job?

It was nearly July, and the annual job-hunting season was about to begin. Chen Sheng didn't believe those black-hearted bosses would pass over cheap 'beasts of burden' to hire an old corporate slave like him, who was pushing thirty.

But if he didn't find one...

Rent, utilities, living expenses, and the plan to have a child that they had made late last year...

Chen Sheng didn't even know how he ended up in his car. When he touched the steering wheel, he remembered the car loan for this new energy electric vehicle. He covered his face with both hands, leaned back against the seat, and after a long while, let out a long sigh.

"I didn't expect that at twenty-eight, I'd face unemployment."

A graduate of University of Electronic Science and Technology in Shu City with a degree from a Project 211 university, he had a detailed plan for his life from the moment he stepped out of the campus gates.

Join a Fortune 500 company, become a team leader in one year, a supervisor in three, and a manager in five.

But as the saying goes, ideals are plump while reality is bony. Only after leaving school did he realize that the Fortune 500 companies listing 'Bachelor's degree' as a requirement were actually recruiting from famous domestic and international universities, or starting with Master's degrees.

Of course, they hired undergraduates too, but they were treated as literal beasts of burden.

So after graduation, even though Chen Sheng managed to squeeze into a Shu City branch of a Fortune 500 subsidiary, he only stayed for a year. Nearly dying from the internal competition, he jumped ship to a local private enterprise in Shu City to become a small team leader.

His salary jumped from 5K+ to 8K+, but he had remained a team leader from age twenty-four until now, at twenty-eight.

He thought he would welcome his supervisor career at twenty-nine, but instead, he got—unemployment.

Sitting in the car, Chen Sheng stared blankly, his heart a mess of emotions.

He looked back at his ten years in Shu City.

From a struggling college student with a monthly budget of eight hundred—who sometimes even needed his girlfriend to pay for housing—to a struggling team leader with a monthly salary of 10K+ including commissions, and about 15K if he included his part-time ride-hailing gig.

Looking at the numbers alone, he seemed to have grown a lot over these ten years.

But in those ten years, the price of steamed buns in Shu City rose from one yuan each to three. Housing prices in the Second Ring Road went from four or five thousand per square meter to ten thousand, and that was only for houses outside the Third Ring Road near the beltway.

As for the Second Ring?

Don't even mention it if you don't have twenty thousand.

In the face of inflation and the changing times, his ten years felt like he was just running in place.

Ten years ago, he had no savings. Ten years later, after rent, car loans, daily expenses, and social obligations...

He still had no savings.

Fortunately, his wife An Xiaonuan had an income of about 4K, and last year she started taking on video editing work online, which brought in about a thousand more in a good month.

It was because of this, and under another round of relentless pressure from both sets of parents late last year, that the two of them felt confident enough to decide to 'make a little human' this year and fulfill the duty of human reproduction.

But now he was unemployed!

The balance was broken.

What should he do next?

Find a job?

He would likely have to lower his standards and start over!!

Drive for a ride-hailing service full-time?

They say if you do it full-time, you can average about three hundred a day. It wasn't a bad direction, but sitting for long periods was hard on the body, and there was no security.

Not to mention, his monthly insurance and housing fund contributions added up to nearly two thousand, which would be gone.

Sitting in the car, Chen Sheng kept thinking.

In the ten years since coming to Shu City, including six years of working, what had he actually achieved?

The apartment was rented, the car was on a loan. His wife had been with him since campus, and from the time they married after graduation... no, from the time they started dating, they had lived on a tight budget. It was no wonder his in-laws never gave him much of a warm welcome whenever he visited.

As for his own parents, they went from bragging to everyone about their son getting into a good university to nagging him now that several of his peers—who didn't do well in college but made money in business—were starting to shine.

How is work?

I heard so-and-so from next door is making money now. Should I go talk to them and have you work with them?

You're not young anymore, you should consider having a child. While we're still fit, we can help you take care of them.

It got to the point where Chen Sheng really didn't want to go back for the New Year sometimes.

A moment later, Chen Sheng scratched his hair, which was messy from sweat and the earlier scramble for items. He pulled his thoughts back. He had to pull himself together... no, for that little family, for everyone, he had to pull himself together.

He didn't have the luxury of wallowing in self-pity right now.

Chen Sheng picked up his phone and opened the ride-hailing app.

He decided to drive for the app while looking for a job, securing whatever money he could earn first.

However, just as the app opened, a notification sound rang in his head:

【Ding! Daily Intelligence System activated.】

【The Daily Intelligence System will automatically push 1 to 2 pieces of intelligence to the host every day at midnight.】

【Reading each piece of intelligence grants 1 experience point. After accumulating enough experience, the system can be upgraded to Weekly Intelligence, Monthly Intelligence, Quarterly Intelligence...】

【The value of each piece of intelligence varies. The higher the system level, the higher the value of the intelligence. Additionally, the intelligence pushed is closely related to the host's daily life, observations, thoughts, and the people, events, and objects encountered, and is not limited by geography.】

The sudden electronic voice in his head left Chen Sheng unable to react. It wasn't until the voice stopped that Chen Sheng muttered to himself, "A system?"

...