Worked hard until thirty-eight and still couldn’t afford a house. To get married, you have to pay a 300,000 yuan bride price. Scrimped and saved for most of your life, worked yourself to the bone, but where’s the money? Who ended up with all the money?

With countless grievances, William Carter is reborn at eighteen. The only thought upon opening his eyes is to start a business and make money.

Step one, get back the love letter he sent out, flip it over, and under the stunned gaze of the school beauty, write three lines:

Working a job is absolutely impossible!

I only want financial freedom, never to be a slave!

As for romance? Not even a dog would bother with that!

Chapter 1 Where’s the Money? Where’s My Money?

“Three hundred thousand for the bride price, not a cent less!”

“It’s not about the money, I just want to know how important I am to you.”

“And also, that house of yours can’t be under your mom’s name, it has to be transferred to mine.”

Shenzhen, window seat at Gray Whale Café.

Thirty-eight-year-old William Carter looked at his prospective marriage partner and suddenly found her face a bit unfamiliar.

They met through a matchmaker and had been together for over half a year. Since neither of them was young anymore and didn’t have time to keep dragging things out, they’d been discussing marriage lately.

To be honest, William Carter didn’t have much feeling for her, and he believed she felt about the same.

At nearly forty, is getting married and having kids really still about love?

It’s probably just not wanting to grow old alone...

But he didn’t say anything, just quietly drank the water in his cup and looked out the glass window, automatically tuning out her voice.

He felt that life was really a pain in the ass.

Because his parents said knowledge changes fate, he studied hard from a young age, thinking he’d surely be rich or successful in the future, destined for greatness.

But after starting work, he realized he didn’t even count as an ordinary person.

In 2016, his first year on the job, he was forced to drink with clients at a table, ended up in the hospital, and missed seeing the grandmother who raised him for the last time.

In 2019, a project blew up, he was forced to take the blame, holed up in a rented room eating instant noodles for five months, unable to tell dream from reality.

His next job was relatively stable, but it was far from where he lived. He worked himself to the bone, so diligent he’d save up two trips to the bathroom just to buy a car.

In 2022, he finally bought the car, only to find he couldn’t afford gas, and couldn’t even pee properly anymore.

After turning thirty, he found that rent was rising faster than his salary, so he saved even harder and told his parents he wanted to buy a house in Shenzhen.

From that day on, there was never any meat on his parents’ table again.

But he still couldn’t scrape together the down payment, so his own father, without telling him, worked a day job and drove for Didi at night, nearly having a stroke.

Is poverty really related to laziness?

William Carter had been pondering this question for years.

He felt he was already diligent enough, living up to his name.

But where was the money?

Who ended up with all the money?

When he was young, his parents earnestly told him that as long as you’re willing to work hard, you’ll make something of yourself.

But what he found as an adult was, as long as you’re willing to work hard, there’s always more hardship waiting for you.

Now, his match was asking for a 300,000 yuan bride price.

“William Carter, are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, I’ve been listening.”

“Then why aren’t you saying anything? I’ve been talking for ages, my throat’s hoarse and you don’t even care!”

William Carter put down his glass, was silent for a while, then spoke: “Maybe we shouldn’t get married after all?”

The woman froze, then exploded in anger: “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing, just feeling really tired, want to go home and sleep.”

“William Carter, you coward, no wonder you’re thirty-eight and no woman wants you!”

Ignoring the woman’s outburst, William Carter walked out of the restaurant and wandered aimlessly down the street.

When he passed a construction site, he saw a banner on the wall that read: “Workers are the best of the best.”

So he lit a cigarette, took a couple of drags, and burned a hole in the banner.

He didn’t really resent the woman; in fact, he thought her demands were pretty normal.

She was thirty-five, what’s wrong with being realistic?

He was just thinking about one thing.

When would days like this ever end?

People who’ve never worked a job keep hyping up how great workers are, while those who’ve always worked don’t dare say a word, just nod and agree, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

But how did he look anything like “the best of the best”?

In this life, he only ever owned two pairs of AJs, and they were fake ones from Putian. You call that “the best of the best”?

As for love?

William Carter wasn’t even sure it existed.

He’d been on a few blind dates, met a few girls introduced by friends. Any of them would do, but the saddest thing was, “would do” was the best he could say.

Looking back, there were just too many regrets in this life...

William Carter sighed, pulled out his phone, wanting to find a friend to have a drink with, but when he opened it, he saw four text messages.

One was a credit card payment reminder, one was a phone bill overdue warning, one was “Bro, I’m nearby, no one’s home today.”