>>5313909Outside the internet cafe, the sun's rays shine with a warm brilliance. Unlike the northern parts of China, it's mostly warm all year round over here in Xiamen, and being a coastal city, the occasional sea breeze makes touching grass a real pleasure. In fact, Old Deng's is located pretty near to the coast. In the past, you used to wander around the area after a good JSQ session just to spend more time away from home. That's almost 4 years ago though… You don't know when you stopped relaxing like this.
The distant call of the waves soothes your mind as you walk down a quiet street. Old Deng’s advice yesterday is still fresh in your head.
“What should I do now…” You think to yourself.
You’ve tried out all sorts of jobs so far since dropping out of school. Construction worker, waiter, washing dishes, multiple cleaning jobs, handing out flyers - all to support yourself. With your current qualifications (or lack thereof), there are a lot of better jobs and opportunities that are simply out of your reach, like a greyed out skill you have yet to obtain. Except the only way to unlock is with a shit load of money and time. One of which you can’t afford to spend at the moment. It’s a precarious position where you need to spend money (that you don’t have) for the potential to earn more money.
Oh how life would be so much simpler if it was a video game.
Alas, ruminating on these thoughts won’t get you anywhere. As you continue your short journey, a familiar fragrance fills your nose. Finally, the thing you’ve been craving for weeks is before you, just inside a small store. Youtiao (油条)! And cheap ones to boot. One stick costs only the equivalent of 0.50 burger dollars.
You buy a few sticks, some for yourself and some for Old Deng, before returning to the internet cafe.
Back in your room, you log onto Distant Cloud while indulging in your freshly bought meal, the soft, doughy texture of this delectable breakfast treat breaking apart in a storm of light bread-like flavours with each bite. You even managed to get some free coffee from the cafe from Old Deng.
The first thing you do is organise your bank, separating yesterday’s loot into things to keep and things to discard. The latter, you put up on the auction house. Almost instantly, you receive mail notifications for successful sales, though it’ll take quite a while for everything to sell out seeing as it’s off-peak hours. There’s also a backlog of stuff that’s been collecting dust on the market.. You’ll have to relist those sell orders soon.
