The June sun was as vicious as a line of error code, scorching the scalp until it went numb.
Zhang Xiaoman stood at the gates of the Polytechnic University, clutching a gold-embossed graduation certificate, feeling like a computer that had been forced to shut down—the screen was black, the fan was still spinning, and her brain was buzzing.
Four years. One thousand four hundred and sixty days. Higher Mathematics, Linear Algebra, Data Structures, Operating Systems... these terms had been like a swarm of buzzing mosquitoes flying around in her head for four years, and she hadn't managed to catch a single one.
But at least you could swat mosquitoes to death. These courses, she couldn't.
Her GPA was 2.1, ranking her third from the bottom of her class.
The students who were first and second from the bottom had dropped out in their sophomore year; one went to become a real estate agent, and the other went home to inherit a pig farm. Sometimes, Zhang Xiaoman felt she wasn't even as good as those two. At least they knew they couldn't cut it and ran fast enough. And her? She had muddled through four years, like a cat thrown into a swimming pool, thrashing around for ages only to realize—this water couldn't drown her, but she hadn't learned how to swim either.
"Xiaoman, what are you planning to do after graduation?" a classmate asked casually at the farewell dinner.
The question was like a knife, stabbing precisely into Zhang Xiaoman's chest.
"I... I'll go back to my hometown first."
"Go back to your hometown? Won't your Computer Science degree go to waste?"
"Xiaoman, even though your grades are average, you still have a bachelor's degree. Going to a small company as a developer shouldn't be a problem, right?"
A babble of voices rushed over her. Every suggestion sounded reasonable, and every "it's for your own good" made Zhang Xiaoman feel even more like a piece of trash.
She didn't want to be a developer. It took her half a day just to figure out the boundary conditions of a 'for' loop.
She didn't want anything. She just wanted to go home, close her bedroom door, turn on her computer, and hide in a world where she didn't have to explain herself to anyone.
"I... I want to write novels," she said softly.
The air went quiet for a second. Then someone burst out laughing: "Write novels? You? You wrote your graduation thesis like a grocery list!"
Laughter echoed around the table. There was no malice in it, it was just that—in their eyes, everything Zhang Xiaoman did seemed like a joke.
She laughed along with them, her eyes stinging a little.
After the dinner, Zhang Xiaoman walked back alone along the tree-lined path of the campus.
Her phone rang. It was a WeChat voice message from her dad.
"Xiaoman, pack up tomorrow. I've already bought your high-speed rail ticket, it's for 9 AM the day after tomorrow. Your mom has tidied up your room at home. Come back and rest for a few days first, you can take your time looking for a job."
Take your time. She had already been looking for two months. She'd sent out forty-seven resumes, received three interview invitations, and failed all of them in the first round.
One interviewer even asked her directly: "Did you really study Computer Science for four years in college?"
At the time, she wanted to say, "I studied it, but I didn't learn it," but in the end, she just lowered her head and said, "I'm sorry."
"Okay, Dad," she replied with a voice message, keeping her tone as steady as possible.
After hanging up, she stood by the side of the road, watching a moth frantically crashing into the streetlamp. Once, twice, three times. It wouldn't shatter, nor would it stop.
She felt she was just like that moth. The difference was, at least the moth knew it wanted the light. She didn't know what she wanted.
Her phone vibrated again. A bank text message:
[Your debit card ending in 3827 has a balance of 4,732.50 Yuan.]
Four thousand seven hundred and thirty-two Yuan and fifty cents. This was all the savings she had accumulated over four years of college.
Enough to buy a high-speed rail ticket home—oh wait, the ticket was already bought. Enough to lie at home for two months before being kicked out by her mom.
She looked down at her phone screen, suddenly realizing one thing: if she got on that high-speed train, she really would be going back. Going back to that small county town, going back to the label of "the college graduate who went home to leech off her parents," going back to the neighbors' whispers of "what's the use of going to college?"
And then what? Then there would be no 'then'.
Her life would prematurely end at the age of twenty-two.
Zhang Xiaoman's fingers began to tremble. Not from the cold, but from fear—a fear of a "life where you can see the end at a glance."
She didn't want to go back. But where could she go?
In this city, she had no job, no place to live, no boyfriend, no reason whatsoever to stay.
Except—unwillingness to resign herself to fate.
Her phone vibrated again. It was a "You might be interested in" product recommendation from Taobao. She was about to swipe it away, but her finger hovered over the screen and stopped.
On the screen was a second-hand laptop. Hasee God of War, 60% new, scratches on the casing, 450 Yuan. The specs were an i5-4210M, 8GB RAM, and a GTX 950M graphics card.
Specs from 2014. It was 2020 now; this thing was basically e-waste.
But she clicked on it, as if possessed.
She didn't even know why she was looking at this. Her desktop at home was old, but it still worked. She didn't need a new computer at all.
But her finger kept scrolling down uncontrollably. The product description read: "Personal idle item, functions normally, screen has a small yellowish patch, don't buy if you mind."
Zhang Xiaoman stared at the computer, suddenly recalling her junior year, when she hid under the covers reading a web novel on her phone. The protagonist was a loser, looked down upon by everyone, who finally changed his destiny against all odds thanks to a "divine book" that fell from the sky.
She read all night, and cried all night.
Not because she was moved, but because she suddenly realized—in the real world, there are no divine books falling from the sky. A loser is a loser; there won't be any miraculous encounters.
But what if?
What if there was some secret hidden inside this broken computer?
She knew this idea was incredibly stupid. A second-hand computer for a few hundred bucks, what secret could it have? At most, some adult videos the previous owner hadn't deleted cleanly.
But she still clicked "Buy Now."
She hesitated when paying. Four hundred and fifty bucks was about half a month's food budget for her. Buying this broken computer meant she wouldn't last much longer.
But—
If she was destined to go home and leech off her parents, then at least let her do one stupid thing before she went back.
A stupid thing that only a loser would do.
She pressed confirm payment.
[Alipay] You have successfully paid 450.00 Yuan. Balance: 4,282.50 Yuan.
Looking at the numbers popping up on the screen, Zhang Xiaoman suddenly felt a little relieved. It was as if—by spending this four hundred and fifty bucks, she had an excuse, a way to righteously tell herself: "Look, you spent all your savings on a broken computer, you have to use it to do something, right?"
It was a stupid excuse. But it was better than no excuse.
Then she made another crazy decision.
She opened the 12306 app, found the high-speed rail ticket her dad had bought, and clicked "Refund."
[Refund successful, 5% processing fee deducted, refund amount XXX Yuan.]
The money was returned to her dad's account. He would find out. He would definitely call to scold her.
But that was tomorrow's problem.
Today, she was going to make one last crazy decision.
She opened a rental app and searched: University City Urban Village Rental.
Early the next morning, Zhang Xiaoman stood at the entrance of the urban village next to University City, dragging her suitcase.
She had passed by here countless times before, but had never walked inside. Narrow alleys, a dense web of power lines overhead, walls plastered with layers of small advertisements—"Rentals," "Fake IDs," "Unblock Drains." The air was filled with a complex smell: cooking oil fumes, damp laundry drying, and a whiff of disinfectant from nowhere.
"This is the place." The agent, a middle-aged woman in her forties speaking with a heavy accent, led her to the fifth floor of a 'handshake building'. "Single room, private bathroom, six hundred a month, one month deposit, three months rent upfront. Look, great lighting!"
Zhang Xiaoman looked at that window with "great lighting"—half a meter outside the window was the wall of the building opposite; the sunlight could only squeeze in through a crack between the two buildings.
"Can I... pay one month's deposit and one month's rent first?" she asked cautiously.
"One month deposit, three months upfront. That's the rule." The woman's tone hardened.
"But I don't have enough money..."
"Then find a cheaper place. There's a basement over there, three hundred a month, but it has no windows."
No windows. Zhang Xiaoman imagined living in a windowless basement, unable to tell day from night, like a rat trapped in a hole.
She shuddered.
"I'll take this one," she said. "Deposit and three months, two thousand four hundred. But can I pay one month first, and have a two-week grace period for the remaining two months? I promise I'll make it up once I find a job."
The woman glanced at her, sizing her up. A young girl dragging a suitcase, wearing a backpack, with a pleading look in her eyes.
"Are you a recent grad?"
"Yeah. From Polytechnic."
"Polytechnic?" The woman's tone softened slightly. "My son studies at Polytechnic too. Alright then, a two-week grace period. But you have to write an IOU."
"Yes, yes! Thank you, Sister!"
Zhang Xiaoman handed over the money, signed the contract, and got the key.
Apart from a bed, a desk, and a chair, there was nothing in the room. There was a suspicious stain on the bedboard, "So-and-so was here" carved into the desk, and one leg of the chair was a bit wobbly, swaying when she sat on it.
But this was her room. She finally had a place to settle down in this city.
She opened her suitcase, folded her clothes, and placed them on the bed. Then she crouched down and carefully took out that grey, dusty laptop from her backpack—it had several scratches on the casing, and the "HASEE" logo on the A-cover was so worn it was barely legible.
She put it on the desk and plugged it in.
"Come on," she whispered, "let me see what secrets you actually have."
She pressed the power button.