Fate Thief

Inside the rented room, Black Feather sat on the bed in a loose white vest, scrolling through his social media. At this moment, he felt utterly lost—almost ten years had passed since his graduation.

Today was the hundred-day celebration for his roommate Zhang Qiang’s child, and several classmates were posting photos and videos from the banquet, children in tow. Some already had kids in elementary school.

Meanwhile, he was still penniless, loveless, a single man since birth—no, a single middle-aged man.

A few days earlier, Zhang Qiang had sent him a message, hoping he’d attend the banquet and catch up. Black Feather, however, declined with the excuse that he was away on a business trip and couldn’t make it.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go; he simply didn’t have the face to meet his old friends. The past ten years since graduation had been nothing short of heartbreaking for him.

His first year out of college, he worked odd jobs at a mobile phone shop. After half a month, the shop went under, unable to compete with online sales. It closed, and he never received his wages.

A few months later, he found a clerical job, spending his days copying and printing documents for colleagues. But after just a few days, the company downsized, and he was let go.

He bounced from job to job, never lasting longer than a month, either because the boss vanished or the company needed to cut expenses, and he was always the first to go.

In the blink of an eye, Black Feather was thirty-two. Now, he survived on odd jobs—flyer distribution and day-