Chapter 9: Work

When school let out that day.

In the cafeteria.

Zhang Yu, Zhou Tianyi, and Bai Zhenzhen were sitting together having dinner.

Bai Zhenzhen, as usual, was ice-cold and silent, calmly and steadily working through the large plate of food in front of her.

Zhou Tianyi glanced at Zhang Yu and said, "Your financial situation has been pretty rough lately."

"Is it that obvious?"

Zhang Yu was briefly taken aback, thinking, *Has the debt collection call already reached my classmates? Would that mean my seventy-thousand debt is about to be exposed at school?*

Zhou Tianyi looked at Bai Zhenzhen's lavish dinner, complete with chicken, duck, fish, and meat, then at Zhang Yu's five-yuan pauper meal.

He rubbed his chin and said, "Based on my three months of observing the cafeteria, what a person eats here can effectively reflect their financial situation during that period, and even their cultivation strength."

"For example, someone who eats ten jin per meal won't sit at the same table as someone who eats three jin."

"Because the two sides are completely different classes, occupying the upper and lower reaches of the campus contempt chain."

"So it's just because I eat little." Zhang Yu breathed a sigh of relief inside, thinking that his super-poor identity hadn't been exposed.

He turned to look at Bai Zhenzhen, at the dozen or so chicken legs in her rice bucket, and said with curiosity, "Zhen, those chicken legs look really special. Let me have a taste."

Bai Zhenzhen didn't even lift her head and said, "Scram."

Zhou Tianyi, sitting nearby, smiled and picked a duck leg from his own bowl for Zhang Yu: "Zhenzhen had an especially heavy workout today. She looks starving. Try mine."

"Good brother!" Zhang Yu gave Zhou Tianyi a thumbs up, grabbed the duck leg, and started gnawing on it.

Watching Zhang Yu wolf down the food, Zhou Tianyi smiled and said, "If you're having money trouble, I can lend you some."

Zhang Yu waved his hand and said, "No need. I'll handle it myself."

Although he was up to his ears in debt, Zhang Yu didn't plan to borrow money from classmates, or rather, borrowing from classmates couldn't solve the huge seventy-thousand debt all at once. He needed a way to keep earning and keep paying it off.

"At least I have to cover the monthly interest, and not let the collection agency escalate their methods again."

Zhang Yu knew that as his overdue period kept increasing, the collection agency's tactics would become more and more aggressive, from online harassment to offline intimidation, each step worse than the last.

"And rent, utilities, food expenses..."

Thinking about this, Zhang Yu felt his head start to ache.

Right after Zhou Tianyi left, Bai Zhenzhen suddenly spoke up: "Based on my three months of observing you and Zhou Tianyi, he's especially good to you."

Zhang Yu: "Is he?"

Bai Zhenzhen chuckled, "A guy smiling and giving the duck leg from his own bowl to another guy—in my sixteen years of life, I've only seen this happen in two situations."

"One: the two are father and son."

"The other: hehehehe..."

Zhang Yu raised an eyebrow: "Zhen, you've been reading some pretty varied stuff."

Bai Zhenzhen: "Yu, actually, you don't need to be scared. After all, in this school, you're the one in control."

Saying that, Bai Zhenzhen pushed her tray over to Zhang Yu: "Sigh, I can't eat anymore. These leftovers are my treat to you, because you're my good son."

"Scram." Zhang Yu snatched the tray and scanned it, seeing only a small portion of food that looked completely untouched, arranged neatly.

Just as Zhang Yu looked up to thank her, he only saw Bai Zhenzhen's back as she left the cafeteria.

Once outside the cafeteria, Bai Zhenzhen's gaze turned cold again. She thought to herself, "Yu, actually, there's a third situation where this can happen too."

Bai Zhenzhen turned to look at the steps by the cafeteria entrance, where a cafeteria auntie was pouring leftover food from a swill bucket into a cat's bowl.

After leaving school, Zhang Yu started planning how to find a way to earn money.

"Now, my rent is fifteen hundred, utilities around two hundred a month, and the loan payment is fifteen thousand a month..."

"Hiss..."

Thinking about this, Zhang Yu's head started aching again.

I need to earn at least twenty thousand per month; an ordinary job certainly won't do.

With a flicker of Zhang Yu's thought, the feather letter had already unfolded before him.

Zhang Yu

Dao Heart Level 1

Mana 7.7

Body Strength Level 0.84

Martial Arts: Thirty-Six Forms of Body Strengthening Level 2 (17/20), Free Hand Combat Level 1, High School Basic Swordplay Level 0

Dao Arts: Basic Breathing Method Level 1, Basic Heart Refining Method Level 1

Seeing the newly appeared entry 'High School Basic Swordplay Level 0', Zhang Yu recalled today's martial arts class.

The so-called martial arts class was a course for learning various striking and combat martial arts, with 80 out of 100 points being for actual combat.

For example, the first year of high school required learning one unarmed combat martial art and one weapon-based combat martial art.

And this High School Basic Swordplay was exactly what he learned in today's martial arts class, but it seemed because he hadn't truly mastered it, it still showed Level 0.

But Zhang Yu gave it a little try and found that this 'High School Basic Swordplay Level 0' could also be dragged.

He estimated that if he specialized in this martial art, thanks to his potential, he could quickly master it and then quickly level up.

These thoughts flashed quickly through his mind, Zhang Yu continued staring at his panel, pondering what job he could do.

"Although I've only just stepped onto the path of immortal cultivation, I am, after all, a regular student at Songyang High School..."

After a moment, Zhang Yu began contacting his previous cram school using his phone.

The original Zhang Yu had attended this cram school for a year after graduating from middle school before entering Songyang High School.

"This kind of cram school should pay well, and as a regular student at Songyang High School, I should have an advantage." But after he asked, the cram school teacher said they were already fully staffed and told him to try other cram schools.

So Zhang Yu started contacting other cram schools.

"Hello, I'd like to work as a part-time tutoring teacher. I'm a first-year student at Songyang High School..."

"May I ask where you graduated from for elementary and middle school respectively?"

"No, I'm already a regular student at Songyang High School!"

"Sorry, because there are also many tutors from key high schools, if a first-year student like you who hasn't graduated yet works part-time, parents will pay a lot of attention to your first and second educational backgrounds before high school."

After learning about Zhang Yu's elementary and middle schools, the other party stopped replying.

After repeating this conversation five or six times, Zhang Yu gradually understood.

"Damn it!"

"They all have such high requirements for first and second educational backgrounds?"

"Has the competition for tutoring teachers become this fierce?"

!

Zhang Yu felt that his elementary and middle school educational backgrounds were like two ugly labels stamped deeply on his face, making it incredibly difficult for him to even find a part-time tutoring job.

So Zhang Yu had to temporarily give up on the cram school route and try another backup plan.

"I'll have to try odd jobs first."

As for the path of odd jobs, the original Zhang Yu had actually learned something about it in the three months since school started.

Of course, the temporary work mentioned here was not the temporary labor that ordinary people seek, but the temporary jobs sought by those who have already embarked on the path of immortal cultivation.

For example, high school students made up a sizable portion of this group, since not every high school student was a rich kid. A considerable number of high school students needed to earn money themselves to lighten the burden on their families or to buy things they wanted.

And because high school students neither had a high school diploma nor had most of their time free for classes, they often could only take on part-time temporary jobs.

Zhang Yu had also done a little research on this path over the past couple of days. At that moment, he immediately added an agent and asked if there were any jobs available.

"You've asked too late. Today's jobs have all been taken for now."

"Why don't you come over here and wait? When a new job comes in, you can grab it directly."

……

Half an hour later, Zhang Yu arrived at a small plaza.

From a distance, he could see people scattered across the plaza, some sitting, some lying down. Among them were the old and the young, men and women. Some simply lay on the ground and dozed off, while others, still in school uniforms, sat cross-legged breathing and exhaling.

Following the address he had been given, Zhang Yu found a human resources company in a corner of the plaza.

The company was small, its storefront looking just like a real estate agency. The dirty glass was plastered with all kinds of shabby recruitment notices.

Glancing at the worn-out sign, Zhang Yu pushed the door open. A strong smell of smoke hit him, making him frown.

Behind a messy desk, a middle-aged man who was smoking looked up, glanced at Zhang Yu, and said, “Are you the high school student who just asked?”

After Zhang Yu nodded, the man introduced himself as Old Wang, an agent here. He took out a few sheets of paper and said, “Fill out a resume, and I’ll register it for you in a bit.”

Zhang Yu took the papers and saw that besides some basic information, he also had to fill in the martial arts and Dao techniques he had studied, their levels, and his grades at school.

Handing back the completed form, Zhang Yu asked, “How long does it usually take to find a job? And what’s the pay like?”

Old Wang scratched his messy hair and said casually, “At least a few hundred bucks an hour... but it’s hard to say how long it’ll take to find something. If you’re unlucky, it’s normal to have no work for a week.”

Zhang Yu thought to himself, “The pay here is that high? If so, working two or three hours a day would be enough to cover my loan payments and living expenses, right?”

With that thought, Zhang Yu felt a surge of joy.

But then he heard the other man say it was hard to find work, so he asked curiously, “Why?”

He emphasized his identity: “I’m in the top ten of my freshman year at a key high school. Is it still hard for me to find something?”

Old Wang chuckled at that, pointed outside, and said, “See those people in the plaza? Besides high school students like you, the rest are all high school graduates.”

Zhang Yu was startled, then said in disbelief, “How is that possible? After graduating high school, they’re already cultivating immortality—why would they come here for temp work?”

Old Wang shrugged. “They didn’t get into college. Not every high school grad can make it to university.”

“If you don’t get into college, you’ll be stuck at the Qi Refining stage for life, and you won’t even be able to enter the second level of Kunxu. You can only keep muddling along on the first level, year after year...”

Zhang Yu still didn’t understand. “But they could still find a regular job on the first level. Why do temp work?”

Old Wang explained, “They don’t need to sleep. They finish their day job, and if the company doesn’t require overtime, they come looking for some temp work.”

“Otherwise, how would they pay off their loans? How would they have enough money to maintain their cultivation?”

These words stirred up a storm in Zhang Yu’s heart. From his previous memories, he had no idea that high school graduates had it this hard.

He had always thought that after graduating high school, even if you didn’t get into college, you’d just sit in an office in a downtown skyscraper every day, with air conditioning and tea, earning a decent salary...

But no—before graduation, you study 24/7; after graduation, you work 24/7. The suffering just keeps piling up, huh.

Old Wang glanced at Zhang Yu’s resume and laughed, “Oh, Songyang High School? We’re alumni then. I’m from Songyang too, but I dropped out in my senior year.”

Zhang Yu: “Dropped out?”

Old Wang shrugged. “Couldn’t get into college, so why waste the money? I only paid off the loans I took out in high school the year before last.”

“As a fellow alumnus, let me give you some advice.”

“In high school, know your limits. If you feel like you can’t get into college, quit early. Otherwise, like some people, you’ll end up in so much debt it ruins your whole life.”

After filling out the paperwork, Old Wang told Zhang Yu to wait outside and said he would notify him as soon as there was work.

Zhang Yu: “Competing with those high school graduates—will any work really come my way?”

Old Wang: “Don’t worry. Some jobs are specifically looking for current high school students.”