College life, for me, was a survival game.

To make sure that the remaining 150 dollars didn't get wiped out, I lived like a machine.

Every morning at 6 a.m., I was up memorizing vocabulary. To save money on breakfast, I drank water from the tap to fill my stomach.

The cheapest veggie dish in the dining hall was about three bucks. I would only get one serving each time and just keep going back for more rice since that was unlimited.

When my roommates invited me out for food, I always said I was "cutting weight." When the class went out to eat, I always had "something else."

Before long, I became the weird guy in class.

I didn't care. I just wanted to survive.

But the body isn't a machine.

When the first winter flu hit, I went down hard. My fever spiked to 104°F. It felt like I had been thrown into a furnace, heat seeping into my bones.

I lay on my dorm bed, too weak to even get up and pour a glass of water.

My phone buzzed.

It was "Mr. Baker," the name I had saved for my father.

[Where's your weekly report? Why hasn't it been submitted?]

The weekly report was another chain he had locked onto me.

Every Sunday before 8 p.m., I had to send a 1,000-word report covering my study progress, detailed expenses, and next week's plan.

I forced my eyes open, fingers trembling as I typed.

[Dad, I've got a 104-degree fever. Can I send it later?]

The message went out and disappeared into silence.

Ten minutes later, my phone chimed.

It wasn't words of concern, but a payment notification.

[You received 0.01 dollars.]

Then his voice message came through.

"Walter, physical fitness is a key part of workplace competitiveness. Breaking down at a critical moment shows your health management is completely inadequate. Since you failed to submit your weekly report on time and missed evening study due to illness, your attendance bonus is canceled, and your performance rating is C.

"Next month's allowance will be suspended as a disciplinary measure."

I listened to his cold voice, tears slipping into my pillow.

Suspended?

I didn't even have money for fever medicine. I had six dollars left on my card.

"Dad… I feel awful. Can you lend me 50 bucks so I can see a doctor? Just treat it as an advance on my pay…"

My voice shook as I sent it.

A long time passed before he replied.

"The company doesn't provide salary advances. Figure it out yourself. Don't expect the company to bail you out."

At that moment, something inside me went dead. The fever blurred everything. I honestly thought I might not make it.

One of my roommates noticed something was wrong and carried me straight to the campus clinic without a word.

The registration, blood test, and IV drip all came to over 150 dollars.

My roommate paid for it.

Watching the fluid drip down the IV line, all I could think of wasn't gratitude; it was how I was going to pay him back.

The next day, the fever had barely broken when I pulled the needle out myself.

Without telling anyone, I went to an underground blood-selling clinic.

There was a waiting period for legal donations. I didn't have time for that.

The place reeked of cigarette smoke. The needle was thick enough to make your skin crawl.

"Four hundred milliliters. A hundred and sixty dollars."

The guy tossed a few wrinkled bills at me.

I used most of it to pay my roommate back. With what was left, I bought two plain dinner rolls.

Biting into the cold bread, I opened my social feed.

I saw a new post from my father.

The photo showed Harry wearing a brand-new pair of Nike sneakers. In front of him sat a whole buttered lobster.

The caption read, [Empowering high-potential assets. Eat well, think fast. Son, keep it up. I've always got your back.]

The timestamp matched exactly when I had been burning up with a fever, begging him for 50 dollars for medicine.

I chewed the dry bread, tears and snot running down my face.

So in his portfolio, I was the kind of asset he cut losses on without hesitation.

After selling my blood just to stay alive, something in me changed for good.

I stopped sending my father those desperate messages. I still turned in the weekly reports, but they were nothing but copy-pasted filler, empty words that said nothing.

I started taking on every job I could find.

Picking up packages for people, bussing trays in the dining hall, tutoring on weekends, even posing as a paid model for art students.

If it made money and wasn't illegal, I did it.

One afternoon, right after I got back from a tutoring session, I saw my father standing outside my dorm building.

The moment he spotted me, he raised his voice. "Walter!"

My chest tightened.

"I hear you've been very busy lately." He walked up to me.

"Running side gigs unrelated to your primary responsibilities. Did you think the contract was just for show? If your Aunt Cecelia hadn't told me, I wouldn't even know you had the nerve to take on private work behind my back!"

My aunt, Cecelia Baker, lived nearby, so it made sense she knew.

People around us had already started to look over.

"I need money to live," I said quietly, fists clenched.

"Need money? What about your base salary?"

"You suspended it."

He let out a cold laugh, his voice rising sharply.

"I suspended it because your performance didn't meet standards. You made mistakes, showed no remorse, and now you're secretly generating secondary income and setting up a private fund? This is a serious violation."

More people stopped to watch. My face burned. I wanted to disappear into the ground.

"Dad, can we talk about this somewhere else?"

"Somewhere else? Why? What's there to hide? I'm going to audit your personal account right now."

He yanked my backpack off my shoulder and dumped everything onto the ground in front of everyone.

My books, notes, and a pen fell out, along with the 400 dollars I had just earned from tutoring, along with the debit card that held every dollar I had bled for.

He picked up the card and sneered.

"Just as I thought. Walter, you've got some nerve."

"Give it back!" My eyes burned red.

That was my lifeline.

He stepped back, gripping the card and the cash tightly.

"According to company policy, all unauthorized income will be confiscated. This card will also be frozen until you fully recognize your mistake."

After he finished lecturing me, he walked off with every dollar I had.

I crouched there, picking my things up one by one, tears falling like they wouldn't stop.

Now, the clause in that contract about a ten-thousand-dollar bonus for winning a national merit scholarship had become my only way to survive.

As finals approached, I basically lived in the library.

When grades came out, my GPA was 4.2, ranked first in my major.

I received a 4,000-dollar national merit scholarship, plus 1,500 from the school for making the Dean's List.

I took photos of the certificates and sent them to my father right away, adding just one line:

[S+ performance achieved. Please fulfill the agreement.]

He didn't reply.

So I went home in person, transcript and certificates in hand, ready to talk about "fulfilling the agreement."

The moment I pushed the door open, the house was buzzing.

Aunt Cecelia was there too, the same one who had exposed my part-time jobs. The coffee table was stacked with gift boxes.

Harry sat in the middle, clutching the latest top-of-the-line iPhone, completely absorbed in a game.

"Well, look who's back. Our little genius," Aunt Cecelia said while munching on trail mix, her tone dripping with mockery. "Heard you did pretty well this time. Got a scholarship, huh? Shouldn't you treat Harry to a nice steak dinner?"

My father sat at the head of the room, glowing under the praise.

"It's nothing special. Just first in the major," he said lightly, though the pride in his eyes was obvious.

"Dad." I ignored everything else and placed copies of my certificates on the table. "According to the contract, national merit scholarship plus top GPA equals S+ performance. The 5,000-dollar bonus you promised, plus the 10,000-dollar national scholarship bonus. Total of 15,000 dollars. Please pay up."

The room fell silent. The three of them exchanged looks.

Harry glanced up at me and let out a laugh.

"You're seriously obsessed with money."

The smile on my father's face stiffened. He set down his coffee cup and slowly adjusted his collar.

"Walter, since everyone's here, let's treat this as a year-end review meeting."

He pulled out an Excel sheet and cast it onto the TV.

"This is your cost-benefit analysis for the year. Your performance is decent, but…"

He paused, then shifted his tone.

"You know the company's current strategic focus is on Harry. Harry showed significant improvement this term. He moved from fifth from the bottom to tenth from the bottom. To reward this breakthrough, the board has decided to increase investment."

He pointed at the phone in Harry's hand.

"This phone cost two thousand dollars. And his one-on-one tutoring program cost twelve thousand. That makes 14 grand total. Round it up, and it's basically 15."

He looked at me like it was perfectly justified.

"The source of these funds is your performance bonus."

My whole body shook. "Why? I earned that!"

"Because I'm the investor!" He slammed his hand on the table. "Without the base salary I've been providing every month, would you have been able to focus on school? Everything you produce belongs to the company."

Aunt Cecelia chimed in right away. "Exactly, Walter! Harry's still young. What's wrong with spending a little more on him?"

Harry smirked, waving his phone.

"Come on. A deal's a deal. Besides, your money is family money, right? What's the big deal if I use it? Don't be so cheap."

They went back and forth, feeding off each other. Looking at their smug faces made me sick.

My father looked at me like I was the one being unreasonable, then pulled out an envelope and tossed it at my feet.

"Here's 100 bucks. Think of it as an Outstanding Employee Consolation Prize. You need to learn to see the bigger picture. Don't fixate on petty amounts like this."

I stared at the money and at his expression, like he was doing me a favor, and suddenly felt like the house was colder than anything outside.

"Mr. Baker." I picked up the envelope and tore it to pieces right in front of them. "I don't want your consolation prize. And since you love talking about contracts so much…"

I pulled a document out of my backpack, one I had prepared in advance.

"This is a Notice of Termination. I'm done."