"I really want to know if I have any hope of breaking through my own class. 」

When asked what is the biggest puzzle at present, Peng Min answered me like this.

At this moment, it has been seven months since he won the championship of CCTV's China Idiom Conference. In these seven months, his published books sold out in the same month. He won the People's Literature Newcomer Award for a novel, and the title of champion of idiom convention attracted countless fans and made him shine.

Perhaps in the eyes of others, today's Peng Min should be full of self-confidence and superiority.

But as his friend, I know this answer is sincere.

Because behind the elegance, the aura fades, and in the huge torrent of this society, the question mark in his heart will not be answered with a championship title.

Even after graduating from Peking University, the highest institution in China, the gifted scholars of Peking University, like us, still can't escape the most common confusion of this era.

- 02 -

In 2005, Peng Min was 22 years old.

In this lush years, he often felt pain, because at that time he had realized:

Even height and appearance are bound to divide people into different classes.

Many boys have a self-deprecating remark, which is called "poor family, 1.69 meters", but Peng Min found that he was not qualified to say this.

He comes from rural Hunan, and his family's economic conditions barely maintain his and his sister's life. He has no money to invite the girl he likes to dinner and buy decent clothes.

The most fatal thing is that his height is less than 1.69 meters.

This made him never have a girlfriend during his seven-year study career.

"Can you imagine? When I was a graduate student in Peking University, I sometimes walked around the campus, sat by a flower bed and began to cry. Once at a teacher's dinner, the teacher casually asked me if I had a girlfriend, and I cried directly at the dinner table. Now that I think about it, I'm a little twisted. 」

This sense of distortion deepens as roommates and classmates around find partners one after another.

At that time, he had a handsome classmate who changed girlfriends for three or two days. It happened that those girls always complained to him after breaking up, which made him very embarrassed.

"Handsome people stood at the finish line when they were born, and our ugly people, even if they struggled to catch up, were doomed to failure. 」

Peng Min, a "gifted scholar" with a height of 163, slumped on the sofa with a wry smile on his face.

- 03 -

However, appearance is only the first threshold.

After graduation, he went to the society, and Peng Min found that there were still many problems before him.

He will never forget an incident that happened in the summer of 2009.

Because of a dispute with the property, the water and electricity in the rental house were forcibly stopped. At that time, he asked for help everywhere, still without results.

It happened that at this time, Peng Min's parents came to Beijing to see him for the first time.

So in the evening, in that hot summer, a family of three could only sweat in a dark room and spend a long night.

"This is the first time I invited my parents to Beijing, a son who once brought them all kinds of pride with dazzling academic qualifications. 」

Peng Min told me that from then on, his mother made it clear that as long as he didn't buy a house, she wouldn't come to Beijing again.

He looked at his salary of 3000 yuan a month, thinking about the shocking price in the advertisement for selling houses, and felt that it was probably impossible for his mother to come to Beijing to see him in her life.

But just as his mother said this, he knew that in his flat building, a boy's parents had bought his child an apartment of 100 square meters nearby; Another girl is getting married next month, and her husband bought her a BMW 7 Series as a gift.

The huge gap between money and wealth made him shudder.

"I graduated from the Chinese Department of Peking University, and I don't know how to make money! It is impossible for me to cross the economic category. 」

He leaned back and shook his head.

- 04 -

However, just after he worked for two years, the "opportunity" to make money suddenly came.

By chance, he met a 40-year-old aunt who said she wanted to take Peng Min to the stock market.

"I don't know why my brain immediately took ten thousand pieces of savings and voted for her. 」

It was a successful investment, and after three months, 10,000 yuan doubled.

Peng Min suddenly saw the dawn-it turned out that he had worked hard to save money for two years, and it was not as good as others being "blind" for three months.

Thinking that he is the high flyers of Peking University anyway, and studying hard, maybe he can really change from a poor literary youth to a rich financial tycoon.

So he got all his salary, took out all his provident fund, borrowed a huge sum from relatives and friends, and borrowed a sum of money from the bank. He always raised 400,000 yuan back and forth and rushed into the stock market.

But it is conceivable that this time, 400,000 did not become 800,000. On the contrary, he watched the stock market fall from 3400 points to 1800 points, and his money was lost.

I thought I could cross the class and bid farewell to the depressed life through the financial wave, but I didn't expect that after four years of tumbling in this wave, he was greeted by a debt-laden bill instead of a glamorous life.

"At that time, I was really confused. You know, I think I will accomplish nothing in my life. 」

He locked himself up, hid in computer games and never wanted to come out again.

He hates everything he has learned in the past, but he doesn't know where to go. He felt there was no way out.

Friends advised him to cheer up, do his job again and give full play to his advantages in literature.

"literature? What can literature do in modern society? Can I eat it as a meal? Can I break through the present class? 」

He sneered at his friend's words.

He completely lost confidence in the literature, classics and poems he had learned at Peking University.

Until he saw the registration notice of China Idiom Convention.

- 05 -

As a contestant in the idiom convention, I sharpened my knife completely at the last minute and didn't open the idiom dictionary for the first time until a week before the competition.

But Peng Min and I are different. As early as six months ago, he had chewed this 1000 page "little red book" thoroughly.

After many troubles, his efforts finally paid off.

On February 16, 1, the final of China Idiom Conference landed on CCTV 1, and millions of people across the country witnessed Peking University, a short but humorous talent, who defeated contestants from all over the country one by one and finally won the championship trophy.

"At this moment, I have waited too long. 」

Peng Min now think of that day, still surge of emotion surge.

After the broadcast, his Weibo fans rose from 100 to more than 40,000. Every day, countless people send him private letters, asking him for advice, learning troubles, and even many female fans admire him.

"I have lived for 30 years. For the first time, someone confessed to me. Needless to say, there are indeed many people. 」

When he became famous, a publishing house also asked him for books.

After several years of hard work, he knows that traditional literature can hardly have a foothold in today's market. So he bought a thick box of best-selling books to study day and night, and then studied hard behind closed doors for two months, and boiled out 80 thousand words of Sparkling Dreams.

The first batch of 8,000 signed books printed were quickly sold out under the enthusiastic pursuit of fans. After the second edition was printed, there was an endless stream of invitations from universities and authoritative media.

At the busiest time, he flies five times a week and can talk twice a day.

He was in high spirits and sent a message to tell me that he had made up his mind to enter the novel world and become a best-selling author.

"I asked my friends in the publishing house that those well-known best-selling writers earn considerable income every year, so writing books is really useful! 」

He made a lively and lovely expression, as if the whole world was as brilliant as that expression.

- 06 -

Because I was too busy, I didn't contact Peng Min for a long time, until one day at the end of July, Peng Min told me that he was moving.

"The landlord suddenly wants to raise the price, which has risen by nearly one thousand. I have to find a house again. 」

I'm a little surprised. Didn't you say that a good best-selling author earns millions a year?

He smiled awkwardly and told me that "Dream Flash" sold well, but the sales of more than 10 thousand copies were not bestsellers at all, so the royalties were not much.

"Actually ... all my friends around me asked me for books, and I bought more than 200 copies myself, so I posted a lot of them upside down ..."

I don't know how to respond.

After August, no one looked for him in the school or the media.

His fans in Weibo are running out. Every time he sends a message, there are no longer hundreds of comments as before, and the following replies are sometimes only a dozen or twenty.

Remembering that a beautiful school girl often contacted him after he won the championship, I asked him how the follow-up was going.

He shook his head and said nothing, so I stopped asking.

- ? 07 -

At one time, I thought that people would not have "class" troubles.

Because it contains almost all the weapons that people think can break through the class:

Graduated from Peking University, became famous overnight, and wrote a book saying ...

Those chicken soup writers vowed to tell us that "education can change fate", "popularity can be quickly realized" and "writing bestsellers can earn millions a month" ...

However, when we honestly finished reading the book and redoubled our efforts to move forward, thinking that we could reach the peak, we found ourselves too stupid and naive.

Reality gave us a loud slap in the face.

Yes, my parents got rid of the poor hat by reading, my milk tea sister became a wife along the road of network celebrity, and Jing M.Guo wrote books and sold IP to be listed as a rich writer, but this is only a case analyzed by "experts", and it is wise after the event for chicken soup writers.

Graduation from Peking University only gives you elite status, overnight fame only makes you feel vain, and writing books only guarantees your intellectual status.

But nothing can guarantee that you will move towards a class composed of wealth, birth and power.

In fact, we are being pulled into one small circle by one layer of standards.

When you think you have jumped out of the academic circle through education, you find that a new circle has put you in.

So do you really think that this era has given us too many opportunities for change, as successful scholars have said?

I just want to tell you: it is really difficult to break through your own class.

It's too difficult.

- ? 08 -

In the afternoon, Peng Min called and said with a smile that he had a new plan.

"I'm going to attend the next Chinese poetry conference to see if I can win another championship. If I want to win the championship, I can publish my next book! 」

I paused, trying to say something, but in the end I couldn't say it.

I looked at the traffic coming and going on the road outside the window, and I only felt that the sun was a little dazzling at the moment.