Ever since he was nearly sent flying head-on by that heavy truck yesterday, Ji Jue had been groggy and out of sorts. After finishing his checkup at the hospital and returning home, he had closed his eyes and slept like the dead.
Only now upon waking did he finally feel a sense of relief and a bit of joy at having survived a close brush with death.
Although he hadn't gotten to experience crowd-pleasing tropes like reincarnating into another world, blowing up a crystal ball during a magic aptitude test, or flexing an alpha aura to amass a harem... at least he was still alive, wasn't he?
Living was good. Living was wonderful. Living was just so damn great.
From age nine until today, Ji Jue hadn't had enough of living. He felt he probably, possibly, maybe could live another forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty years.
So what if his luck was bad? So what if he was poor?
It wasn't as if life had become unlivable.
Long live life!
Only... had that scar faded a bit?
The old house passed down from his grandparents' generation had weathered many storms. The wooden floorboards creaked underfoot, and no matter how meticulously Ji Jue had maintained it over the past few years, there was no hiding its decay.
As Ji Jue washed up in front of the mirror, he couldn't resist looking up to closely examine... the scar running from below his neck all the way onto his face.
Like a snake coiled around his back.
The burn mark was ugly and gruesome, yet now it showed faint signs of fading.
More importantly, he seemed a little different.
To be precise, everything seemed a little different.
The whole world felt subtly altered.
If he had to make an analogy, it was like an amputee suddenly experiencing the phantom sensation of a missing limb... All of a sudden, he seemed to have gained an extra eye, an extra hand, some brand-new sensory organ.
Yet when he tried to feel it out carefully, everything grew elusive and indistinct.
The harder he concentrated, the more fleeting the sensation became, leaving him dizzy and lightheaded. It was as if something was stuck halfway—neither up nor down, horribly uncomfortable.
After washing his face, he collapsed onto the sofa, reached out, and grabbed the remote, hoping to watch something to distract himself. But the TV screen merely flickered, the picture breaking up intermittently.
"Broken again?"
Ji Jue scratched his head and leaned forward to press the power button, but nothing changed.
It was an old TV, after all—older than Ji Jue himself, with a curved CRT screen. For years, he had patched and repaired it over and over, but this time, it didn't seem to be the usual issue.
Just as he was at a loss, he heard a hallucinatory voice:
[Bro, don't turn me on. My butt hurts.]
"What?"
Instinctively, Ji Jue pressed it again and heard a groan. He froze on the spot, petrified, then with great effort lifted his head to look toward the source of the sound.
The television.
[My butt... hurts,] the TV said.
"Holy sh—"
Palpable terror washed over Ji Jue, and he fell backward onto the floor.
A corps—no, wait, the TV can talk?!
Then the TV fell silent.
It seemed as if it had almost been killed by him, leaving Ji Jue in a fresh wave of panic and confusion—until he finally worked up the courage to circle around to the back of the TV, where realization dawned.
Of course its butt hurt!
The power cord in the back had aged and cracked; it was leaking electricity!
Rummaging through the cabinet for ages, he finally found electrical tape and pliers. He repaired the power cord—it wasn't as complicated as expected; in fact, it was surprisingly simple.
Then he heard a sigh of relief.
[Much better.]
The TV said, [The voltage has been unstable lately, so don't keep turning me on. The picture tube is about to kick the bucket too...]
The voice grew softer and softer, gradually becoming inaudible.
It was Ji Jue who was growing dizzier.
When he examined the TV, it felt as though an invisible eye had opened once more, allowing him to perceive its internal structure and operation. When he listened, hallucinatory words seemed to report the subject's condition.
When he touched the TV, an invisible hand acted within it, sensing the degree of wear on each component and its remaining lifespan—and even influencing its operation.
Yet all of this seemed to draw directly on his energy.
The moment he used this power, he could feel his mental energy rapidly draining away. In just a few short minutes, he felt as if he hadn't slept for days and nights on end, so exhausted he felt ready to drop dead.
He did not doubt in the slightest that if he didn't stop, dropping dead wouldn't just be an exaggeration.
It would be reality.
Now, in the silence, Ji Jue looked down at his wrist.
That resonance and perception, so clear even when he was thoroughly exhausted, required no extra energy whatsoever, as though it had become part of his own body.
That bizarre wristwatch.
To Ji Jue's astonishment, the number on the dial had plunged from near maximum back to its starting point—even lower than when it had begun.
[01]
Apart from that, what drew even more attention was the marker on the watch face—most of the original 12 o'clock mark had turned golden, as if frozen at a certain stage of progress.
The moment he rallied what little energy he had left and channeled it into the watch, a cascade of information seemed to materialize before his eyes.
[Celestial Selection Rite initiation commencing. Welcome to Celestial Rail Group.]
[Error report: Send failure #1,789,989.]
[Detected temporary employee facing mortal danger... Calling stations within perimeter: no signal response. Calling Headquarters Support Center: no signal response... Error! Error! Error!]
[Temporary Employee Emergency Survival Protocol activated—during protocol duration, Talent will be forcibly activated into Ability—stored spiritus exhausted—protocol concluded—duration: 0.4 seconds.]
[Unknown error detected. Error. Error. Error. Signal response lost. Unable to complete upload. Human Resources Management reminds you: please become a Celestial Chosen as soon as possible and report to Central Station to finalize your transition to regular employment.]
Ji Jue's vision went dark.
Not from exhaustion, but sheer bewilderment.
Too many new terms had been shoved into his brain all at once for him to process: Celestial Selection Rite, Celestial Rail Group, temporary employee, protocol, error, Celestial Chosen, Central Station, transition to regular employment...
Yet by piecing together wild guesses, he seemed to grasp a fraction of it.
Apparently, through some sort of Celestial Selection Rite, he had inexplicably bonded with this wristwatch, submitted a résumé to a company he had never heard of, and then been automatically hired?
Except this lousy company looked like a total fly-by-night operation—lacking everything, with nobody ever reaching out to him, and who knew if it was even still in business.
When his life was in danger, it had triggered something called the Temporary Employee Survival Protocol, forcibly activating his "Talent" into a superpower, which burned through all its fuel.
Finally, it seemed to remind him to hurry up and become a Celestial Chosen, then head off to some place called Central Station to become a bona fide corporate workhorse?
"Hello?"
Ji Jue cautiously raised his wrist and asked, "You there?"
No reply.
In the quiet, the watch hands didn't even bother to tick.
As if refusing to acknowledge him.
"Don't give me the silent treatment," Ji Jue inquired curiously. "Mind telling me what kind of benefits your company offers? How big is the outfit? What's your core business? How are the salary and perks? Do you offer paid leave and year-end bonuses?"
The wristwatch remained dead silent.
Ji Jue's heart gradually settled.
"Come to think of it, when did I become your temporary employee anyway? Did I give my consent? Did I sign off on anything?"
Lying back on the battered sofa, he found a comfortable posture. "After being a temp for so many years, sure, I didn't do jack shit for work, but that's no excuse to withhold my pay! Can I get back pay? What about social security and housing funds?
"You guys aren't evading taxes, are you? Careful, or I'll call and report you..."
Silence lingered. Only Ji Jue babbling to himself looked like a clown, but being a clown wasn't bad—at least it proved there wasn't some ten-thousand-year-old ghost or bizarre entity lurking inside the thing.
Well, if it couldn't talk, no need to worry.
They made him a temp without paying him, and he used their watch without paying for it. A mutual free ride, a win-win, WIN-WIN-WIN. Everybody was happy, winning all the way home.
So for the time being, he didn't need to fear someone suddenly dropping from the sky, swatting him dead, and repossessing company assets.
Besides, Celestial Rail, Central Station... he had never heard of them at all. Across the Federation's many major cities, there were only a handful of railways running back and forth, all managed and operated by their respective municipal governments. No one had ever heard of any Celestial Rail Group.
This watch hadn't left his family home since his grandfather's generation. With no one coming looking for it all these years, that lousy company was probably, maybe, seemingly, most likely... long gone.
Ji Jue let out a breath, finally setting his mind at ease.
Closing his eyes to focus, he could sense something gradually welling up within his body—wisps and strands, thin and elusive as mist, yet converging like trickles into a river.
It gradually replenished him, dispelling some of his weariness.
And from that, an almost negligible trace flowed into the wristwatch to be stored, causing the number on the dial to tick up once more: [03].
Is this spiritus?
Before, it had taken him so many years of accumulation to reach the nineties, only for the survival protocol to burn through it in less than a second... But after his Talent underwent that forced activation, the recovery speed of spiritus seemed vastly faster—countless times faster than before.
He was probably just one step away from officially converting it into an Ability.
So did this mean... he was on the verge of becoming a superhuman?
Ji Jue's eyes lit up.
Long ago, he had read a comic book said to have survived from before the Cataclysm Era, featuring several heroic figures, each badass and overpowered.
The eldest was super-strong, invulnerable to blades and bullets, and could shoot lasers from his eyes; the second was filthy rich, wore a black mask, and fought crime alongside his adopted wards; the third was a woman wielding a sword and a lasso, radiating boundless allure; the fourth wore red, ate fast, ran fast, did everything fast, and died fast every time...
As for the eighth or ninth one, which was it again? His superpower was especially unusual!
He could talk to fish, and the fish would talk back to him.
Just like him.
When he talked on the telephone, the phone talked back too—telling him his account was overdue!
Truly amazing!
Self-deprecating as the thought was, it didn't stop Ji Jue from feeling genuinely happy.
He really did seem different from before.
It seemed he wouldn't have to grind so relentlessly anymore, wouldn't have to live under such grueling pressure; he could simply and easily live a happy life.
How wonderful.
Even if he botched an exam, he wouldn't need to panic; if his thesis got rejected, he wouldn't need to fret; failing to earn his Level 2 Engineer certification before graduation wouldn't be the end of the world; and he wouldn't have to worry about defaulting on student loans, starving to death, or ending up on the streets.
After all, I'm a super—
Boom!
A warning boom like divine wrath erupted from downstairs.
From the landing at the top of the stairs, Ji Jue poked his head out in dazed bewilderment, only to see the front door blasted open by a howling gale.
Outside, spattering rain drifted indoors.
Along with a trail of muddy footprints winding deep into the living room...
An uninvited guest had arrived!
Chapter 4