The Growth Story of Chenxi Boy

"Click," the mechanical sound of a lighter echoed in the dimly lit rented room. A-Dong lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and then slumped onto the sofa, exhaling smoke rings. Mr. Chen, who had been busy all day, was about to lie down and rest when his mind kept wandering, wondering why life was so unfair to him, why he was so ordinary. But then, his phone rang.

He noticed that the penguin icon, which hadn't been used in a long time, was ringing. Whether out of curiosity or boredom, he clicked on it.

I discovered it was a group chat called "There's plenty of time in the future". That group chat was created by friends I used to hang out with. In the past, many people shared their recent updates and daily lives, but it has become much quieter over the years.

Ah Dong wondered why there were so many messages in the group chat today, when usually one or two messages were considered a blessing. He opened the chat and found that everyone had started talking because of memories of things from the past.

A Dong scrolled through his chat history and saw an ID: Xiaobai. Clicking on the profile, his vague memories suddenly became clear—it was someone who had always been willing to lend a helping hand when he was desperate, and others jokingly called him a "philanthropist."

But back then, A-Dong wasn't thinking about gratitude; he was only calculating: how much money could he get? And where would he squander it?

A-Dong looked at the chat history for a while, then turned off his phone. He looked at his ten-square-meter rented room; the walls, neglected for years, were half black and half yellow. In the dimly lit room, only a single, old, yellowish lamp flickered—his only source of light in this room, in this city. This seemingly cramped space was the only place that could temporarily shelter him, the only place that could illuminate his life.

He often talks to his old furniture, as if giving it a soul. He often talks to it about how he will be rich and what kind of life he will live in the future. But every morning when he gets up, he has to face the seemingly endless cycle of work.

If I had to do it all over again, would I still choose not to study and drop out of school to work? He often asked himself this question, as if he could find some hope of redemption.

Walking down the street, looking at those happy families, he often wondered, "Will I ever have a home? I want to settle down in this city, but this huge city just can't accommodate someone as insignificant as me."

Passing by a convenience store, he bought a pack of his favorite Red Wave cigarettes, tore off the plastic film, took out a cigarette, lit it, stuck the plastic film in front of his eyes, and looked up at the sky. It was as if he could see a crystal-clear city in the sky through the blurry film. That was the place he longed for the most, and he named it "Sky City".

His thoughts drifted back to the past, recalling various events from his sixth grade years...

S1 ended