Outside the window, a torrential rain fell in a steady patter.
Rainwater streamed down the glass like lines of dark, bloody smears.
The distant darkness was so thick that nothing could be seen.
Uchiha Ci opened his eyes and saw the familiar blue-grid ceiling he had not seen in so long.
The only light source in the cramped rental room was the phone glowing beside his hand, playing a somewhat noisy song.
There was nothing wrong with the song, except the occasional WeChat notification sound kept interrupting its playback.
Ci picked up his phone and casually glanced at it.
[There's a writing job. Six yuan per thousand characters. Taking it?]
[Touch up the artwork a little more. How about we stick to the first version? A hundred yuan is still money.]
[Bro knows you're short on money, sick, and your damn battery got stolen, but I really can't spare the cash right now. I'll definitely pay back those six thousand.]
[What do you mean by that? You saw me living it up at the foot massage parlor while delivering food? What do you know? We're done being brothers. Blocked.]
[You there? Pay the rent.]
"Cough, cough." Ci climbed out of bed, coughing as he picked up his phone. He wanted to transfer three hundred yuan to his landlord, then send a kowtowing emoji and say some nice things to buy himself another half month.
But a low-balance notification quickly popped up on his screen.
He fell silent for a moment, then opened his mobile banking app to see whether his five hundred million had arrived.
Then he clearly saw the balance in his account: 5.26 yuan.
It felt like a knife had stabbed viciously into his heart.
"Damn it, was it really just a dream?" Ci let out a long