Sorry to Let You Guys Down: I Took Out a Loan for Lunar New Year

#Socially Mortifying #Extreme Twists #All Too Real #Tearjerker #Dark Comedy #Rich Kid Showing Off in the Group Chat VS Instant Noodles in a Rented Room 【A look at ordinary people's struggles in a society obsessed with appearances, where vanity and filial devotion intertwine】 (Preface: When lies become the only way out, he takes out loan sharks' money to stage a live-streamed display of filial devotion for the whole internet, until police lights shatter the warm glow of New Year's Eve dinner.) Everyone in the village knows that this year, the Xie family's son will return home in glory and buy his parents a big new house. Only Xie Bibeng knows he has just 47.28 yuan in his pocket, eight maxed-out credit cards behind him, and a court summons. Instant noodles past their expiration date soak in his rented room. He laughs as he finishes a call from his mother urging him to “come home in style,” then turns around and calls a loan shark: “Lend me 500,000. Cash. Charge me the highest interest rate.” He carries the cash home, livestreams himself handing out red envelopes, and puts on a grand “dutiful son” show for the whole internet. Then, at the liveliest moment of New Year's Eve dinner police cars surround the old family home, and debt collectors smash through the door. On camera, his mother screams, “Didn't you say your company went public?!” Facing tens of millions of viewers, he smiles more bitterly than if he were crying: “Mom, it was the wanted notice that went public.” … (Reader advisory: Have tissues ready, and prepare your heart for a shock. This is more than a story about someone “falling apart”; it's a mirror reflecting the vanity and vulnerabilities in all of us.) → Click to read and see how Xie Bibeng uses a single loan to upend his family's fate, and plunge himself into an abyss with no way back…