The male supporting character was actually myself.

Although he wasn't entirely confident, sitting in the comfortable leather seat, enjoying the air conditioning, and smelling the faint perfume from the girl, Si Anrui felt a sense of returning home in glory, a far cry from his usual high-class lifestyle.

Those idiots who looked down on me and even mocked me, look how powerful your boss is!

I'm riding in a car that you poor bastards could never afford in your entire lives! And there's a beautiful girl with fair skin, long legs, and perfume driving me around. What an honor!

"Turn left at the end of this road," Si Anrui said, his voice trembling slightly and hoarse with excitement as he gave directions.

Du Xuerui had no idea what he was daydreaming about. She found the change in his voice a bit strange, glanced at him and noticed that his lips were dry and chapped. Considering the harsh environment, she figured he must be dehydrated, so she kindly took a bottle of water from the back seat and handed it to him. "My name is Du Xuerui. You can call me Sister Rui."

"Th-thank you!" A bottle of high-end bottled water was suddenly handed to Si Anrui, who had always bought cheap water and scooped it from a bucket to drink since he was a child. He was flattered and said thank you with a slightly red face.

He unscrewed the transparent plastic water bottle, took a sip of the sweet water, and stole a glance at the beautiful woman's profile as she drove attentively. His increasingly swollen heart began to uncontrollably fantasize: Did she have a crush on me?

There are so many people in the slums, why would they call out to me there if they didn't like me?

That's District 16, which is quite far from the inner city. The young lady must have been wandering around for a long time, but instead of asking others, she chose to keep this easy job that allowed her to get up close and personal with high pay for herself.

And she's so considerate and attentive to me!

If you don't peek or pay attention, who will notice that the other person is thirsty?

Without me even asking, Sister Rui specially brought me her own special water to drink, which was clearly a gesture of goodwill.

As the saying goes, men and women working together makes the work easier. A beautiful woman would rather ride in a car with a handsome man than with a dirty, smelly, and ugly old man. So, if you have a connection at first sight, it means you have a good feeling about him. If you have a good feeling about him, you will like him. Since he likes you, can you help me with some small favors?

"My God! Is that the 'department store' you were talking about?" After the car turned left and drove a short distance along the street, Du Xuerui slammed on the brakes and stopped, staring in utter shock at the "building" that had suddenly appeared in her line of sight.

A gasp interrupted Si Anrui's rambling daydream, but his attitude towards the beauty had already changed slightly. The biggest misconception of ordinary men—that she likes me—was immediately activated. When he looked at Du Xuerui again, his peach blossom eyes held a faint hint of doting affection.

Du Xuerui completely failed to grasp the other person's inexplicable excitement.

She was truly shocked. Having lived in the inner city since childhood, Du Xuerui had never walked into the center of the slums, even though she had been there before. She never imagined this kind of architecture—the bottom layer was no longer recognizable as to what it was made of, and the various small houses built layer upon layer upwards even bulged out, like floating castles in the air.

Red, green, yellow, purple—all the colors, both indescribable and indescribable, come together, like a giant castle.

If it suddenly stretched out two large mechanical wings and took off gracefully, Du Xuerui wouldn't be surprised at all—the existence of this building is like a miracle.

It was originally just an add-on to the redemption plan, but after a few seconds of hesitation, she started snapping photos from various angles with her camera.

Du Xuerui had a hunch that submitting photos of the distinctive buildings in the slums would surely inspire designers to create even more new maps.

"Holy crap? Look at the person sitting in the car, isn't that Si Anrui?"

"What kind of car? Does he even deserve it?"

"Damn it, it really is that ingrate!"

"God is really blind. How could such a beautiful girl go blind at such a young age? Didn't he see the news and know that she was an ingrate?"

"Look at how smug he is! With his good looks, he must have been deceiving some naive young girl..."

.........

As Si Anrui had expected, the car attracted a crowd of curious onlookers shortly after it stopped.

He could see the intense envy, jealousy, and hatred in those people's eyes. A sense of satisfaction, like a great revenge, surged through him. Driven by an intense urge to continue showing off, Si Anrui deliberately leaned closer to Du Xuerui, who was taking pictures, and directed her with a smile: "Drive a little further ahead. The view from the intersection is the best. This building looks different from different angles. If you want to get a more comprehensive shot, you'll have to drive around it."

"Stay away from me." Du Xuerui put down her camera and showed a hint of displeasure at his approach. "How long has it been since you took a shower? If you want to continue being my guide, behave yourself. After you get your pay today, remember to take a good shower and change your clothes. I don't want my car to get dirty."

The sudden expression of disgust drifted out through the open car window, and the onlookers, who heard it clearly, burst into laughter.

Si Anrui was humiliated in public, his face flushed red as if burned by the other person's disgusted gaze, and he quickly stepped back to distance himself from her.

"Young lady, you're from the inner city, aren't you?" someone approached, grinning and saying, "How could you let this ingrate ride in your car? Be careful, when we get to a secluded spot, he might take advantage of you, steal your car, and run away!"

"Hey! You haven't even heard of Si Anrui, who's been all over social media these past few days? His aunt, who raised him since he was a child, is almost dying, and he hasn't even gone to visit her."

"Stealing money, harming people—there's nothing this ingrate won't do. You'd better stay away from him..."

.........

When everyone openly contradicted her, Du Xuerui pretended not to recognize Si Anrui and looked at him warily, asking, "Are they telling the truth?"

"No! I'm not! Don't listen to their nonsense, they're just jealous of me, they're up to no good!" He didn't care about saving face anymore; he had finally found a good job and he couldn't let anyone ruin it.

Originally intending to show off in his car, Si Anrui was almost in tears when he realized his mistake had aroused suspicion. "They framed me! Really, I can explain!"

Du Xuerui thought for a moment, then rolled up the car window to temporarily shut out the noise outside. She took a bottle of water, unscrewed it, and took a sip. "You can explain now. I'm listening."

"You can't just listen to one side of the story. They simply don't want me to have a good time!" Si Anrui steadied himself and decided to reason with the girl, appealing to her emotions, to move her.

Young people need to understand each other without a generation gap. Besides, Sister Rui works at M Technology Company, so she can definitely understand the significance of games for the new generation, instead of suppressing and destroying their dreams!

Chapter Fifteen: Fallacies and Heresies

“I did do wrong things when I was little, but I was only three years old then and just an ignorant child. How could I have known that it would cause such serious consequences?” Si Anrui sorted out his thoughts and explained, “I also paid a heavy price for it. My parents passed away and I lost my home.”

Although my aunt fed me and raised me, she resents me for causing her to fall into poverty. She constantly beats and verbally abuses me, mistreating me in every way. Rather than saying she raised me, it's more accurate to say she wanted a punching bag and a tool to morally blackmail me into old age by citing her debt of gratitude for my upbringing!

Recalling his resentment at being treated harshly from childhood, Si An

Chapter Fifteen: Fallacies and Heresies

“I did do wrong things when I was little, but I was only three years old then and just an ignorant child. How could I have known that it would cause such serious consequences?” Si Anrui sorted out his thoughts and explained, “I also paid a heavy price for it. My parents passed away and I lost my home.”

Although my aunt fed me and raised me, she resents me for causing her to fall into poverty. She constantly beats and verbally abuses me, mistreating me in every way. Rather than saying she raised me, it's more accurate to say she wanted a punching bag and a tool to morally blackmail me into old age by citing her debt of gratitude for my upbringing!

Recalling her resentment at being treated harshly from childhood, Si Anrui gritted her teeth in hatred, "She couldn't stand to see me happy and always forced me to do things I didn't like. I never received any love growing up, and I've never even seen pocket money. I have no concept of money!"

Look at all this dilapidated, filthy, and chaotic place outside. Living in the slums, you can't even see any hope of survival.

My only source of emotional support is the promotional projections from M Technology Company.

"How wonderful is 'Perfect Country'! With opportunities and hope, even just seeing beautiful scenery and those vibrant people, I can feel truly alive, instead of just existing like them, a living corpse!"

Du Xuerui glanced outside and saw devastation everywhere, along with the ragged and emaciated refugees. For a moment, she felt a complex mix of emotions and could understand their resentment and longing.

"Then you shouldn't have stolen the money." One thing at a time, the emotional entanglement between the aunt and niece can't be judged by appearances alone. Some people raise children purely by letting them grow up and whether they survive is entirely up to fate. But even if the relationship is bad, you can't steal money and squander it all.

Faced with the beauty's questioning, Si Anrui felt a little guilty.

He always knew that his aunt was saving money on the side, which meant he had never eaten anything good or had any new clothes to wear, but he had no idea that she had saved so much.

A full 160,000!

God knows how excited he was, trembling as he held it in his hands. In that instant, the feeling of a poor man suddenly becoming rich overwhelmed him with immense joy, and Si Anrui even forgot his own name.

At that time, my mind was filled with images of the latest helmet that M Technology Company had been eagerly anticipating and enticing people with its constant promotion.

Living in the slums, he had heard too many stories of people getting rich overnight.

The best helmet and top-notch gear will definitely make you stand out and earn everyone's envy and jealousy. All the past humiliations and ridicule you suffered because you had no parents or were poor can be utterly refuted.

Driven by his vanity and eagerness to prove himself, he took all the money without a second thought.

But what's the point of going back and forth? If I could do it all over again, I definitely wouldn't have taken all 160,000. I know I was wrong, and I even returned the helmet; what more do you want?

Are these people trying to drive me to my death by harping on this?

No one is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes. The greatest thing is to know your mistakes and correct them!

"I...I really want the gaming helmet." Facing the pretty girl he liked, Si Anrui didn't want to argue about right and wrong, so he tried to gain her understanding from a different angle. "You are an employee of M Technology Company, so you should know how tempting the virtual world is for desperate people."

I admit I was completely powerless to resist. I desperately wanted to enter the game and find my own opportunities to change my family's circumstances through my own efforts! But she simply wouldn't allow it. My most desired eighteenth birthday gift was a game helmet, and she wouldn't even buy me the cheapest one.

For a moment, Du Xuerui remembered that when she was in middle school, she really, really wanted to have a puppy.

But it's just too expensive. With their earning power, they want every penny to be spent wisely. They wouldn't even buy themselves tutoring materials to raise a cute little dog.

From a survival perspective, she can understand her parents' actions;

But being denied what she desired most still caused Du Xuerui great pain. She dreamed of owning a fluffy puppy, so much so that she adopted a large group of puppies after entering the game to fulfill her wish.

The harsh reality is that even if she starts working and earning money now, she still can't afford the high cost and time required to keep a pet in the inner city. Pets are something that only the wealthy and have plenty of free time can own.

It seems somewhat understandable that a spiritually impoverished teenager would steal money to satisfy his desires.

Who hasn't stolen money from their parents' wallet at some point?

Du Xuerui clearly remembers wanting to eat candy when she was little, so she secretly took two yuan from her mother's bag...

"My thinking was very simple at the time. I took the money to buy helmet equipment, entered the game to earn money, and then quietly returned the money. It was just a loan..." he explained weakly.

Du Xuerui frowned slightly. "Stealing and borrowing are two completely different things. Don't deliberately confuse the concepts."

If you had simply told your aunt you wanted to borrow some money to buy a helmet and promised to pay her back when you earned the money, things wouldn't have escalated like this. Taking something without permission is stealing, and you didn't just steal a tiny bit, you stole a whole 160,000 yuan!

Even an average family in the inner city might not have 160,000 in savings. Your aunt saved up so much money over the years, and you took it all and spent it all, and you still have the nerve to think you borrowed it?

Now that she heard this, she understood.

Si Anrui was purely driven by vanity, always trying to protect his pitiful self-esteem, completely unaware that in this desolate post-disaster world, self-esteem is something only the strong deserve.

Without money or power, you have to keep a low profile to survive.

Either become powerful enough to change the unsatisfactory world and replace the major tech companies that set up the system to benefit humanity; or admit defeat and mind your own business.

On the one hand, he doesn't work hard, complains and curses, and on the other hand, he still relies on his aunt for support. He can't even afford a meal without her. What right does he have to possess or maintain his so-called face?

"Let me tell you about a classmate of mine." Du Xuerui tried to reason with him and appeal to his emotions to change his mind. As long as Si Anrui could realize his mistakes, face reality, and not run away, he was only eighteen years old and there was still hope.

Ignoring the commotion and onlookers outside, she started the car, drove away from the block, found a quiet place to stop, and carefully chose her words, saying softly, "To be precise, he used to be my classmate."

I did grow up in the inner city, but my family was among the poorest, living only on the very edge of the inner city.

So my classmates and friends were mostly from families that were better off than those in the slums but far from wealthy. Any unexpected event could cause them to lose their right to live in the inner city and end up in the slums.

In that environment, we studied very hard from a young age, afraid of being eliminated and adding burden and pressure to our parents.

He's probably living in a slum now, but to avoid any appearance of impropriety, I'll call him A.

A's family is in a worse financial situation than mine. I am an only child, so my family's burden is relatively lighter. A's family situation is quite special. When they were young, their parents only had one daughter. Later, they felt they had some resources and wanted to have a son, so they had him.

The siblings are fourteen years apart. When A was born, his parents were already in their forties. They originally thought that their daughter would grow up and start working so that she could help support the family and raise a son. However, things didn't go as planned, and A's father was suddenly laid off and became unemployed.

Fortunately, his sister's salary could make up for his father's shortfall, and with his mother's income, they could barely make ends meet. However, their daily living conditions were constantly being reduced, and they were all hoping that his father could find a new job soon so that things would get better.

And so, A quickly became the one from the poorest family among us.

He was very concerned about his image. He already felt inferior because his parents were older than his classmates' parents. In addition, his economic situation plummeted, and he was afraid of being looked down upon by others. He always tried to be the best and relied on sensationalism to maintain his so-called image.

How can A maintain their good grades if they waste their energy on things like this?

His father was getting old and couldn't find a job for a long time, so he thought he could improve the family's financial situation by marrying off his daughter. At least he could ensure that his daughter would support him for eight or ten years and prevent them from falling into poverty. By then, A would be grown up and able to take on family responsibilities.