Chapter 1: A Bad Day

The man gently stroked the girl's hair, his exposed pectoral muscles glistening with sweat that seemed to amplify the primal tension between them. He pressed his hips closer to hers and murmured, "Is this okay?"

The girl's flushed cheeks betrayed her silent consent. Her pink-tinged skin trembled with uneven breaths, while her disheveled hair spilled across the sheets like shattered black silk, intensifying the man's desire.

Meeting his equally ragged breathing, she finally nodded. "Brother, you can put it in. I'm sixteen now... I won't regret this."

With a choked sob of emotion, the man descended upon her like a wild animal. His lips branded her skin with crimson blossoms as his octopus-like hands explored every curve. The burning rod beneath him ruthlessly parted the damp thicket...

Piercing cries of pleasure soon filled the air before abruptly silencing.

Li Bing closed RealPlayer with a sigh. "What a ridiculous plot. Since when do virgins moan like porn stars? Japanese adult films have really gone downhill. I miss the golden era of Sola Aoi and Aoi Sora..."

His left hand groped blindly toward an empty tissue box while staring at the semen-stained underwear. "Fuck! Jerking off without tissues? Unbelievable..."

Stripping completely, he strode to the dormitory balcony faucet to clean up. At least Wuhan University's gender-segregated dorms prevented female students from witnessing this naked display. Though part of him secretly hoped some beauty would blackmail him with nude photos someday - finally ending his virginity through forced passion.

Drying his underwear, Li Bing surveyed the deserted dorm with a hollow ache.

The dorm leader was probably chasing skirts at his uncle's company by now. Bastard better leave some girls for the rest of us.

Second Brother would be dining with his mayor father-in-law-to-be. Can't compete with that face and connections.

Youngest Brother hadn't slept here in weeks, too busy scheming about internet cafes with his crew. At least he'd left behind this Pentium III rig and its 300GB porn stash. True brotherhood.

With graduation looming in weeks, the once-boisterous dorm now echoed with emptiness. Everyone had their path - except him.

Li Bing epitomized mediocrity. Not stupid, not ugly, just... forgettable. Yet misfortune clung to him like shadow.

His childhood in Suzhou shattered at seven, stumbling upon his father hammering the maid. The divorce left him with Grandfather, a "capitalist-rightist intellectual" whose crammed bookcase became Li Bing's refuge. Poverty tasted sweet when seasoned with Kafka and Dostoevsky.

Fate struck again at thirteen. After pummeling classmates who'd mocked his "orphan" status for six years, he returned home to ambulance lights and chatterbox neighbors. The stretcher bore Grandfather's lifeless body. "Five minutes earlier..." The EMT's shrug haunted him still.

Li Bing became his grandfather's accidental executioner. If I hadn't wasted those hours beating those fuckers... The thought gnawed like rat teeth through his conscience.

His mother's new mansion offered cold comfort. The stepfather signed tuition checks without hesitation, yet constantly measured him against a "successful" half-brother old enough to be his father. The bookshelf's absence left phantom limb pain - Mother had traded Dostoevsky for snack cartons, which his stepbrother later devoured with equal voracity.

High school unfolded predictably: three years of gang extortion, failed romances, and teachers' disappointed scoldings.

Then came that sweltering pre-college summer night.

Bladder-driven insomnia struck again.

This time he witnessed his mother and stepbrother locked in bestial copulation, pale flesh glowing like radioactive waste. He'd learned from childhood trauma - no screams, no scene. But fate's cruel choreography brought stepfather bursting in with enforcers moments later.

The subsequent purge transformed Mother into "that whore" and Li Bing into "the bastard's spawn." The incestuous stepbrother merely earned gruff approval - "Kid's got game."

Li Bing felt nothing when his mother hanged herself. How could he mourn a woman whose embrace he'd never truly known? Returning to his biological father's hovel proved worse - a drunkard's den where survival depended on relatives' charity. The high school they scraped together funds for might as well have been a juvenile detention center.

Contrary to trashy TV tropes, he didn't transform the cesspool institution. No genius awakening, no earth-shattering romance - just fumbling kisses with chain-smoking delinquent girls that tasted like ashtrays and regret.

His consistent top grades meant little in this academic wasteland, though they bought peace by letting gang leaders copy his tests.

Fate's final joke came the night before college entrance exams. Another midnight bathroom trip, another carnal discovery - this time his father's skeletal frame pistoning beneath a mentally disabled neighbor in their weed-choked yard. As teenage arousal warred with revulsion in Li Bing's groin, the aging "cart-pusher" collapsed mid-thrust.

Police introduced the term "coital death" during their interrogation. The overnight detainment made him miss Chinese Literature's exam, disqualifying him despite overachieving in subsequent subjects. His scores landed with the dull thud of inevitability.

At his father's funeral, Li Bing forced out a few tears for one simple reason – if he didn't shed tears for this alcoholic who had "raised" him for three years, those sanctimonious relatives wouldn't spare a thought about his college tuition.

To secure scholarships, Li Bing repeated his middle school mistakes by choosing a third-rate normal college. With the lowest-tier scholarship, poverty subsidies, national subsidy for normal university students, and some donations obtained through tearful pleas, he barely scraped through.

Yet Li's misfortune persisted. Days earlier, his hard-won girlfriend dumped him. A promised entry-level job vanished when the company's "CEO" absconded with funds. At noon today, his meal card and wallet both disappeared from the cafeteria...

Though located in the warm Jiangnan region, April in City W remained chilly. Naked Li Bing shook his freshly washed underwear, glared at the sunny balcony view, and suddenly cursed through clenched teeth:

"Fuck this life!"