Though physics had supposedly ceased to exist across all kinds of fiction, that did not stop everyone from still living in a thoroughly physical world.
As a rising junior in the mechanical engineering department at Tianmen University, Ji Jue naturally had no reason to doubt the bedrock of his future livelihood, but this wristwatch was simply too bizarre.
There were far too many things about it he could not make sense of; every single detail reeked of eccentric craftsmanship and design.
Yet he did not dare disassemble it either, leaving him with no choice but to wait for a better opportunity... Regrettably, years had slipped by without him finding that chance, and he had simply grown accustomed to wearing it instead.
So what if it was weird? It was not as though he could bring himself to throw it away.
Leaning back in his chair, the youth gave his limbs a good stretch, only then realizing that a plate of watermelon had appeared beside the table at some unknown point. Looking back, he saw that the others had already finished theirs and were chatting away. Only the youngest child, working on homework behind the counter, poked his head out to eye Ji Jue's share like a hawk.
"Thanks, Mother Lu!"
Ji Jue smiled and waved the boy over, splitting his portion in half to share.
"Xiao Ji, what about that..." Mother Lu recalled suddenly, smacking her forehead. "That emergency... rescue technician exam? How did that go?"
"I just signed up."
"Wait, that's not right," Lu Feng said, catching on. "Didn't you pass it last year?"
"The part I took last year was emergency first aid."
Ji Jue smiled. "I spent some time helping out at the university's extreme sports club this year, so I figured I might as well get certified in casualty rescue while I was at it. That'll make me a Level 2 lifeguard."
"Is that even useful?"
Lu Feng was baffled. His impression of a lifeguard was all sunshine, sandy beaches, lounge chairs, and board shorts—lounging around in the sun, catching the ocean breeze while ogling well-endowed women, and, with a bit of luck, helping rub on sunscreen to earn the customers' appreciation through seasoned skill and busy nights.
That was a complete mismatch for an overachiever like Ji Jue, who practically wished he could stretch every day into forty-eight hours!
"You're helping out with work here, going to college, and busy with your thesis... What're you taking that for? Seems pretty pointless."
Hearing that, Mother Lu activated her special skill: Mama's Death Glare!
In the eyes of Mother Lu, a diehard devotee of academic supremacy, whatever a top student did was justified. As for an aimless street-loafer like Lu Feng—who had failed to get into college, enlisted, got discharged, and now idled around at home—it was bad enough that he lacked drive himself, but he dared question a good kid?
Did he think her slaps had gone dull?
"Can't help it. I'm just unlucky, after all," Ji Jue chuckled self-deprecatingly, showing off a cut on his hand that an A4 sheet of paper had sliced open just this morning. Mother Lu fell silent, gazing at the scar that crawled up from Ji Jue's neck. After a long pause, she let out a soundless sigh and said nothing more.
"The computer! The computer!" the second daughter exclaimed in shock, pointing behind Ji Jue. "The computer's smoking!"
"Wait, holy shit..."
Ji Jue paled in horror. He whipped around toward the file on the screen, but before he could do a thing, the monitor went black and gave no further response.
Completely dead.
The power supply unit had burned out.
After looking it over, Ji Jue reached a helpless conclusion: it was an old machine, after all.
In truth, calling it an old computer was being generous—it was more like a battle-hardened chimera, an epic Frankenstein cobbled together from fourth- and fifth-hand spare parts. Over all these years of patching, swapping, and replacing, perhaps only the metal casing remained of the original machine.
Unfortunately, having the machine crash midway through a task was hardly a first. The silver lining was that this had gifted Ji Jue with obsessive-compulsive save habits. Important documents were always backed up in triplicate across hard drive, cloud, and phone, and he habitually mashed the save key every time he paused.
If luck was on his side, he had only lost a few hundred words and could just retype them later.
As for the computer itself...
Ji Jue scratched his head. He would have to root through the scrap pile at the secondhand repair shop across the street later to see if there was a usable power supply.
Buy a new computer?
Saving up the money was doable, but he dreaded emptying months of savings to buy a new machine, only to accidentally tip a cup of water over it the very next second...
What could he do then besides rage in impotent fury and cry tiny tears?
Either way, he held zero hope for his godforsaken luck.
Ever since he could remember, Ji Jue's luck had never been good.
Opening an instant noodle pack only to find no seasoning packet was routine; tearing off a hangnail and taking a whole strip of skin with it was practically par for the course.
During an elementary school spring picnic, out of the entire class, he was the sole kid nearly abducted by human traffickers. In middle school, stranded on the streets and looking for odd jobs to pay tuition, he walked straight into a pyramid scheme den, barely reacting fast enough to sprint away in time. Later, when he came to Dalu Auto Repair Shop looking for work, he had accidentally walked in through the back door and was mistaken for a thief by the newly discharged Lu Feng, who nearly ended him on the spot with a flying kick...
Such an endless record of blood and tears was truly beyond words.
Surviving all these years and making it into college could only be chalked up to an absurdly tenacious life. He had thought that perhaps his misfortune had peaked and good fortune would follow, only to be struck by mass food poisoning on the very first day of school right after grabbing a bowl of Tianmen University's most famous braised pork rice. By the time he was rushed into the emergency room, he had reportedly been on the verge of drawing his last breath...
Lu Feng had truly had his horizons broadened. Serving in the muddy trenches of the Central Plains, guarding oil fields and fighting brutal skirmishes through years of near-death experiences, he had never seen anyone as jinxed yet tough to kill as Ji Jue.
Even in a place like Yacheng, where vile abominations ran rampant, he was an absolute anomaly.
With the computer dead, Ji Jue stopped tinkering.
Since he had time to kill, he offered pointers on summer homework to the third child and the youngest.
He even warmly and enthusiastically recommended several sets of exercise workbooks he had used back in the day to Mother Lu. No need to buy new ones—his old copies were right at home, and rubbing them with an eraser would make them good as new, saving money completely... Hey, no need to be polite! We're all neighbors. Don't mention it, I even have an unused set of 'Thirty Mock Exams of the Exam King' at home!
He successfully earned Lu Feng's awe, the second daughter's shock, the third child's terror, and the youngest child's despair.
It felt so good to help others.
Ji Jue happily munched on the melon Mother Lu had sliced, while the youngest, knowing his 'days were numbered,' began wailing and demanding snacks.
"I'll go buy them," the culprit, Ji Jue, said, wiping his hands on his pants and relishing the resentful glares behind him. "I can grab a free power supply on the way back anyway."
"Bring me a bottle of Cola." Having just gotten into college, the second daughter had narrowly escaped the workbook menace and needed something to soothe her nerves.
"Grab a pack of cigarettes," Mother Lu said without looking up, wrestling with the ledger through her reading glasses. "Tell Zhang Min to put it on my tab."
"Got it, thanks, Mother Lu!"
Ji Jue did not stand on ceremony, humming a tune as he headed out.
The summer sun shone bright and warm, carrying a gentle ocean breeze from afar. Even the stray dogs that usually roamed the streets were sprawled in the shade, enjoying the calm. The teahouses on both sides were packed to the brim. Beneath fans working overtime, old men in tank tops picked at their feet, sipped tea, and played cards, peaceful and lively as always.
Whistling, Ji Jue walked a dozen meters to the convenience store at the street corner, picked up the items, and after a moment's thought, paid out of pocket to get popsicles for everyone.
He unwrapped one for himself first, taking a deep, satisfying suck in the air-conditioned breeze. He could not help letting out a contented sigh as sweet, icy chill spread across his tongue.
Now even the blazing sun outside did not seem so intimidating.
Nothing beat a popsicle.
Humming a tune, he stepped outside to head back to the shop, only to hear a grating screech.
From behind him.
On the street, a tricycle overloaded with scrap cardboard suddenly veered off course like a headless fly, tracing a massive arc. Amid the terrified shrieks of onlookers, it clipped a street-side stall stacked with steaming bamboo baskets. The counter toppled, the baskets spilled, and boiling water splashed everywhere.
Like a rampaging hippopotamus,
it charged straight at Ji Jue!
"Holy f—"
Ji Jue bit through his popsicle on reflex. With no time to dodge, he instinctively grabbed the handlebars with both hands and looked up at the old man pedaling the cart.
The old man's eyes had rolled back, bloodshot, and white foam bubbled from his mouth.
He was twitching violently, as if in the grip of a sudden seizure.
And yet...
The guy had not forgotten to pedal like his life depended on it!
Ji Jue's mind went completely numb.
Why go this far, old man? You're convulsing like crazy... Are you that determined to frame me for a hit today?
A brief deadlock ensued. Then, under inertia, the towering mountain of scrap cardboard tilted, snapped its plastic ties, and came crashing down, dragging the entire tricycle onto its side.
It buried them both beneath.
The pile of cardboard shuddered. A feeble hand poked out from underneath, shoving aside the trash pressing down on him, and Ji Jue poked his grime-smeared head out.
He panted heavily,
relieved that his bad luck had not turned out too disastrous this time.
Thank goodness it was just a beat-up tricycle. If it had been a truck, wouldn't he be...
Right then, he heard the screams all around him.
The crowd that had begun gathering scattered in panic, replaced by an ear-splitting, soul-shattering roar.
—A horn!
"What the hell is that noise?"
Ji Jue turned his head sluggishly, only to feel a violent gust blasting into his face.
And on the street, a hurtling behemoth—a monstrous iron visage splattered with mud, a terrifying colossus loaded with sand and gravel that had long disregarded any rated capacity.
Sixteen and a half meters long, two and a half meters wide.
A Nanfeng semi-trailer truck...
hurtling straight toward him!
"Are you freaking..."
Ji Jue froze in stupefaction.
In that despairing instant, frozen in time, he could already see the driver's face behind the windshield—twisted in an expression even more desperate than his own.
He forgot to breathe. His hair stood on end. He wanted to scream, to shout, but there was no time left to make a sound.
There was no dodging it.
Yet what surfaced in his mind was not a curse, but an indescribable confusion, bewilderment, and even... calm.
Good grief, what a classic trope.
Could it be that all his good deeds had finally earned him an approved spot for reincarnation today?!
Wait, don't just send me across—do I get a cheat?
Which novel site is this under? Does it come with a system? I've heard there are shameless authors who don't give cheats, force hell mode, and still stubbornly claim it's a power-fantasy with no suffering—all lies, and maybe the story ends up dropped altogether...
Wait, hold on!
Ji Jue sharply caught the blind spot—he was not the only one here!
Maybe the one reincarnating was not him, but this old geezer on the ground!
Wouldn't that make him totally screwed?
Years from now, when this old geezer crossed over to an otherworld to build a harem, gather beauties, and crush the demon king, would he even remember that years ago, when he had a seizure while trying to scam someone, there had been an unlucky kid named Ji Jue? Would he take it to heart and do more good deeds from then on?
Please don't let me die in vain.
Yet it seemed he really was about to die in vain.
In that split second of realization, Ji Jue finally understood what the boundless darkness rushing toward him truly meant.
He was going to die.
Death.
Tick, tock, tick, tock...
A crisp sound, like an auditory hallucination, rang in his ears. Steady and measured, it sounded like the approaching footsteps of death.
No escape.
92... 97... 98...
Ji Jue stared blankly at the colossal truck closing in inch by inch, watching the locked tires scrape against the ground as sand and gravel surged upward from the jolting bed.
The engine roared in fury, spewing flames inside its cylinders; pistons rose and fell like thunder; brake pads ground against rotors, sending sparks flying like rain.
99...
Stop.
He wanted to say: Stop.
Please, stop, stop, st—
Stopstopstopstopstopstop—
He said:
'—[STOP]!!!!!!'
Click!
In that instant, the number on the wristwatch's dial, pushed to its absolute limit, snapped back to zero!
The ear-splitting screech cut off abruptly. The gale died down. A massive surge of sand and mud blasted from the ruptured truck bed, sweeping across the street like a mudslide, spilling over the cab and vaulting into the sky.
At last, it fell like a dense drizzle,
covering Ji Jue's dazed face.
Beneath the dust and grit, his eyes blinked as he stared at the front of the truck, barely inches from the tip of his nose. The cab shuddered, fissures spiderwebbing across its surface like a wail of grief.
Then came the sound of the chassis fracturing. As if falling apart, the entire truck rapidly collapsed and broke into pieces. A severed, red-hot drive shaft punched through the undercarriage, jutting out from the sand and pointing obliquely toward the sky.
Ji Jue slumped to the ground.
In a slow daze of shock and confusion, he slowly raised his hand and touched his wet nose and mouth, only to find his hand covered in blood. A nosebleed...
Around him, screams and angry curses seemed to erupt.
The clamor arrived late.
Children cried for their mothers; a stunned mother rushed out from a shop, and taking in the scene, lunged like an enraged mother bear, ripping open the truck door to slap the driver indiscriminately across the face.
Someone who looked like Lu Feng kicked the old geezer aside, pushed through the crowd, and grabbed Ji Jue's shoulders in a frantic panic, shouting questions at him.
Yet Ji Jue registered none of it.
The only thing that lingered in his mind was the piercing screech that had emanated from the truck in that final split second.
It echoed in his marrow and instincts like earth-shattering thunder.
It was the roar of machinery answering his words.
It said: [As you command].
Chapter 2