Chapter 14: The Weight of Small Steps
Lin Feng stared at his notebook until the numbers started to blur together.
It was almost midnight. Down the corridor outside, the dorm was quiet, except for the muffled laughter every now and then or distant flush of a toilet breaking the stillness. The beamof his desk lamp threw spookyshadows on the surface of the table, which was flaking.
His pencil hovered over the page.
Estimated return from café investment: ¥350–¥500 per month.
Daily expenses: ¥20–¥25.
Remaining balance: ¥1,600.
He breathed slowly.
If this kept up, he could last another two months—three, if he skipped dinners.
But living wasn't the point.
He needed to develop.
And every yuan he spent on food or laundry was a yuan not spent on his future.
The System Responds
Just as if cue, his phone vibrated.
A familiar rhythm. Cold. Mechanical.
He opened it.
[SYSTEM UPDATE – QUEST AVAILABLE]
"Campus Hustler I"
Objective: Earn ¥500 from self-effortincome within 7 days (excluding passive investments).
Reward: Bronze-grade Stock Draw x1, Bonus Reward for completing within 3 days.
Penalty: None.
Accept Quest? [YES] [NO]
Lin Feng looked at the glowing screen.
No penalty. But opportunity.
A real one.
His café passive income was excluded. This was effort.
About what he could earn with his own effort.
He clicked [YES].
The screen flashed, and vanished.
He leaned back, thinking.
Struggling to Hustle
The next morning, Lin Feng skipped breakfast and headed towards the east part of campus without stopping. There was a student union bulletin board—a mess of secondhandelectronics ads, part-time job notices, and taped postings for tutoring.
He looked at them one by one.
Flyer handout – ¥1 per flyer.
Private mathematics tutoring – ¥60/hour.
Warehouse Saturday/Sunday laborer – ¥180/day.
Lost cat, ¥300 reward.
He noted down figures and snapped pictures.
Tutoring seemed to be the most promising. He was mathematicallyinclined, and it was well-paying.
But he also knew there were others competing for it. The richer kids at the better high schools already had anestablished network for such things.
Still, he'd try his hand.
Face Slapping in the Hallway
Lin Feng was walking through the business school building later that day when he ran into them again.
Zhang Hao, of course. But this time he had someone with him.
There was a girl standing beside him—Qiao Ruoxi, one of the prettiest girls on campus. Not too flashy, but intelligent, elegant. Her style wassimple but high-end-looking. She was clever, reserved, and out of reach for most.
They were bantering about something when Zhang Hao saw Lin Feng.
"Yo, Lin Feng!" he shouted, loud enough so that everyone could hear. "Racing tuition on part-time jobsagain?
Ruoxi turned away, surprised at who Zhang Hao was addressing.
Lin Feng didn't move. His hands were stuffed in his pockets. His clothing wasthe same as always—plain, frayed at the collar, sleeves a bit too long.
He remained silent.
"Come on, give a response," Zhang Hao taunted. "You wanting to borrow another ¥10 like last semester?"
That wasn't true. Lin Feng never borrowed from him.
Ruoxi glared. "Do you have to be so annoying?" she whispered.
Zhang Hao spread his hands in feigned innocence. "I'm only helping. We're all classmates, aren't we?"
Lin Feng strode by them in silence.
He could hear laughter behind him—Zhang Hao's, not Ruoxi's.
It stung.
But not enough to stop him.
A Hidden Opportunity
That evening, he chased after the tutoring lead. He found a scribbledposter requesting help in Statistics II, notoriously one of the toughest classes in the school of finance.
He texted the number and got backwithin an hour.
"Show up at Dorm 12, Room 604, at 8 PM. Bring notes."
Lin Feng showed up on time.
The student, a second-year woman bythe name of Liu Xiaoyu, looked skeptical when she opened the door.
"Your. the tutor?" she asked.
"I'm not qualified," Lin Feng admitted. "But I got top 10% on this class last semester."
She raised an eyebrow. "You don't exactly look like the kind of person who got top anything."
He didn't reply. Just stood there holding out his notes—neatly written, clean, full of examples and diagrams.
She skimmed through the first few pages, then looked slightly confused.
"Okay. You have an hour. If you're worthless, I'm not paying."
First Income
It wasn't easy.
She was agitated, distracted, and clearly didn't trust him. But Lin Feng wasn't bothered. Patient. And by the 30-minute mark, her attitude had shifted.
"…Wait, so the variance formula literally explains the average squared deviation from the mean?"
He nodded.
She looked at him.
"No one has ever explained it that way before."
By the session's end, she handed him a crumpled ¥60 note without complaining.
You can return next week if I don't flunk the quiz," she grumbled.
Lin Feng nodded. "Best of luck."
Progress and Friction
He worked two more tutoring sessionsover the next two days—one finance student and a freshman who was having trouble with calculus. Both paid around ¥50–¥70. Several hours in all.
He also handed out advertisementsfor a hotpot restaurant one morningand received a meager ¥30 for gettingto carry around a bunch of them in his hand for an hour.
By the fourth day, he had earned ¥530.
System Notification
That evening, as soon as he returned to the dorm, his screen lit up.
[Quest Complete – "Campus Hustler I"]
Total Earned: ¥530
Time Taken: 4 Days
Bonus Not Achieved.
Reward: Bronze-tier Stock Draw x1
[Click to Draw]
He clicked the screen.
A whirring wheel appeared, and then decelerated.
It sat on a glowing rectangle that read:
[STOCK REWARD: 1 Share – BYD Co. Ltd (比亚迪股份有限公司)]
Current Market Value: ¥205
Lin Feng stared.
It wasn't much.
But it was real.
He now possessed a share in a listed Chinese EV giant.
His first experience in the stock market.
His first tangible asset.
And it hadn't come about by luck or fairy tale.
He had worked for it.