"He was searching for a place called China. Judging from the details, we have reason to suspect that this is an unknown divine kingdom, like the legendary R'lyeh."
The meeting room was filled with smoke. Projector beams cut through the darkness, illuminating solemn faces with furrowed brows.
"China? R'lyeh?"
"What is the team's recommendation?"
"Since the target has yet to display any active aggression, we recommend sending a negotiation specialist to attempt communication without provoking the target and provide more precise intelligence for the next step."
"From the surveillance footage, we noticed that the target seems to have a certain fondness for Asians, so we recommend that the negotiation specialist be Asian."
"Asian? There seems to be an intern psychology specialist at the site."
Ning Xiuyuan sat blankly on a roadside bench, breathing in the familiar exhaust fumes. His face was as pale as gold paper, and he looked just like an ancient living corpse that had crawled out of a coffin.
The news he had just learned had utterly shattered his psychological defenses.
The most despairing thing in this world is to give someone hope, only to cruelly take it away.
He was not from this world.
Several months ago, he had still been living on Earth. One night, after passing through the Science and Technology Park, which had been plunged into darkness by a power outage, he had inexplicably entered a new world that had only just begun its industrial awakening.
He had traveled through time and space.
Compared with the romance of transmigration depicted in literary fiction,
his transmigration experience had been utterly devastating.
The difference in appearance, the incomprehensible language, and the bizarre clothing made him seem like a freak hated by both ghosts and gods, subjected to rejection and suspicious looks everywhere.
He did not even know how he had survived those first few hours after transmigrating.
His survival had been thanks to a priest of the Church of Dawn, who had taken him in.
He had become the church's Lamp Keeper.
Put simply, he was a menial servant responsible for keeping the church candles from going out.
This unremarkable job, like the work itself, illuminated his plight as he fell into an abyss.
He began studying the local language and writing, trying to integrate himself into the society while searching for the reason behind his transmigration and whether he could return to Earth.
Unexpectedly, on a pitch-black night, when he carried a lantern to the Grand Cathedral to inspect and replace the candles, he walked into the darkness once again.
Through the candlelight beneath the Crystal Lampshade, he could barely illuminate the world within three feet of himself.
When his vision suddenly brightened, he found himself in the bustling world before him.
Towering buildings, dazzling neon lights, shrill tire noise, and the surging crowds stimulated his heart to pound like a drum, leaving his mind completely blank!
After a brief daze, he abandoned the lantern and rushed into the city, searching for Asian faces in hopes of seeking help from the Chinese embassy and returning to his motherland, returning home.
But the bizarre entanglement struck him once again.
The Asians he found understood Chinese, but they had no idea that China existed.
This isn't Earth!!!
"Hello, may I sit beside you?"
A sweet greeting interrupted Ning Xiuyuan's despair.
He looked up blankly and saw an Asian girl of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a sweet appearance and dressed in a white dress, smiling brightly as she pointed at the empty seat beside him.
Ning Xiuyuan nodded distractedly and shifted his gaze away.
"My name is Ji Zijun. What about you? How should I address you?" After sitting down, the girl propped her chin up with one hand, tilted her head, and asked in a relaxed tone.
Ning Xiuyuan seemed not to hear her. His absent gaze remained fixed on the distant high-rises.
"You look really sad. Did something happen?"
"If you trust me, you can tell me about it! Maybe I can help you!"
Ji Zijun tried her best to make her voice sound calm and relaxed.
However, her back, soaked with sweat, revealed the truth of her intense nervousness and fear.
Heaven help her. As a newly graduated Master of Applied Psychology, no matter how outstanding her grades and the number of papers she had published were, they were as fragile as bubbles before a humanoid object capable of creating terrifying anomalies.
No one knew just how terrifying an independent space the Crystal Lantern he had casually thrown away had created.
Because of its incomprehensible properties, it had been temporarily classified as Keter class.
Seeing the hesitant expression of the veteran employee explaining the situation, Ji Zijun seriously suspected that even the Keter class might be merely a level intended to comfort her.
She had come to negotiate both to calm the Mysterious Person before her
and to use him to retrieve the Crystal Lantern.
"You can't help me."
Ning Xiuyuan shook his head. His eyes were dull and lifeless.
"I..."
The words reached her lips, and Ji Zijun suddenly had an epiphany. If she said the wrong thing and extinguished the last spark of hope remaining in this mysterious existence before her, he might completely lose control.
A single lantern was already this terrifying.
As the Lord of the Lantern, if he lost control, could he not reach Thaumiel class?
Therefore, she had to weigh every word carefully!
Her professional knowledge told her that what she needed to do now was give him hope, even if it was hope where none truly existed.
"We know many places..."
What are you doing, Ji Zijun?
Don't reveal anomalous information!
Don't interrupt her. She's on the front line and has the right to make judgments and choices based on the actual situation.
The tiny earpiece hidden in Ji Zijun's ear began transmitting a cacophony of voices. They were arguments from the Command Center.
At that moment, Ji Zijun acted as though she had heard nothing. Carefully weighing every word, she said slowly:
"We know many places—Hell, R'lyeh, Mirror Fog Capital, even the past and the future. We're still discovering new worlds, too. Give us some time, and perhaps we'll be able to help you find China. Can you wait patiently for a while?"
"?"
Ning Xiuyuan's heart had nearly fallen into the abyss. His pupils contracted sharply as he suddenly turned to look at the girl beside him.
Hell? R'lyeh? Mirror Fog Capital?
What, what did any of that have to do with anything?
Was she insane?
No, that wasn't right. Since he could cross between three worlds, what absurdity in this world was there that he could not accept?
In an instant, Ning Xiuyuan's eyes lit up.
"All right."
Ning Xiuyuan answered hoarsely. His soul, which had fallen into the abyss, had suddenly been caught by someone.
"Thank you for trusting me!"
That single "all right" nearly brought Ji Zijun to tears from excitement. She had made the right choice.
She had successfully calmed a potential Thaumiel-class humanoid object.
"I still don't know how to address you, sir?"
"My name is..."
Wait, how did she know that he was searching for his homeland?
She had been monitoring him!
"Arthur."
With his mind somewhat calmer, Ning Xiuyuan's reason fully returned. Cautiously, he gave the name the priest of the Church of Dawn had given him.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Arthur." Ji Zijun's large eyes narrowed.
"I'm also pleased to meet you," Ning Xiuyuan replied.
"By the way, could you retrieve your lantern?" Ji Zijun pleaded cautiously, her fragile heart instantly leaping into her throat.
"Hmm?"
"It, it's destroying our world."
Note: From lowest to highest, the containment levels are divided into four classes: Safe class, Euclid class, Keter class, and Thaumiel class. Containment levels only represent the difficulty of containment and the level of resources consumed. Please do not treat them as traditional cultivation ranks.
Finally, the worldview of this book is based on *** and Cthulhu, with a large amount of original content to be added. Please don't approach it with preconceived notions. Everything follows my settings, and I hope you enjoy it!
Before you continue