Chapter 1: The Corporate Slave Ascends in One Step

I must still be dreaming!

Yang Yi, a miserable corporate slave, was sleeping in her rental room just yesterday.

Today, however, she is in another country on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, in the 23rd-floor hall of the United Nations, surrounded by government officials from various nations at a global conference.

Even now, her mind is still dazed.

Before her eyes lies a sea of heads, black, yellow, brown, all kinds of furry heads, interspersed with a few shiny bald spots, and eyes of various colors staring at her as if she were a rare animal.

In the distance, a whole row of reporters carry long and short lenses, their cameras aimed at her face, flashing continuously, as if she were a rare alien.

Her eyes were dazzled by the flashlights, and her already dazed head became even more dizzy.

This dream is so real!

In front of everyone, she inappropriately remembered that the bowls from yesterday in the rental room hadn't been washed, and the dirty clothes were still in the washing machine; wouldn't they all have gone bad?... And there was one most important question—could she return to her peaceful life?

As for how she ended up standing here, that story must be told from the beginning...

A long, long time ago...

Alright, no one wants to hear a story as long as an old woman's bound feet; here is what happened.

Yesterday was Sunday; Yang Yi prepared the three essentials for beach foraging: sun protection gear, a small shovel, and a small bucket—she particularly loved watching beach foraging livestreams, and when she had nothing to do, she would go to the beach to pick up some shells, crabs, octopuses, and such, then take them back to boil and eat; this was one of the most important reasons for her, an inland person, to move to a seaside town.

She herself was quite introverted and even felt she had some social anxiety, so she specifically found an uninhabited seaside rock and silently pried open barnacles.

She loved eating these things so much; just boiling them in plain water made them fresh and sweet, and prying them open was especially stress-relieving, making it impossible to stop.

After filling more than half a bucket, suddenly a commotion came from the distance, accompanied by piercing screams; she raised her head to look:

Oh ho! A mountain slowly rose from the sea level, a giant octopus monster slowly surfaced; just one look was enough to trigger a fear of giant objects.

Under the octopus monster's nameless force, the sea surface boiled like water, and waves several stories high rushed toward the beach.

The tourists were terrified, running around like headless flies. Unfortunately, how could feet outrun surging waves? As a wave crashed down, the crowd was knocked over like ants, then swept back into the ocean by the seawater.

With things like this, could she just ignore it? Could she bear to ignore it?

She wrapped herself tightly and flew toward the monster—oh, I forgot to mention, she has superpowers.

Only after driving the inexplicably appearing monster back into the deep sea did she feel she had been too reckless.

Standing in the sky and looking down, tourists held their phones aimed at her, taking pictures nonstop.

She thought, it's over, Barbie Q'd; her secret hidden for three years could no longer be concealed.

Tomorrow—no, perhaps in an hour or two—or perhaps even now, she had already become the top trending topic on the internet, the number one internet celebrity on D-Yin and K-Shou.

For three years she had lived under an assumed name, terrified of being discovered to have superpowers, living in constant fear; now, having become famous overnight, she was doomed!

Would she be sent to a laboratory to be a guinea pig? Or imprisoned for life in a small dark room? The future was completely dark.

Yang Yi leaned against a cloud, staring blankly for a while; the thick clouds could not hide her utterly desolate heart.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up; she looked down at her equipment: hmm, the mask was intact! The sun hat was also very large! The sun protection clothing was tightly sealed... it should... no one would recognize her...

She took out her phone and searched online for the Haibei City sea monster incident, discovering that in all the videos, she was just a blurry little dot; let alone her face, only a vague human shape could be roughly seen.

Phew—now she felt relieved!

She shot straight up into the sky, using the clouds as cover to secretly take a detour back to her rental room, not even daring to go back for the small shovel or the more than half a bucket of barnacles she had pried open—that was a full half bucket! Just thinking about it made her heart ache.

Facts proved she had rejoiced too early and greatly underestimated the capability and speed of the state machinery.

In the time it took to nap, a man and a woman with amiable attitudes but imposing temperaments knocked on the peeling iron door of her rental room and invited her to join the Xia Nation Awakened Ones Administration.

An annual salary of one million, five social insurances and one housing fund, flexible working hours, weekends off, benefits distributed on holidays, overtime pay at two to three times the normal rate, and most importantly, civil servant status!!!

My goodness, is there such a good thing coming right to her door?

This treatment was far better than her current job—private enterprise accountant! The stingy boss only provided three insurances and no housing fund! What was she waiting for? Why not quickly change jobs?!

Thus, on her first day of work, she, Yang Yi—according to rumors, the most powerful among the currently discovered Awakened Ones—represented the Xia Nation at the United Nations on a business trip to attend the first meeting of the inaugural Global Awakened Ones Conference.

This was the reason she was sitting here.