Hanghu City, Xiajiang District.
Sunshine International Community, Building 9, 3202, a fully decorated single-room rental with an indoor area of more than 20 square meters.
A young man in his twenties is sitting on the mahogany floor, holding a Wacon high-end digital tablet in one hand and a touch brush in the other. From time to time, he draws lines and applies colors on the canvas area of the screen, looking dedicated and serious.
Under his brush, a cute anime girl with long pink hair, wearing a Lolita dress and white stockings, gradually takes shape and appears in three dimensions in front of people.
Slightly modified.
With the final touch, the work is sent to the customer through the Penguin account.
"Thank you, Brother Ming. I am very satisfied with this original painting of Anasta. I will transfer the balance to you right away!"
Ding Dong, Alipay sent a notification that a transfer of 300 yuan had arrived.
I put away the tablet, stood up, stretched my neck and limbs, and walked to the floor-to-ceiling glass window at the edge of the balcony. I looked at the buildings and the river in the distance, listening to the noise of car horns and other human activities.
Somehow, Wei Ming always felt an instinctive irritation that lingered in his heart.
Wei Ming, male, 26 years old, 175cm tall, 144kg in weight, plain appearance, messy hair, ordinary clothes, not handsome at all, never popular with women since childhood, graduated from a technical college, studied animation art in school for three years.
After graduation, I first entered the IT field and became a UI designer.
Last year, due to the impact of the epidemic, the Internet winter and other factors, he lost his job, and his part-time job as an original artist became his only source of income. In addition, he has a solid foundation in painting and is excellent in character painting. He has a certain degree of popularity in the original artist circle. Many new and old customers place orders with him, and the price per piece ranges from 300 to 800 yuan.
Wei Ming spends four hours working every day and can draw about 15 pictures a month, with a monthly income of about five to six thousand yuan.
However, compared with the consumption level of Hangzhou, a new first-tier city, it is difficult to save any money with this income level.
After all, the rent for this fully furnished house alone is 2,200 yuan per month, not counting electricity bills.
The meal costs 1500.
Buying clothes, watching movies, getting a haircut and shopping costs at least 500.
Miscellaneous expenses such as mobile phone bills cost more than 300.
At the end of the month, all kinds of expenses total more than 4,500.
Wei Ming, who makes a living as a freelance original artist, does not have much savings.
So don’t even think about finding a girlfriend to get out of being single, because you don’t have the financial resources to do so.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
A house and a car are just distant dreams for him.
Reclusive, decadent, and depressed are the labels attached to his forehead. In the future, China's economic growth will be sluggish, the birth rate will decline, and the number of unmarried people and cocooning people will continue to increase. I am afraid that he will contribute to this.
In fact, Wei Ming was not without ambition. In the first few years after graduation, he worked hard, often worked overtime, found ways to take on various private jobs, and rarely rested even on holidays. He lived frugally on weekdays and was able to save more than 100,000 yuan every year. His boss and colleagues all praised and admired him.
but……
Sometimes your efforts may not be rewarded, but may instead cause harm or worse.
This caused Wei Ming to fall into depression for a time and he had to rely on medication to sleep normally.
I haven't even come out of that state yet.
Stand in front of the window, open it and let some air in.
Looking at the scenery in the distance.
The smell is mixed with car exhaust, chemical plant pollutants and a high level of PM2.5 in the air.
Wei Ming shook his head.
"The air in the country is still better."
"Why not go back to the countryside, rent a house with a small yard, grow some vegetables in the yard, raise some chickens and ducks. If you feel tired, you can put on your backpack and go for an outing nearby, or bring a fishing rod and go fishing in the lake..."
“This kind of life might be pretty good.”
Wei Ming's face showed a look of longing, and he even had an impulse in his heart.
After all, as a freelancer, the world is big and he can go anywhere. There is no need to stay in a big city and breathe unpleasant turbid air all day long.
Moreover, the cost of living in the countryside is not high, and you can grow your own vegetables and raise livestock, which is suitable for health preservation and full of fun.
Going to the countryside to develop is indeed a good idea.
…
Quasar.
The oldest, most massive, and most energy-dense celestial body in the universe.
They are the product of the final stage of galaxy evolution. Their core is generally a massive black hole with a mass of millions to tens of trillions times that of the sun, surrounded by nebula dust with a diameter of tens to hundreds of thousands of light years.
Under the huge gravitational force of the black hole at the core of the quasar, the surrounding nebula dust continuously falls into the center of the black hole, forming an accretion disk shaped like a giant eye.
Due to the influx of a large amount of matter, at the two poles of the black hole, the huge conversion energy will push a large number of high-energy particles to eject outward at a speed infinitely close to the speed of light, forming two huge pillars of light.
Right now.
In a star field 12.7 billion light-years away from the Blue Star, a quasar whose core black hole has a mass exceeding 100 trillion suns, after swallowing enough matter, the quantitative change triggered a qualitative change and suddenly exploded!
A violent gamma-ray burst erupted.
Among the countless high-energy particles ejected, there is a strange high-energy particle. The energy it contains is unimaginable. It is very similar to the primordial particles that were born in a very short time during the Big Bang.
Then, at a speed far exceeding the speed of light which is beyond common sense, it crossed endless time and space and flew towards a certain direction of the blue planet.
…
It was getting close to evening.
It's getting dark.
The row of green office buildings across the river began to light up with colorful neon lights.
I remembered that I was only 26 years old.
It actually began to exude a strong atmosphere of dusk, just like the twilight of the evening, and I fantasized about living a relaxed and comfortable pastoral life in the country.
Enter retirement forty years early.
"Is it really appropriate to think about retiring so early and just wait for death?"
"Can drawing cute 2D girls every day fill the void of not having a partner?"
"A house, a car, in this bustling world, isn't it better to have a place of your own to settle down and stand firm than to be empty and leave nothing behind in the world?"
“Even if life cannot be as brilliant as summer flowers, it must at least emit a little light and heat that can be seen by others, just like that shooting star, like a red line, inconspicuous but cutting through the sky.”
"No, why did that meteor fly towards me?"
Just when I was surprised!
There was no time to dodge. The thin red line went straight into Wei Ming's forehead and entered his brain.
With a loud bang!
The scene of the Big Bang seemed to reappear before Wei Ming's eyes. Endless energy and dazzling flames jumped and flashed in front of him, presenting countless changes, forming an orange world of fire, full of violence, disorder and chaos.
Plop~
Wei Ming fainted immediately.