Chapter 1: Life Is Really Damn Hard

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The year was 1980. Summer.

Zheng Fei was wearing a white vest full of holes. Not far away, the cicadas in the yellow peach tree were making such a racket it irked him.

A few shirtless boys had climbed high up, picking yellow peaches from the branches, but in these times, not a single adult came to stop them.

One peach fell and rolled right to his feet. It was mostly green with a hint of yellow. Zheng Fei picked it up, wiped it twice on his shirt, and took a bite.

The next second, his brows knitted together.

Bitter as hell.

Just like this wretched life.

Yet even though it was astringent, he forced himself to eat it. If these peaches were processed into canned fruit, he wouldn’t be able to afford them.

Seeing Zheng Fei act like such a rogue, the kids in the tree could only glare helplessly; there was nothing they could do.

Soon, one boy slid down from the trunk and stood in front of Zheng Fei, ready to dart over and snatch any peaches that fell.

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Zheng Fei did not belong to this era. Ironically, in his past life, he’d been arguing with people on Douyin when, due to his poor health, a heart attack took him out.

After half a month to calm down in this world, Zheng Fei felt stupid. What was the point of online spats with Douyin trolls?

As the saying goes: “Of all the fools in the world, Douyin and Kuaishou have half.”

But losing the argument annoyed him no end; he felt so stifled inside he wished he could go back just to continue the online brawl.

All he’d said online was: “A company like Game Science is truly one in a million. For game companies, surviving comes first. There’s nothing wrong with being down-to-earth. You can’t expect every company to produce high art—Black Monkey Studios can be an example, but not the standard. Otherwise, you only heap more pressure on the industry…”

He never expected that comment to receive tens of thousands of replies, all cursing him, calling him a creator of trash games and garbage short dramas.

They weren’t wrong—he did make trash games and shoot short dramas.

Zheng Fei once had dreams. But just as he set foot in society, they were balled up and tossed in the trash.

He’d thought studying art would make him an artist. Only after working did he realize he was nothing more than a replaceable cog on an assembly line.

After muddling along for two or three years as a wage slave, enlightenment came.

A wage slave would always be a wage slave.

Zheng Fei quit his job, lost his father two units of demolition compensation, and finally earned his first bucket of gold.

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Keeping up with the times, he started a live-streaming guild and shot short dramas. He realized the more people looked down on something, the more money there was in it.

Everyone could look down on streamers, but there was no denying the money they made.

Everyone could despise short dramas, but the money poured in like a flood!

On these scorned ventures, Zheng Fei managed to accumulate considerable wealth as he neared forty.

But life’s greatest regret was his family’s history of heart disease; even at a young age, he always had to carry a portable ECG monitor.

He’d figured if he died suddenly one day, it’d be in a woman’s bed. Never did he expect to be felled by a few idiotic trolls.

As Zheng Fei was lost in thought, something black struck his head, followed by a tirade.

“What are you daydreaming about? How many times have I told you—add more water! That pigment costs more than you do!”

What hit his head was a charcoal stick. The scolding came from a sixty-year-old man in a blue Mao suit, splattered with paint.

Struck for no reason, Zheng Fei’s temper flared. He was about to snap back when he remembered—his situation had changed.

Now, he was just a newly twenty-year-old youth, an apprentice to this muralist. They were currently painting murals in a temple.

Though he wasn’t thrilled by the era he’d traveled to, his new identity wasn’t bad—he was a bona fide Shanghai lad, even if from the inner-city slums.

Luckily, his new family had no history of illness. At least in this life, Zheng Fei wouldn’t have to worry about dying halfway through his struggles, taken out by trolls.

But in these early days of reform, Shanghai was a hard place to make it.

The population was huge, job opportunities scarce, and a wave of returned educated youth made survival hell.

Everywhere in Shanghai, young people were out of work.

As a youth from the shantytowns, Zheng Fei had nowhere to go. It was only through a relative’s introduction that this old man reluctantly took him as an apprentice.

By rights, Zheng Fei should be grateful. But it was a trap—the apprenticeship came with no meals and no lodging. He was just free labor.

Had he actually learned anything, Zheng Fei wouldn’t have minded. But the master didn’t treat him like a person, never taught him a thing, making him do all the dirtiest, hardest tasks.

By comparison, the other apprentice—a short, ugly fellow—was much better off. After three years, he was treated like a closed-door disciple.

Whatever the master ate, he ate too.

Zheng Fei, as the new apprentice, always got what was left—though in this era of food shortages, there was never anything left.

After they finished, Zheng Fei was left to cook himself sweet potato noodles—slices dried in the sun.

They went in white, but boiled up into a pot of black mush.

Having eaten delicacies to excess in his past life, Zheng Fei could hardly stomach such fare. He’d even tried fasting, but after two days’ hunger, even that black mush tasted delicious.

While they ate, Zheng Fei looked around the little temple in earnest.

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It was a dilapidated Guan Yu temple.

In the looser atmosphere of the early reform era, many temple custodians were eager to restore their sites and contacted teams like theirs for mural work.

Murals in Guan Yu temples usually depicted scenes from the general’s life.

After a few glances, Zheng Fei realized the old man’s art skills were truly poor—the lines lacked decisiveness, and the color schemes were a mess.

Several times, Zheng Fei had wanted to help him mix better colors, but was always scolded for “messing around.”

He could only sigh: Talent was so scarce that even half-baked hacks could take apprentices and call themselves masters.

In his past life, Zheng Fei had at least been a proper art student—sketching, quick drawing, even traditional Chinese painting, he was quite skilled.

Suddenly, the aroma of meat wafted over. Turning, Zheng Fei saw the half-baked master and the fool of a senior apprentice eating white rice and braised pork.

He swallowed involuntarily; who knows how many times he cursed these two in his heart.

But there was nothing he could do. Apprentices ranked below dogs in these times. Only after the master and senior finished could he eat.

“There wasn’t enough rice today. You’d better cook some sweet potato porridge for yourself,” the short, ugly senior said with a smile.

“And after you eat, we’re plastering walls today. Make sure you mix the mud when you’re done.”

Zheng Fei’s mouth twitched. He truly despised this guy—so damn fake, just like his name, Gao Xiaoshuai.

Gao Xiaoshuai’s dislike was simple—sheer jealousy!

In terms of looks, Zheng Fei outclassed him tenfold, and he had an urban Shanghai household registration. In those days, there was a saying in the city:

“Better a bed in Puxi than a house in Pudong!”

Because of this, every time Zheng Fei went to the rural outskirts, the local girls would give him more than a passing glance.

Gao Xiaoshuai was of marrying age himself and eager for a match. But whenever villagers heard Zheng Fei had a Shanghai hukou, they’d want to settle the marriage on the spot.

Some enterprising girls even took the initiative.

But just when things were about to work out, the rural Pudong-dwelling Gao Xiaoshuai would always find a way to sabotage it.

“He’s not really from Shanghai—just from the slums, refugees from the old days. The Suzhou Creek where he’s from stinks—full of floating trash.”

To be honest, Zheng Fei was rather grateful to his senior. Without him meddling, maybe the original Zheng wouldn’t have been able to resist, and Zheng Fei might already have a wife or even a child.

If the wife was pretty, so be it. But if she wasn’t, getting a divorce in these times would be harder than reaching the sky!

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