If a person's life has a watershed, then Chang Le's life watershed should be in his senior year of high school.
Before senior year, his life was peaceful and happy, with a positive outlook.
After senior year, his life became dull and decadent, deteriorating rapidly.
In his senior year, his father died in an accident;
In his final year of college, his mother passed away in depression.
A once happy family, now shattered.
Since then, he has walked alone in the world, like a lone bird in the vast sky.
After graduating from college, he worked for a large-scale foreign trade company on the coast, where he had a boss who appreciated him and treated him well in terms of work and benefits.
Therefore, he was not lacking in material wealth.
However, he was spiritually desolate, trapped in the past, unable to move on.
Beautiful younger sisters, elegant mature women, and even mature ladies with hidden wealth... one after another passed by him, but he remained alone.
Over time, the only people around him were like-minded friends, sincere technicians, and innocent acquaintances.
"Chang Le, you are too immersed in the past, you should look ahead," his friends always advised him.
"I have a plan."
"Bullshit plan, every year you talk about plans, but nothing changes."
"This year is really different. The elders say that every 20 years is a hurdle, and my father and mother should really be gone."
"...Whether they are gone or not, your life must go on. Get married early, do you really intend to continue living alone like this?"
"I've thought about it."
"It's easy to say when you're young, we can accompany you to be crazy together. Now we are all married, how many chances do we have to accompany you to be foolish?"
"Yeah, people still need a family after all, I should have my own family."
One day.
After drinking at the bar with friends until dawn, Chang Le got up to leave.
"Chang Le, let me accompany you," his friend was worried.
"No need, it's better for me to go alone for this kind of thing." Chang Le shook his head, swaying as he walked out of the bar.
He called a special car and left the bar with a canvas backpack that had been around for some years, embroidered with a five-pointed star.
The car drove from Jiangzhou to Linzhou, and it was already dawn, with the sky brightening.
Chang Le walked slowly to the cemetery and approached the tombstone.
From the canvas bag, he took out the homemade rice wine his father loved, placed his mother's favorite dishes and fruits, and then put two bouquets of white chrysanthemums. He knelt in front of the tombstone and kowtowed.
After kowtowing, he leaned against the tombstone, lit a cigarette, and started to talk while inhaling and exhaling:
"Mom, Dad, I'm here to see you again."
"I want to tell you something..."
"Recently, I met a girl at the bar. She had delicate features, a clear temperament, and good skin. In short, she was very beautiful..."
"I don't think she's the type to hang out in bars because her temperament doesn't match. About temperament, not to brag, I've always been very accurate. This girl shouldn't be in a bar, she probably came out of curiosity or something."
"I was just looking at her, but she also looked at me. After a while, she came over to me on her own initiative, which surprised me. She said she wanted to sleep with me."
"Haha..." Chang Le laughed and said, "Dad, when you were a kid, you told me that birds of a feather flock together, and people of similar kinds gather. That's really true."
"Before, I remember telling you both. I'm not proactive, but I don't refuse either. Since she was so proactive, she must have a need, and I'm happy to help. So we went to the hotel."
"The next morning when I woke up, the girl was already gone. When I was getting dressed, I found 5000 yuan on the bedside table. Why leave money? Probably because this girl thinks she slept with me, not the other way around."
"The relationship between active and passive is defined by her. I've never cared about these titles, they're meaningless."
"But underneath the money, there was a note that said: Handsome guy, take care! These four simple words really scared me."
"Although I'm usually cautious about these things and always take precautions, no one can guarantee that there won't be any problems. I spent more than a month feeling nervous."
"After six weeks, I went to the hospital first, and the result proved to be a false alarm."
"After some time, I met this girl on the street again, and I stopped her. She was very pleased and asked if I was scared? At that time, I really wanted to punch her. She said she just wanted to scare me, make me mess up relationships between men and women."
"Before, other girls said similar things, but I didn't listen. I listened to her. I found that I had some feelings for her, wanted to contact her, and then... there was no 'then'."
"I've been lurking in the bar for a few months, but I haven't seen her again. She disappeared from my world like this."
"Mom, Dad, look, it's not that I don't want to get married, it's that people just don't give me a chance."
"Let me tell you something else. Today, before coming here, my friends all advised me to get married and settle down..."
"They're all married now, they have children, they have to accompany their wives every day, check their children's homework; their parents are also getting older, and they have to accompany their parents to the hospital regularly. They have their own families, and they don't have the energy to hang out with me anymore."
"They all advised me to find a good girl and get married. I really should get married. I don't want to be alone in an empty house when I'm older, unable to enjoy family happiness."
"Mom, Dad, you must bless me to find a good girl. Now my reputation is stinking, and there are plenty of girls around me, but they're all mischievous. Playing around is fine, but marriage is out of the question."
"My requirements are not high... I hope to meet a girl who is diligent and thrifty, I don't ask for her to be very beautiful, from a good family, or highly educated, I just hope she can live a simple life with me... It seems like I'm asking for too much..."
Chang Le talked incessantly, not particularly sad.
After all these years, he had shed all his tears, leaving only habit and routine.
Gradually, it became light outside.
A few soft white clouds floated in the azure sky, and the cool morning breeze brought a refreshing chill, adding a touch of elegance to the silent morning.
Chang Le looked up at the sky, patted his numb legs, and said:
"Mom, Dad, I'm leaving, I'll come to see you again after a while, hopefully not alone this time."
He stepped down the stairs.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning appeared out of nowhere
, thundering down, and Chang Le's world went black before his eyes.
......
"Ding......"
"Status loading..."
"Status loaded successfully!"
Electronic and stringed music suddenly sounded in Chang Le's ears, startling him from his deep sleep, bewildered and shocked.
What he saw in front of him seemed to be all memories:
In front of him, there was a crimson signboard that read "Study hard and make progress every day," with the blackboard covered with English words and grammar patterns;
On the side, there were many famous quotes such as "Those who know are not as good as those who do, those who do are not as good as those who enjoy";
All around, there were youthful and green faces, both unfamiliar and familiar.
"What is this..." Chang Le muttered to himself.
"You're just groggy from sleep. Chang Le, your sleep quality is really high. You can sleep so deeply even for a few minutes during class, admirable!"
Chang Le turned his head to look at the person speaking beside him: Ah, it's a youthful version of Yuan Jiacheng, nicknamed "Cannon Brother."
He got his nickname from setting off fireworks along the high-speed rail line.
After years of experience in the entertainment industry, he knew every city along the high-speed rail line, their service levels, style characteristics, and prices as if they were the back of his hand.
He was also Chang Le's guide.
At this moment, he was still a green youth, with no trace of oiliness on his cheeks.
"What year, month, and day is it now?" Chang Le asked.
"It looks like you're really out of it. It's September 1st, 2006, the first monthly exam has just ended, and there are 9 months left until the college entrance examination." Yuan Jiacheng emphasized.
"Oh, September 1st, 2006..." Chang Le repeated, his expression shocked.
He suddenly got up, pushed Yuan Jiacheng aside, and rushed out of the classroom.
"Hey, Chang Le, class is about to start, where are you going at this time?" Yuan Jiacheng called out.
Where am I going? Downstairs!
As Chang Le went downstairs, he reached into his pocket, took out his Nokia-1110, and dialed a number hurriedly.
The phone rang, and someone answered.
"Mom, please find Dad quickly, don't let him..." Chang Le said urgently.
"So you already know. The news spread really quickly. But it's okay, your dad didn't get on the train. He suddenly fainted before getting on and was taken to the hospital." Chang Le's mother said.
"The doctor has seen him, and after the examination, there's no major problem. It's mainly due to overwork, a few days' rest and he'll be fine."
"Don't worry, Mom is here, you focus on your studies at school. It's senior year, don't waste time."
The voice on the phone filled Chang Le with longing and memories. He stopped in his tracks, and uncontrollable emotions surged in his heart.
He subconsciously glanced at the small dark icon on the left corner of his eye, which appeared along with his consciousness.
The icon showed the word "Luck," and below it were a few lines of small text:
"Status: Unparalleled luck"
"Luck value: ∞"
"Duration: ∞"
This icon, or status, was very familiar to Chang Le.
It was one of the character statuses in a pixel-level single-player game he had been playing for many years.
There were many types of statuses, such as strength, health, agility...
To brush more high-quality equipment, he used a modifier and adjusted the luck value in the background.
As a result, the threshold setting for this game was very high, even if there were N nines, it did not cause obvious data overflow.
But there were also negative effects.
The negative effect was that the drop rate of roadside monsters and the bosses with high attack, defense, and health were the same, with the screen full of high-quality items, making it very difficult to find common items.
And now, obviously, the game had entered reality, and dreams had come true.
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