Chapter 1, Before the Crossing
At the beginning of 2023, our protagonist Wang Li is a grassroots employee of a state-owned enterprise. After graduating from university, he passed the exam and entered the state-owned enterprise, engaging in grassroots accounting work.

Nothing particularly exciting happened in his more than thirty years of life, but his life was generally happy and fulfilling.

Both of his parents are freelancers, and he is lucky to be so. Otherwise, in that era, if you were an employee in the state-owned system, you could only have one child, and he would not have had a sister and a brother.

His parents ran a small business and also worked for other people. Although they didn't achieve great success in their careers, they were able to support the three siblings and all of them were admitted to university.

They also bought a house for the three siblings in the same neighborhood. According to the old man, you will all get married in the future, but you must also live together so that you can take care of each other.

Now that my parents are retired and at home, they usually help my older brothers and sisters take care of the children or go on trips.

His brother is five years older than him, and his sister is three years older than him. His brother has a boy, and his sister has two girls. They live a happy life. Whenever they have time, they take their children back to their parents' home to accompany the elderly.

The nephew and niece are very well behaved and have a good relationship with Wang Li. Wang Li accompanies them and buys them gifts on holidays and birthdays. Because his brothers and sisters are in government departments, they are very busy and have little time to accompany the children.

He is an ordinary accountant in the unit. After completing his basic work, he has nothing to do. Therefore, whenever he has time, he takes his three children to the playground, shopping malls, restaurants, etc. He seems to have become a child king.

Wang Li himself has dated several people. His first girlfriend was in college, but after graduation, the saying that graduation season is the breakup season was fully proven true.

The two were very close and had a good relationship, and they even lived together, but he was from the north and his girlfriend was from the south, so after graduation they both returned to their hometowns.

After I started working, I went on several blind dates through introductions from my parents, relatives and friends, and several of them worked out, but for various reasons, we broke up before talking about marriage.

As for the reason for the breakup, there is actually no principled issue. After being together for a long time, there is no longer any feeling between us, so we broke up peacefully and went our separate ways to find the next more suitable person.

Our protagonist Wang Li is still looking for him.

Wang Li's parents nagged him a lot for this, especially a few years ago, when almost every time they went home, they urged him in a roundabout way to get married and have children as soon as possible.

Fortunately, in recent years, his brothers and sisters have married and had children, so the two elderly people have someone to accompany them. They take care of the three children every day and have relaxed their attention on Wang Li's personal issues. Perhaps they have just let him do what he wants.

Today is my father Wang Jianguo’s birthday. My father’s hobby is all kinds of strange and weird things.

The so-called strange things include many types, including antiques, jade, various old-fashioned items, cultural relics, and even various strange stones. In short, Wang Li's father is a multi-faceted collector (better than collecting junk). Influenced by his father, Wang Li also likes to collect various items.

Today, Wang Li went to the largest local second-hand goods market to look for a suitable birthday gift for his father. Wang Li had been in the market for more than an hour and still hadn't found a suitable gift.

Just when he was about to give up, he found a strange five-colored stone on an old lady's stall.

This stone feels like it is man-made, but based on his many years of experience in collecting items, it is definitely not man-made.

The inside of the stone is a five-color glass light. To an outsider, it looks like glass, and the quality is very poor. But in Wang Li's opinion, this thing is very suitable for making a handle, and the five-color light inside is very harmonious and natural.

After some negotiation with the old lady, Wang Li bought the five-colored glazed stone for 350 yuan, plus an exquisitely designed box.

After shopping, he bought two bottles of Wuliangye, which is also one of his father’s few hobbies.

It was the fault of the three men in their family. Although they looked strong, they had a poor alcohol tolerance. These two bottles of Wuliangye were enough to make them drink under the table. After buying these things, Wang Li took a taxi home.

When I got home, I happened to see my mother serving dishes. She complained while working: "This kid just came back. He doesn't know how to come back earlier to help with the cooking. Even if you come back late, you have to bring a girlfriend with you."

Wang Li sighed deeply. Oh, I'm afraid the latter sentence is the main reason for the complaint, or singles don't have human rights.

Wang Li lowered his head and didn't dare to answer. He went straight to the bathroom to wash his hands and went to the table to eat. When he looked up, he saw his father and brother's teasing eyes and complained in his heart that it was really not nice.

With a little complaint, he drank two bottles of Wuliangye with his father and brother, and he didn't even have a chance to give him the gift from his father.

At night, Wang Li returned to his room drunkenly, holding the gift box. He placed the gift box on the wireless charger of his mobile phone, lay down on the bed without even taking off his clothes, and fell asleep soon after.

What he didn't see was the colorful light coming out of the gift box on the wireless charger. The electric meter in their house was spinning rapidly. If nothing unexpected happened, the electricity bill for this month would cause a 1-point critical hit to his mother.

　This book is not a mindless and exciting story. It strives to be logically coherent, with true content and no exaggeration. It will be updated continuously.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)