Eating Noodles in the Dark

"Damn pretty boy! What you earn in Shenzhen stays in Shenzhen—not a cent goes home."

The landlady checked the payment notification on her phone and jokingly scolded him.

Wang Ye put away his phone with a wry smile but said nothing.

His salary had just come in. After paying the landlady 4,500 yuan in rent, less than 10,000 yuan remained in his bank account.

Don't think that was a lot of money. As the deputy general manager of a small company, he had quite a few expenses.

Besides covering this month's social engagements, meals, gas, parking fees, and so on, he also had to send 5,000 yuan home.

To live a little more decently, he had not rented one of those cheaper village houses. Instead, he chose an apartment in a fairly well-located residential complex.

Although the complex had been around for years and the buildings looked a little old—

—it was still a residential complex, after all. It had a gated courtyard, decent landscaping, a parking lot, and even a small kindergarten.

He had actually wanted to bring his wife and daughter to Shenzhen long ago. His daughter had just started kindergarten, and enrolling her in the complex's kindergarten would have been convenient.

But after discussing it with his wife several times, they had ultimately given up on the idea.

There was no other reason.

Just one word: poor!

He had not bought a home in Shenzhen yet. Without a home, what kind of family could they be? Was he supposed to make his wife and daughter come here and rent a place with him?

"Hey, Little Wang. Tonight, I'm having dinner and singing karaoke with a few sisters. Come with us. I'll introduce you to some friends. Don't stay cooped up at home alone every day. Men need to socialize and meet more people, or how else are you going to make it big?" The landlady looked up at Wang Ye and smiled.

The landlady was a Shenzhen native. Though she was only in her fifties, she had long since stopped working.

She lived off the rent from more than a dozen properties her family owned, and her days were rather dull and boring.

Wang Ye quickly waved his hands and declined. "No, Sister Li. I still have a report to finish tonight, and I need it for work tomorrow. Maybe next time. Definitely next time!"

"You brat, with a face as handsome as yours, if you could just loosen up a little, you wouldn't be stuck like this already. Hah, serves you right for being such a loser!" The landlady muttered as she swaggered away, twisting her bucket waist.

Wang Ye was left behind, smiling bitterly in silence...

It was 2021. Wang Ye was thirty-eight years old, soon to reach the age of forty.

He worked for a foreign trade company as the deputy general manager of operations, managing dozens of subordinates.

Though he now only took home a little over 10,000 yuan a month, that was actually because the global pandemic had drastically reduced the company's export business.

There was nothing he could do. As a deputy general manager, he could only take the lead in "voluntarily" asking for a pay cut and accepting only the most basic salary.

In previous years, when foreign trade had been doing well, he could take home two to three hundred thousand yuan a year.

In his thirties, he was at the prime of a man's life. He had experience and maturity, and he was handsome, refined, and gentlemanly, making him quite popular with female subordinates and clients.

Even the landlady had hinted several times that he should stop being so stubborn...

But Wang Ye was still rather proud at heart. Every time, he either pretended not to understand or found an excuse to turn down the landlady's invitations.

To outsiders, Wang Ye seemed to be doing quite well.

A company executive, earning tens of thousands a month, living in a residential complex, and driving a Lexus ES200—known in the streets as the "suited thug, performance monster, lightning on the highway"...

In Shenzhen, that already counted as a fairly respectable life.

But who could know the hardship behind it?

Wang Ye's wife lived in a fourth-tier small city in the Central Plains, staying with Wang Ye's parents. Their home was fairly spacious, a large apartment with four bedrooms and two living rooms.

Her job was decent enough. She was an elementary school teacher.

Naturally, teachers in small places could not compare with those in first-tier cities.

In Shenzhen, public elementary school teachers might earn twenty to thirty thousand yuan a month, but back in their small hometown city, they only took home three or four thousand yuan a month.

Still, the advantage was that she had two long vacations every year, and the job was relatively relaxed, making it easier to care for their child.

The reason Wang Ye rented an apartment in a residential complex was also so that his wife and daughter could come to Shenzhen every summer vacation for family reunions.

If that were all, it would not have been much. Wasn't that how most people lived?

After enduring for a few years, perhaps he would have a chance for a promotion and raise, then find an opportunity to bring his wife and daughter over.

Wang Ye himself had already obtained Shenzhen household registration. His original plan had been to buy a home first, then use the policy allowing immediate family members to obtain household registration and move his wife and daughter's registrations here as well. Then they would become a family of "new Shenzhen residents."

His life should have continued along that ordinary yet happy and warm path.

But Wang Ye was unwilling to accept that!

Someone once said that people experienced despair three times in life.

The first was realizing that their parents were just ordinary people.

The second was recognizing that they themselves were just ordinary people.

The last was admitting that their children were also just ordinary people.

Wang Ye was now facing that second despair. Yet he refused to admit that he was merely a mediocre ordinary person. He wanted to struggle and change both his own fate and his family's!

If he was going to play, then he would play big!

So, in 2015, he took out all of his family's savings—a total of one million yuan!

This had originally been money intended for buying a house, but he took all of it out.

Then, through credit cards, JD Gold Bar, WeBank Micro Loan, and other channels, he borrowed another million. With two million yuan in hand, he charged into the stock market without hesitation...

At first, because it was a huge bull market, he could make money buying almost any stock.

Wang Ye's two million yuan in principal quickly became 2.4 million.

In less than a month, he had earned more than 400,000 yuan!

During that period, Wang Ye felt as though he were walking on clouds. So making money was this easy...

He had even considered quitting his job to become a full-time stock trader.

Four hundred thousand yuan a month meant more than five million a year!

That did not even account for compound interest and the like. If his luck got any better, earning over ten million a year would not be a dream!

Unfortunately, just after he had finished writing his resignation letter, before he had the chance to submit it, the great stock market crash arrived...

At first, like countless other investors, Wang Ye believed it was merely what people called a "bull market pullback."

In stock market jargon, you crouched down so you could jump higher!

As long as he did not sell, the losses on paper were just numbers. They were not real losses.

So, another month passed, and his 2.4 million yuan became just over one million...

Wang Ye was truly scared. Even excluding his earlier profits, he had still lost a net one million yuan!

The money left was only enough to repay the bank loan. The other million had been completely lost!

This was money for buying a home, his family's entire savings.

When he had been making money before, he would take out his phone and check it dozens of times a day. Whenever he saw the bright red number labeled "Today's Net Profit/Loss," he would grin happily.

But over the past month, he had checked the securities app on his phone less and less often every day.

Because he was afraid of seeing that vast green "grassland"!

Still, what was coming would come. With a heavy expression, he opened his phone and tapped into the China Galaxy Securities app.

After one glance, he shut his eyes in pain...

There was no luck to be had. The stock he was all-in on had hit its daily limit down again today!

He had lost another hundred thousand yuan or more.

At this point, Wang Ye had long since become numb to the losses. Losing tens of thousands or over a hundred thousand a day was nothing more than a number in his eyes.

He did not even think about how he was supposed to repay the loan anymore.

Because thinking about it was useless!

He lay back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling with his eyes closed, not knowing what he was thinking.

As evening fell, he mechanically got up, went into the kitchen, boiled a kettle of water, and tore open a packet of instant noodles.

A few minutes later, the noodles were ready. He carried the bowl back into the living room.

Then he opened the refrigerator and took out two cans of chilled beer.

Because the apartment was rather small, there was no separate dining room. And since he never had guests over, there was not even a dining table.

He sat on the sofa, bent over the coffee table, and made do with eating his instant noodles there.

The room was already fairly dark, but Wang Ye was too lazy to get up and turn on the lights.

Recently, people on stock forums had often talked about "eating noodles in the dark." That was probably exactly his situation...

Even he could feel how oppressive and stifling the room was, so he casually opened the Douyin app on his phone, intending to watch some short videos and lift his mood a little.

The moment he opened Douyin, a deep, magnetic voice came through.

"I thought that at eighteen, I could carry my dreams and venture into places I had never been, completing the grand dream of youth with a heart as pure as a child's."

"I thought that at twenty-five, I would stand above others, becoming someone people called boundlessly promising. I could set my own course, make those around me yield, and make my parents smile with pride."

"I thought that at thirty, I would surely join the ranks of the powerful and wealthy. I would no longer lose sleep over a few scraps of silver, no longer suffer behind others day after day, no longer retreat in humiliation."

"But that fearless spirit I once had, I left behind forever in those precious eighteen years..."

Hearing this, tears streamed down Wang Ye's face.

He had once had many opportunities too. As long as he had seized even one of them, he definitely would not be living like this now.

At eighteen, he had once held dreams like that too!

After finishing a bowl of instant noodles and two cans of beer, Wang Ye, who had always been a good drinker, actually felt tipsy today.

Perhaps he had drunk a little too quickly.

His head was spinning, and he felt awful.

Without even washing up, he staggered to his feet, pushed open the bedroom door, collapsed straight onto the bed, and quickly fell asleep...

Welcome, new and old readers! This book has had quite a winding journey too. I spent more than half a year planning it, and I hope I can write out all the plotlines I have envisioned. All I can say is that the story's framework is huge, and the pace will develop gradually, so it will not move that quickly. Please bear with it.