In a haze of sleep, Zhang Yuanqing felt something soft and plump pressing down on him, suffocating him. He opened his eyes to see a rounded, delicate face grinning mischievously.
His aunt muttered peevishly, "Brat, how dare you stand me up? I'm going to squash you to death!"
Sitting atop her nephew in a w-sit, she leaned forward, raised her hips, and slammed her rear down hard.
Zhang Yuanqing grunted from the impact, nearly losing his breath. Annoyed, he arched his back and bucked the woman off.
Amid his aunt's startled cry, he noticed the sky outside had already turned dark. Without realizing it, he had slept from morning straight into the night.
"Dinner time!"
Lying on her side in bed, his aunt aimed a flurry of kicks at his backside.
"Stop getting back at me, alright? I respect the old and care for the young, so I won't lower myself to your level."
Zhang Yuanqing slipped to the edge of the bed, put on his shoes, and walked out the door.
A rich aroma drifted through the living room. His maternal grandparents were seated at the dining table, eating dinner. His grandfather's hair was silvery white; tall and gaunt, he had a stern face that never smiled.
"So, how was the date arranged for you this time? Decent?" his grandmother asked with clear anticipation at the table.
"Pretty good! An annual salary of a million, a corporate executive. Very satisfied!" His aunt nodded vigorously like a chick pecking at rice.
"You say that every time, and every time you block them." Grandmother poked her daughter's forehead hard, scolding, "Use your head a little. Think about how old you are."
*Right on, right on.* Zhang Yuanqing gloated from the side, only to take a sharp kick to the shin from Jiang Yu'er.
The two began kicking each other under the table, making it clatter incessantly.
"If you two aren't eating, get back to your rooms!"
At Grandmother's roar, Zhang Yuanqing and his aunt immediately lowered their heads and shoveled rice into their mouths.
"Grandma, when is my cousin coming back?" Zhang Yuanqing asked.
His uncle's family lived right across the hall. Recently, his well-off aunt and his free-spirited uncle had traveled abroad, so his cousin had been having dinner here every night.
"He said he's working overtime tonight and isn't coming back tonight... That boy works himself to the bone. The complete opposite of his slacker father," Grandmother grumbled.
*Overtime...* Zhang Yuanqing uttered an "oh," unable to hide his disappointment.
After dinner, Zhang Yuanqing and Jiang Yu'er each retreated to their rooms, leaving Grandmother to clean up the mess.
Back in his room, Zhang Yuanqing locked the door, picked up his phone, and dialed his cousin's number.
Since they couldn't talk in person, a call would have to do.
Still, talking over the phone was never as clear as speaking face-to-face.
The call connected, but through the speaker came only an automated voice stating the phone was powered off.
*In a meeting?*
Zhang Yuanqing hung up helplessly. As an enforcement captain, his cousin had a hectic schedule with irregular meals and hours; being unreachable like this happened all the time.
He was used to it.
Zhang Yuanqing lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling and letting his mind drift.
*Assuming Brother Bing's disappearance was foul play and their target was the black card, then I have to be careful. The safest approach is to hand the card over to my cousin, and let him report it up the chain.*
*Given the administrative rank of the Songhai City Public Security Bureau, any faction over in Jiangnan Province would have limited reach here.*
*The trouble is, the black card is gone. That's the biggest headache.* Zhang Yuanqing scratched his head in distress.
*A black card vanishing into thin air... it's chilling just thinking about it. Without finding the card, handing it over to the authorities won't work.*
*My only choice is to come clean with my cousin first, let him report it upward, and then follow whatever instructions they give. I'm just an ordinary college student; there's nothing I can do on my own.*
Suddenly, Zhang Yuanqing felt a warm, prickling pain on his forehead. He reached up to scratch it, only for the pain to intensify.
*Huh? Hot and painful—what's going on?*
Baffled, he rolled off the bed and walked over to the full-length mirror by the window, inspecting his reflection.
The glass mirrored a youth's face: delicate features and pale skin, showing neither the hardened resolve forged by society's beatings nor the weathered weariness left behind by the passing years.
There was only the vibrant, burgeoning vigor of youth.
Right on his forehead sat a lifelike mark of a black full moon, its irregular patches clearly visible on the surface.
Beneath the full moon mark was something resembling a progress bar that read: 90%.
*This...* Zhang Yuanqing stumbled back in shock. He scrubbed at his forehead vigorously, but the mark was like a tattoo; nothing could rub it away.
*Why is this on my forehead? When did it appear?* Disordered thoughts flashed through his mind, mixed with panic and confusion.
"Wait! Isn't this pattern... the black moon from the card?"
He froze, and the pieces suddenly fell into place.
The black card hadn't been lost. It had entered his body, transforming through some unfathomable means into the mark on his forehead.
As he stood there in bewilderment, he noticed the progress bar beneath the black moon tick up to 92%. Along with the shifting number came a searing heat across his brow.
What was this? A supernatural phenomenon? High technology? A hallucination?
In that moment, the words from the letter resurfaced in his mind: *This is a gift capable of changing your life...*
*The black card really is a treasure. So my earlier guess was right—someone was after this card, and Brother Bing didn't want them to get their hands on it, so he mailed it to me, which led to his disappearance...*
Worried for Brother Bing, Zhang Yuanqing also watched the progress bar with veiled anticipation.
What would happen when the progress bar hit 100%? Having witnessed such wonder with his own eyes, he was brimming with curiosity about what was to come.
After several more burning pulses, the progress bar beneath the black moon finally reached the end of its journey, hitting 100%.
The next instant, an emotionless, detached voice echoed beside his ears:
[Character card reboot complete]
[Name: Pending (Please name immediately)]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Night Wanderer]
[Level: 0]
[Skills: None]
[Experience Points: 0%]
[Morality Points: 60 (Initial Value)]
Beneath the Morality Points was an additional line of notes:
[Never allow your Morality Points to fall below 60. In the past, you may not have had a choice, but from now on, please be a good person.]
Staring at the fluorescent blue character status panel floating before his eyes, Zhang Yuanqing was dumbfounded for a long while. *What on earth is this?*
Tentatively, he asked, "System?"
As an expert internet surfer, broad knowledge was a must-have trait.
The tone without emotional inflection echoed beside his ears once more:
[Please name the character immediately!]
From the status panel frozen in midair popped a fluorescent blue handwriting box.
*It's not a system; otherwise, the intelligence would be far too low, unable to even converse...* Deciding to take things one step at a time, Zhang Yuanqing reached out his finger and wrote down his own name:
*Zhang Yuanqing.*
[Warning: Do not use your real name.]
*Can't use my real name?* Zhang Yuanqing blinked, then penned a second name:
*Yuanshi Tianzun.*
[Naming successful! Opening the Spirit Realm in ten seconds. Yuanshi Tianzun, good luck!]
Listening to the voice echoing by his ear, Zhang Yuanqing was stunned. *What's happening? Opening the Spirit Realm? Shouldn't you explain what the Spirit Realm is first?!*
Before he could regain his composure, the ten-second countdown had already ended.
[Ding. Spirit Realm map successfully initialized. Welcome to "Night Wanderer—Sheling Tunnel," Serial Number: 0079.]
[Difficulty Level: S]
[Type: Solo (Lethal)]
[Main Quest 1: Survive for three hours.]
[Main Quest 2: Explore Spirit Realm No. 0079. Current exploration progress: 0%]
[Note: Non-Spirit Realm items cannot be brought inside.]
[Spirit Realm No. 0079 Introduction: Have you heard of Sheling Tunnel, one of Songhai's top ten urban legends?]
[Sheling Tunnel was constructed at the end of the last century. During its construction, an excavation team entered the tunnel on a rainy night to dig, only to vanish into the tunnel and never reappear.]
[The Public Security Bureau organized search parties to comb the area for days, eventually finding a lone worker who had participated in that night's dig within the mountains. The others had vanished without a trace.]
[Though the survivor lived, he suffered an inexplicable trauma, his mind shattered and reduced to madness. No matter how the officers questioned him, only one sentence rolled off his tongue over and over.]
[He said: Do not enter the temple. Do not enter the temple...]
The voice beside his ears grew fainter until it fell completely silent. The scene before him rippled like a disturbed lake surface, warping and blurring.
A moment later, the imagery stabilized. Dim yellow light fell across uneven, rugged walls, and beneath his feet lay a path paved with gravel.
"Where am I?"
Zhang Yuanqing looked around in astonishment, finding himself inside an old tunnel where aged xenon lamps along the arched ceiling cast a faint orange glow.
Chapter 4