Second Chapter: Rotten Plank

By the time school let out that afternoon, Chen Shouyi had finally escaped his two rotten friends' invitations to go play at an internet café and was riding his bicycle home alone.

"Dad, Mom, I'm back."

It was still early for dinner, before the busiest time of day. There wasn't a single customer in the restaurant. Mother Chen sat behind the cashier, pressing the calculator again and again without looking up.

"Hungry? If you are, have your dad make you a rice dish first."

Restaurants always ate dinner early, because the usual mealtime was often the busiest time of day.

"Let's wait for Little Sis and eat together!" Chen Shouyi dropped his schoolbag and said listlessly.

"Then stop standing around here and go back to your room to do your homework!" Mother Chen—Jiang Fen—shot him a look and said with undisguised disgust.

"I don't have much homework today. I finished it ages ago."

"Then help your dad gut the fish. With grades like yours, I'm not counting on you for much."

Chen Shouyi was used to being beaten down. He had always accepted whatever came his way, so he showed no reaction at all and obediently ran into the kitchen.

As he prepared the ingredients, Chen Dawei said with a smile, "Don't listen to your mother. Go back to your room and study properly. There's only a year left until the college entrance exam. A second-tier university might be out of reach, but I think you can still fight for a third-tier one!"

"Who told you to have a son this stupid? It's not like I haven't worked hard, but if I can't do well, what else can I do?" Chen Shouyi couldn't help grumbling under his breath. He hadn't taken a single day off during summer vacation, spending all his time attending tutoring classes, yet his grades had barely improved.

He had feared his mother most since he was little. He could only say such things to his father; he would never, ever dare say them to his mother.

As he spoke, he grabbed a fish, knocked it unconscious, and expertly began scraping off its scales.

"You'll have to ask your mother about that. When she was pregnant, she refused to stay put and insisted on running around in the fields. Then she took a fall and gave birth to you prematurely." Chen Dawei had a good temperament and spoke with a broad grin.

Compared to his clever second child, he preferred this silly son of his. This son took after him.

"So now this is my fault?" Mother Chen, who was tallying accounts up front, immediately raised her voice when she heard Chen Dawei. "Think about it! I'd only just gotten pregnant when the busy farming season began. If I didn't bring you all water, would you have wanted to die of thirst?"

"Who said it was your fault!" Chen Dawei's knife, which had been slicing meat, paused at once. He hurriedly explained.

Chen Shouyi squeezed out a schadenfreude-filled smile.

In this family, yin flourished while yang withered. His mother held the highest position, and her word was law. His father could only rank third, with his little sister ahead of him. Naturally, Chen Shouyi himself was the most useless of all.

"Hiss!"

Perhaps his delight had invited misfortune. Chen Shouyi accidentally pressed too hard with the knife while scraping the fish, slicing open his finger. Blood soon flowed freely.

"I told you not to do it. Hurry and wash it. The bandages are under the tea table in the upstairs living room." Chen Dawei glanced over and hurriedly said.

With his hand injured, Chen Shouyi naturally couldn't keep working. He quickly washed it, then walked slowly upstairs.

His family lived in a self-built house along the street, with the family quarters upstairs and the restaurant downstairs. When it had first been built, the area had still been rural outskirts. Over the years, as the city expanded, the house had grown more and more valuable.

He went upstairs, found a bandage, and had just finished applying it when he heard his little sister's sugary voice floating up from downstairs.

Hearing the starkly different way Mother Chen treated her daughter and him, Chen Shouyi secretly curled his lips.

What a suck-up!

Though he seemed to protect his sister so much in public, the truth was that the two of them had never gotten along particularly well.

As children, they had fought over toys, snacks, and their parents' affection. After growing up, they competed over grades and certificates.

His sister's existence always made him feel utterly worthless, like a walking piece of trash.

What saddened him most was that when they were little and he couldn't beat her in a scramble, he could at least beat her until she cried. Now, even that was beyond his power.

She was already a quasi-Martial Apprentice. Even if she let him have one hand, she could still crush him.

"Bro, Mom said you cut your hand while gutting fish!" His little sister, Chen Xingyue, soon came upstairs and said with a beaming smile.

Chen Xingyue wore her hair in a ponytail. Her skin was fair, and she looked charming, delicate, and full of vitality.

But only Chen Shouyi knew how malicious his little sister could be.

"It's nothing. I only scraped off a little skin!" Chen Shouyi tried to put on the dignity of an older brother and said indifferently. From her expression, he could see the gloating in her eyes.

Chen Xingyue didn't press him for details. She picked up the remote and turned on the television.

"As everyone knows, the otherworld is a world ruled by gods. Its society remains in an uncivilized state, resembling the period between humanity's early Stone Age and Bronze Age. However, recent reports from the Explorers' expeditions indicate that the otherworld is undergoing a drastic transformation of the times.

We now have renowned sociologist Professor Luo here to provide a detailed analysis.

..."

Chen Shouyi had always been extremely interested in programs about the otherworld, so he simply sat down on the sofa and watched with great interest. After a while, he turned his head and asked in puzzlement, "Why aren't you doing your homework today?"

Chen Xingyue kept staring at the screen, her face expressionless. "I've been granted admission to Capital Martial Arts Academy."

"What!" Chen Shouyi turned his head in shock. His words came out in a stammer. "Y-you've already passed the Martial Apprentice examination?"

"Not yet, but I'm close. My teacher estimates that after another month of practice, I'll be able to pass."

"But..."

"This year, the school has thirty guaranteed-admission slots. Three are allocated to first-year students, and I'm one of them." Before Chen Shouyi could ask, Chen Xingyue immediately cut him off.

Her calm, matter-of-fact tone nearly made Chen Shouyi choke on his own breath.

Martial Arts Academy enrollment and the college entrance exam took place at different times, with the academy recruiting in spring. That meant his sister, who was two years younger than him, would graduate from high school half a year before he did.

"You haven't told Dad and Mom?"

"Of course I have to tell them tonight about something this important!" Chen Xingyue said.

Chen Shouyi asked sourly, "Then why did you tell me first?"

"Because you're my real brother, of course. Good news should be shared with you first!" Chen Xingyue finally broke and broke into a huge grin.

What an infuriating little sister. Her heart must be black.

Chen Shouyi was battered from head to toe by the blow, but he still struggled to control his twisting facial muscles. He shut his mouth. If he listened to her any longer, he feared he might suppress himself into an internal injury.

He stared fixedly at the television, but the program he had just been enjoying now seemed utterly flavorless. Thinking of his bleak future, he could no longer sit still. He picked up his schoolbag.

"I'm going to study."

"Dinner's almost ready!"

"I'm not eating... Uh, bring it to my bedroom for me later."

Once he reached his bedroom and closed the door, Chen Shouyi immediately looked dejected. Why were the girls in his class so adorably cute, while his own little sister was so detestable?

This was blatant bragging, rubbing salt into his wounds!

He took his math textbook from his schoolbag, but his mind was so agitated that he couldn't absorb a single word.

He pushed the math book aside and walked over to the display cabinet in his bedroom, intending to change his mood.

The display cabinet was his bookshelf as well as his collection room. Apart from various reference books and literary collections, it also housed quite a few objects in the style of the otherworld. These things were his favorites.

A Bronze Axe, a Leather Shield, several Stone Slabs carved with mysterious totems, and several strangely styled Wooden Tokens gave off an aura of primordial wilderness.

However, they were all imitation pieces bought from craft shops. Even a layman like Chen Shouyi could tell at a glance.

The Bronze Axe was clearly made from industrially smelted metal. The shield was tanned from old cowhide. As for the totems on the Stone Slabs, they showed no trace of the passage of time whatsoever, and even the stone was ordinary granite found all over Earth.

Still, not every item was an imitation. There was one piece that Chen Shouyi suspected was an authentic product of the otherworld.

It was a Rotten Plank.

It was dark in color and in terrible condition, almost completely rotten. It was riddled with holes, as though termites had eaten through it. This phenomenon suggested that it had originally been some kind of supernatural object, with an extraordinary origin and a value beyond measure.

After reaching Earth, the supernatural forces within it had collapsed, causing the material to rapidly decay.

It had become a genuine Rotten Plank. Even if it were thrown onto the ground, no one would pick it up if it fell into the hands of someone who didn't know its worth.

In fact, that was exactly what had happened. Chen Shouyi had found this Rotten Plank while passing a demolition site and had instantly regarded it as a priceless treasure.

He opened the cabinet and took out the Rotten Plank.

Under the corrosion of the laws of this universe, the plank's interior had become riddled with holes, but he could still sense that its material remained extraordinarily hard, faintly revealing the extraordinary nature of its original form.

On the plank's mottled surface, several mysterious images could faintly be seen.

He had studied them before. They were narrative pictures, the same form used by many of Earth's ancient murals. They seemed to depict the major stages of development in an otherworldly civilization.

The first time the humans of that world used fire.

The first time they used writing.

In the upper-left corner of every image was a mysterious and complicated emblem. Each one was different. As someone who often watched programs explaining the otherworld, Chen Shouyi knew perfectly well that these were the insignias of the otherworld's gods—and there was more than one of them.

Unfortunately, none of that was useful. No matter how mysterious an object was, once it fell to Earth, it would become ordinary.

He gently stroked the plank and let out a sigh—he had lost count of how many times he had sighed. It would be wonderful if this thing truly possessed supernatural powers.

Imagining himself raising the plank in his hand, countless dazzling rays of light sweeping across the earth, he couldn't help giving a foolish little chuckle.