Unemployed at Forty: Going All In from the Start

[Thanks for asking. I’m in Wuhan, and I just got laid off.] My name is Lin Da Qiang. I’m a forty-year-old programmer with seventeen years on the job. I’ve pulled more all-nighters than I’ve eaten bowls of hot dry noodles. Yesterday I was still fixing bugs. Today, the company “graduated” me, and I went home with a cardboard box, greeted by my wife’s tears and debt-collection texts. At the lowest point in my life, I was bound to the [God-Tier Choice System]. At every crossroads, the System throws out three options: A. Play it safe and take a consolation prize (live a stifled life) B. Go all out and double your rewards (take a gamble) C. Bet everything, ALL IN (fail and hit rock bottom; succeed and soar to the heavens!) I immediately chose C! From then on, my life began advancing by leaps and bounds. Yesterday I was worrying about my mortgage; today my assets might have doubled. I was threatened by a local thug in the morning, and by nightfall I’d become his worst nightmare. Just when I thought this was merely a money-making System, I discovered that the player wars and the truth behind the System were far more terrifying than I’d imagined...