Doug Feng's uncle, Changsheng, worked as a long-haul truck driver. That meant he was rarely home and almost never drank anything stronger than a cheap Qingdao beer—the kind with only 8% alcohol that you could barely get tipsy on. So when the family cracked open a bottle of that fancy Huanghuashan rice wine tonight, it was clearly a special occasion.
"Two drunkards in the making," Aunt Fang rolled her eyes at her husband and passed two glasses of orange soda to Doug and Shen Ling. "You kids get the Fresh Orange Delight—way better than that throat-burning poison."
She twisted off the cap of another bottle, then turned to Doug with a warm smile. "Xiaofeng, I heard you were coming, so your Auntie here bought a whole old hen just to stew for you. Make sure to drink more soup—it's brain food! You and Lingling are both taking your college entrance exams this year. You've got to bring honor to the family and get into a good university."
Uncle Shen, already halfway into his first glass of rice wine, joined in with a laugh. "Right! Xiaofeng, what school are you aiming for? If you can get into a first-tier university, I'll buy you a brand-new Lenovo desktop. I know how much you love playing around with computers."
The moment the alcohol touched his lips, Uncle Shen's face turned beet red. He was one of those people who flush after a single sip, supposedly due to some hereditary "Du Kang gene" that made him metabolize alcohol differently.
"I—" Doug opened his mouth to answer, but his father, Changsheng, cut in before he could.
"Our Xiaofeng's grades aren't anything special. He's about average. If he can get into a second-tier university, we'd already be proud," he said with a resigned chuckle. "Not like your Lingling, who's a shoo-in for a top school."
"Second-tier?" Uncle Shen sneered, slurping up a mouthful of stir-fried vermicelli. "What's the point? These days, a second-tier degree won't even get you a decent factory job."
He didn't stop there. "Just the other day, our factory—SanYi Electronics—was hiring, and a bunch of university grads came in applying for entry-level machine operator jobs. The pay's crap—barely one or two thousand yuan a month. All that money spent on education, just to end up grinding metal on the assembly line. What's the point?"
Doug sat there, stiffly sipping his orange soda. As annoying as his uncle's words were, they hit close to home. In his original timeline, he didn't even make it into a second-tier university. He barely scraped into a third-tier school, and it was only thanks to the generosity of this very uncle and some other relatives that he could even afford tuition.
"Yeah, things have changed a lot," his dad added with a sigh. "Back in our day, college grads were gold. Jobs lined up for them the moment they got their diplomas. But now? There are more college students than stray dogs on the street. And most of them are too proud to take hard jobs, so they end up sitting at home mooching off their parents."
The two men clinked glasses again, their shared frustrations echoing in the air as they drained their cups.
"Alright, alright! Enough of that doom and gloom," Aunt Fang cut in, setting two bowls of steaming chicken soup in front of the kids. "Xiaofeng, Lingling, don't listen to your dads. Your only job right now is to study hard and aim for the highest score you can. Jobs and careers are problems for future-you to worry about. Maybe by the time you graduate, the world will look different."
The soup smelled heavenly. Doug took a sip and couldn't help but let out a contented sigh. Now this was chicken soup—made from a real free-range hen, not the factory-farmed, feed-pumped kind. It was naturally sweet, rich with collagen, and didn't even need MSG to be delicious.
"Thanks, Auntie."
"Oh! Lingling, tell your dad about your latest mock exam," Aunt Fang said as she ladled more soup for the adults. "And stop going on about that new phone. You can get one after the exams, not before."
She turned to glare at Uncle Shen. "I know you love your daughter, but that doesn't mean you have to buy her everything she wants! A Motorola phone costs over a thousand yuan—do you even know what you earn in a month? Five thousand, tops. And now that the factory's running into big problems, you might not even get paid on time next month."
"It's called motivating your child," he shot back, already tipsy from the rice wine. "Besides, money's meant to be spent! One thousand yuan isn't going to bankrupt me."
Then, turning to his daughter, he grinned. "Lingling, don't worry about what your mom says. As long as your grades are good, I'll get you whatever you want."
"You're the best, Dad!" Shen Ling beamed, nearly leaping across the table to hug him.
But then her expression dimmed, and her voice dropped. "That said… this time's exam was really hard. I think I only got around 550."
"550?" Uncle Shen's eyes widened. Normally, Lingling scored well over 600. This would put her dangerously close to the borderline for first-tier universities.
"It's because the exam paper came from Xiaofeng gege's school in Zhicheng," she explained. "It's way harder than our usual mock exams."
She jabbed Doug in the ribs with her elbow, clearly expecting him to back her up.
Doug, still slightly irritated from her earlier smug attitude, decided to play dumb.
"I just filled in whatever," he said blandly. "Not sure if it was hard or not."
"You—!" Shen Ling puffed out her cheeks, clearly fuming. Then she snorted and said, "Well, that makes sense. You've always sucked at tests, so of course you wouldn't know what's hard or easy."
"Lingling! What kind of tone is that? Apologize to your cousin right now!" Aunt Fang slapped her chopsticks onto the table with a loud crack.
"It's just the truth! He's always had bad grades. Can't even take a joke now?" Shen Ling stood up, her chair screeching. "I'm done eating. I'm going back to study."
She marched off, nose in the air, and disappeared into her room with a dramatic slam of the door.
"Ugh, that girl…" Aunt Fang sighed, looking apologetically at Doug and his dad. "Changsheng, Xiaofeng, please don't take it to heart. She didn't mean anything by it."
Doug's father waved it off. "No worries, no worries. Honestly, it's our Xiaofeng's own fault for not doing better. He can't blame anyone but himself for being shown up by his cousin."
Doug clenched his fist under the table, not because of the insult—but because he knew they were right. In his original life, that was who he had been. Average. Mediocre. Barely scraping by while the world passed him over.
But not this time.
Not anymore.