Chapter 1: Waiting by the Stump

The southern winter was damp and cold, and Cao Chuan felt it especially keenly today: why else would cold sweat be beading on his forehead? Then again, anyone tossed into the middle of a bunch of genuine ancient bandits swilling wine from big bowls would probably break out in a bit of cold sweat too.

Looking at the fierce-faced ancients, all one-point-six meters tall, surrounding him, Cao Chuan nearly shrieked the classic line, "No, don't come near me!" As for how he'd ended up in a parallel dimension — well, it all started three months ago.

Cao Chuan, twenty-seven years old, one hundred seventy-five centimeters tall, reasonably sunny-looking, from Hebei. A graduate of some third-rate university, he'd studied business management.

By his final year at school, he'd already realized no one was going to let him manage anything in the future — the job market was brutal these days, let alone for a third-rate university grad. Sensing bleak prospects ahead, he'd spent time getting a driver's license, and sure enough, after graduation he smoothly proceeded straight into unemployment.

He'd originally planned to go home first and see if the family could help with a used taxi to get him started. But the moment he got back, he learned his parents had separated and were fighting a divorce in court. His mother no longer lived at home, and the mysterious detail was: there was now an Aunt Liu in the house.

Cao Chuan could only go back downstairs with a blank expression and turn toward his grandfather's place.

At his grandfather's, he found his sobbing mother and, gently consoling her at her side, Uncle Cai. A bit of background: Old Cai was his mother's old classmate, and the old goods had gotten divorced the year before.

Not long after, someone theoretically gained an extra home. Then he discovered he himself was homeless. Sensing the situation was extremely awkward, he shouldered his pack, turned around, and walked out the door.

That departure lasted several years. He only came back for New Year's visits; the rest of the time he worked odd jobs away from home.

Most of the time, he scraped by around Hengdian. He'd driven a taxi, delivered bottled water, played a shill at the antique market, and intercepted packages at an express delivery company.

As for his main profession, it was a rather dream-filled line of work — being an extra. Especially after he analyzed market demand and grew his hair out long, which made makeup easier, he managed to scrape together a living in various film crews needing ronin henchmen or young master attendants.

These past two days, Cao Chuan had been busy — busy taking part in a big production.

Today's scene was a major cast affair by Hengdian standards: the Nameless Old Daoist, having been exposed for sheltering the Anti-Qing Chivalrous Couple, was forced to fight it out in the Three Pure Ones Hall against the Grand Inner Experts and the flock of Eagle Claw Grandsons who'd come to kill them.

As the Ninth Eagle Claw Grandson, Cao Chuan was smoothly swept by the old Daoist's palm wind in the seventh round, let out a miserable cry, and collapsed dead at the feet of the Three Pure Ones.

Just as he lay there waiting for the director to yell "Cut!" so he could go get his boxed meal, a white iron sheet ring came rolling off the finger of the foam-plastic Supreme Pure One statue overhead, tumbled to the tip of his nose, bounced once, and lay sideways before his eyes.

"Huh?" Playing dead on the floor, he cracked his eyes open, saw the ring, and more or less understood what the story was — today he'd actually gotten to play the farmer waiting by the stump. He also took a moment to lament how props these days were getting shoddier and shoddier, shrinking after just a few days of use; see, even bits and pieces were falling off now.

Squinting for a closer look, he found this ring a bit interesting: two mirror surfaces were set into the band, one black, one white. With his pitiful level of expertise in antiques, he could mostly only tell that these two ring faces weren't glass, and of course they couldn't possibly be jade either.

After finally waiting for the esteemed director to yell "Cut!", Cao Chuan grabbed the ring, scrambled up, and went to remove his makeup.

After changing clothes, he tried the ring on the middle finger of his left hand. Hmm, a bit tight, but the appearance was good, with a thick archaic style of postmodernism. It just felt like the inside of the band had faintly pricked his finger — whatever, doesn't matter, it was free, a little burr was tolerable. Thinking this, Cao Chuan charged toward the boxed meal station.

That afternoon, he kept feeling something was slightly off, faintly there, as if from time to time something was drifting toward him.

At first he paid no attention, figuring he was just too tired from rushing the shoot these past two days, his mind a bit hazy. It wasn't until they wrapped, he went back to his dog kennel, lay on the bed and observed carefully, that he realized the situation was bad!

Sunlight from the window projected into the room; fine dust clearly revealed the trajectory of the setting sun. A faint ray of light traced an arc, one end plunging straight into the ring face at the base of his finger.

He sprang up from the bed, dashed to the window in two steps, stretched out his left hand, and waved it constantly before his eyes. But no matter how his hand moved, the thin rays of light at the edge of his palm would always forcibly alter their path and be absorbed into the ring's two mirror surfaces.

In terror, someone let out a yell, grabbed the ring and yanked it down — then, with a muffled grunt, sat down hard on the floor.

The ring seemed to have grown out of the bone. That yank just now — the fingers are connected to the heart — hurt so much he nearly seized up. Remembering that initial prick at the base of his finger, someone suddenly saw the light: motherfucker, wasn't this the legendary blood absorption master recognition?

And so he spent two days going berserk in his dog kennel.

He started with a saw blade. The white iron sheet, less than two millimeters thick — presumably white iron sheet? — wore down three saw blades to nothing, yet remained utterly unscathed. Then came the electric drill. The black and white mirror surfaces were equally unresponsive; not even a pit, and he nearly snapped his finger off.

Cradling his battered and scarred left hand, Cao Chuan, face streaming with tears, ultimately confirmed only one point: this thing had come from the heavens. Whether it was a Western divine artifact or an Eastern dharma treasure, he still couldn't be sure.

Two days passed in fear and anxiety. He felt no extraction of his essence blood, nor did he summon any system or old grandpa. Aside from impersonating a photovoltaic ring by very eco-friendly absorption of a bit of light, this mysterious item made no other movement.

Endlessly disheartened, Cao Chuan could only hang his head and go to work. No choice — if you don't die, you've got to eat. He couldn't let this damn thing scare him into paralysis, could he?

As for going to the police and then finding some experts, he never even considered it. If the ring were discovered by those people, he knew full well he'd at minimum bid farewell forever to one middle finger, and the possibility of being sliced up was infinitely large. He'd been out in the world for so many years; he wasn't that stupid.

In this state of trembling fear, another three months passed, reaching the end of December. Although there was no proof, he could inexplicably always sense that his communication with this mysterious ring was growing ever tighter! This made him even more terrified and uneasy.

Over those three months, Cao Chuan hadn't exactly been idle. Observing and sensing day and night, touching and practically licking it every day, he ultimately figured out what this thing was actually doing: it absorbed light all day and all night, not even sparing moonlight. Inside the ring's two mirror surfaces, a thin golden line had appeared in each, swimming in circles like snakes. As the days passed, the two snakes grew longer and longer, nearly biting their own tails.

He privately speculated that once the two thin lines connected into circles, some change should occur — maybe something would pop out, maybe the system would activate? Anyway, so be it. Whatever the result, all he could do now was endure.

Today he didn't go to work. He just stayed in his room the whole time, staring blankly at the ring on his hand.

The two ever-lengthening golden lines seemed about to complete their circles. Cao Chuan had a feeling his time was up. So, what should he do next? Go wait for work at the studio entrance again? Looking at this eight-square-meter room, he shook his head self-mockingly, then began tidying up.

There wasn't much to tidy. The ratty bedding got tossed; the rest was two changes of clothes, a Huawei phone, an old Lenovo laptop, and a card containing the little bit of savings he'd scraped together over these years.

After stuffing everything into his backpack, he looked back once more at the dog kennel he'd occupied for years, and Cao Chuan slowly closed the door.

After settling the rent with the landlord, he got straight onto a bus to Hangzhou.

On the way, he first called his father and mother separately, saying he'd found a foreign trade company and might be scheduled to go open markets in Africa; if they couldn't reach him for a long time, they shouldn't worry. He also took the chance to viciously wish his parents a long life together with their new partners, and so on.

The next call went to Li Douzhan, telling him to come pick him up at Huang Long.

If there was one person he could entrust with his bank card and Taobao account before kicking the bucket, that person was Li Douzhan — Cao Chuan's one and only true friend, the brother he'd grown up playing in the mud with.

Li Douzhan was born only half an hour after Cao Chuan, so he never admitted Cao Chuan was older. The two families were neighbors. His grandfather was a Buddhist, so he'd given him this ridiculous name.

As a kid, Li Douzhan followed his grandfather to Antique Street to play, and probably absorbed a bit of the flavor. After high school, the guy opened a Baggage House on Antique Street.

At first, he collected antiques all over the place, only to be swindled to the point of tears by twenty-first-century farmer uncles using fakes. Losing face and unable to survive in his old home, he drifted to the Jiangsu and Zhejiang region to fight another round. Perhaps he'd eaten enough losses to stockpile enough experience points, because Li Douzhan had been doing all right these past few years, upgrading all the way from a Baggage House to a stall owner.

When Cao Chuan left home back then, his first stop was Hangzhou to seek refuge with Li Douzhan. The two brothers discussed together and cooked up a few routines, intending to use Li Douzhan's stockpile of junk to make a quick fortune first. Who knew that Cao Chuan hadn't studied performance, his acting was too exaggerated, and on top of being young and inexperienced, several days yielded absolutely nothing.

The two of them drank a miserable round of silence together. In the end, Cao Chuan decided to go to Hengdian to chase a dream. Li Douzhan didn't say much, just tossed out half the cash he had on him. The two brothers parted in tears.

Over the years, the two brothers had more separations than reunions. Sometimes Cao Chuan would rope in a couple of group performer girls to go visit Li Douzhan, have a drink together, then turn around and go back to their respective busy lives.

Getting off at Huang Long, it was already seven in the evening. Cao Chuan spotted Li Douzhan at a glance — still that same sorry look: big pancake face, small eyes, denim from head to toe, the whole style of a weathered migrant worker.

The moment Li Douzhan saw him, he came up and threw a punch: "You dog, where are the girls? I've been duped. If I'd known, I wouldn't have come to pick you up."

Cao Chuan thought to himself that he was in no mood to coax girls over right now. He forced a smile: "I'll be staying at your place a few days this time."

Li Douzhan took in the situation, then looked at his expression. Someone who'd grown up with him could hardly fail to sense something was wrong. He asked as they walked out: "How big a mess did you get into?"

Cao Chuan shook his head: "Nothing. I just don't want to keep working in Hengdian. Came to your place first to unwind for a few days. Haven't seriously given myself a vacation in years; I'll take care of that this time."

Li Douzhan didn't press further. He knew someone's personality — looked like a straightforward guy with thick brows and big eyes, but actually carried heavy worries inside. Things he didn't want to talk about, you couldn't beat out of him.

The two of them headed straight to Qingchun Road, found an old food stall, ordered a few hot dishes first, then after eating packed four cold dishes to go, grabbed a case of beer, and went back to the place Li Douzhan rented not far away.

PS: Dear readers, I am Su Luohan. I recommend a free app that supports downloads, listening to books, zero ads, and multiple reading modes. Please follow the WeChat public account: dazhudu (long press three seconds to copy). Readers, follow it quickly!