Manhattan, 2008

America, New York City, Manhattan, Clinton District.

"Ah, my eyes!" A scream suddenly rang out from the alley.

Bai Jing covered his eyes. After rubbing them for a while, he suddenly realized they seemed perfectly fine.

"That's not right!" Bai Jing opened his eyes again. The world before him was still hundreds, even thousands of times brighter than before.

It was as if the world he used to see had been in night mode, while now it was in an ultra-bright daytime mode!

Before, his eyes definitely would not have been able to withstand such brightness. Yet now, even light comparable to staring directly at the sun did not seem to affect them at all!

His head felt fine too. Instead, it processed information ten thousand times clearer than before with astonishing smoothness.

"Why did this suddenly happen?" Bai Jing simply took off his glasses. The world before him blurred for an instant, then immediately returned to clarity.

"My nearsightedness is cured too?" Bai Jing blinked. "Don't tell me I'm dreaming!"

He looked around. This was a dim alley, lined on both sides with five- or six-story apartment buildings built from rare dark-red bricks. Trash lay scattered everywhere, sewage flowed freely, and a fat black stray cat crawled out of a pile of garbage. It glanced at him, clamped something unknown in its mouth, then turned and ran off.

All kinds of pipes and staircases were exposed outside. Dripping water, voices from beyond the alley, police sirens, and even gunshots intertwined, making the whole world feel especially real and alive.

"Wait, who am I? Where am I?" Bai Jing was dumbfounded. "Wasn't I insulting some online troll's family?"

September 15 might have been a day worth remembering in history.

At a time like this, Apple Inc. was holding a product launch, and quite a few people in Bai Jing's livestream were advertising it.

As an angry patriot, how could Bai Jing stand for that? He stopped playing games and started arguing with them, flaming them from one in the morning until seven at dawn.

Then he went downstairs to buy breakfast. Groggy and half-asleep, he somehow ended up in this alley in the blink of an eye.

His eyes had nearly been blinded by the light.

Scratching his head, he wondered whether he had fallen asleep while walking, then sleepwalked to some place he did not recognize.

He should go out and ask!

Just as Bai Jing was about to move, he saw three heavily built Niggas turn in from the street at the mouth of the alley, cigarettes hanging from their lips.

Hey, this was not a discriminatory term. Black people were classified as the Negroid race, shortened to nigga. There was no problem with that, right?

Then both sides spotted each other!

"Yo, Chink!" The tall, skinny Black man in the lead brightened. "Hand over the money on you!"

"Huh?" Bai Jing was first curious. Are there black people even in my little county town now?

Then he grew curious again. Were these people filming a video? Why were they all moving in slow motion? They walked slowly and spoke slowly, as if the playback speed had been set to 0.5x.

As for what they were saying...

Bai Jing jolted alert. "You want to rob me?"

"Money, give me!" Hearing the language, the Black man smoothly switched languages, speaking quite fluently!

"Fuck!" Bai Jing was speechless. "Brother, it's already 2020. Who still carries cash these days?"

The Black man did not understand and repeated himself. "Money, give me!"

"Let's be reasonable, okay? How about I transfer it?" He reached into his pocket for his phone. His head could be cut off and his blood could flow, but how could anyone leave home without a phone!

"Stop!" Seeing Bai Jing's hand move toward his waist, the Black man immediately roared, "Stop right there!"

"Huh?" Bai Jing frowned, moved his hand away, and looked around again.

For some reason, his eyesight and hearing were exceptionally sharp now, but he truly could not see any cameras or selfie sticks.

Were these three actually filming a video or not?

Come to think of it, that was not how people filmed videos. All they had to do was shout "I love China" at the camera, right?

Why make it so complicated?

But what normal person did every word, gesture, and movement in slow motion?

Bai Jing frowned. Another Black man, however, decisively pulled a silver revolver from inside his clothes!

"Why so much nonsense? Kill him and search him for it!" As he spoke, the Black man aimed the gun at Bai Jing!

"Huh?" Bai Jing suddenly felt an aura of death envelop him!

With his enhanced vision, the metallic gleam flashing from that silver revolver made Bai Jing absolutely certain that it was a real gun!

Bang! The Black man pulled the trigger!

Bai Jing sharply twisted aside, and the bullet grazed past him!

He was no martial arts master or combat expert, but against someone whose speed had been slowed by half, he could manage that much prediction!

After all, Bai Jing was a top-ranked King in the Rift. His reaction speed was not bad at all!

Bang!

The bullet struck the garbage bin behind him. Bai Jing turned his head for one look and was certain that the 0.5-millimeter-thick metal bin had been pierced through!

The gun was real, and so was the bullet!

These people really wanted to kill him!

With his life hanging by a thread, Bai Jing's mind suddenly calmed down instead.

What should he do when surrounded by three enemies?

First, check his teammates' positions. Second, check his own skills. Third, check the enemies' skills.

Dodge what could be dodged, and use whatever skills needed to be used.

Panicking was useless. Only clear thinking and precise execution would let him escape, or turn the tables!

The three Black men were fat and burly, though perhaps it was only flab.

But Bai Jing had played games year-round and barely exercised. He was only weaker.

There was no way he could win in a physical fight. His only chance was that silver revolver!

Bai Jing lunged forward!

It sounded like a long time, but it had taken no more than a blink. The Black man was still shocked that the bullet had been dodged when Bai Jing had already closed in!

There were roughly six meters between them. An average adult only needed one second to sprint six meters, but from the Black man's perspective, the skinny yellow-skinned youth before him had somehow appeared right in front of him in the blink of an eye!

He hurriedly raised the gun and fired twice in a row, but the youth before him moved like a loach, tilting his head and ducking to evade both shots!

The next second, he only felt pain in his hand. He instinctively loosened his grip, and when he came back to himself, the gun was already in the youth's hand!

"So you didn't get slower. I got faster?" Bai Jing was extremely excited.

His vision and hearing were incredibly powerful. From his reaction just now, he could tell that his brain's thinking and information-processing abilities had become much stronger as well.

And everyone looked like they were moving in slow motion.

Did I become Superman?

Then couldn't I easily reach first place in the Rift and go pro afterward?

Forgive Bai Jing for being poor and having played games for years. Other than gaming, he truly had no idea what he should do after gaining superpowers.

With the gun in hand, Bai Jing felt much steadier. The Black man before him was instantly frightened limp.

"Chinese kung fu?" one Black man muttered.

"Kung fu my ass!" Bai Jing cursed, then shouted, "Hands up! Hold your heads and squat against the wall!"

The Black men could not understand what he said, but they understood the few gestures Bai Jing made with the gun. They obediently squatted in the corner by the wall.

"What should I do next?" Having subdued the three of them, Bai Jing instead had no idea what to do!

If he followed his old style as an online keyboard warrior, he would naturally shoot them cleanly and decisively.

But with a real gun in his hand, he no longer had that kind of nerve.

"Call the police!" Bai Jing finally remembered that this was definitely something for the police.

Illegal possession of firearms, robbery, attempted murder—multiple crimes combined. It could not possibly end with just a letter of remorse, right?

He pulled out his Huawei Mate 40. With his sharp eyes, he immediately noticed that it had no signal!

110 was an emergency number. Even if a phone had no credit or was locked, the call could still go through.

But without any signal, it definitely would not work!

How was that possible!

Bai Jing looked at the three Black men before him, then listened to the chaotic sounds outside.

He had actually guessed it already. What city in China had gunshots and police sirens everywhere?

How could anyone carry a gun around on the streets?

Not to mention that the pedestrians outside were all speaking English...

Bai Jing stood up and walked step by step toward the street entrance.

As he neared the street, he closed his eyes, then abruptly opened them!

What entered his vision were shops covered in English signs, and people on the street with hair in gold, red, brown, and black, and skin in black, white, yellow, and brown...

A newspaper drifted past him. Bai Jing casually caught it and saw its name.

Manhattan Daily, January 14, 2008.