"Brother Meng, what are you reading? Come play basketball with us!"
Skinny Monkey's voice reached Qin Yuanqing's ears. Qin Yuanqing looked up and saw Skinny Monkey, already drenched in sweat from exercise.
Skinny Monkey had dark skin—whether naturally so or tanned from playing basketball all year round, no one really knew.
Ever since Yao Ming entered the NBA as the number-one overall pick and stepped onto the world's biggest basketball stage, basketball fever had swept across China. Yao Ming lived up to expectations and became a true basketball star, turning countless young people into his fans. Basketball quickly replaced soccer as the most popular sport.
County No. 1 High School, the best high school in Jinpu County and a key school in Shuixian City, closely followed national education policies. Balanced development in morals, intellect, and physical fitness was well implemented here. From freshman to senior year, students had two PE classes every week—everyone's favorite subject. Boys played basketball, while girls played volleyball or badminton, easing academic pressure.
Qin Yuanqing had never liked PE class much and wasn't very sociable. He excelled at running and jumping—especially sprinting, high jump, and long jump—and had taken first place multiple times in school sports meets during his first and second years. Basketball, however, was not his strength. He only started playing in high school, and his body movements were stiff. During a game in his first year, he accidentally twisted Skinny Monkey's ankle. Filled with guilt, Qin Yuanqing never played basketball again.
As for badminton or volleyball, he didn't know how to play either.
And really, who practiced sprinting or high jump during PE class?
So since the start of senior year, during PE lessons Qin Yuanqing would sit under the shade of a tree reading books—like now, when he was reading Three Hundred Tang Poems. Poetry was a major focus of the college entrance exam, and as the saying went: "Read three hundred Tang poems, and even if you can't write poetry, you can still recite it."
It also improved one's inner cultivation. At the very least, when seeing a beautiful scene, one could describe it properly—instead of saying something ridiculous like, "Ah, the sea, it's all water!"
During PE class, Qin Yuanqing mainly read extracurricular literature to broaden his knowledge. As the college entrance exam continued to reform, Chinese language exams increasingly emphasized extracurricular content, especially reading comprehension and classical Chinese—almost never directly taken from textbooks.
Extracurricular reading had thus become essential: it built knowledge reserves and strengthened language intuition. Language intuition was critical for Chinese; with good intuition, comprehension became much easier. His homeroom teacher, for instance, would even sing poems loudly in Minnan dialect during lessons—and surprisingly, it didn't sound bad. According to Teacher Chen, Minnan dialect was closest to ancient Luoyang official speech, and chanting poetry in it carried the most rhythm and charm.
More importantly, Qin Yuanqing was preparing for his college entrance essay. To score a perfect essay, he had to prepare meticulously. He was even practicing calligraphy.
His handwriting wasn't beautiful, but it wasn't ugly either—just clearly legible. The system shop offered a handwriting skill upgrade, but it cost 200 learning coins, which Qin Yuanqing absolutely couldn't bear to spend.
With those 200 learning coins, he could instead exchange for IQ and raise his academic performance by a few more points.
After he declined Skinny Monkey's invitation, Skinny Monkey looked a bit disappointed. He went to the school store, bought two bottles of water, handed one to Qin Yuanqing, and Qin Yuanqing thanked him.
"Brother Meng, look—that's Yang Haiyan…" Skinny Monkey nudged Qin Yuanqing with his elbow, eyes shining as he gestured toward a girl playing badminton with Lin Yuling.
Yang Haiyan was 157 cm tall, weighed 41.5 kg, had shoulder-length short hair, a delicate oval face, and two cute dimples. She was the class beauty—the most popular girl, so attractive that even students from neighboring classes wrote her love letters.
"Brother Meng, you and Yang Haiyan went to the same middle school. Help your brother out, yeah?" Skinny Monkey swallowed hard. At eighteen, overflowing hormones were already fueling wild fantasies.
Qin Yuanqing rolled his eyes. "Skinny Monkey, just give it up. Your chance of success is less than one percent. You're just wasting your feelings and energy."
It was true that Qin Yuanqing and Yang Haiyan had gone to the same middle school, though not the same class. They'd known each other since junior high. Good students naturally crossed paths often, and Yang Haiyan was also a close friend of one of his friends.
Later, they all got into County No. 1 High School. Only thirteen students from their middle school made it in, so they naturally stayed close.
But Qin Yuanqing knew very well how popular Yang Haiyan was. Pretty, academically strong—of course she had many admirers.
And among those admirers were plenty of good-looking, top-performing students.
Skinny Monkey, on the other hand, didn't stand out academically, was skinny and dark like a monkey, lacked looks, and could barely speak smoothly in front of girls. There was no way he could win her over.
After having cold water poured over him, Skinny Monkey grew dejected. He took a sip of water, saw classmates waving him over, put the bottle down, and ran off to play basketball.
Qin Yuanqing shook his head. Youth—so full of hormones.
Still, he now understood why female internet celebrities attracted fans so easily. Looks were truth. What man didn't like beautiful women?
With a decent appearance and a beauty filter, a female streamer could quickly gain millions of followers. A single livestream would have countless men throwing money at the screen. There was even one streamer who, relying solely on her looks, made the son of a super tycoon willingly become a sycophantic joke to the whole internet—mocked by everyone, attacked by radical feminists, yet she herself exploded in popularity, gaining millions of fans and earning millions overnight through livestreams.
Qin Yuanqing shook his head. Young people—how nice.
He returned his gaze to the Tang poems, memorizing them silently. Tang poetry truly represented the pinnacle of ancient Chinese poetry. Even after thousands of years, its cultural beauty remained irresistible.
"When the silkworm dies, its silk is spent;
When the candle turns to ash, its tears dry."
This had become the ultimate love verse. Countless lovers used it in poems and letters to instantly move the other person.
"Why should a man not wear his sword,
And reclaim the fifty states beyond the passes?
Ascend the Lingyan Pavilion for a time—
Which scholar there was not made a marquis?"
This poem stirred the blood, making one want to mount a horse and ride into battle. To achieve merit and build a legacy had always been the dream of Chinese sons—what man hadn't dreamed of becoming a general?
"Have you not seen the Yellow River descending from the sky,
Rushing to the sea, never to return?
Have you not seen bright mirrors in high halls lamenting white hair,
Black at dawn, snow by dusk?
When life is fulfilled, enjoy it to the fullest—
Do not let golden cups face the moon empty…"
Li Bai's Bring in the Wine was so bold and carefree that people couldn't help but sing it aloud once they drank. Life, indeed, should be lived this way.
Qin Yuanqing immersed himself completely in Tang poetry, as if communicating across time with great poets from a thousand years ago.
This, he felt, was life. These were days worth living.
Thinking back to his previous life—endless overtime, endless blueprints, then looking up to see crushing housing prices and overwhelming pressure. Sometimes he didn't even know why he cried, sobbing uncontrollably. Back then, he had no dreams—nor dared to have any.
He had seen through it all: no matter how hard a worker tried, they were still just a worker. The ceiling was fixed. The boss's talk of "the more you work, the more you earn" was bullshit in the face of that ceiling. You'd only find the boss piling on endless unpaid tasks, while dangling empty promises like bait.
If you really wanted to make money—do it yourself. Be your own boss. Work for yourself.
Sometimes Qin Yuanqing thought that perhaps the entire era had been changing back then. The post-90s and post-00s generations were stepping onto the social stage with strong personalities—just as the saying went:
"A great transformation unseen in a hundred years."