ℂhapter 1

This is not my work and no plagiarism was intended. Credit goes to the rightful author/owner.

Author : 年末

Su Jin whacked his forehead a few times tiredly. The force exerted by his hand reminded him that he was still alive. He wasn’t dead, of course, but since he was such a poor and lowly person in this city, he thought that he probably wasn’t much different from a dead person.

After graduating from university, he hadn’t been willing to return to his poverty-stricken hometown. He wanted to change his fate and increase his family’s standard of living. That was why he had chosen to remain in S City in the hope that his hard work would eventually lead to success.

But after working for some time, he began to find that his original intentions were really naïve. S City seemed to be filled with life and hope, but in reality, it was just a cold and ruthless city. Hard work was considered cheap and worthless.

“My sister’s in her final year of high school already. Her school fees, her textbooks, and her meals have to be paid for,” he said to himself with a sigh. All the kids who lived in the mountain villages longed for the day they could leave the mountain, and the only way to do that was through getting a good education. Su Jin hoped that his younger sister could leave the mountain someday too.

His family had initially wanted his sister to drop out of school and intended to either make her help with the farm or find some work for the extra money. That would have helped to relieve the financial burden on the family.

But he had protested against that decision, and thus, his sister had been allowed to continue studying. The only condition was that he would have to be the one to provide for her expenses, including her allowance and textbooks.

His salary wasn’t high, but he had to split up his salary into several parts. One part went to his family, one part went to his younger sister, and the last part went to his rent and food. He was always left with almost nothing at the end of the month.

After he tidied up his office desk, he left for the day. It was 10 pm, and there were some stars in the sky. That was quite a rare sight to see in such polluted city skies.

“We’re having a company gathering in three days’ time, and we’re expected to pay for our own share. But it’s the end of the month, so I don’t have any money left for that. Maybe… maybe I should just pretend to be sick and skip the gathering altogether!” Su Jin mumbled to himself. This sort of thing was really just a burden to a poor person like him. There was no way he could afford such luxuries.

One had to spend money in order to upkeep relationships with others in this society, but the harsh reality was that Su Jin just didn’t have money to spare at the end of the month.

The office wasn’t very far from the apartment that Su Jin was renting. He didn’t rent the entire apartment, though. The landlord had split the apartment into separate rooms so that he could rent it to more people, and Su Jin rented the narrow cellar of the building. But even though the rent for the cellar was much lower than the rooms, it was still difficult for him to cough up the rent every month. S City was an expensive place to live in. The cost of living in this city was seriously insane.

It was autumn, so the weather was getting a little chilly. Su Jin instinctively pulled his jacket around him a little tighter. His cellar was just around the corner, so he started walking faster.

But just before he made it around the corner, he noticed a small makeshift stall selling books. The stall owner was a middle-aged man, wearing a hat that covered half of his face, so it was hard to see what he looked like. He kept rubbing his hands together and seemed to be feeling cold.

Su Jin casually glanced at the books the stall owner had put up for sale. Most of them were old issues of magazines, and there were also a few novels here and there.

“Hello there, how much are you selling these books for?”

“Ten dollars for two books, pick anything you like,” replied the stall owner as he continued rubbing his hands together.

That was very cheap. Even plain paper costs more than that these days. Su Jin picked a few books randomly, waved them at the stall owner, and said, “I’ll take five books. Could I have all of them for 20 bucks?”

The stall owner looked ready to close shop for the day, so he just nodded, took the 20 dollars from Su Jin, and started packing everything up.

Su Jin returned to his place with the books in hand. The cellar he was living in measured only slightly more than 10 square meters. Furthermore, it was divided into two sections — the first being his bedroom, and the other a tiny bathroom.

After he washed his face and looked at himself in the mirror, he couldn’t help but feel really lost. The reflection he saw in the mirror wasn’t the most handsome, but he had pretty decent features, and if nobody explicitly said anything about his origins, others would never have guessed that he actually hailed from the mountainside.

He sat down exhaustedly on the bed and picked up the books he had bought earlier. His gaze froze for a moment when he flipped through them. Didn’t he only buy five books? Why were there six books now?

“Did I take one more by accident?” Su Jin shook his head. Even though these books were being sold really cheaply, the stall owner had sold them to him at a discount, and he had actually taken one more by mistake.

The extra book had a black leather cover and felt slightly textured. It was a really nice cover.

“There’s no title?” The entire cover was black and didn’t have any words on it. That was very strange.

He was about to open the book when he suddenly shivered, and he even felt goosebumps on his arms. His first thought was that he might have caught a chill, but this didn’t stop his hand from flipping the book open anyway.

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