The noontime heat in Shanghu City was stifling in August and September.
Hao Shuai sat blankly on a park bench, set the lunchbox beside him, unscrewed a bottle of mineral water, and downed half of it in one go.
He tightened the cap on the remaining water and put it away, then stared blankly ahead.
On a nearby bench, a young couple were enthusiastically swapping saliva, completely oblivious to the people around them.
Hao Shuai watched them with a sour expression and thought of the love he'd just lost. Silently, he made a wish: May all lovers in the world turn out to be siblings.
As for why Hao Shuai was being so inhumane, that required going back two hours. Just two hours earlier, he'd been carrying a lovingly prepared lunchbox to bring lunch to his tenth girlfriend, whom he'd started dating at the beginning of the year.
Because his girlfriend had said she didn't want takeout, Hao Shuai had rushed back to his rented room while out running errands for work and made her a lovingly prepared lunch.
He was almost at his girlfriend's office when he spotted her from a distance, walking out of the building with her boss's arm around her waist and a blissful smile on her face. She got into a BMW and drove off.
"..."
The air had gone still.
Hao Shuai had simply wandered over to the park and sat staring blankly ahead. It was his tenth breakup, and after all ten, he'd finally come to a realization: if he couldn't have love, then he might as well become a scumbag!
Hao Shuai was twenty-three years old. He was exactly what his name suggested: handsome. At 1.85 meters tall, with the face of an idol and a fit physique he'd built up through years of working part-time jobs, he'd never lacked female attention.
But sometimes good looks couldn't put food on the table. That was especially true in modern society. Girls in junior high and high school were still at the age when they cared about looks, but by college and adulthood, looks no longer satisfied them. They started seeking material comforts.
Perhaps, at first, his girlfriends had dated him because they fancied his body. But after spending some time with him, they all realized that being handsome was useless. Did they think they could power their lives with love?
For an orphan who'd grown up in a children's home, taken out loans to pay for college tuition, relied on weekend part-time jobs for living expenses, and could only afford to rent a place after graduation—a man with no car, no home, and no savings—even treating his girlfriend to a Häagen-Dazs was a luxury. Buying her handbags, clothes, and makeup was even more out of the question.
So every relationship ended without going anywhere.
Some people might ask, "If you're so handsome, why not find a rich girlfriend?"
Well!
Hao Shuai had never considered that. As an orphan, he'd grown up with a strong sense of pride, little sense of security, and a bit of male chauvinism.
There was no way he'd live off a woman.
Well!
Unless his stomach was bad one day.
"I'm gazing up at the moon above."
Just then, a loud ringtone rang out. Hao Shuai pulled the knockoff phone from his pocket and took a look. He drew a deep breath and tapped the answer button, then greeted her with a sweet smile in his voice. "Hello~~, Sister Cheng."
"Xiao Shuai, are you at the rental? There's something I need to talk to you about," the landlady said.
"Oh, I'm out right now. What is it?"
"Your rent's due in half a month. I'll come by in a few days to collect everyone's rent. I'm just calling to remind you," the landlady said.
"All right, got it," Hao Shuai said with a smile.
"Hey, Xiao Shuai, I know work's tiring and it's hard to get by in Shanghu City. Think over what I told you a few days ago. I'm always waiting for your call," the landlady said before hanging up.
After putting his phone away, Hao Shuai let out a long breath. The smile faded from his face, replaced by worry. A few days ago, the landlady had come into his room late at night and made all sorts of blunt remarks, like, "I own more than a dozen apartments," "My husband died, and I'm a little lonely all by myself," "You don't have to work so hard," and "If your stomach's bad, eating something soft is good for you." At the time, Hao Shuai had been somewhat tempted.
But when he looked at the landlady's short, stocky figure, which weighed nearly two hundred pounds, and her greasy, round face, he could only reluctantly turn her down.
Now that she'd called again, he thought about the mere thousand yuan left in his bank account, the fifteen-hundred-yuan rent due next month, and the living expenses he'd have to cover on top of that. He'd just lost all hope in love, too. Hao Shuai really wanted to go back and tell the landlady, "My stomach's bad."
After recovering a little from his breakup, Hao Shuai decided not to waste the lunch he'd made, so he ate it himself. Then, instead of going back to his rental, he lay down on the bench to rest with his eyes closed, muttering, "I wish I had one of those systems from novels that let you travel between worlds. Then I could hop between worlds, collect all kinds of rare treasures and beautiful women, and even achieve eternal life~~~~"
As Hao Shuai lay with his eyes closed, lost in a daydream, he had no idea that a visible crack had suddenly appeared in the sky. A bead pierced through the spatial barrier and dropped straight toward him.
The moment the bead struck Hao Shuai between the eyebrows, he passed out.
By the time Hao Shuai woke up, it was already past four in the afternoon. As he came to, a message traveled from the spot between his eyebrows into his brain. From it, he learned that the bead that had hit him was the legendary Chaos Bead.
The Chaos Bead was a treasure of chaos, alongside the Divine Axe of Creation, the Jade Butterfly of Creation, and the Genesis Green Lotus, one of the Four Great Treasures of Chaos. Of Heaven's fifty paths, evolution yielded forty-nine; one escaped. That one was the Chaos Bead, capable of concealing the secrets of heaven.
The Chaos Bead could take its owner across the myriad worlds without being detected by the heavenly will of any world. It could also adjust the time flow between the real world and the myriad worlds according to its owner's strength. For now, Hao Shuai could only set it to a one-to-one ratio. It also contained an infinite space for storing things, though it couldn't hold living beings.
The Chaos Bead had vanished after Pangu created the world. Why it had fallen onto Hao Shuai's head now was anyone's guess. Maybe heaven had taken pity on him after ten breakups and sent him a consolation prize!
Once Hao Shuai understood what the Chaos Bead could do, he was so excited he could barely contain himself. It seemed heaven really had been good to him. Sure, the first twenty-three years of his life had been rough, but now he was finally about to turn things around!
Hao Shuai went to the roadside and hailed a taxi, preparing to return to his rental and test out traveling between worlds.
As for how to travel to the myriad worlds, he only had to tell the Chaos Bead in his mind which world he wanted to visit. The bead would search through space and time to establish a link. How long this took depended on the level of the target world, and was inversely proportional to Hao Shuai's strength.
In other words, the stronger Hao Shuai was, the faster the link would form. The Chaos Bead would also leave behind a spatial coordinate for any world he'd visited, allowing him to return without forming a new link.
As soon as Hao Shuai got back to his rental, he eagerly prepared to travel to his first world. But which world should he choose?
Drawing on his decade-plus of experience reading novels, then browsing various online transmigration forums and message boards, Hao Shuai finally settled on a world every transmigration newbie had to visit: Chronicle.
Hao Shuai began linking to the world of Chronicle. He also turned on his computer and watched the movie again. After all, it was an old film from 2012, and it wouldn't hurt to refresh his memory.
The movie was about a teenager named Andrew. Like most shut-in guys, he was introverted, not good with words, and mildly socially anxious. His father's beatings and his mother's serious illness made him wary of everything around him. He became an obsessive cameraman who hid behind his lens, spending all day immersed in his own little world.
To help Andrew open up and shape his future, his cousin Matt invited him to a school party. During the party, at the suggestion of Matt's friend Steve, the three of them went on a dangerous cave exploration trip in the wilderness and unexpectedly gained the ability to freely move objects with their minds. It became a turning point in their lives. Their intense curiosity and desire to show off drove them to keep challenging the limits of their new abilities, while Andrew's limitless creativity made him the best among them, the star of the party. But it didn't last. Their growing powers didn't bring them happiness. Andrew's lack of restraint led him to take things further and further, until he set out on an irreversible path of destruction.
Thinking about how the three protagonists had developed telekinesis and high-speed flight after gaining their powers, Hao Shuai could practically feel himself drooling.
And that was with the Superpower Crystal split among the three of them. Just imagine if one person had used it alone. Wouldn't their powers be~~~
Before you continue