Rebirth: Account Deleted

The sky was dark and the earth was dim.

"Fang Huai?"

The long table in front of him and the few recruiters seemed to have changed.

"Ah, it's me." Fang Huai was a little dazed.

He felt like he'd had a heart attack just now, it hurt so much, and he'd fainted.

To have a heart attack in his early thirties, it was really… sigh, he wouldn't stay up late anymore. If he kept doing it, he wouldn't even get to be bald.

"What position are you applying for?"

"Um… I want to apply for your company's Enterprise Service Product Manager."

The four people in front of him all had question marks on their faces.

With Fang Huai's years of job-seeking experience, he felt that the half-bald man on the middle left wanted him to leave.

The woman on the right quickly picked up a page from the documents in front of her, flipped it back and forth, read it twice, then looked up, showing a suspicious expression.

"…Currently, our products don't need… The positions we are recruiting for today are technical talents for the factories under the enterprises."

As expected, another one was selling dog meat under the guise of a sheep's head. They said they were hiring a product manager, but they just wanted someone to screw in bolts.

Fang Huai smiled and decided to struggle a bit more.

"My work experience mainly lies in understanding and defining user needs. I also have a certain understanding of the traffic acquisition models of online content service providers. The Web3.0 era is coming, and information blockchain is a major trend. I have some insights into focusing more on users' personal services and experiences. I even brought a PPT today…"

"Sorry, next please."

There's no place for me here.

Fang Huai put his hands in his pockets, put away his humble attitude from before, and prepared to go to the next place.

He felt around in his pocket…

It looked a little familiar.

His phone, a slider.

Nokia, 5200.

The four people in the inner room looked at the dejected young man holding his phone outside the transparent glass wall, with a hint of disdain on their faces.

"Young people nowadays, they want to reach for the sky while sitting on the ground, and become immortals after becoming humans."

"He's also a bit…" The woman's expression was hard to describe, and she pointed to her head.

"He still wants to work on user personal experience! If we let him be in sales, how many lawsuits would we have to deal with in a year?"

20 minutes later, Fang Huai walked out from beside the "Nuosi Technology (Adult Products)" sign, a cigarette dangling from his lips, muttering constantly.

"What the hell, 2007."

2007… The day he was going to join the army, he seemed to have been arguing with his family and ran to apply for a job at a condom company.

After smoking three cigarettes, Fang Huai suddenly turned around.

"Come out! I see you!"

He felt like he was being set up, like a reality show was secretly filming his life, like in The Truman Show.

He couldn't think of any other reason besides being tricked.

But this wasn't Guangzhou, it was Chongqing. The giant Fuwa mascots holding hands in the square had been dismantled over ten years ago.

He felt around in his pockets again.

Phone, wallet, keys, cigarette, lighter. These few items seemed to be his only guide right now.

Fortunately, he wasn't starting with just a bowl.

Rebirth…

Rebirth!

Fang Huai's breathing began to quicken.

He should go home first!

In the taxi, Fang Huai spent the entire journey reminiscing and summarizing his past life.

His life, it seemed, had been in crisis since his youth.

He was the son of a chef, and not the kind of chef who cooked steak medium-rare, but the kind who stir-fried pork kidneys for 18 yuan a plate.

After retiring from the fire department at 24, he went to a poorly performing public institution. He couldn't stand his boss's PUA anymore, so he resigned and went to Guangzhou, changing jobs more than 10 times.

He had no savings, but the bank had over 100,000 yuan deposited with him.

When he was extremely poor, he even tried busking in bars for a few days, using the guitar skills he learned in his youth to pick up girls.

He was quickly fired, with people saying he was just taking up space.

"In all walks of life, every profession curses the heavens."

His only confirmed value was being sold to Myawaddy as a piglet, rumored to fetch 300,000. But if he couldn't help his boss cheat money, a 35-year-old piglet wouldn't even sell well for his organs.

Currently, besides having a Guangxi girlfriend who loved calling him "dickhead," he didn't have a single dickhead to his name.

His mother, Zhang Mei, passed away in 2015 in a car accident.

In 2016, his ex-girlfriend Huang Jiaojiao learned that the driver who caused the accident and the insurance company had compensated his family 150,000. She asked him to borrow 188,000 to pay off her plastic surgery debts.

She said it could also be used as a bride price.

188,000, not expensive, just one cake of Lao Ban Zhang tea.

They had been dating since their school days. He didn't have the money for a house or a car, so he fulfilled this one request.

The end of fancy makeup is bare makeup; the end of bride price is famine.

Huang Jiaojiao took the money and left quickly, leaving only one sentence.

"A friend of mine said following you is just wasting time. It's better to earn more money in Shanghai while I'm young. Don't look for me. Wait for me for three years, and when I come back, I'll marry you."

She also wrote him an IOU with a repayment date of one week.

Many years later, Fang Huai learned that loans only had a three-year statute of limitations. If no claim was made within that period, it expired.

His father didn't scold him for this, saying that she had been with him for so many years, and if he gave it, he gave it.

But last year, his father also passed away, from an illness that many people succumb to.

Anesthesia, intubation, blood transfusion, medication, it also aggravated his kidney disease, causing it to fail. He underwent bedside dialysis in the ICU, which was very expensive. Before he passed, they fought for his life for over ten days. Every morning, thousands of yuan were paid through the hospital's official account, and by evening, the balance would be nearly depleted.

He had also called Huang Jiaojiao, wanting her to return some money, or at least lend him some.

His calls went unanswered, and her WeChat messages were ignored.

He saw her social media: a hyaluronic acid face, silicone breasts, Bulgari Hotel, Parisenciaga stockings.

He repaid all the debts he could and persisted until the doctor shook his head and mercifully told him: "The hope of waking up is slim. If you continue, you'll lose both person and fortune."

It was then he first learned that pulling the ventilator would cause a person to die in great pain. They had to stop the life-sustaining medication first, and then pull it after the person passed, which would be more peaceful.

For a long time afterward, he was numb.

He struggled until he was thirty-four, without a single thought of marriage, not even for a moment.

"Handsome, we've reached Wild Ditch."

Going back 16 years, the family was still dirt poor, just a new kind of poor.

An old, small brick structure with no property rights, the house faced away from the sun. Forget getting rich, even growing a money tree was difficult.

No one was home.

As Fang Huai entered the room, the first thing he saw was a camouflage bag.

It was over. They had really deregistered him. He had even collected his People's Armed Forces Department gear.

He was reborn, but before he could strike gold, he had to serve two years in the army.

[Main quest about to trigger...]

Holy crap.

It even came with a system??

Fang Huai rubbed his eyes, finding that the subtitles before him couldn't be rubbed away.

This illusory touch gave him an intuition: this life was going to be great.

"Bang." Someone closed the door.

"Fang Huai, it's already 9:30, and you're still dawdling! Hurry up and pack your things, your dad will take you to the People's Armed Forces Department soon!"

Hearing his mother's voice from the doorway, Fang Huai felt a bit unsettled.

The slightly illusory text before his eyes reappeared.

[Main quest triggered: Go serve in the army, become a good soldier who gives back to society.]

Fang Huai's mouth twitched.

After the mess he made of his previous life, give back to society? This system was a bit of a prankster.

Zhang Mei entered the room, and the familiar face appeared before Fang Huai.

"Eat your dumplings quickly! Your dad cooked them for you at the shop!"

Fang Huai came back to his senses, hesitant to speak. Things lost and found always made one cautious.

The plastic bag she carried exuded a scent that Fang Huai could identify as home just by smelling it.

In countless homes, the scents were different, but the taste of the same bowl of dumplings, the taste of happiness, was so similar.

"Dumplings out, noodles back." He could finally eat them again. The parents in this world who truly cared about him were still here.

Taking the plastic bag, he opened it and placed it on the table.

"Mmm..." Fang Huai mumbled, "Mom, what's today's date?"

He still felt uneasy and wanted to confirm.

"What's today's date? The 25th! Don't you know when you're enlisting?" Zhang Mei, unable to grasp Fang Huai's inner turmoil, lectured him out of habit.

"What year and day were you born?" Fang Huai continued to ask.

"What for?"

"Just tell me, I need to remember it in case I have to fill out a form."

"1960, November 30th! Do you want my husband's and my ID numbers? I'll write them down for you."

It's the same, it's truly the exact same world.

Fang Huai's eyes felt a little swollen.

He couldn't say anything particularly moving, so he just stuffed a dumpling into his mouth and mumbled, "Mom, I'll earn money to spend on you later!"

This was the first time Zhang Mei heard him say something like the children from other families, and her voice softened slightly.

"It's enough if you can take care of yourself. The money your father and I earn is all saved for you."

"Hurry up and finish eating, then pack your things. We're leaving."

"Mom, wait a moment, I need to make something!" Fang Huai remembered something and quickly rushed into the room. He opened the big-headed Haier computer that his parents had bought him in '05 or '06 after he repeatedly promised to study hard. He grabbed the mouse and searched for office software on the screen.

In this life, he couldn't let his parents suffer poverty again. He had to at least leave behind some plans to earn money while his memories were still clear.

"Fang Huai! We're leaving! What else do you need to do?" Zhang Mei put down her chopsticks and urged him.

"Just let me make a PPT!"

"What PPT? Go be a soldier properly! Your uncle said they don't allow game consoles in the army!"

"PPT! Not PSP!" Fang Huai shouted helplessly.

Right, he had an uncle.

He was in the fire department, a high-ranking officer, a deputy detachment commander, and he was very good to Fang Huai. He died in '08.

It wasn't that time.

That time his uncle came back with a second-class merit.

It was a later major traffic accident. The valley where the incident occurred was perpetually frozen. First, 11 vehicles were involved in a chain reaction collision, and then the responding rescue vehicles couldn't brake, crashing into each other one by one.

His uncle's vehicle was in the middle.

In the years that followed, Fang Huai became a complete grunt soldier, missing the only chance in his life to get help through connections. Later, he gradually forgot his uncle's appearance. Thinking about it now, there were quite a few people who cared about him from childhood to adulthood.

[Task: Arrive at the People's Armed Forces Department within 30 minutes. Host, please complete as soon as possible.]

Fang Huai froze.

He had to leave before he could properly savor the warmth of home?

What if the mission failed? Like in those novels he read, would he be erased?

[Mission failed. The opening mission cannot continue. System will automatically解除.]

Oh, that's good.

A system that doesn't erase is a good system.

System uninstalled...

Release?!

Fang Huai: ???

Then what the hell am I playing for?

The style of the painting changed drastically.

"Dad, hurry up! Drive faster!"

Fang Huai, wearing a loose camouflage uniform with a hat slung over his shoulder, sat in the back of the minivan, constantly urging his father, Fang Kaiyang, wanting him to speed up.

Fang Kaiyang rolled down the window without a word, took the last puff of his cigarette, and a spark flew out the window. He sighed deeply, then turned to look at Zhang Mei.

This child, so young and yet so worrying, if only he were more sensible, they could have at least afforded to send him to a third-tier university.

Zhang Mei received the signal and turned to glare at Fang Huai.

"There's a car ahead! You only realize the urgency now? What were you doing earlier? And what's this TNT thing!"

The car braked sharply.

Fang Kaiyang, who had also served in the military, immediately turned around in surprise: "TNT? Son, don't do anything rash! Dad is sending you to the army to train, not to stop you from going to college!"

Fang Huai remained silent.

"That's called a PSP... no, PPT! Dad, focus on the road!"

The system had a 12-minute countdown, and he had lost all sense of humor.

"PPT is a new type of mil..."

"PPT is a computer... something on a computer! For office work!"

"Office work??"

As soon as computers were mentioned, Fang Kaiyang's sensitive spot was hit.

When Fang Kaiyang slowed down and turned back, his brows were knitted together as if glued: "You're treating playing games as work now? I knew it! Always thinking about your damn computer! I'm going to smash it as soon as we get back!"

The car suddenly accelerated. Fang Kaiyang, knowing well that the military could reform people, was eager to send Fang Huai into that fiery crucible.

But...

He had also left a fallback.

He was still afraid this child couldn't handle hardship, so he didn't send him to the People's Armed Police Internal Security. Instead, he sent him to the People's Armed Police Firefighting, where an uncle could look after him. At least someone would check on him, and he could use a connection.

Soldiers nowadays aren't like they were in their large units back then. In those days, they'd take off their clothes to farm, put them on to train, not afraid of the sun during the day or the cold in winter!

That was what you called a soldier! Not the "qiuba" that people from Sichuan shout!