Hand it over to the country.

Hand it over to the country.

He saw that a large chunk of latex paint had peeled off the wall of a room that had been newly renovated not long ago. The torn wallpaper hung halfway in the air, and fine cracks had already appeared on the wall at some point, resembling a spiderweb.

Cheng Yun's heart sank, and he turned and ran.

There was no earthquake right now, nor could there be such a strong earthquake in Jinguan City. It was merely a wall cracking, but it also didn't look like that hotel decoration company had cheated his parents out of their money, because the walls of this building had been built more than a dozen years ago.

Yet the fact that the wall had cracked remained, and no matter what, he should not continue standing here. As for the reason, it wouldn't be too late to investigate after coming back down later to assess the situation!

However, the moment he took a single step, the ground began to shake violently, and the fine cracks on the walls abruptly widened. The characteristics of an earthquake only then began to manifest.

The entire room felt as though it were about to be torn apart by a massive force!

Cheng Yun swiftly grabbed the doorknob and twisted it, then tried hard to pull the door open. Yet veins bulged on his arms, and no matter what, he could not pull this door open.

"Shit!"

He cursed angrily, glanced back, and saw that at some point, the walls and ceiling behind him were already covered in horrifying, jagged fissures. Inside the fissures was a pitch-black abyss, seemingly capable of devouring people. Shreds of wallpaper fluttered in the air, drifting down in swarms, while latex paint and putty powder showered down. It felt as though his doom had arrived.

Suddenly, with a deafening crash, a chunk of the ceiling fell right in front of him, raising a blinding cloud of dust!

"Cough, cough!"

Cheng Yun was still pulling hard on the door, exerting all his strength, but the door seemed to have jammed due to the deformation of the wall, remaining completely immovable.

Finally giving up, he sprinted to a nearby corner, curled up with his head in his arms, and abandoned any thoughts of running outside.

This was the boundary between the second and third floors; with the tremors this intense, the entire building probably wouldn't survive. Having missed the initial window of opportunity, running outside now was tantamount to courting death.

He only hoped that Cheng Yan could also survive safely against the odds, and that the collapsed ceiling and wall here would form a triangular space with the wall so he could be rescued after enduring a period of starvation.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide in utter shock.

By this time, the entire room was riddled with massive fissures from top to bottom, yet it had not collapsed. Inside the fissures was pitch-black nothingness, where nothing could be seen!

His senses told him that the building hadn't collapsed either!

Shreds of wallpaper were still fluttering in the air, yet they gradually vanished into thin air. Some wall sections were surrounded by fissures on all sides, yet remained suspended in place as if supported by some mysterious force. The door upon which he had initially pinned his hopes of escape also silently distorted, revealing a hole just large enough for him to crawl through, even though there was no fractured wall pressing against it, and pitch-black darkness devoid of the faintest trace of light still lay beyond the door.

"Buzz..."

Only then did the lights finally extinguish completely.

The room plunged into total darkness.

Only now did Cheng Yun realize that the darkness within those previous fissures was a darkness that even light could not pierce.

He realized that he might have plunged into a situation beyond his comprehension—perhaps one of those supernatural events he had never believed in, or perhaps simply a dream.

Let it just be a dream.

The darkness did not last long; perhaps struck by a falling piece of ceiling, he lost consciousness with a loud thud.

It was like closing one's eyes and opening them again.

Whether it had been a split second or a long time, there was already light before his eyes—

Cheng Yun found himself in a boundless space, resembling the depths of desolate outer space. Beneath his feet, he seemed to be treading on a layer of completely transparent glass, and beneath the glass lay endless darkness, much like the overhead and the surroundings. Ahead stood an upright, elliptical, blue glowing entity. It seemed to have no physical form and was illusory, with a faint, hazy mist swirling across its surface. It was the sole light source in this space.

Other than that, not a single speck of dust or point of light could be seen. The entire space contained only himself and this standing, elliptical glowing entity. The deep blue light could not reach the edges, nor were there any objects for it to reflect off of, and this realm remained dark and boundless.

Cheng Yun stood blankly with his mouth agape. At this very moment, he should have been letting his imagination run wild, yet not a single stray thought could arise in his heart.

Aside from shock, there was only utter blankness.

The feeling this space gave him was very strange, resembling another world, yet also feeling like the center of the universe, as if it had existed since the dawn of creation.

And what was even more terrifying was that he felt as though he had been here ever since the birth of this space.

There was a feeling of... integration.

Cheng Yun stood in a daze for a long time before recovering his wits, yet he remained completely clueless—he had no idea what had happened, nor where he currently was. Even though he could sense that glowing entity from afar, it felt as though he and it shared the exact same origin.

"What... on earth is going on?" Cheng Yun felt as though some surreal circumstance had descended upon him.

Then, as if he had known what to do all along, he reached out and made a pulling gesture in the empty air, actually ripping open a door right in the void!

Bright light filtered in from outside the door, and a carpeted hallway materialized before him.

Cheng Yun stared in a daze once more; it was the hotel stairwell.

Without a second thought, he abandoned all hesitation, darted out, and ran clatteringly down the stairs.

Life-altering changes, fortuitous encounters—he couldn't care less about any of that! With his parents having just passed away and himself still alive, he was already thoroughly satisfied. If he had truly died just now, he didn't know how Cheng Yan—that big girl with such a difficult and prickly personality—would manage to go on living in this world.

Rushing breathlessly to the first-floor storefront, he slumped onto the sofa, cast a lingering look of dread back toward the stairwell, took a few deep breaths, glanced around, and poured himself a glass of water to drink.

The earthquake was clearly fake; Jinguan's geological structure couldn't possibly produce such a massive earthquake, and all of this was brought about by that space and the glowing entity. Yet to this day, he still had no idea what had happened.

That glowing entity could not speak, nor did anyone tell him what the situation was, and he didn't even know whether it was good or bad.

After finishing the glass of water, his inner state gradually calmed down.

Judging by his experience, the probability of it being a bad thing seemed very low, but neither could he perceive the shadow of any benefits.

He pulled out his phone and glanced at it; the time displayed the morning of the next day, with full signal bars.

He had spent the entire night unconscious.

No calls, no text messages.

Cheng Yun couldn't help letting out a sigh. Having not returned for the entire night, that girl hadn't even offered a single word of greeting. Was she really his only remaining close relative in this world or not? So much for sticking together through thick and thin!

Just as he mustered the courage to head back upstairs for a closer investigation, his phone rang.

It was a call from Cheng Yan.

Cheng Yun quickly answered: "Hello?"

"I called you last night to ask why you hadn't come back, but you were out of service area," Cheng Yan said straight to the point, her voice sounding somewhat fatigued. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I'm alright, I just... things got a bit complicated over here last night, and I was busy quite late, so I slept at the hotel," Cheng Yun explained, feeling rather awkward.

"You didn't go out drinking, did you?" Cheng Yan frowned, but she didn't press further and went straight to the point. "Are you coming back for lunch, or should I order takeout for you?"

"...There's still food in the fridge, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'll come back and cook." Cheng Yun checked the time; it was only ten-thirty, and taking a taxi back from here would be very quick.

"Okay."

With that, Cheng Yan hung up the phone.

Cheng Yun put down his phone, shook his head helplessly, and stood up to leave, though he couldn't help glancing back. He took a deep breath, suddenly feeling an extraordinary wave of physical and mental exhaustion.

Walking out, as he locked the door, he couldn't help turning back and walking step by step to the outside of the storage room.

That door was tightly shut, completely identical to yesterday.

Cheng Yun took a deep breath, reached out to grip the doorknob, hesitated for a long time, and finally gritted his teeth to open the door.

Pitch-black darkness lay within, the space stretched endlessly, and an elliptical glowing entity floated and stood quietly, wreathed in lingering mist.

Cheng Yun swallowed an imperceptible gulp of saliva.

It looked like bedsheets, duvet covers, and toiletries would all need to be bought anew!

He might as well just report it to the country.

Soon, he returned home.

Cheng Yan was lying on the sofa wearing a pair of light blue denim shorts paired with a pure white short-sleeved t-shirt, the hem of the t-shirt tucked into her shorts. With a pair of snow-white, jade-like long legs crossed, she was holding a book and reading.

She stood at one meter seven, tall with long legs, high looks, and high intelligence; her only flaws were her aloof personality and prickly temper.

Cheng Yun greeted her, but she gave him the cold shoulder, though Cheng Yun didn't mind. He washed his hands, rummaged through the refrigerator for ingredients for a while, and then headed into the kitchen to start preparing.

This apartment spanned nearly two hundred square meters and had been purchased about ten years ago. At the time, Professors Cheng Jianye and An Lan were running a tutoring school off-campus that kept expanding in scale and brought in a hefty income, and buying this apartment back then had been quite cheap, turning into a massive bargain by now.

Regrettably, the state later cracked down heavily. As a nationally renowned institution of higher education, Yizhou University responded swiftly to national policies, forcing the tutoring school run by the two professors to close down.

Cheng Yun sliced the meat stroke by stroke, the kitchen knife and cutting board colliding with crisp, rapid thuds as he focused entirely on the task.

This was a special period, and his heart was already far too exhausted. Thus, even after such unbelievable events had just transpired, he was too tired to spare the mental energy to dwell on them.

These past ten-odd days had formed a habit in him of avoiding deep contemplation. Because if he couldn't help but dwell on things during these dozen days spent staying in this house, any single item might evoke the grief of losing both parents and stir up past memories. He would lapse into a daze for a long time, wasting time and unable to extricate himself.

Perhaps the saddest part of losing a family member was not the moment of their passing, but rather after their remains were cremated and their ashes buried. In subsequent daily life, any trivial detail around oneself could at any moment remind us that our dearest loved ones had departed from us far away. Every such moment was a process of encountering the past, and upon sobering up, it felt as though flesh and blood were being stripped away from one's bones.

The half-pack of cigarettes left on the coffee table, the impeccably made bed that no one would ever enter again, the green dill fluttering in the wind on the windowsill, the monthly roses blooming just right, and the stillness in the dead of night...

All of these could plunge a person into memories.

A dish of shredded pork with pickled ginger, a plate of stir-fried phoenix-tail greens, two bowls of rice—the two of them ate in silence with their heads down.

When the meal was nearly finished, Cheng Yan held a chopstick in her mouth, scrutinized Cheng Yun for a moment, and then said coldly: "You've been somewhat absent-minded today!"

Cheng Yun looked up and frowned at her: "Huh?"

Seeing him clearly spaced out, Cheng Yan frowned further, pressed her lips together, and said, "I said, you're a bit absent-minded today."

"Uh..." Cheng Yun was stunned, then let out a trace of a gratified smile. "To think you can actually tell I'm absent-minded; it seems you really have grown up..."

"Hey!" Cheng Yan rolled her eyes and gave her bowl two light taps with her chopsticks to interrupt him. To think she had assumed this guy was suffering from grief and extreme fatigue, fearing he wouldn't be able to pull himself together, and had prepared to patiently comfort him with a word or two!

"Didn't you taste that the dishes you cooked were one of them very salty and the other heavily loaded with MSG?" She pointed at the dishes with her chopsticks.

"..."

Cheng Yun stood up, put down his chopsticks, and said, "There's still some business at the hotel, I need to head over there. You wash the dishes."

He had already made up his mind to get to the bottom of this.

"Okay," Cheng Yan replied indifferently. Seeming slightly uneasy, she added a supplementary remark, "Remember to tell me if you run into trouble, and if there's anything you don't understand, you can ask me too."

Cheng Yun's expression darkened slightly, but he still squeezed out a smile and replied, "You can check your test scores tonight, right? Make sure to give me a call once you get them. Also, even though you've graduated from high school, university doesn't mean slack time. No matter which university you get into, you need to study hard, understand?"

This time it was Cheng Yan's turn to darken her face.

"Can you stop speaking to me in that parental tone?"

"Alright, but please also remember that I am the older brother and you are the younger sister! Furthermore, as of now, I am your legal guardian, and you chose that yourself."

"Ridiculous, do you think I need you to worry about me?" After uttering a defiant retort, Cheng Yan began clearing away the bowls and chopsticks with a dark expression. Her exaggerated movements clearly signaled her inner dissatisfaction.

Indeed, she could have chosen their grandfather in the countryside to be her guardian, but she ultimately chose Cheng Yun. Everyone had respected her wishes, and the matter was thus settled. When making that choice back then, she had anticipated that Cheng Yun would one day use this to badger her, but he wouldn't be able to do it for much longer; in another half a year or so, she would officially turn eighteen and reach adulthood.

Or, if she could prove her financial independence, she could shake off that guy ahead of schedule—

That guy had been financially independent ever since his freshman year and apparently earned quite a bit of money in university, so there was no reason she couldn't do the same.

Cheng Yun returned to Anju Hotel once more, stepping into the original storage room yet again.

Along the way, he had even half-believed that this was merely an illusion or a dream of his own, and that perhaps opening the door once more would reveal brand-new replacement bedsheets, duvet covers, toiletries, and cleaning supplies. Yet the reality was that that space still existed, and the original contents of the storage room were destined to be replaced.

Cheng Yun grasped the empty air to close the door, then pulled empty air to open it again, repeating the motion back and forth several times.

"Is it really just a massive storage room?"

He muttered in a voice only he could hear, terrified that if he spoke too loudly, whoever might hear him would think he was being presumptuous.

Then, parting his feet, he looked down into the void beneath his feet, forced himself to calm down first, and then plucked up his courage to walk over and stand before that glowing entity.

"What on earth are you... May I ask your esteemed name, sir?"

"Hello?"

"Power on!"

"System?"

Absolute silence!

Following that, Cheng Yun tried all sorts of methods to test this space and the glowing entity.

The ground beneath his feet was actually a void; when he crouched down and reached out to touch it, his hand extended downward with ease, yet when he stepped on it, it felt extremely solid, and he would not fall through.

This left him feeling exceedingly strange.

Compared to something "mystical," he found it more akin to "science fiction."

And just as it appeared, this elliptical, deep blue glowing entity was illusory and lacked physical form—a belt could be pushed right into it and pulled back out intact.

Even a hand could be thrust inside, and most of the time nothing could be felt at all, but on one occasion, Cheng Yun touched...

Water!

That's right, water, which startled him into hastily retracting his hand.

This water smelled odorless and seemed to be ordinary water, but he couldn't verify it.

This led him to suspect that this deep blue glowing entity was likely connected to some other location, and that this location was constantly shifting—unless someone on the other end had just drawn a cup of water for him to touch.

"A Rosen bridge? Is that what this looks like?"

"Or perhaps a mystical spatial gateway?"

"Or maybe I should just hand it over to the country!"

Cheng Yun muttered to himself, while a sudden flutter stirred in his heart, a sensation that felt utterly inexplicable to him.

Consequently, a blank expression surfaced on his face once more.

An adolescent boy experiencing his first time would sigh: Ah, so this is what that feeling is like!... Yet he didn't even know what name to give to this sensation.

Before he had time to process this unfamiliar feeling, he heard an indistinct sound drifting over, with the source being none other than the glowing entity.

The rhythm was generally steady with slight fluctuations, and the syllable changes were extremely rapid, unlike any language he was familiar with. It sounded like someone chanting—an ancient voice, continuous, gradually shifting from distant to near, from blurred to clear...

Cheng Yun hastily pulled at the empty air to open the door, standing by the edge of the threshold with a cautious gaze fixed on the glowing entity, ready at any moment to bolt through the door and slam it shut!

Suddenly, the chanting halted!

A slightly aged hand reached out from within the glowing entity, gripping its outer edge. At the same time, dense, intricate symbols abruptly materialized within the dark space, swirling haphazardly through the air.

His eyes widened, his black pupils reflecting the blue elliptical glowing entity and the dancing, mystical symbols.

A foot stepped across the boundary!

The shoe looked rather peculiar, patched with a patch.

Cheng Yun lowered his gaze to watch.

When both feet appeared simultaneously and he raised his head, he saw that a person was already standing before the glowing entity. That individual was staring calmly right at him with a benevolent expression, while countless obscure symbols swirled endlessly around him, numbering beyond count and stretching far into the distance within the dark space.

Gulp!

Cheng Yun swallowed another mouthful of saliva.

He quickly squeezed out, whipped around, and slammed the door shut with a bang! In his final fleeting glance, he caught sight of a look of astonishment on the old man's face.

Leaning his back against the door, he panted heavily.

That was terrifying as hell!

Yet he didn't rush to leave; instead, he pressed his ear against the security door to listen to the movement inside.

Nothing could be heard.

There was no knocking either.

Indeed, this door was invisible from the inside—it was even illusory and non-existent. Whenever he wanted to open the door, no matter where he stood, a casual pull would open it, but he wasn't certain whether that old man possessed that capability.

He went downstairs, drank a glass of water to steady his nerves, and sat for a long time before convincing himself that the old man, who looked like an otherworldly vagrant, truly couldn't open that door.

In other words, that door was very likely something only he had the ability to open. If that was the case, his intuition hadn't been wrong—that space could perhaps be considered his "half-home turf."

Mn, half.

Cheng Yun had wrestled for a good while over whether or not to hand it over to the state, and only after deciding that the old man didn't seem like a bad person did he pluck up his courage again and decide to go up and take a look.

Curiosity killed the cat.

He opened the door a crack and calmly peeked inside. Seeing nothing at all, he then felt reassured enough to widen the gap.

Just then, a force suddenly appeared out of thin air, forcibly pulling him inside without the slightest ability on his part to resist.

A moments later—

The elderly man stood before him, leaning on a staff embedded with an apple-sized crystal ball. His expression remained calm, and his eyes were already somewhat clouded, yet they flickered with an unmatchable brilliance of wisdom as he looked at him and said, "*&%￥#￥%#...*"

Cheng Yun: "???"

The old man frowned slightly, then nodded and raised his staff slightly. A blue light flashed across that crystal ball.

"My name is Kun Zhen, and I am probably... a spellcaster from another world. Very pleased to meet you."

"???"

Cheng Yun turned his head to stare at him, completely baffled.