Past and Present Lives

In his sleep, Su Shijie seemed to dream of the past—his previous life and this one.

Though he had not been born into a wealthy family in his previous life, both his parents had been salaried workers.

But because his parents had been diligent and frugal, Su Shijie, their only child, had still lived without worries over food or clothing. The family had some savings—not enough to get rich, but enough to ensure they would never starve.

That was precisely what had fostered Su Shijie's laid-back personality.

After graduating from a third-rate university, he had taken civil service exams, worked in an electronics factory, joined a company, and delivered Takeout.

But whenever he studied for exams, he would fish for three days and dry the nets for two. When he worked, earning a salary of three thousand, he had once slapped a plate of fish-fragrant shredded pork right into his boss's face for refusing overtime.

He had lived in a dormitory provided by a shady rental agent, until the agent had eventually begged him to move out.

When he became a freelance delivery rider, he ate so much Takeout that he gained thirty pounds in half a year. In the end, he could only regretfully take off his yellow uniform, enter a hospital room, and transmigrate into this world...

Though the place he lived in was terrible and filled with bizarre, eerie things, the era before him was genuinely a futuristic age of high technology and science fiction.

Roughly a thousand years ago—Year One of the Earth calendar—a mass of dark energy known as psionic energy had covered the Solar System. Human civilization had been passively brought into the view of interstellar civilizations and granted around a century of developmental protection.

During that protected period, the nations of parallel-universe Earth completed the integration of a community with a shared future for humanity. Their various cultures deeply merged. For example, because Chinese characters carried more information, they became the unified script, while certain forms of address and customs began blending East and West.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Earth Federation sent large numbers of overseas students to study under various interstellar civilizations under the favorable policies of the protected period.

Its technological level advanced explosively. Within a century, it completed construction of Earth's Orbital City and the Moon Space City, and even built an advance base on Mars.

But in the first year after the protected period ended, the well-prepared and confident Earth Federation was attacked by Interstellar Raiders. Just one group of Interstellar Raiders had required them to nearly resort to mutual destruction through self-destruction before they could barely drive it back.

The entire civilization suffered a devastating blow, and the surface became a wasteland.

In the end, through the mediation of some overseas students, the long-term leasing of the Sun—which was covered in psionic energy and could steadily produce Spirit Crystals—and the sale of ownership rights to other psionic-energy-covered planets in the Solar System, humanity received the protection of a Sovereign Civilization as a vassal civilization and survived the difficult years that followed.

That destruction had sent Earth into the wasteland era. A thousand years later, society had developed into a special model centered around Floating Cities and extending outward from shelters as its bases.

Each city-state governed itself, while external direction was determined through the Federal Parliament.

The "underground parking lot" where Su Shijie currently lived was Residential Zone 2 of Shelter P-314, under the jurisdiction of Prosperous Sky City three hundred kilometers away.

Residential Zone 2 was 1.2 kilometers from Shelter P-314. One could reach it on foot through the relatively safe subway tunnels, entering from the abandoned subway station outside the residential zone.

The evil spirit he had eaten earlier was also a special product that had appeared after psionic energy covered the world.

Based on the materials Su Shijie had studied, he could determine that the main reason Earth civilization had received that precious protected period was not because interstellar civilizations cared about "civilization."

Rather, beyond the galaxies, outside the regions of dense matter, there existed an Enemy of Order in the Dark Starfield known as the Evil Gods.

These Evil Gods were embodiments of chaos itself. They had no logic, were indescribable, and their actions had neither purpose nor pattern. They did not even possess "hostility."

Yet their very chaotic existence passively brought many devastating disasters to ordered civilizations.

And when a civilization was catastrophically destroyed, it could easily draw the attention of those chaotic Evil Gods, resulting in contamination on a galactic or even starfield scale.

Under the illumination of stars, an Evil God passing by and being "shone upon" might leave behind a projection that fell onto a planet, thus creating a Contamination Source.

This would give rise to pollutants such as evil spirits, Wicked Anomalies, and evil objects.

The one he had eaten earlier had been an evil spirit formed when a Spiritual Creature was contaminated after death. It was an incorporeal entity, yet it could shift between the tangible and intangible.

After transmigrating into this world, before too many memories of his previous life had awakened, Su Shijie had actually been quite hardworking.

Although the essence of the Evil Gods within him had not awakened at the time, it had passively bestowed considerable talent upon Su Shijie. He possessed an almost photographic memory, could perform multiplication, division, and root extraction on arbitrary nine-digit numbers without tricks, and could brute-force his way through mazes using exhaustive search.

Though memory and computational ability did not represent intelligence or emotional intelligence—if he could not think of something, no amount of computing power would help him think of it—it was still enough to demonstrate the strength of Su Shijie's innate hardware.

His talent in cultivation and mental capacity was similarly exceptional.

At the age of ten, under the guidance of Su Ren, his father in this life, he formally began the psionic Gene Imbuement stage of Gene Evolution. At eleven, he had already reached Mortal Rank 6, leaving his father utterly astonished.

All sorts of confidentiality measures and training plans were arranged, simply waiting for him to make a spectacular debut.

Then, as more memories returned and he came into contact with immersive online games, the "contamination" grew increasingly severe. After reaching Mortal Rank 7 at twelve, his soul's enhancement made him even more sensitive and afraid of pain. He had been stuck at Mortal Rank 7 ever since.

Su Shijie, who loved novels, had once believed that if he acquired an effective cultivation method, he would surely strive tirelessly and pay any price for immortality.

But as his memories awakened, the sensations amplified during psionic guidance—the agony of having every gene in his body undergo Gene Imbuement, a feeling like his entire body was covered in eggs that were all being kicked at once—had left him too scared to raise even one more rank after turning twelve.

Instead, he had tried to earn enough through online games to purchase a painless Gene Potion that would take him all the way in one step.

Although evolving directly through Gene Potions would result in substantially lower combat power, there was no fundamental difference. It could still greatly increase lifespan and all manner of baseline attributes.

The process might be slower than cultivating diligently himself, but it was steady enough and painless.

He had never intended to become a combat-oriented talent anyway. Wasn't living in a peaceful region better?

Online games themselves were also one of the primary ways human civilization earned foreign currency. Free players were inherently value-added services for paying players.

Thus, playing games was encouraged. One could even gain many benefits through gaming. If Su Shijie had not possessed such high cultivation talent, along with the strategic gaming experience accumulated during his previous life's information-explosion era, the speed at which he earned money through games would not have been inferior to—or might even have exceeded—the returns from other forms of hard work.

Otherwise, such an application would not have existed among the shelter's limited number of learning helmets. Aside from Advanced Class students, not just anyone was qualified to use those helmets so easily.

His father in this life was a powerful expert at Late Awakened Rank 9. Aside from his formidable strength, his status was likely no lower than that of a town mayor in Su Shijie's previous life.

Every one of his siblings was talented, so there was no need to worry and no pressing pressure.

Just three days ago, he had gained eligibility to purchase a Gene Potion accumulated through online gaming that could directly bring Su Shijie to Awakened Rank in a single step. It could be bought directly in Prosperous Sky City.

He had already asked his father, a Late Awakened Rank 9 expert, to retrieve it for him.

According to Su Shijie's original plan, although it could not compare to diligent cultivation, the age at which he reached Awakened Rank would definitely count as young and promising.

Not everyone possessed sufficient talent for cultivation.

At Shelter P-314, an Awakened Rank individual could already be considered above ordinary people, and he was only eighteen!

It was like choosing between doing nothing but playing games for a daily income of ten thousand, or working twelve hours every day for a daily income of one million.

But all those original views had vanished like smoke after the memories from before his death in his previous life returned, as well as his earlier near-death encounter with an evil spirit...

"Big sis, what happened to him?"

In his dazed state, Su Shijie faintly heard a voice that seemed to come from the distant horizon. Soft and timid, it should have been his younger brother, Bai Congcong.

"I don't know. Get him back onto the bed first. Did he do something awful again? He even passed out!"

The slightly angry voice belonged to Bai Congcong's twin sister, Bai Xinxin, his ill-tempered younger sister.

"There's blood!"

Bai Congcong sounded rather frightened.

"He even coughed up blood? Unbelievable!"

Then Su Shijie felt a pair of small hands lift him onto the bed with brute force.

The painful sensation of steel plates pressing against him had to be his younger sister.

Su Shijie wanted to wake up, but his eyelids simply would not open. It felt like sleep paralysis.

Fortunately, perhaps because the essence of the Evil Gods within him was awakening, his energy recovered at a considerable speed. Though it had only been a short while, he could clearly feel every aspect of himself recovering.

Mm, his younger sister was probably angry. Her emotions were stimulating him.

The amount of emotion he absorbed was utterly incomparable to devouring an evil spirit. The amount he had passively accumulated over eighteen years was only about equal to that one evil spirit, and together they had completed his previous Bloodline Transformation.

Compared to the amount needed for the next Bloodline Transformation—roughly five evil spirits' worth—the progress bar had not visibly moved at all.

Even with his current level of control, he could not distinguish any difference.

But when it came to recovering, it seemed quite fast.

Through Su Shijie's struggle, he gradually broke free of that state and opened his tired eyes.

Before him stood two doll-like little brats, around fourteen or fifteen years old and about 1.5 meters tall. Their skin was as white as snow, their hair silver, their eyes red, and their delicate faces identical. The only difference was that one had left-swept bangs, while the other had right-swept bangs.

The one with left-swept bangs was his younger brother, Bai Congcong. He had a soft, timid personality, and worry currently filled his face. Everyone liked him.

The one with right-swept bangs was his younger sister, Bai Xinxin. She and Su Shijie had fought from childhood until he could no longer beat her, after which their physical fights stopped and turned into verbal sparring.

In the memories of his previous life, he had often fantasized about having a little sister. But after growing up alongside his older and younger sisters in this life, even though both were beautiful, he had never been able to see them as women.

Especially his younger sister—she was annoying as hell!

She had to compete for everything.

Of course, if they went too long without seeing each other, he would miss her. And if anyone was going to bully her, only he was allowed to do it.

But she was still annoying as hell!

I'll naturally work some of the relevant setting details into the free public period...