Chen Feng's phone screen was glaring in the dim rental room. That was not an order notification, but a glaring red liquidation notice from the encrypted exchange APP. The time displayed at the top of the screen was 2:47 AM. He wiped his face, greasy, unable to tell if it was sweat or the oil smoke from delivering the last barbecue. His stomach was empty, but at this moment, he felt no hunger, only a familiar, numbing sensation as if he had fallen into an ice cave.
"It's gone again." He muttered softly, his voice hoarse. The string of numbers on the screen, representing his ups and downs over the past month—7,000 yuan—had already vanished, becoming part of a steeply descending death curve on the K-line chart.
Chen Feng, 27 years old, an ordinary food delivery rider shuttling through the concrete jungle of this southern metropolis. His skin is dark, and the joints of his fingers are somewhat thick due to years of gripping the handlebars and carrying heavy objects. His electric bike is his steed, and his phone is his navigator and 'mining machine.' Like thousands of others in his profession, his daily goal is to run a few more orders and earn a few dozen extra yuan. But Chen Feng has a 'secret,' a 'shortcut' he believes can help him escape this endless cycle—crypto contracts.
His ledger is simple, even cruel:
Income: Working hard, he averages around 8,000 a month. He dares not take a break in windy or rainy weather, getting anxious stuck in traffic during peak hours, swearing under his breath, and for a good review, he climbs eight flights of stairs without catching his breath.
Expenses: Rent and utilities 1,500 (a small room in a shared building in an urban village), electric bike charging, maintenance, occasionally fines 500. Eating? Strictly controlled at 1,000 yuan. This means his daily routine is: breakfast at a roadside stall with two buns and a cup of soy milk (5 yuan), lunch looking for the cheapest dive during order gaps (15-20 yuan), and dinner often consists of instant noodles with a sausage, or waiting for the 'late-night special' order that the platform subsidizes after peak hours, hoping to snag some near-expiration meals the vendor is offloading that are still safe to eat. He quit smoking, only drinks plain water, and hardly goes to friends’ gatherings.
"Investment": The remaining 7,000 yuan is steadfastly deposited into the colorful trading APP on his phone, at the earliest opportunity after payday. His goal is not to hoard coins but to trade contracts, and to leverage high. In his words: "Spot trading? That stuff rises too slowly! Contracts bring money quickly, as long as the direction is right once, leverage kicks in, profits can double or even increase by dozens of times, equating to what I earn in a year of food delivery!"
This belief supported him through every exhausting day and night. During the gaps between deliveries, the few seconds waiting for a red light, or even while queuing to pick up an order, his fingers would unconsciously swipe open that APP, his eyes glued to the fluctuating prices and the red and green K-lines. His phone holder was not just for navigation, but also his 'trading terminal.' What he listened to in his headphones was not music, but the live broadcasts of various 'teachers' in the crypto world, discussing 'resistance levels,' 'support levels,' 'whale movements,' and 'hundredfold coin myths.'
"Fengzi, still researching your 'digital gold'?" Old Li, a fellow rider, handed him a cigarette, and Chen Feng waved his hand to refuse, "Quit, saving some money." Old Li laughed, "What good is saving that little bit? It's better to be practical and run a few more orders. That stuff is gambling, nine out of ten lose!"
Chen Feng did not refute, but stubbornly stared at the screen: "Li Ge, you don't understand. Delivering food is physical work, there will always be a day when you can't run anymore. This is different; it relies on the brain. Look at that 'KOL' in the group, he said he bought a house in cash in his hometown last year relying on contracts! I just think, as long as I can catch a big trend once, get the direction right, and earn 100,000 or 80,000, I can rest for a year and think about what to do next, or go back to my hometown and start a small business, no need to rush and watch others' faces anymore."
His 'trading strategy' is simple and crude, carrying the unique 'grabbing orders' mentality of a food delivery rider: When he sees someone in the group shouting 'bullish breakout, go long!' or a certain 'teacher' confidently saying a coin is going to 'take off,' he dares to put in the 7,000 yuan he just deposited, leveraging it 10, 20 times, or even higher, betting it all. If he wins, the account balance doubles in an instant, that thrill far surpasses the fatigue of a day's deliveries. He would excitedly take a screenshot and send a small red envelope in the group, as if he had already touched the threshold of 'taking a year off.' If he loses, like tonight, the liquidation brings him to zero, and the screen is a sea of red.
"If I make a mistake, I can just keep delivering food; I won't starve." This is what he often says, the underlying logic that supports him to repeatedly 'recharge his faith.' Indeed, he still has strength, he can still run, and next month he can still earn 8,000. This feeling of 'having an escape route' makes him bold enough to bet all his 'surplus' time and again.
But real life is far more complicated than this.
His body was protesting: Long-term irregular diet and high-pressure work had made his stomach problems more frequent. Once, while delivering food, a stomach cramp hit him, and he gritted his teeth to deliver the order before squatting by the roadside, drenched in cold sweat from the pain.
Risks followed him closely: Once, while riding and checking the market, he almost crashed into a suddenly opened car door, startling him into a cold sweat, and he spilled the food, losing money and getting scolded.
His emotions were being controlled: His joys and sorrows were increasingly dictated by that APP. When he made money, he hummed a tune while delivering, feeling hopeful for the future; when he had a liquidation, he became as gloomy as a stone, and his attitude while delivering turned stiff, resulting in more negative reviews.
The dream of 'resting for a year' grew more distant: After a few months, he carefully calculated the total: the number of liquidations far exceeded the number of profitable trades. The tens of thousands he had painstakingly saved, like water, silently flowed into the black hole of the digital world. The goal of 'resting for a year after one good trade' not only did not come closer but, due to the continuous depletion of capital, required an increasingly high multiplier for profits, and the risks grew larger.
Tonight's liquidation was the fourth in the past three months. He collapsed onto the hard bed, staring at the yellow stains on the ceiling left by water leaks, their shapes distorted, resembling the K-line chart of his liquidations. The phone screen was still lit, the group chat was still lively, with 'teachers' analyzing that this crash was a 'washout,' and 'Old Cat' showing off his screenshots of profitable shorting, as if he were the only loser in the world.
The sound of the morning cleaning workers sweeping outside came in, and it was almost dawn. Chen Feng suddenly sat up, rubbing his tired eyes. He turned off the exchange APP and opened the food delivery rider APP. The system notification sound rang out, and a new breakfast order popped up—5 kilometers away, a serving of soy milk and fried dough sticks.
The feeling of hunger finally surged. He took a deep breath, the air mixed with the damp moldy smell of the urban village and the greasy smell from the roadside breakfast stall, incredibly real. He grabbed his helmet and bike keys, moving as skillfully as if it were a preset program. The slight vibration when the electric bike started transmitted to his palm; this was the feeling he was most familiar with.
"First survive, then dream." He whispered to himself, twisting the accelerator, rushing into the city dawn that had not yet fully awakened. In the rental room behind him, the phone screen dimmed, but the phone containing the exchange APP lay quietly on the bedside like a silent abyss, waiting for his 7,000 yuan next month and his never-dying yet fragile fantasy of 'getting rich quickly.'
The road between the accelerator and the K-line, he is still struggling to move forward, only the road beneath his feet is getting muddier.
