Shen Yuan was not particularly proud of himself, but he was not doing too badly for himself, either. His parents were rich, after all - and not only were they rich, they also left enough trust fund for Shen Yuan to not have to work his entire life. They did not pressure him into doing anything either - they just wanted him to be happy, whatever that looked like.
Such hippies! Shen Yuan thought. No wonder I turned out to be a NEET!
Why yes, Shen Yuan liked to blame other people for his own problems.
Shen Yuan didn't always want to be a useless shut in who spent all his day nerding out on whatever Xianxia and Wuxia novels he could get his hands on (except for the gay kind that his sister seemed to love so much, of course). He did all right in school, and he initially thought that he wanted to get into business like his parents, so he got a business degree from his university, and even interned at his parents' company.
It was at this time that he found that he had no interest in selling shit to people for profit.
It was rather too late to find that out, but what could he do. He used to look down on people having impractical jobs and degrees growing up, too - what divine retribution! What karma! He used to sneer at art and literature majors, but look at him now! He was bored to tears by all the talk about which products held the most margin and how they could push them on the customers with this promotion or that marketing campaign, about goals for increasing profit by this percentage this year and needing to do gap analysis to figure out a strategy for achieving that goal -
Garbage. Maybe that was a good thing, things were so plentiful people could expend their energy on creating and selling shit that people didn't need. That was the appeal of capitalism, wasn't it? Plentifulness? Lots of room for waste?
Shen Yuan felt like his job was completely unnecessary, so he quit.
Most people around him liked to talk about how passionate they were about selling shit to people, which made it impossible for Shen Yuan to voice his true opinion - he could only bottle it up, until it exploded in his current state. He couldn't believe that they truly felt passionate about their jobs, either - they were probably just saying that because they couldn't live without working, what suckers!
Maybe Shen Yuan should have pursued his passion like his hippie parents and eldest brother kept recommending him to do. But then, of course, he learned online that passion jobs tend to take up too much time and underpay you - not that he needed the money, but still. Most people seemed to feel burned out by their passion jobs at some point. He wasn't even sure exactly what he felt that passionate about, anyway, it seemed to change from year to year, month to month, day to day, even.
In the end, he decided that he didn't want to work at all - and why not? He did the calculation, he had more than enough money in his trust fund to keep living his current lifestyle for the rest of his life without working.
And Shen Yuan currently lived like a poor person, by his family's standard anyway. He lived in the cheapest apartment he could find in the outskirts of the city in a rather suspicious looking neighborhood (that was fine because Shen Yuan practically never left his house anyway), and he lived mostly on instant noodles, if he remembered to eat them. He could afford to live much more lavishly for the rest of his life, but he did feel a bit embarrassed about doing so with his parents' money. It's not like his family was always wealthy, his parents were certainly not rich during his childhood, so he felt fine living the way he did.
How are you going to find a girlfriend living like this, his sister Yunyi had asked him. His parents were too hippie to say anything like this to him, so his sister had volunteered to take the role of being the annoying auntie, how unnecessary of her. What a waste! You had the best grades out of all of us, and you're the tallest in our family! You're not bad looking at all, either - maybe try modeling or something?
I don't want to work, he had replied firmly. If I'll be a single dog for the rest of my life because of that, that's the sacrifice I'm willing to make. Internally, he had slammed his hand down on the table and then flipped the bird at her and screamed, It's none of your business! but of course he did no such thing in real life. He did indeed get the best gaokao scores in his family, sure, but it wasn't because he was trying to be competitive, he's different from all you crazy overworking people thank you very much! Besides, if I was so handsome, shouldn't I have gotten a girlfriend by now?
His sister Yunyi was pampered all her life, but for whatever reason she had turned out quite ambitious. Shen Yuan suspected that seeing him in his current state might have had something to do with it - she probably didn't want to end up like him, the shame of the family and their circle of friends. She was still in her university, but she had started a fashion-related startup. She was either working hard selling her shit or studying all day long, what a sucker.
Yunyi actually was as nerdy as him, he saw her massive collection of danmei novels in her room, but she liked to hide it and did not discuss it with him at all. It made sense, Shen Yuan was straight and did not want to get involved with those kinds of works of fiction at all. He didn't want to be awakened to something he didn't want to awaken to, no thank you.
These days, though, Shen Yuan was starting to run out of material to consume, so much so that he was starting to read web novels. He decided to check one of the most popular ones, and boy was that a mistake.
In short, it was horrible. It was so promising, but the author had no idea what he was doing. He clearly had decent ideas and a knack for writing a good character arc for the protagonist, but everything else was a mess. Shen Yuan kept reading the impossibly long series, though, hoping that it would get better by the end and justify its popularity, but alas, that was not to be. Shen Yuan was immensely disappointed and felt angered by the author and the fans, who clearly all had bad taste and made him waste a ridiculous amount of time. He was so angry that he kept flaming the comment section, trying to piss off the author and the fans, and then -
He fainted.
When Shen Yuan woke up, his face was pressed on his keyboard, something wet around his mouth - was that his drool? - and his glasses askew. He heard the sound of his meimei sobbing behind him.
He slowly sat upright, letting out a groan in the process as he rubbed his eyes and adjusted his glasses.
Yunyi audibly gasped behind him, and she rushed to his side. "You -" her voice shook from her tears, but she cleared her throat. "What happened? Are you all right?"
This wasn't the first time he had fainted these past few months. He was too lazy to cook or even order takeouts for himself, and he was too cheap to spend his precious trust fund on cooks and cleaning services, so his small, dingy studio apartment was a mess, and he hadn't been eating well. Feeling addicted to finishing that stupid web novel certainly did not help with living a healthier lifestyle, it had messed up his sleeping schedule quite a bit. Shen Yuan supposed that his sister was bound to randomly drop in on him when he had fainted at some point, given the current lifestyle he was living.
"I'm fine, don't worry. I've just been lazy about eating, let me eat something and I'll be better," he replied as he slowly stood up.
Funnily enough, his eyes started blacking out, so he sat back down.
"Yuan-ge!" Yunyi exclaimed worriedly as she tried to hold his arm to steady him. "Here, I figured that you didn't have any proper food, so I brought these for you -" She gave him some takeout that she had apparently ordered for him.
He opened the paper bag and saw that she had ordered some of his favorite food from his favorite restaurant. "...Thanks," he said curtly. He was not going to get all weepy about it, nope, not him! He immediately dug into the food like an animal.
"Yuan-ge…" she said worriedly. "I called the ambulance for you, you need to get a doctor to check on you. I called mama, baba, dage, and erge, too, they'll be waiting at the hospital."
Shen Yuan nodded as he shoved everything into his mouth, until he realized what the heck his sister had just said. "Wait, what?"
Now hold on a minute , Shen Yuan thought. I'm not that sick! You're overreacting! Wasting public resources here! Taking away your family's money-making time!
"I called the ambulance. I know you'd want me to call them off, but I really think that you need to see a doctor. Do this for me, please?"
Shen Yuan sputtered. He really appreciated her thoughts, but - "Don't they prevent patients from eating there?!"
Yunyi widened her eyes. "What?! No way! Why would they do that?"
"If you're so sick you're at the emergency room, you might need surgery, and you could die during surgery if you eat!" Shen Yuan responded. "Whatever, I'll focus on eating now…" He tried to shove even more food into his mouth than he already was.
Yunyi took out her phone. "No freaking way - I'm fact checking you!"
It didn't matter anymore, since Shen Yuan had already finished eating while Yunyi was baidu'ing. Shen Yuan felt better enough that he decided to stand up, and since he felt fine, he started doing stretches and light aerobics as well. Of course, it was just at this time that the EMTs came into his apartment.
The EMTs stared at Shen Yuan silently for a bit. Yunyi rushed over to them, and they looked pretend-concerned as his sister explained the situation to them. They then politely asked Shen Yuan to walk with them to the ambulance out front. I know, I think that this is a waste of your time, too, Shen Yuan thought sympathetically. I would ask me to walk myself to the car as well! Once inside the car, one of them hooked him up to IV fluids and clipped that pulse-and-oxygen-level-measuring thing on his finger as the car drove away.
Shen Yuan and Yunyi then arrived at the hospital emergency room, and saw that his family were all waiting there. It seemed really over-the-top and unnecessary, but at the same time he appreciated how much they cared about him.
"So you weren't eating well because - you were hate-reading a web novel?" Yunyi asked next to him as they sat waiting in the waiting room. "You weren't sleeping or eating regularly from being addicted to reading that thing? Are you sure you hated it?"
"I hated it, I promise," Shen Yuan insisted. He wasn't about to tell his family he was reading an epic stallion novel, no thank you. "It was just one of the most popular novels on that website, so I wanted to see for myself why it was so popular. Complete waste of my money and time, though!"
"Hmph. How can it be terrible when it's so popular?" His second eldest brother Minghan erge harrumphed with his arms crossed. "Perhaps your taste is the problem. If you think you're so good, why not try writing and selling a novel yourself? I'll be impressed if your novel makes half the sales this popular web novel you talk about makes."
His Minghan erge worked as crazy as Yunyi, trying to get his startup to be worth hundreds of millions of yuan in annual revenue. In comparison, his sister's startup was still only worth tens of millions in annual revenue. Erge initially was competing with his eldest brother, his dage Taichu over inheriting the family company, but he was so competitive that he ended up getting better grades and had developed a more extensive social network than his dage, that he shifted his interests to starting his own company instead. What happy ending that would have ended in one of them killing the other in a soap opera!
"Now now, if Xiao-Yuan doesn't want to care about sales, then he doesn't have to!" His mother said sweetly. "If it were you, A-Ming, then you'd probably try to figure out why it's so popular and replicate it. But Xiao-Yuan is an artist at heart, he can't bear to think about catering to the market!"
"Indeed, ma. Shen Yuan, everything revolves around sales," Erge started lecturing. "If you want to make money, you need to worry about sales. Even if you're an artist, a writer, scientist, teacher, doctor, whatever, you will need to answer to market demand one way or the other!"
"I know that, why else do you think I'm a NEET by choice?" Shen Yuan responded wryly. Just how many times did he have to explain why he didn't want to work, geez?
"If it helps, Xiao-Yuan, I think about it as providing value to your customers," his father chimed in with a smile. "Your customers buy your product or service because it's valuable. You demand proper compensation for the product or service you give, because customers can and will leech off of you if you let them. You do your best to follow all the government regulations, but you argue back if they are unreasonable, of course. All things equal, as they should be, isn't that nice?"
Shen Yuan felt goosebumps on his skin. A ruthless businessman who thinks he's all righteous and shit! "Sure, baba, whatever you say," Shen Yuan responded. They'd had this discussion before, and he knew that it wouldn't lead anywhere, so he didn't want to talk more about it. He didn't want to risk his trust fund by pissing off his father, either. He's a NEET! He's not working! Ever, if he could help it! Leave him out of it all!
"What ba is trying to tell you, is to fucking start working!" Erge bit out.
"Minghan-ge," Shen Yuan replied in the politest tone he could muster. "I appreciate your concern, but financially, I don't have to work. I'm not stupid, why would I work when I don't have to?"
Erge's eyes widened, and Shen Yuan swore his nose flared wide open like a bull seeing red. "You -"
His eldest brother Taichu dage intervened, "Your current living conditions worry us, but you're right that you don't have to work." Dage then gently smiled and continued, "If you're happy, then that's all that matters. If you need any help, we are here for you, no matter what."
Buddha himself was here! Shen Yuan swore a halo started shining around dage's head, and he nearly had the impulse to shield his eyes with his arms, but thankfully he managed to suppress the urge.
His Taichu dage, though his grades were not as good and his connections not as extensive, was more actually genuinely interested in the business that his parents ran. Therefore, he knew the ins and outs of the family company and its market the best out of his siblings, and not only that, he had great ideas for the direction it should take in the future. Knowledge like that was hard to obtain, it was impossible to get kids straight out of school or even long-term employees to understand the company and its market to the extent he did. Dage was as much of a hippie as his parents, yes, and like them his passion was to sell shit to people. How convenient! He actually liked to think about profit goals and gap analysis and Porter's five forces and shit! He did not struggle with staying with his job like Shen Yuan, what a lucky guy. You'll make money if your passion is to make money, ha!
Shen Yuan's parents enthusiastically voiced their agreement, while Yunyi and erge grumbled out their support in a barely audible voice.
"Is Mr. Shen Yuan here?" A nurse had finally called out after waiting for what seemed like forever.
Finally, Shen Yuan thought. "I'm here," he responded as he stood up, grabbing his IV stand and getting ready to go.
All five other members of his family stood up as well, getting ready to follow after him.
Now hold on a minute! Shen Yuan thought. Too many people! I doubt that the rooms are that big around here!
"I appreciate you guys worrying about me," he said with the kindest tone he could muster. "The rooms here might be too small for all of you, though, so no need to follow me."
"Nonsense!" His mother exclaimed. "Baobei, I've never seen you faint! Let mama follow you, hmm?"
Erge asked the nurse, "Could we all go follow him?"
"I believe that you all will be able to fit in there, yes," the nurse responded diplomatically. "It might be a little tight, but we don't have a policy limiting the number of visitors."
Erge faced Shen Yuan. "See? No problem. Let's go."
Shen Yuan groaned internally.
His family insisted the doctor on taking as many tests as were reasonably possible. Shen Yuan got a lot of his blood drawn, got an EKG test, a CAT scan, the works! In the end, everything came back negative, as Shen Yuan expected. He was healthy, other than his eating and sleeping habits.
"See?" Shen Yuan told his family as they headed back out toward the waiting room. "I'm sorry I worried you guys, but I'm fine!"
Yunyi glared at him. "Yuan-ge, you will hire a cook and a cleaning service, or so help me god!"
Shen Yuan sputtered, and opened his mouth to start explaining why he was not working for the last time -
Yunyi shushed him. "I know that you don't want to work, but you can't keep living like this! Work as a barista, a shop clerk, a factory worker, I don't care - work, so that your lifestyle isn't so out of control! You need something to keep you busy, socialize with people in real life , and get you out of that miserable apartment of yours!"
Shen Yuan felt the urge to laugh, because after all he had explained (quite logically, too, mind you) multiple times why he didn't need to work, but he saw the expression on his family - even his parents and his dage looked at him with worried, concerned eyes.
Dage then solemnly said, "Xiao-Yuan, your health is the most important thing you can have. We want you to live a long, healthy life."
Never mind about dage practically being a Buddha! What a traitor! A backstabber! He just said not long ago that he agreed Shen Yuan didn't need to work, how could he change his mind so quickly?
Shen Yuan sighed. "All right, fine," he gritted out. "I'll start looking."
Everyone's expressions brightened up.
"Really?" Yunyi said, excited but cautious. "I'll be checking up on you soon, you'd better have some kind of a job by then."
"I will!" Shen Yuan replied, annoyed.
They were now standing near the front entrance, one automatic door leading out of the building and another leading to the garage parking area attached to the building. Shen Yuan was so cheap he usually used buses and trains for transportation, so he started heading toward the automatic door leading out of the building to head to the bus stop nearby.
"I do appreciate you guys being here, thanks," he said. "I'll see you guys around."
"Wait," dage said. "Xiao-Yuan, it's late. I can drive you home."
Shen Yuan laughed. "You guys are going to wake up bright and early tomorrow for your jobs, aren't you? I've wasted enough of your time as it is, you guys live near downtown and I live in the other direction, near the outskirts. Your driving time will double! And my bus will be coming pretty soon, anyway." Shen Yuan made an executive decision and dashed out the door. "I'm healthy, don't worry about me!"
Just like that, Shen Yuan ran far away enough that he was out of their sight. His family stood there for a bit, looking worried, but shrugged at each other and started heading toward the parking lot.
Shen Yuan felt tired, he couldn't wait to get back home and sleep. Waiting at the damn waiting room and then getting all those stupid tests had taken forever, and now he had to catch the last bus of the day. He had the urge to sleep until past noon tomorrow, but then scolded himself, telling himself that he needed to take care of himself better so that he wasn't such a burden on his family.
As he arrived at the bus stop, though, he saw that something was off - under the street light, he saw that there was a lump on the bench nearby. He wryly wondered if this was a homeless person sleeping there, and thought to try to avoid this person as much as possible.
Upon closer inspection, he saw that there was indeed a homeless-looking person sleeping on that bench, tightly hugging a trash bag that Shen Yuan assumed held all his worldly possessions. Then, to his shock, he noticed that the person looked like a boy of around fifteen or sixteen.
A homeless minor!
That changed everything! What's a teenage boy doing out here sleeping on a public bench with a trash bag? Was he a runaway? Where were his parents? Maybe they were worried sick and were looking for him everywhere? Or maybe they were actually abusive and that's why he ran away? Or maybe there was some kind of a stupid misunderstanding and he'd want to go back to his parents once he woke up?
Whatever the situation was, he didn't want to let a minor sleep out here in the elements overnight. Wasn't this how human trafficking happened?!
He should wake him up and WeChat over money to him, so that the kid could find a hotel for himself at the least - Shen Yuan figured that the boy would find it creepy if he offered his home to him for the night. It was a good thing that one of the bus stops on the way was a small hotel…
Shen Yuan proceeded to try shaking the boy awake. "Hey, kid, wake up. The last bus is coming, you don't want to miss this, kid."
Silence.
Shen Yuan shook him harder. "Kid! Wake up!"
The boy was still sleeping like a damned log!
Shen Yuan then heard the bus approaching. He internally swore some more, then changed his plans and started trying to piggyback the boy.
He's going to freak out waking up in a stranger's apartment, Shen Yuan thought to himself. But I'll deal with that later. For now, he's gotta not sleep on a damned bench outside at a damned bus stop, exposing himself to human trafficking!
The bus came, and Shen Yuan took the boy home. Once he finally arrived at his apartment, he laid the boy down on his bed, then gave himself one hour to clean his apartment, so that the boy wasn't waking up to a disgusting-looking room. Once the apartment looked acceptable, he converted his couch into a bed (Shen Yuan complimented his past self for buying such a couch), then slumped onto it, relieved that he could finally go to sleep after a long, long day.
A/N: This fic is cross-posted from AO3.
So this was a chapter of: Poor artist Shen Yuan being born into a family of business people! He realized too late that he was an artist, not a business person! He couldn't take it, so much so that he became a NEET! A rich NEET, but a NEET nonetheless! Ha ha.
As much as I love short, plain-looking Shen Yuan, I re-read the novels and realized that it was entirely possible for Shen Yuan to be tall and handsome! So I took the liberty to make him so for this fic, ha ha.
I named Shen Yuan's siblings after some characters from a cute Chinese/Taiwanese drama I watched called Forget You, Remember Love. This drama is a Mainland Chinese remake of a Taiwanese drama called The Prince Who Turns Into A Frog, hence why I call it Chinese/Taiwanese.
I'm basing how Shen Yuan calls his siblings on my memory of how my parents call their siblings, as well as from modern Chinese dramas I've seen, but my memory is not very good. Please excuse me if I have gotten anything wrong.
I'm also too lazy to research how Chinese hospitals work, ha ha, so that might be wrong as well. I've lived in the US the longest and I'm the most fluent in English, so whatever research I've done is based on how things work in the US. So this story is set in an alternate universe where a lot of things work like they do in the US, but they're Chinese in China, how magical!
The no eating in ER thing is sourced from YouTube, for some reason FFN won't let me post the link: /shorts/xj3F2ioJAhY