Work

Work

After school that day.

In the cafeteria.

Zhang Yu, Zhou Tianyi, and Bai Zhenzhen were sitting together, having dinner.

As usual, Bai Zhenzhen stayed cold and silent, calmly and wordlessly working through the heaping tray of food before her.

Zhou Tianyi glanced at Zhang Yu and said, "Your financial situation has been looking a little rough lately."

"Was it that obvious?"

Zhang Yu froze for a moment. Had the collection calls reached his classmates already? Would everyone at school find out that he owed seven hundred thousand?

Zhou Tianyi looked at Bai Zhenzhen's lavish dinner, complete with chicken, duck, fish, and meat, then looked at Zhang Yu's five-yuan Poor Man's Meal.

Stroking his chin, he said, "Based on my observations of the cafeteria over the past three months, what a person eats here can effectively reflect their financial circumstances during that period, even their cultivation and strength."

"For example, someone who eats ten jin in one meal would never sit at the same table as someone who eats three jin."

"Because they're not in the same class at all. One is upstream in the campus hierarchy of contempt, while the other is downstream."

So it was because I eat too little. Zhang Yu breathed a sigh of relief. He had thought his identity as a super-poor person was about to be exposed.

He turned to Bai Zhenzhen and looked curiously at the dozen or so chicken legs in her food bucket. "A-Zhen, those chicken legs look pretty special. Let me try one."

Without even raising her head, Bai Zhenzhen said, "Get lost."

Beside them, Zhou Tianyi smiled and picked a duck leg from his own bowl for Zhang Yu. "Zhenzhen exercised especially hard today. She's obviously starving. Try mine instead."

"Good brother!" Zhang Yu gave Zhou Tianyi a thumbs-up, grabbed the duck leg, and began gnawing on it.

Watching Zhang Yu wolf it down, Zhou Tianyi smiled faintly. "If you're having financial difficulties, I can lend you some money."

Zhang Yu waved him off. "No need. I'll solve it myself."

Although he was buried under debt, Zhang Yu had no plans to borrow money from classmates. Even if he did, it would be impossible to solve a massive debt of seven hundred thousand in one go. What he needed was a way to keep making money and keep paying down the debt.

"At the very least, I need to pay the monthly interest. I can't let the collectors escalate their methods again."

Zhang Yu knew that the longer he remained overdue, the more ruthless the collection company's tactics would become. From online humiliation to real-life offline measures, each step would be worse than the last.

"And there's rent, utilities, food expenses..."

Thinking of all that, Zhang Yu felt a headache coming on.

After Zhou Tianyi left, Bai Zhenzhen suddenly said, "Based on my observations of you and Zhou Tianyi over the past three months, he treats you especially well."

Zhang Yu said, "Does he?"

Bai Zhenzhen gave a dry chuckle. "In eighteen years of living, I've only seen two kinds of situations where one man smilingly gives the duck leg from his bowl to another man."

"One, they're father and son."

"The other... hehehehe..."

Zhang Yu raised a brow. "A-Zhen, you sure watch a wide variety of things."

Bai Zhenzhen said, "Yu Zi, you don't actually need to be scared. In this school, you're the one who holds the initiative anyway."

As she spoke, Bai Zhenzhen pushed her tray over and placed it in front of Zhang Yu. "Sigh, I can't eat anymore. I'll reward you with these leftovers, then. After all, you're my good son."

"Get lost." Zhang Yu snatched the tray over. With a sweep of his gaze, he saw that nearly half the food inside was arranged neatly and had clearly never been touched.

When Zhang Yu looked up, intending to thank her, all he saw was Bai Zhenzhen's retreating figure as she left the cafeteria.

Once outside the cafeteria, Bai Zhenzhen's gaze turned indifferent again. Yu Zi, there's actually a third kind of situation where that happens too.

Bai Zhenzhen turned to look at the cafeteria steps, where a cafeteria auntie was pouring leftover food from a slop bucket into a cat's bowl.

After leaving school, Zhang Yu began planning ways to make money.

"My rent is fifteen hundred. Utilities are a little over two hundred a month. My loans require fifteen thousand a month..."

"Hiss..."

Thinking of that made Zhang Yu's head hurt again.

"I need to earn at least twenty thousand a month. An ordinary job definitely won't cut it."

With a thought from Zhang Yu, the Feather Scroll unfolded before him.

Zhang Yu

Dao Heart: Level 1

Magical Power: 7.7

Physical Strength: Level 0.84

Martial Arts: Body Tempering Thirty-Six Forms Level 2 (17/20), Freehand Fighting Level 1, High School Basic Swordplay Level 0

Dao Arts: Basic Breathing Technique Level 1, Basic Heart Refining Method Level 1

Seeing the newly appeared entry, "High School Basic Swordplay Level 0," Zhang Yu thought of today's Martial Arts Class.

Martial Arts Class was a course for learning all kinds of combat martial arts and battle techniques. Of its one hundred points, eighty were practical-combat points.

First-year students, for example, were required to learn one unarmed practical-combat martial art and one weapon-based practical-combat martial art.

This High School Basic Swordplay was precisely what he had learned in Martial Arts Class today. However, perhaps because he had not truly mastered it yet, it was still displayed as Level 0.

But after trying slightly, Zhang Yu discovered that this "High School Basic Swordplay Level 0" could likewise be dragged.

He guessed that if he chose to specialize in this martial art, then with his potential, he could rapidly master it and level it up quickly.

Those thoughts flashed through his mind as Zhang Yu continued staring at his panel, considering what work he could do.

"Though I've only just stepped onto the path of Immortal Cultivation, I'm still an official student of Songyang High School..."

A moment later, Zhang Yu began using his phone to contact his former tutoring center.

The original Zhang Yu had entered Songyang High School only after attending classes at that tutoring center.

"The income at this sort of tutoring center should be pretty good. And as an official Songyang High School student, I should have an advantage." Yet after he asked, the tutoring center teacher told him that they were already fully staffed and suggested he try other tutoring centers.

So Zhang Yu contacted other tutoring centers.

"Hello, I'd like to work part-time as a tutor. I'm a first-year student at Songyang High School..."

"May I ask which elementary school and middle school you graduated from?"

"No, I'm already an official student at Songyang High School!"

"Sorry, there are quite a few tutors with Key High School credentials. If a first-year High School Student like you, who hasn't graduated yet, wants to work part-time, parents will place great importance on your first and second educational credentials before High School."

After learning which elementary and middle schools Zhang Yu had attended, the other party did not reply again.

After repeating conversations like that five or six times, Zhang Yu gradually understood.

"Damn it!"

"They actually have such high requirements for first and second educational credentials?"

"Has competition for tutoring jobs become this cutthroat?"

Zhang Yu felt that his elementary and middle school credentials were like two ugly labels, branded deeply onto his face, making it vastly harder for him even to find part-time tutoring work.

Thus, Zhang Yu had no choice but to temporarily give up on tutoring centers and turn to another backup plan.

"I can only try taking odd jobs first."

In fact, the original Zhang Yu had learned a little about the odd-job route over the past three months since school began.

Of course, the temporary work in question was not the sort of temporary labor ordinary people sought, but temporary work for people who had already embarked on the path of the Immortal Dao.

High School Students made up no small portion of that group. After all, not every High School Student was a rich young master. Quite a few needed to earn money themselves, whether to lessen the burden on their families or buy things they wanted.

And since High School Students had neither a High School diploma nor much free time due to classes, they could generally only work part-time temporary jobs.

Zhang Yu had also looked into this avenue a little over the past two days. He immediately added an agent and asked whether there was any work available.

"You asked too late. All of today's jobs have been taken for now."

"Why don't you come wait here? If new work comes in, you can grab it right away."

Half an hour later, Zhang Yu arrived at a small plaza.

From far away, he saw people scattered about the plaza, sitting or lying down. There were old and young, men and women. Some simply lay on the ground for a nap, while others wore school uniforms and were still sitting cross-legged in Breath Circulation.

Following the address he had been given, Zhang Yu found a human resources company in a corner of the plaza.

The company was small. Its storefront looked like a real estate agency, and its grimy windows were plastered with all kinds of crude recruitment notices.

After glancing at the old signboard, Zhang Yu pushed open the door. A thick smell of smoke rushed at his face, making him frown.

Behind a cluttered desk, a middle-aged man smoking a cigarette raised his head. After glancing at Zhang Yu, he said, "You're that High School Student who asked for information just now?"

After Zhang Yu nodded, the man introduced himself as Old Wang, the agent here. Pulling out several sheets of paper, he said, "Fill out your résumé. I'll register you in a bit."

Zhang Yu took it and saw that besides ordinary personal information, it required the Martial Dao Arts and Dao Arts he had learned, their levels, and his grades at school.

After handing over the completed form, Zhang Yu asked, "How long does it usually take to find work? How much does it pay?"

Old Wang scratched his somewhat messy hair and said casually, "The minimum is a few hundred yuan an hour... but it's hard to say how long it'll take to find something. If you're unlucky, going a week without work is normal."

The pay here is this high? If that's the case, working two or three hours a day would be enough for my loan payments and living expenses.

At that thought, Zhang Yu's heart leaped with joy.

But then he heard the man say that work was hard to find, so he asked curiously, "Why?"

He emphasized his identity. "I'm in the top ten of my first year at a Key High School. Is it still hard for me to find work?"

Old Wang smiled and pointed outside. "See those people in the plaza? Besides High School Students like you, all the rest are High School graduates."

Zhang Yu was startled, then disbelieving. "How is that possible? They graduated High School, they're cultivating immortality, and they still come here looking for temporary work?"

Old Wang shrugged. "They didn't get into university. Not every High School Student gets into university."

"If they don't get into university, they'll remain at the Qi Refining Stage for life and never reach the Kunxu Second Layer. They can only muddle along in the First Layer year after year..."

Zhang Yu still did not understand. "Then they could find full-time work in the First Layer. Why come do temporary jobs?"

Old Wang explained, "They don't need to sleep. They finish their day jobs, and if their companies don't make them work overtime, they come find temporary work."

"Otherwise, how would they repay their loans? How would they have enough money to maintain their cultivation?"

His words stirred up waves in Zhang Yu's heart. His previous memories had never told him that High School graduates had it this hard.

He had only thought that after graduating High School, even if they failed to get into university, they would sit in offices inside skyscrapers downtown every day, enjoying air conditioning and drinking tea while earning a respectable salary...

But what the hell—twenty-four hours of studying before graduation, twenty-four hours of working after graduation. So the more hardship you endure, the more hardship you get, huh?

Looking at Zhang Yu's résumé, Old Wang smiled. "Oh, Songyang High School. Then we're alumni. I went to Songyang High School too, but I dropped out in my final year."

Zhang Yu said, "Dropped out?"

Old Wang shrugged. "Couldn't get into university, so I figured I might as well stop wasting money. I only paid off the loans I took during High School the year before last."

"Since we're alumni, I'll give you some advice too."

"Know your limits in High School. If you feel you can't get into university, get out early. Don't end up like some people, owing so much debt that they ruin their whole lives."

After filling out his information, Old Wang told Zhang Yu to wait outside. The moment work came in, he would be notified.

Zhang Yu said, "Competing with those High School graduates, will any work really come to me?"

Old Wang said, "Don't worry. Some jobs specifically look for current High School Students."

(End of Chapter)