Who Was Undergoing Tribulation Transcendence?

At four in the afternoon in Yang City, the sun should have been blazing overhead, but thick black clouds shrouded the sky, making it as dark as nightfall.

With the clouds came gust after gust of fierce wind, along with flashes of lightning and rolling thunder in the distance, as though the end of the world had arrived.

Feng Jun sat in the staff dormitory, staring blankly out the window. He thumped his beer bottle onto the table and heaved a sigh. "What the fuck... which fellow Daoist is undergoing tribulation transcendence?"

Feng Jun was not a cultivator, just a webnovel enthusiast, and his sarcastic remark stemmed entirely from his foul mood.

He was going to quit.

Feng Jun was twenty-four that year, a graduate of Xiayang University with a dual degree in languages and business administration.

Although university enrollment expansion had left cities with more graduates than dogs, earning a dual degree from a prestigious university in four years clearly qualified him, just barely, as one of heaven's favored sons.

Yet graduation meant unemployment. He had first spent two years trying to make his way in the southern city where his girlfriend lived, then come to Yang City alone, rich in experience.

His current employer—well, rather than simply calling it his employer, he ought to give its name—was Hongjie Cultural Entertainment Co.

God only knew why a fitness club needed "cultural" in its name. Perhaps this was the legendary inseparability of culture and sports?

That was right. Feng Jun currently worked at the Hongjie Fitness Club.

He was not one of those fitness instructors supposedly blessed with endless romantic encounters, but a lowly attendant responsible for reception, errands, and cleaning.

Fitness instructors needed certification. The Hongjie Fitness Club was no fly-by-night roadside establishment; it had quite a reputation in Yang City.

Feng Jun had landed the job partly because young, able-bodied workers were currently in short supply, and partly because he looked the part. He had rugged features and a fairly solid build. He could hardly be called a pretty young heartthrob, but "strapping" was just within reach.

Only after he had been hired, however, had he learned that becoming a fitness instructor required a certificate!

That was truly sad news.

And so a proud dual-degree graduate had ended up as a fitness club's errand boy.

Of course, even errand boys sometimes had their day in the sun. During his three months there, several middle-aged and elderly women had shown an interest in him, but Feng Jun had turned them down—their intentions were not quite innocent.

More importantly, their looks were the sort that should never be repeated. Some also had unbearable body odor and aggressively overbearing manners.

One fitness instructor had mocked him for being so uptight. "A postgraduate really does have nothing but poverty and principles."

For fuck's sake, a dual degree and a postgraduate degree aren't the same thing, all right?

Whatever the case, Feng Jun was something of an oddball at the Hongjie Fitness Club. Not only was he overqualified for his lowly position, but he also had a young man's stubborn pride, unwilling to admit defeat. That was not a quality encouraged in the service industry.

Customers would not appreciate that pride, and his coworkers would secretly look down on him for it.

Today, one of those coworkers had poached his prospective sale.

That morning, four pretty young women had walked into the club. They were not members, merely there to work out on a whim. One tall girl among them was strikingly beautiful.

Feng Jun had received them. If he could persuade them to sign up for memberships while they worked out, he would earn a commission.

In all honesty, Feng Jun had not held out much hope. The reason was simple: the girls were obviously university students, and there were no colleges or universities nearby.

Besides, students were in the bloom of youth. Few needed a long-term workout routine, their wallets were thin, and hardly any were willing to spend money on this sort of thing.

Yet even this tiny reception opportunity had been poached. Liu Shuming, the bodybuilding instructor, had stepped forward and announced that he could offer relevant advice and services.

As Instructor Liu approached, he waved Feng Jun away as though swatting a fly. "Shoo, shoo... I'll handle this!"

Feng Jun had been thoroughly irritated, not just over the commission but over the man's attitude. Would it kill you to look at me when you talk to me, you prick?

But he could hardly say anything. At a fitness club, instructors naturally took precedence over errand boys.

Then... things went wrong. Instructor Liu got beaten up.

The ones who beat him were those four girls.

As a fitness instructor, Liu Shuming had a sculpted physique and impressive muscles, so he was no slouch in a fight. But two of the four girls could really fight, and two fists were no match for four hands.

The commotion brought the floor manager over. After asking what had happened, she learned that the girls had said from the start that they only wanted a casual workout and did not need an instructor. But Liu Shuming had stubbornly insisted on explaining things, getting handsy and touching them all over, until the girls finally lost their tempers.

Instructor Liu, however, insisted, "I only wanted to offer some guidance and win them over with enthusiastic service so they'd sign up for memberships."

Manager Guo first apologized to the customers and waived their fees. After sending them off with soothing words, she began assigning blame.

Strangely enough, though, she aimed her disciplinary stick in an utterly baffling direction.

"Feng Jun, since you were the one who received them, why didn't you follow through? The customers already said they didn't need an instructor!"

Instructor Liu also glared at Feng Jun through gritted teeth, his eyes blazing with anger. "If you'd handled the rest of their visit, would I have ended up like this?"

Feng Jun's pride was no mere rumor. At those words, he flung the rag in his hand onto the floor and gave Manager Guo a cold look. "I never begged Instructor Liu to take over. The bastard didn't even look at me when he chased me away... so now he's justified in stealing my sale?"

"What kind of attitude is that?" Manager Guo's voice turned shrill. "Is that how you speak to your superior?"

Feng Jun turned and walked out. "I'm not feeling well. I'm going back to rest!"

By then, he had made up his mind. I'm not staying in this shitty place.

Afterward, he bought a pack of beer and returned to the dormitory to drink at his leisure, turning one question over and over in his mind: Where should I go after I quit?

Although Yang City was a major city, jobs were not easy to find. Work as a waiter, errand boy, or porter was easier to come by, but finding something suited to his dual-degree qualifications was genuinely difficult.

He had spent over half a month scouring Yang City without finding a suitable job. Otherwise, he would never have chosen to work at a fitness club.

Of course, returning home was also an option. His hometown was a small city, and his parents ran a modest business. They had a few local connections, so finding him a job would not be too difficult. If all else failed, he could take over the family business.

But as a dual-degree graduate from a prestigious university, how could Feng Jun willingly go back? He could not bear to leave the bustle and glamour of the big city, much less suffer that loss of face.

As he gazed out the window at what looked like Blue Star's apocalypse, he pondered whether to quit now or wait until payday.

Over the past two years and more, he had saved almost nothing. Even including the money his parents had sent to support his job hunt, he had only a little over ten thousand yuan in his bank account. Even his phone had come free with a prepaid airtime purchase. It claimed to be a smartphone, but was essentially a phone for seniors.

At some point, fat raindrops began falling outside, striking the window glass with loud thuds.

Each flash of lightning was brighter than the last, and thunder rumbled incessantly.

Feng Jun finished the half bottle of baijiu left in the dormitory, then drank seven or eight bottles of beer. As the alcohol went to his head, he decided to call a friend. But when he picked up his senior phone, he discovered that its battery was down to three percent.

He plugged the phone in, then collapsed headfirst onto the bed and began snoring.

Before falling asleep, he still remembered to clutch the phone in his hand. He had no choice. Things routinely went missing in cheap staff dormitories like this—he had already lost money more than once. Where people came and went constantly, shortsighted opportunism was bound to flourish.

Daily life for those on the lowest rungs of the working class was truly hard. Say any more, and it was all tears...

He had no idea how long he had slept before a sudden flash of lightning outside lit everything so brilliantly that no one could keep their eyes open. At the same instant, an electric arc raced along the charger cord toward the battered old smartphone.

The explosive thunder jolted Feng Jun awake. It sounded as though it had erupted right beside his ear, deafening enough to suggest heaven was collapsing and the earth splitting apart. Even half-dead with sleep, he shot upright, his hair standing on end.

Still shaken, he looked around and discovered that the shock had cracked the center of the windowpane. "No way. That lightning strike... was less than three hundred meters away?"

Only then did he feel a sharp pain in his hand. Looking down, he saw that he was still clutching his senior phone. But the charging cable... why had it turned black?

He sniffed and caught the smell of burning rubber in the air...

Before he could react, shouting erupted in the next room.

"Holy shit, the TV's smoking! That fucking thunder was a bit much, wasn't it?"

"Fuck its ancestors! Doesn't this building have a lightning rod?"

Feng Jun's room was in a four-story dormitory building. Old as it was, it did have a lightning rod.

But the lightning had been too powerful and too close. Lightning rods were not all-powerful. That single thunderous strike had fried at least fifty televisions around the dormitory building, nearly a hundred landline phones, routers, and Wi-Fi equipment.

Feng Jun had little interest in the damage elsewhere. What concerned him was whether his phone had been fried.

Crappy as the phone was, old and slow, it was still handy for making calls. He could get online by piggybacking on the Wi-Fi next door, too. Most importantly, of course, all his contacts were stored on it.

He pressed the home button at the bottom center of the phone and found that it not only lit up, but responded normally—slowly yet steadily.

Maybe I should make a call and check whether it still works? Feng Jun glanced at the phone's screen as he considered it.

Then he froze. It's eight in the evening?

Well, eight o'clock was nothing strange. It had been nearly six when he fell asleep, after all.

But why... was the phone's battery already at one hundred percent?