Abandoned

"Ugh, nothing's going right. I had no idea the education industry was so competitive."

Shi Yuan escaped the blazing sun and stepped into the shade of a tree, speaking dejectedly into his phone. "Over the past two days, I've applied to dozens of schools through my phone and online, and gone to eleven interviews in person. I wouldn't even dream of trying downtown. I've only looked in urban villages on the outskirts. Today I went all the way to the Development Zone on the west side, and I still didn't get hired."

You Gui comforted him on the other end of the line. "Teaching's never been easy. My manager told me his older sister's a teacher. She gets so upset she can't eat every few days, and she's already losing patches of hair at thirty-four."

"Besides, school's about to start. Most of the vacancies must have been filled already. Of course it's hard to find something."

Her comforting words didn't make Shi Yuan feel any better. After all his careful planning, he never imagined he would stumble at the starting line.

S City was a nationally renowned first-tier metropolis with a large transient population. Its primary schools, big and small, numbered nearly a thousand. His qualifications made getting into a public school difficult, but surely finding an ordinary private school should have been no problem.

Could You Gui really have been right? Were all the positions filled because the school year was about to begin?

Then he really was terribly unlucky.

Shi Yuan tucked his chin down, the light fading from his almond-shaped eyes. He didn't envy life among the wealthy, much less want to get caught between them as cannon fodder.

If nothing else worked out, he would have to find a company job for now.

You Gui's company offered excellent benefits. Unfortunately, a company that strong probably recruited directly from elite universities in the 985 and 211 programs. He had no experience, and his academic credentials were nothing to show off. There was no point even considering it.

Shi Yuan trudged miserably through the shade, swinging his phone in his left hand and pointing at the occasional ants on the ground with his right.

A clamor of screams approached from a distance, coming closer at alarming speed. Shi Yuan had barely lifted his head when a huge crowd came barreling toward him.

Shi Yuan's mind went blank. Only one thought remained.

The zombies were loose!

"Ren Zhi, I love you! Marry me! Aaaah!!!"

"Ren! Zhi!!!"

"Baby, look at me! I own eight apartments in Capital City! I'll support you with the rent!!!"

The woman with eight apartments failed to get anywhere near the celebrity Ren Zhi, who was surrounded on all sides. Instead, she slammed into Shi Yuan hard enough to leave him dazed.

"Ugh..." Shi Yuan cried out in pain.

Normally, being knocked over by a girl wouldn't have been a big deal. But this crowd had charged over like lunatics, their bodies packed together with so much combined force that half his body went numb.

Clutching his arm, he staggered behind a tree. Even after taking a while to recover, his chest and left arm still hurt terribly.

"Are you okay?"

Shi Yuan looked up to find a tall, thoroughly covered-up man standing in front of him, glancing around. Despite the midsummer heat, he wore long sleeves, long pants, a black mask, and a baseball cap. His forehead was drenched beneath the brim, and the gray-blue hair showing at his temples gleamed with sweat in the blazing sun. He sounded anxious as he questioned Shi Yuan.

"Do you have any medicine with you? Do you need water?"

Before Shi Yuan could answer, he turned to the assistant shadowing him. "Hurry up and get him a bottle of water!"

Shi Yuan finally realized he had misunderstood and hurried to explain. "No, no, I just got hurt when someone crashed into me. I don't have a heart condition."

"Huh? Oh, thank goodness."

The man breathed a sigh of relief. His idol career was safe.

His manager had just led the crazed fans away, and he should have seized the chance to slip off. But then he had spotted Shi Yuan stumbling out of the crowd, his little face deathly pale as he clutched his chest. He had been terrified Shi Yuan was having a heart attack.

Ren Zhi was lucky and popular, one of the hottest rising stars of the past two years. But rumors of a romantic entanglement with the Wei Corporation's young heir had broken just days earlier, costing him a wave of fans who fantasized about being his girlfriend.

If news broke that one of his fans had suffered a fatal heart attack in the street while chasing him, he would be finished!

The entertainment industry never lacked handsome men and beautiful women, and he didn't have much of a body of work. Once he faded into obscurity, he would probably never make a comeback.

Still shaken, Ren Zhi fixed Shi Yuan with a serious look. "Even if you really like me and want to support me, you absolutely can't do this again. It's dangerous, understand?"

Shi Yuan had a whole explanation ready, but Ren Zhi cut him off with a rapid-fire question. "Hurry, I only have a little time. Where should I sign?"

He fished a pen from his assistant's bag and glanced furtively around. Only a few scattered pedestrians were on the street. The crazed fans probably hadn't realized they were following the wrong person yet.

Shi Yuan didn't know whether to laugh or cry. By now, he had more or less guessed that this was Ren Zhi himself. Well, getting an autograph wouldn't hurt.

Public figures were very protective of their privacy, so giving him a blank sheet of paper wouldn't be appropriate. Shi Yuan pulled a résumé from the stack in his bag and handed it to Ren Zhi.

Ren Zhi glanced it over, then scrawled his name across the blank space at the top in extravagant strokes, mixing Chinese and English into something probably no one could decipher.

"Shi... Yuan? You're a top graduate from overseas, too. Fluent in three foreign languages? That's impressive! Aren't you wasting your talents applying to be a primary school teacher?" Ren Zhi asked in surprise.

"It's a résumé. You have to exaggerate a little. I wouldn't call myself fluent."

Shi Yuan gave a couple of awkward laughs. The diploma-mill university on his résumé really wasn't anything to be proud of.

Back in his own world, he had attended one of the country's best universities, where his classmates competed relentlessly. Four of the six people in his dorm were preparing for postgraduate entrance exams; the other two weren't because they had already been admitted through special recruitment. The library was packed in every season, and getting a seat was harder than snagging one in his high school cafeteria.

In that environment, it would have been hard not to study. Alongside his major courses, he had taken two foreign-language electives. He had dared to put "fluent" on his résumé because he genuinely spoke them fluently.

With his original academic abilities, he had planned to earn a master's degree, then a doctorate, and finally stay on at the university to teach. Unfortunately, thanks to his current credentials as a "top overseas graduate," he couldn't even land a primary school teaching job.

It was enough to break anyone's heart and bring them to tears.

Ren Zhi knew nothing of his inner turmoil. He had been too worried about Shi Yuan having a medical emergency to notice earlier, but now he realized Shi Yuan was no less good-looking than he was. An ordinary white T-shirt and shorts, paired with that face straight out of a campus first-love story...

Ren Zhi clicked his tongue. He actually had a fan of this caliber: smart and beautiful, with an injured vulnerability that made him rather endearing. Ren Zhi felt an urge to get to know him, but this clearly wasn't the time. His assistant kept urging him to leave. Ren Zhi answered impatiently, then, for reasons even he couldn't explain, pulled another résumé from Shi Yuan's bag and took it with him.

Shi Yuan was left utterly baffled.

After a miserable day, he still had to go home. As he dragged his exhausted body off the bus, a chorus of elderly passengers' sighs followed him.

"Oh dear, what's happened to such a young fellow? His face is longer than Dr. Zhang's downstairs after his wife ran off."

"Didn't you see? The papers in his bag were stacked so neatly. They looked like medical records."

"Yes, yes, and he was holding his arm."

"So young. What could be wrong with him?"

"My cousin's youngest son used to have arm pain all the time. He went to Capital City Third Hospital."

"What was it?"

"Bone cancer! He passed away last year."

"Bone cancer? Never heard of it. What are the symptoms?"

"Doesn't a doctor live downstairs from you? Why don't you ask him?"

"I told you, his wife just ran off with someone else. Why would I bother him with idle questions? Why don't you ask?"

"I'm not going. I don't live upstairs from him."

Shi Yuan was speechless.

His arm had just been bruised by someone crashing into him...

Halfway up the hill, he encountered the same security guard who enjoyed watching his misfortunes. Of course, perhaps the man enjoyed anyone's misfortunes.

"Oh, you're back late today. By the way, let me ask you something..."

The guard leaned closer conspiratorially. "Did your family go bankrupt? Will the Wei Family still want you?"

Shi Yuan spat inwardly. The man was young, yet stood with his hands behind his back like the old men on the bus. What business is it of yours whether the Wei Family still wants me? They certainly wouldn't want you.

He asked the guard, "Who said we went bankrupt? And how did you find out?"

The guard grinned smugly. "All the important people in Capital City live here. What could possibly get past me?"

Shi Yuan rolled his eyes. Capital City had plenty of rich people. The truly important ones lived in government compounds.

Eager for firsthand gossip, the guard kept questioning the person involved. "Even if your family went bankrupt, you must still have plenty of money, right? How much did your dad give you?"

Shi Yuan said flatly, "If my dad had given me money, would I still be climbing this hill every day?"

The guard thought it over. "Fair point. If I were your dad, I wouldn't give money to a wastrel like you either."

Shi Yuan nearly ground his teeth to pieces. You really love playing everyone's dad, don't you?

The families around here all had wealth and status, and each had their own gatekeepers. The security booth at the foot of the hill was more like a property management office; most of the guards' daily work involved running errands and delivering packages. After bowing and scraping before so many powerful people, this guard had finally found someone he could feel superior to in Shi Yuan.

He kept prattling on. "Why are you holding your arm? Didn't you just get out of the hospital a while ago? What's wrong with your arm now?"

Shi Yuan hadn't wanted to bother with him, but at that question, his eyes darted about a few times. Putting on a solemn expression, he said, "Bone cancer."

The guard had been adding goji berries to his cup. His hand shook, and half the jar tumbled in.

"R-really?"

"Why would I lie to you?"

He impatiently rustled the papers in his bag.

"See? They're all test results."

The guard looked remorseful and stammered, "Oh, I... I didn't know. You must be exhausted from climbing the hill. Why don't you sit here for a bit?

"We have an electric cart. How about I drive you up in a little while?"

Shi Yuan stared at him so intently that the guard was nearly unnerved before he waved a hand.

"No need. My mother died young, and after my dad married my stepmother, he couldn't stand me either. He sent me to the Wei Family, but they won't pay for my treatment. I'd better get back and look up which mountain has good feng shui. When I'm almost done for, I'll go there myself. Weathering away in the wilderness is my fate. Saves me troubling anyone else."

Shi Yuan walked away with a numb expression, leaving the guard holding the empty goji berry jar in his left hand and repeatedly smacking his own forehead in remorse.

"That'll teach you to run your mouth!"

"He's still so young!"

"I'm such a bastard... Boohoo..."

Clutching his arm, Shi Yuan climbed to the seventh floor-the shabby little home he shared with Wei Zelin.

The last glow of sunset still lingered, and his roommate wasn't home. Shi Yuan showered, gave the clothes he had taken off a quick hand wash, and hung them on the line by the living room window.

He sat on the bed with his phone. If even the security guard knew, surely there would be something online?

The browser's recommended stories were all entertainment news. That kind of content attracted plenty of readers and drew attention.

The top three headlines were all about Ren Zhi being spotted outside a stadium in Capital City that day.

Shi Yuan scrolled past the thumbnails without opening them.

The finance section was the sort of thing older officials read. He searched for the name of the Shi Family's parent company and, sure enough, found something.

[All operations under the group have been taken over by Wei Zexuan, the largest shareholder after Shi Guohua.]

Shi Yuan kept scrolling. Scattered farther down were several pieces of unconfirmed news written by reporters from various outlets.

"Shi Group chairman steps down and leaves China."

"Shi Group shareholders descend on airport."

"Chaos at Capital City airport."

"Shi Guohua left on a flight to Country D with his wife and daughter early this morning."

"All real estate under Shi Guohua's name was sold at low prices a month ago."

Shi Guohua should have kept something like this as quiet as possible. Shi Yuan hadn't expected to actually find news about it.

The Shi Group's shareholders had even chased him to the airport. Were they really that well-informed? The Shi Group would now become a subsidiary of the Wei Family. Their own business had become someone else's subordinate company. No wonder they couldn't maintain their composure.

There weren't many other details. He didn't know how Shi Guohua had shaken off those shareholders and creditors to leave the country successfully, but Shi Yuan figured it must have cost him dearly. Otherwise, how could those people accept it when the listed company was valued at several billion?

Of course, to outsiders, the one who should have been most bitter was his son.

His father had quietly sold every asset under his name and fled, without taking Shi Yuan or even leaving him a penny. No wonder even the gate guard felt entitled to mock him.