Jiang Ran

The counseling room at Fengcheng No. 3 High School.

Afternoon sunlight streamed through the blinds, casting neat bands of light and shadow across the floor.

Jiang Ran sat on an off-white fabric sofa, lightly tapping his fingers against his knee as he watched the boy hunched in the chair across from him.

The boy was named Li Hao. He was a sophomore, and already the seventeenth student with a case of school burnout Jiang had seen this semester.

"So..." Jiang Ran said gently. "Your dad told you that if you don't get into medical school, he'll confiscate your game console, phone, and computer next semester, and cut off your allowance?"

Li Hao didn't look up. His fingers swiped rapidly across his phone screen. "Yeah."

"You think that's unfair."

"No kidding." The boy pursed his lips. "Three generations of my family have been doctors, so now they expect me to become one too. They didn't even ask what I want. What gives them the right?"

Jiang Ran smiled.

His gaze fell on the boy's phone screen.

It was a remastered version of a classic platform game.

"That level's pretty hard," Jiang Ran said suddenly.

Li Hao's fingers stopped. He finally looked up at Jiang Ran, surprise in his eyes.

Most teachers' first reaction to seeing a student play games was to confiscate the device or scold them.

"Especially the third lava pit." Jiang Ran leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "You have to jump a little earlier, because the character keeps moving forward for a bit after taking off."

Li Hao's eyes widened. "How do you know that?"

"I've played it too." Jiang Ran smiled. "And I beat it."

A brief silence fell.

The game's sound effects continued, but the boy's attention was clearly no longer on the screen.

Jiang Ran pressed on. "You said you want to get back at your dad, so you're deliberately not studying. That's actually a pretty dumb way to do it."

Li Hao frowned. "Then what else can I do?"

"I've got a better way to get back at him. Want to hear it?"

The boy hesitated, then moved his fingers off the screen. His phone screen dimmed.

Jiang Ran leaned back against the sofa. "Think about it. If Mario fought his way through countless dangers, beat Bowser, and finally reached the castle where the princess was being held, only to turn around and leave her there..."

"Wouldn't that be even crueler?"

Li Hao froze and blinked.

"That... would be pretty cruel," he murmured.

"Same goes for you. First, study hard and get your grades up. Aim for the top fifty in your year, if you can."

"Then, when it's time to fill out your college applications..."

Jiang Ran paused deliberately and looked the boy in the eye.

"Don't put down the medical school your dad wants you to go to. Pick a major he'd never expect, like game design or psychology."

Li Hao's mouth fell slightly open.

A few seconds later, excitement slowly lit up his eyes.

"Then..." His voice trembled a little. "My dad would go crazy, wouldn't he?"

"Not only that." Jiang Ran smiled. "He'd be confused and helpless, with no idea what his son was thinking."

"And you'd be the one in complete control."

"That's what I call real revenge."

Li Hao lowered his head and looked at the darkened phone screen.

His face was reflected in it.

Along with a flicker of excitement that had just begun to take root.

Just then, a translucent, pale-blue panel appeared in the upper-right corner of Jiang Ran's vision.

[Name: Jiang Ran]

[Age: 24]

[Profession: Teacher, Artifact Appraiser, Mixed Martial Artist...]

[Teacher Lv.5 (321/500)]

[Profession Basic Skill: Psychology Lv.9 (832/900)]

[Math Lv.5 (252/500)]

[Chinese Lv.8 (393/800)]

[Physics Lv.4 (123/400)]

[...]

[Profession Points: 0]

[Profession Core Skill: Psychological Profiling Lv.3 (98/300)]

[Your Psychology skill has improved. Experience +27]

Almost there.

Jiang Ran kept his smile calm.

His Psychology skill needed only 68 more experience points to reach the next level.

"Teacher Jiang..." Li Hao suddenly spoke, his voice much brighter than before. "If I want to get good grades, how should I start?"

The clock in the counseling room pointed to 4:40 p.m.

When the school bell rang, echoing across the campus,

Jiang Ran was locking the last record book in the filing cabinet.

Outside the window, students poured toward the school gate like floodwaters released from a dam.

A few girls passed by the counseling room, sneaking glances inside and whispering to each other.

Although Jiang Ran had only been at the school for six months, word had already quietly spread about "that handsome psychology teacher who's really good at chatting."

He pretended not to notice, slung his black backpack over his shoulder, and locked the door.

He headed to the parking lot.

Jiang Ran swung onto his mountain bike. The tires rolled over the fallen plane-tree leaves, making a soft rustling sound.

It was October in Feng City.

The evening breeze had turned chilly.

He rode along Zhongshan Road and through the old part of town.

On either side stood French-style buildings that had been there for years, their red brick walls overgrown with withered ivy.

Farther ahead, glass-fronted towers rose in the new part of town. Neon lights had just come on, like strings of colorful jewels floating in the darkening sky.

As he stopped at a traffic light, Jiang Ran glanced at his watch. It was 5:20.

Perfect timing.

He was twenty-four and had graduated from college almost two years ago.

While his classmates flocked to big companies, took civil service exams, or struggled to make their way in family businesses, Jiang Ran had chosen a less conventional path.

He had to thank the Profession Panel, which had suddenly appeared in his mind one night after graduation.

At first, he thought it was a hallucination brought on by staying up late to write his thesis.

But he soon discovered that whenever he took up work with a clear social identity, the panel would appear and record related skills and experience.

Once a profession reached its maximum level, he could extract Profession Points and apply them to other professions.

That was how one could master a hundred arts and hone a single path.

So, over the past year, he had tried out quite a few jobs.

Barista, bookstore clerk, pet trainer, freelance writer...

At the moment, he had settled into three.

He was an external psychology teacher at Fengcheng No. 3 High School, an external assistant appraiser at the Feng City Museum, and a weekend coach at Hurricane Free Combat Gym.

The income wasn't especially high, but it was enough to live on.

More importantly... he was free.

The Feng City Museum stood on the edge of the old part of town, in a Soviet-style building built in the 1950s.

Jiang Ran locked up his bike and entered through the staff entrance on the side.

"Xiao Jiang, you're here?" Old Zhang, the gate guard, leaned out of the window with a beaming smile. "A new batch came in today. Director Wang's been asking about you all morning."

"Uncle Zhang." Jiang Ran nodded, took his staff card out of his bag, and swiped it to enter.

He pushed open the door to the appraisal department, revealing a spacious room.

The open area covered more than two hundred square meters. Rows of long tables were covered with white padding, each holding an assortment of objects waiting to be appraised.

Several staff members were carefully examining the items in their hands.

"Teacher Jiang!" A middle-aged woman wearing round glasses looked up. She was the department head, Wang Wenjuan. "You're finally here. We've been waiting for you."

Jiang Ran smiled faintly and took a pair of white gloves and a toolbox from his locker.

Most of his income came from working as an external artifact appraiser.

Though he was called an appraiser, he was more like a consultant.

Whether it was appraising or cleaning, Jiang Ran helped out with almost everything.

"What's the situation today?" he asked as he put on his gloves.

"Three batches." Wang Wenjuan led him to the table at the very back. "This batch was donated by a private collector. They say the porcelain was passed down through their family and dates to the Ming and Qing dynasties."

"This batch was handed over by the police. They're bronze artifacts seized in a smuggling case."

"The most troublesome batch is this one..."

She pointed to several shipping crates in the corner, their sides smeared with dried mud.

"These were brought over yesterday from a construction site in the East City Development Zone. They were found while the workers were digging the foundation. The initial assessment is that they came from a group of commoners' tombs dating to the Song or Ming dynasty."

"But there are some... strange things mixed in."

Jiang Ran raised an eyebrow. "Strange?"

"We've cleaned some of them. There are everyday objects, but also a few things that don't seem to belong to that period."

Wang Wenjuan lowered her voice.

Jiang Ran nodded without asking more.

He first went over to the donated porcelain.

He picked up a blue-and-white bowl decorated with lotus scrolls, felt the texture of the glaze with his fingertips, brought it closer to examine the blue pigment, then turned it over to check the finishing on the base.

A few seconds later, he gently set it down.

"Late Qing to early Republican imitation of a Ming piece. A common folk kiln product. The craftsmanship is decent, but the blue pigment is nothing special."

Wang Wenjuan quickly jotted it down in her notebook.

He picked up a small famille-rose plate decorated with flowers.

"This one's interesting."

Jiang Ran angled a professional flashlight at it. The light passed through the body of the porcelain. "A Republican-era imitation of an Yongzheng piece. The painting is fine, but the colors are too bright and fresh. They lack the mellow warmth that comes with age."

[Profession: Artifact Appraiser Lv.4 (215/400)]

[Profession Basic Skill: Ceramic Appraisal Lv.5 (189/500)]

[Bronze Artifact Appraisal Lv.3 (87/300)]

[Jade Appraisal Lv.2 (45/200)]

[Decorative Motif Dating Lv.4 (156/400)]

The experience for Ceramic Appraisal on the panel increased by three points.

An hour later, he had examined all seventeen pieces of donated porcelain.

Next came the smuggled bronzes.

They were in poor condition, most of them badly corroded.

Aside from a Han dynasty bronze mirror decorated with the Four Spirits and two genuine small wine vessels from the late Western Zhou dynasty, the rest were later imitations.

It was already nine in the evening.

The other staff members gradually left. Wang Wenjuan glanced at the shipping crates in the corner. "Xiao Jiang, why don't we call it a day? We can look at the excavated artifacts tomorrow..."

"I'll take a look at a few," Jiang Ran said. "I've got nothing on tonight anyway."

Wang Wenjuan hesitated, then nodded. "All right. I'll fill out an overtime form. Remember to lock up when you leave, and put the key back where it belongs."

"Okay."

The door clicked shut softly.

Jiang Ran was alone in the enormous workroom.

After the overhead lights were switched off, only the two professional appraisal lamps above him remained lit.

He walked over to the shipping crates and opened the first one.

A heavy, earthy smell hit him.

Most of the contents were pottery jars, porcelain bowls, and other daily-use items, consistent with a group of commoners' tombs from the Song or Ming dynasty.

But something in the third compartment made Jiang Ran stop.

It was a clod of earth about the size of his palm.

Strangely, the other excavated objects had already undergone some preliminary cleaning, with at least part of each object exposed. Only this clod had been left untouched.

Jiang Ran put on his gloves and lifted it out.

The clod was heavier than he had expected.

He held his breath, then gently brushed along the contours of its crust of mud.

As the dirt came away, an unusual dark red surface appeared.

The instant Jiang Ran's fingertip unconsciously brushed over that dark red surface...

A chill shot up his finger.

Jiang Ran's hand trembled, and the clod of dirt nearly slipped from his grasp.

Almost at the same time, the dark red sheen seemed to shimmer faintly.

Before he could react, a voice buzzed loudly in his ear.

[Verifying eligibility...]

[Congratulations. You qualify as a Void Walker.]

[Next opening of the Abyssal Void: October 14, 00:00]

[Please ensure you are in a safe, private environment at that time.]

[The mark will guide you there.]

Jiang Ran froze in place.

"Teacher Jiang?"

A voice came from the doorway.

Jiang Ran snapped back to his senses, his fingers springing away from the clod.

He looked up. Lin, a young researcher at the museum, stood in the doorway holding a stack of documents.

"Director Wang asked me to put these on her desk." Lin glanced over curiously. "You haven't left yet?"

"...I'm leaving now," Jiang Ran replied calmly.

Lin set down the documents. "I'll head out first, then, Teacher Jiang."

"Okay. Take care on the way."

The door closed again.

Jiang Ran slowly lowered his head and looked at the clod of dirt once more.

He took a deep breath, picked up the brush, and this time swept it decisively across the clod's surface.

Dry soil crumbled away with a soft rustle.

Half a minute later, the outer layer was mostly cleared, revealing what lay inside...

Nothing at all.

Only a little dark red powder remained on the mat, like traces left by weathered mineral pigment.

The clod was hollow inside, its shape irregular. Faint patterns were visible, as if something had once grown within it and then disappeared.

Or been taken away.

Jiang Ran stared at the hollow, replaying the voice in his mind.

He raised his right index finger and examined it carefully.

There was nothing unusual about his fingertip. No marks, no residue.

It hadn't been a hallucination.

Jiang Ran reached that conclusion almost at once.

With his psychology skills close to maxed out, he knew all too well that genuine hallucinations were usually closely tied to a person's mental state, underlying stress, or physical factors.

They often came with distortions or intense emotional projections.

But the voice just now had appeared without warning. Its message was abrupt and devoid of personal emotion.

The clod was hollow.

But that only served as corroboration.

If it had been something he'd imagined, he would most likely have seen or sensed something extraordinary inside the dirt, something that fulfilled some secret expectation.

But there was nothing. It was just a clod of dirt.

Then Jiang Ran remembered the time mentioned at the end.

His heart tightened slightly.

Midnight on October 14...

That was only a few hours from now!?