Ethan Franklin's family home could barely be considered a two-bedroom apartment with a living room. In fact, the "living room" was just a space they had partitioned off themselves, only four square meters—just enough to fit a dining table and a small cupboard. Each of the two rooms was only eight square meters. Liam Franklin and his wife lived in one, while Ethan Franklin and his younger brother shared the other. As for a kitchen, that was out of the question. Like other families, The Franklin Family kept their stove in the hallway for cooking, with soy sauce bottles and honeycomb briquettes side by side, creating a kind of discordant beauty.

In the small room, Lucas Franklin was flipping through a yellowed old book. A few days ago, Ethan Franklin had dug it out from one of several large trunks hidden under the bed. Those trunks had once been the treasures of their late grandfather, William Franklin, filled with all sorts of books he had collected over his lifetime. More than half were technical books, and with only a junior high education himself, Lucas Franklin felt the words in those books were far removed from his world. He believed his older brother felt the same.

When William Franklin passed away, he had solemnly entrusted the trunks of books to his two grandsons, holding their hands. After returning from their grandfather's funeral, the brothers didn't even have the interest to open the trunks; they simply shoved them under the bed, and those that didn't fit were stacked in the corner, forming a little table.

A few days ago, for reasons unknown, Ethan Franklin suddenly opened all the trunks, took out the books one by one, and flipped through them. With so many books, he obviously couldn't read them all in detail. In Lucas Franklin's view, his brother was just shaking each book as if searching for some hidden bankbook inside.

After going through all the books, Ethan Franklin picked out a few and stacked them outside, apparently planning to read them when he had time. He also tossed a few old novels to Lucas Franklin, though no one knew how William Franklin had managed to preserve them. Lucas Franklin was actually somewhat interested in novels. For example, the one he was reading now, "Pingshan Lengyan," told the love stories of two pairs of talented scholars and beautiful ladies, with poetry duels woven throughout. It was much more entertaining than the likes of "Yan Yang Tian" he had read as a child.

"Hey, you're back, bro."

Seeing Ethan Franklin enter the room, Lucas Franklin greeted him casually. After all, the The Franklin Family was considered a scholarly family and had some manners. Lucas Franklin had always called Ethan Franklin "brother" since childhood, unlike some families where brothers didn't act like brothers at all.

"Reading? How is it, any good?" Ethan Franklin asked as he hung up his small satchel.

"It's great!" Lucas Franklin replied. "Let me tell you, that Ping Ruheng is so talented—his words just flow. I think even Li Bai can't compare to him. And that Leng Jiangxue, she's beautiful and can write poetry too. Hey, bro, do you think our grandma was that kind of talented woman?"

"Uh... you'd have to ask grandpa about that," Ethan Franklin was speechless. Someone like Lucas Franklin, a few decades later, would be called a "chuunibyou" youth. In the present, they had a different name: "unemployed youth." In literature, such people were usually associated with fighting, brawling, or chasing after women.

"By the way, hasn't your work unit been working overtime these days? How come you're home so early?" Lucas Franklin's thoughts jumped back to Ethan Franklin. The two brothers had depended on each other since childhood, so they knew everything about each other's lives.

Ethan Franklin had inherited the original body's feelings for his younger brother, Lucas Franklin, and, as someone who had lived a complicated life, felt an extra bit of compassion for this half-grown kid. He sat down and said to Lucas Franklin, "Our unit can't hold meetings anymore, so I have nothing to do. But let's not talk about my work. Lingyu, are you planning to just stay in here reading about talented scholars and beautiful ladies every day? Haven't you thought about going out and finding something to do?"

"Find something to do?" Lucas Franklin tossed the book aside, sat cross-legged on the bed, and said with a self-mocking smile, "The streets are full of unemployed youth these days. Some have been sent down to the countryside for over a decade and are old enough to be uncles, and even they can't get assigned jobs. Someone like me, just graduated from junior high, the neighborhood committee doesn't care at all. They just tell us to play for a few more years before coming back to them."

Liam Franklin and his wife—one a physics teacher at Xinling No. 2 Middle School, the other an employee at a collective enterprise under Xinling's jurisdiction—naturally had no connections to arrange jobs for their two sons. The Metallurgical Bureau, out of respect for William Franklin, offered a temporary worker position, which was given to Ethan Franklin as a priority. Lucas Franklin graduated from junior high last year, didn't get into high school, and wasn't interested in studying, so he just stayed at home. At the time, unemployed youth were as common as fish in the river. As Lucas Franklin said, the neighborhood committee was too busy finding jobs for the older, returning educated youth to care about a kid who had just finished junior high.

"Waiting for the state to recruit workers or for the neighborhood committee to assign jobs? I don't see much hope. Now that the state allows people to start their own businesses, are you interested in giving it a try?" Ethan Franklin proposed the plan he had long been considering.