A Life Built on Empty Promises

A 500,000-character novel, Painted Dreams of Life. Before third grade, the male protagonist lived in the countryside with his grandmother while his parents served in the military. One neighbor was a boy who stuttered. When the protagonist was six, he found the boy's stutter funny and imitated it for a while, until he started stuttering himself. He began school at seven and was mocked for it, growing more and more withdrawn from then on. As he struggled against his stutter, he developed the habit of motivating himself by constantly "painting himself a rosy picture" to build his confidence. It worked, but the pictures were so grand that he only ever managed to make a tiny fraction of them come true, at best. Before graduating from elementary school, he moved with the military to the city where his parents lived. Going from the countryside to the city, he still stuttered a little and was bullied badly in his new environment. Once again, he used his "rosy picture" method to get himself through it. One day, while writing an essay, he drew such a grand picture that it reached the sky, catching his Chinese teacher's attention. But every one of his perfect, grand dreams ended up being cruelly fulfilled only in the tiniest part. After elementary school, he started junior high but didn't get into a prestigious school. After junior high, he went on to high school but didn't get into a prestigious one. After high school, he took the college entrance exam and only managed to get into a vocational college. By the time he entered college, his stutter had mostly gone away, only returning when he was nervous. Throughout his three years there, he remained taciturn. He had a crush on the class beauty, but only watched her from afar and never confessed, not even by the time he graduated. During college, he became obsessed with writing because he needed an outlet for his feelings. After graduating, he got a job at a small state-owned enterprise. It didn't pay much, but it wasn't busy, and he felt extremely lonely. Later, a matchmaker introduced him to a young woman. At last, he had an outlet for his feelings, and he put his "rosy picture" method to such extreme use that the young woman fell deeply in love with him...