I asked you to write a light novel, but you wrote about living?

Yu Wen slept very soundly.

There were no dreams, only the dull, numbing pain of overworked cerebral cortex, which was slowly being repaired in deep sleep.

"Click".

The rusty metal airtight door to the basement was carefully pushed open, making a very slight scraping sound.

Yu Wen slowly opened his eyes. Before his retina had fully adjusted to the dim light, he saw a small, thin figure tiptoeing in, like a kitten afraid of disturbing its owner.

It was Yu Yin who came home from school.

The little girl was wearing a faded gray public school uniform with several obvious oil stains on it.

She was carrying a tattered backpack made from discarded waterproof fabric, and holding something in her hands like a precious treasure.

Seeing Yu Wen staring at her with his eyes open, Yu Yin stuck out her tongue guiltily, then flashed a bright smile and jogged to the bedside.

"Brother, you're awake? Does your head still hurt?"

As she asked, she reached out her small, slightly dusty hand and skillfully began to gently massage Yu Wen's temples.

"I feel much better after a nap."

As Yu Wen felt the warmth of the little girl's fingertips, most of the gloom in his heart instantly dissipated.

He propped himself up and sat up, his gaze falling on her clothes:

"Did the school have another practical lesson today?"

In this era, the free public schools in the downtown area did not teach literature, history, or advanced mathematics.

The chaebols need obedient low-level laborers, so the school curriculum is filled with courses such as "Basic Waste Sorting", "Low-Level Prosthetic Body Maintenance Practice" and "Assembly Line Robotic Arm Repair Guide".

"Hmm! Today I learned how to disassemble a scrapped third-generation constant-temperature chip."

Like a treasure being presented to the world, Yu Yin unzipped her backpack and pulled out a dirty, dark metal cube:

"Ta-da! Bro, look, these are the defective items I secretly salvaged from the school's junkyard!"

Yu Wen was stunned for a moment:

"What are you doing picking this up? Be careful, or the school's security cameras might catch you and deduct your credit score."

"I'm not afraid, I've already calculated the blind spots for the camera!"

Yu Yin raised her chin smugly, then lowered her voice and, as if presenting a rare treasure, shoved the metal block into Yu Wen's hand:

"Although the motherboard is burnt out, the heating coil is still working. When I have time this weekend, I'll go to Old Wang's junkyard and get two wires to connect to the underside of your wheelchair seat. The acid rain season is coming soon, and the basement is too cold; your legs can't get cold."

Holding the worn-out metal block that still carried the girl's warmth, Yu Wen felt a lump in his throat, as if something was blocking it.

A little girl who is just over ten years old should be snuggling in her parents' arms and running carefree in the sunshine, but now she has to rummage through a pile of greasy waste to find broken parts, just to make a simple heating pad for her paralyzed brother.

"Brother, are you hungry? I'll go heat up the relief food we got this morning."

Before Yu Wen could speak, Yu Yin had already turned around like a diligent little top and ran to the stove made from an old induction cooker to get busy.

The so-called "relief food" was the minimum survival ration distributed per person per month in the lower city—a grayish-white paste made of industrial starch, trace amounts of crude protein, and large amounts of cheap flavoring.

It tastes like chewing a mixture of sand and cheap plastic, barely enough to keep a carbon-based organism from starving.

Soon, two steaming bowls of porridge were served.

Yu Wen keenly noticed that his bowl was significantly thicker than Yu Yin's, and even had two extremely rare, fingernail-sized pieces of dehydrated dried vegetables floating on top.

Yu Yin's bowl was so thin that you could almost see your reflection in it.

"Why did you pick out the dried vegetables for me again?"

Yu Wen frowned, picked up the bowl, and was about to pour the contents towards her:

"You're at the age where you're growing, so you need to eat more."

"Hey bro! I had a nutritional meal at school today, I'm so full I can barely walk, burp—"

Yu Yin exaggeratedly let out a fake burp and tightly covered her bowl:

"You work so long in front of the computer every night, you need to eat more. If you don't eat, I'll get angry!"

The little girl deliberately put on a stern face, looking all puffed up with anger.

Looking at her pale, sallow face, which was sallow from long-term malnutrition, Yu Wen knew she was lying.

The so-called "nutritional meals" in public schools are nothing more than replacing starch porridge with even more unpalatable compressed biscuits. How could they possibly be filling?

But he didn't expose it. He just silently lowered his head and swallowed the bowl of hard-to-swallow porridge in large gulps.

He ate with utmost seriousness, as if he were consuming fuel to keep him fighting in this cyber hell, rather than industrial waste.

"We must make money as soon as possible."

Yu Wen made a silent vow in his heart.

After dinner, the only sound in the basement was the monotonous hum of the mechanical exhaust fan.

Yu Yin sensibly curled up on her foam mat, and by the dim light, used the half-finished electronic pen she had picked up to practice drawing complex circuit diagrams on scrap paper.

That was the only skill that seemed even slightly advanced that she could learn at school.

Yu Wen then sat back down in front of the computer.