Chapter 1: The day after quitting my job, a small snake wrecked my house...
If she could do it all over again on March 31st, Shu Qing would have no regrets about shoving her resignation letter in her supervisor's face, but she would truly regret walking into the promotional area of the supermarket downstairs.
"Breaking news! Where's the breaking news?" At 6:30 in the evening, she had just stepped out of the shopping mall when a work message popped up on her phone, dripping with spittle: "I told you to film the female lead taking a bath, what are you filming? How many times have I told you, it has to grab people's attention!"
"You won't even give us a front-facing shot, tell me how you're going to grab people's attention, huh?"
"Finish the revisions before you leave work. They have to be shown directly to the camera—his back, his thighs—it has to make the ladies in the group scream!" A two-second pause, followed by, "You're going back??"
Before Shu Qing could reply, three more messages suddenly popped up on the other end: "You still have the nerve to leave work with animations like this?", "What kind of work attitude is this?", "No one in the entire office is not at their workstation before nine o'clock. Do you even want to keep your job?"
Shu Qing whistled, thinking: Sorry, this lady is really not going to serve you anymore.
“Brother Yu,” she replied, “I have already submitted my resignation process.”
The "typing" message on the other end took a few seconds to disappear, as if it had stalled.
"My resignation letter is on your desk. Isn't that enough to grab your attention?"
The "typing" indicator flickered intermittently, like a faint blue vein on the temple.
Shu Qing moved her fingers, and the "typing" message completely stopped working—this unreliable girl changed her internal nickname to "Ah, goodbye friend."
The tall buildings behind her cast a shadow, and she stepped out onto the boundary between light and shadow. The setting sun had already finished its work, and half the sky was ablaze with golden red. Shu Qing raised her phone and took two photos, then spun around halfway, snapping a picture of herself and the sunset together.
After working 996 hours a day for three years, even an ordinary sunset in H City felt like a beautiful sight with its magnificent clouds and rosy hues.
Humming a song, she returned to her rented studio apartment and put the newly bought vegetables and meat into the refrigerator. The supermarket was having a promotion, and based on her new life principle of "every little bit counts," she bought enough food for the next two weeks in one go.
The discounted ingredients didn't look very appealing, and the complimentary basket of free-range eggs was even more varied. One of them was even underweight, thinner and longer than the other eggs, weighing almost half as much.
"Stingy, I've lost a customer." Shu Qing muttered, then laughed, "Oh well, it was free anyway."
The egg moved almost imperceptibly in her palm. She paused, waited for a while, but there was no further movement.
Is it just my imagination?
She casually stuffed the egg into a corner, planning to boil it into a tea egg the next day.
A new entry was recorded in the ledger: purchase of groceries, -231.35. Balance: 12583.04.
Shu Qing chewed on her pen, adding and subtracting, and calculated that, including the rent, this money could last for more than two months.
I can save money by cooking for myself, withdraw the tips from my short video account, and then resell two used dresses. That's enough to make up three months' worth of expenses, allowing me to give myself a long-awaited summer vacation.
As she was keeping track of the accounts, her phone suddenly rang again. Shu Qing picked it up and saw that her supervisor—or rather, her former supervisor—had sent her a very long essay.
“I was a bit harsh with my words earlier. I know you’ve been working overtime for two weeks straight and it’s been tough. So, take a good rest today. I was doing this for the project, but it’s also for your future.”
"I understand you're a girl and might be a little reserved, but animation production needs to cater to the market. If it's popular, it'll be an achievement for you..."
"You're still young, you need to push yourself to grow. The current economic climate isn't good, and you don't have much work experience. If you leave, you might not be able to find such a good job again."
"Let's talk again once you've calmed down. I'm being completely honest with you..."
Shu Qing was amazed, thinking that the manager's heart and lungs were truly uniquely shaped: a long and eloquent sermon in her chest, and two perfectly round pancakes on her ribs. If she were to get a CT scan, she might have to pay the doctor for mental distress.
"Thank you for your concern, Brother Yu," she said, munching on potato chips and tapping the keyboard with only her little finger. "I've made quite a few breakthroughs in my physical limits and the limits of shame in the past few years, and now I'm preparing to push my limits in other areas."
After retorting, she closed the chat window, lay down on the bed, and scrolled through a few more short, fluffy videos as usual.
She recently followed a pet content creator whose white cat is not only beautiful but also supposedly has superpowers. The cat's adorable antics in front of the camera are said to be incredibly relaxing, and watching it before bed can even help produce melatonin—although it lacks official certification from a supernatural organism management agency, it has already received the unanimous endorsement of millions of followers.
Shu Qing, filled with envy, began to feel sleepy, vaguely thinking: She wanted such a beautiful and unique little animal too…
She's also a mediocre pet content creator, and that account is her only lucky charm...
She drifted off to sleep, but her mind was preoccupied, and her sleep was restless. When she suddenly woke up in the middle of the night, the sky and the ground before her eyes had changed color, turning into a deep red that was almost pitch black.
The bloody smell at the tip of her nose gradually faded, her five senses were quietly diminishing, and death had silently enveloped her.
Shu Qing was used to it and knew she was dreaming—this nightmare was very familiar, it happened every few days, and she was already used to it.
Fortunately, his senses had already become numb. Although the fatal wound in his chest and abdomen was still bleeding, he no longer felt pain. This near-death experience was not too unbearable.
She decided to make the best of it and lay down in the dying body, feeling a thought that didn't belong to her flash through her mind like lightning: Will I see you again after I die?
"No way," she thought, her head resting on the sweet-smelling wild grass, listening to the calm voice of another "self," "We've long since severed all ties and are no longer in each other's lives."
The experience was incredibly subtle. It was as if she had been transported to another world, while the original owner's soul remained, sharing a body with her; however, the two halves of her brain had completely separated, each thinking its own thoughts, utterly unable to reach a consensus.
She remained detached, listening to another version of herself think to herself: It's better not to see it.
The unforgettable love, hate, joy, and sorrow of this life have finally been freed from the cage that this body has forged.
Body and soul perished together, darkness utterly swallowing her consciousness. In her last glance, she vaguely saw a corner of pure white robe and a pair of blood-red, demonic eyes.
So, I did see him...
Another "she" let out a very soft sigh. It seemed that a thousand emotions were entangled in her heart, which she had endured all her life without expressing, and finally, at the moment of her death, they were blown away by the wind.
Shu Qing was curious once again and tried to see the person's face clearly, but this time she couldn't see anything clearly either.
She heard only a distant and indifferent voice:
"Ashu, if you could start over, what would you want most?"
“…I want to be an ordinary person,” she heard another version of herself whisper in a dreamlike voice, “I don’t need any special talents, nor power or wealth…I want to have all my family ties, not be bound by status or hatred, and be free…”
"And...you. I never want to..."
The person cut off the words that were about to be spoken, their voice like ice and jade striking each other, "Fine."
—What a load of rubbish!
Shu Qing was on the verge of tears: If this dream was not just a figment of her imagination, if this life was truly her own choice, if she could speak in this quiet and warm darkness, she really wanted to shout out to that person: I want to own a mine and be financially free!
Why not just be a rich kid who can relax and have a carefree life? Why be a miserable corporate slave?
When Shu Qing woke up the next day, she lay in bed and mourned for a minute her ill-fated "rich second-generation" alternate storyline. But then she thought that she didn't have to go to work today, and her mood instantly brightened. She quickly rolled over and jumped out of bed.
She hummed a song as she opened the refrigerator, intending to fry herself an egg.
The moment she opened the refrigerator door, her smile froze as the cold air rushed in.
The lively and cheerful phrase "day after day" was frozen at the end, vividly distorted into an elongated national phrase.
The refrigerator was a complete mess, with a thick layer of frost covering the walls. The lights wouldn't turn on, the shelves were cracked, and all the fruits, vegetables, and snacks that had been neatly stacked inside yesterday were frozen solid into rock-hard ice sculptures. The cold was almost tangible, and pure white frost still lingered inside.
The scene is comparable to a blizzard passing through, making it perfect as a backdrop in war movies.
A household refrigerator is still too small; it shouldn't be able to accommodate such a large event.
Shu Qing's face was expressionless as she looked down, and down further down. She saw a small white snake at the bottom of the refrigerator.
The little white snake was no thicker than her little finger, and when coiled up, it was only a tiny ball. It lay curled up in the mess of frost, as if startled by the sound of her opening the refrigerator door, and was eyeing her warily, flicking its tongue.
Its entire body was covered in snow-white scales, and it had a pair of blood-red eyes that seemed to drip blood. It also made a hissing sound that had no meaning.
...It seems this is the culprit behind today's events.
Shu Qing's mind, still half asleep, paused for at least five minutes before it finally began to work slowly and she came to understand the situation: a small white snake had crawled into her refrigerator and caused unimaginable damage.
Was this an April Fool's joke that fate played on her?
She stared at the snake, and the snake stared back at her. After a minute of this standoff, Shu Qing slammed the refrigerator door shut, maintained her blank expression, and awkwardly walked back to the bedroom, lying back down on the bed.
Shu Qing closed her eyes and counted to ten, then got up, washed up again, and went back into the kitchen.
"I was just dreaming again," she reassured herself. "It must be because I got out of bed in the wrong way today."
The kitchen was quiet. The wind rustled the shadows of the trees outside the window, and Shu Qing once again locked eyes with the little white snake in the refrigerator.
It wasn't a dream, nor a hallucination; the day after she quit her job, she was attacked by a small snake that seemed to be tearing her house apart...
Regardless of the fact that the stored food was wasted, this is a refrigerator installed by the apartment staff, and she might even have to pay for it!
Enraged, Shu Qing grabbed an empty cardboard box from the side and used it as a crudely made "golden bowl" to swiftly and decisively suppress the mischievous snake.
She pondered what to do with it—throwing it out was definitely out of the question; although she wasn't afraid of snakes, her neighbors might be. Judging from the little creature's size, it was probably still a cub, and although it had wrecked her refrigerator, it didn't deserve to die.
Hand it over to the fire department? Or just sell it...?
Before she could come up with any plan, a sudden knocking on the door abruptly interrupted the chaotic thoughts swirling in her mind.
Shu Qing floated to open the door without touching the ground. She saw the housekeeper of the studio apartment outside, followed by a maintenance worker. Her landlord was an operator who rented out studio apartments, and the housekeeper also served as the property manager.
The apartment manager asked, "We discovered the power was out on the 7th floor this morning. What's going on with your problem?"
Shu Qing pointed blankly to the accident scene.
The scene was even more horrific than before. The ice water was gradually melting, dripping all over the floor. The kitchen was in chaos, and half an apple had fallen with a "crunch" and rolled brazenly to the butler's feet, eagerly presenting itself as evidence.
"How could this have happened!" The butler was devastated, his shout shaking the floor. "This interior design cost a fortune! This...this...can this even be fixed?"
"It's beyond repair, you'll have to replace it with a new one. Not only are the wiring connections deformed, but the condenser is also ruined." The repairman first looked at the refrigerator, then at the electrical circuit. "The electrical circuits around here are all faulty; the wires are frozen. If there's a short circuit, the problem will be even more serious, and this whole area will have to be rewired."
Shu Qing asked, "How much?"
The apartment manager's hands flew across the keyboard on his phone, and after a series of calculations, he presented the compensation bill: the cost of a new refrigerator, the cost of replacing the wiring, labor service fees, inspection fees, and renovation costs incurred from rewiring...
All things considered, the sum totaled 15,968.20 yuan, a huge sum.
Shu Qing's vision went black.
Even if you emptied her out, you wouldn't have this much!
A note from the author:
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The author humbly begs for your collection QAQ
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