If I Become Rich, I Won't Forget You

Nan Gengchen stared at Qing Chen in a daze for a long moment. "Bro, I wanted to ask the police officers at the station for help. Like Uncle being arrested, that kind of thing won't help at all."

"Then there's nothing we can do." Qing Chen shook his head and pressed further. "Did something really strange happen to you? What exactly was it?"

"Nothing, nothing." Nan Gengchen refused to say another word about it.

Qing Chen said nothing more.

If the other party did not want to talk about it, then all he could do was pretend he knew nothing.

Still, a faint suspicion had formed in his mind. Could Nan Gengchen's so-called strange occurrence be a countdown appearing on his arm as well?

But no one else could see the countdown, so Qing Chen could only speculate.

His first countdown to crossing over had appeared at six o'clock last night. He had skipped class and left then, missing evening self-study, before making his first crossing at midnight.

If a countdown had really appeared on Nan Gengchen's arm too, when had it appeared?

Qing Chen thought to himself that Nan Gengchen was thin and small, looking frail enough to be knocked over by the wind. If he really crossed over to that world, could he even survive there?

The two of them got along fairly well, not because their personalities were especially compatible, but because both their fathers played cards and gambled, leaving neither family particularly well-off.

After they happened to talk about it once, the two boys had instead grown closer over their shared circumstances.

Just then, a classmate playing on his phone suddenly cried out, "Holy shit!"

Class had not started yet, and there were only around a dozen students in Class 3, Grade 11. Everyone turned to look at him. "What happened?"

"Quick, check the trending searches. Jacob held a press conference and said he crossed over into a world of Mechanical Civilization. There's a full video of his press conference on the trending list," said the classmate who had shouted.

Jacob was an American citizen and one of the world's most famous basketball stars, with countless fans.

The students immediately pulled out their phones to check the trending searches, all of them utterly confused.

Only Qing Chen stood frozen in place, because he knew exactly what that supposed crossing over and Mechanical Civilization were about!

But he had truly never considered that people overseas were also experiencing things like crossing over and countdowns.

Nan Gengchen had already opened the video, and Qing Chen looked over.

In the video, Jacob sat behind a table facing all the media outlets he had hastily invited. Camera flashes flickered densely throughout the venue, almost dazzling to look at.

Yet the first thing everyone watching the video noticed was Jacob's left arm, because it had been entirely replaced by a mechanical arm.

In the video, Jacob stood up and led everyone to a basketball court. From across the entire court, he casually shot the basketball into the hoop with his left hand, making ten consecutive shots.

"Is this special effects?" Nan Gengchen murmured. "Could it be some ad they filmed with special effects?"

Qing Chen said nothing.

Someone had reposted the video from overseas and added Chinese subtitles to it.

In the video, Jacob said to the media, "Last night, I unexpectedly discovered a countdown on my arm. When it ended, I actually traveled to a strange world of Mechanical Civilization. It was also Earth, with a sun and moon, but it seemed to be a parallel universe. Its civilization had developed in a completely different direction from the world we inhabit."

Jacob raised his left arm. "When I crossed over, I had this arm, as though I had replaced someone over there and become a new version of myself. I don't understand how it works, but its strength far exceeds anything I imagined, and it is extremely agile and precise."

"And the reason I called this press conference is not to show off to everyone. That world is not as wonderful as you might imagine. On the contrary, it is exceptionally dangerous. I am holding this press conference to prevent myself from being secretly taken away for research. I hereby declare that I refuse to become a research subject. If I disappear one day, please, everyone..."

Seeing this, Qing Chen suddenly understood. Jacob was a public figure, so there was no way he could hide the mechanical limb on his body.

He also clearly knew that the technology of that world far surpassed the present era. Afraid that he would be taken away and studied like a lab rat, he had chosen a more aggressive approach.

It might not have been a good method. Perhaps he had simply panicked and made the decision in haste.

Qing Chen looked at Nan Gengchen. His thin, small deskmate was currently dumbstruck.

Meanwhile, Qing Chen was thinking that he had been unable to take the boning knife over, nor could he bring the toothbrush back. It seemed that the only way to bring things from that side was to modify himself, or hide them inside his body?

He wondered where Jacob had appeared after crossing over. Across the ocean?

At that moment, every student in the class was caught between shock and disbelief. They could not even determine whether the trending topic was real or merely fabricated special effects.

Before anyone could recover, several more bizarre incidents suddenly surged up the trending rankings.

"An internet executive was found dead at home, with intricate mechanical structures suddenly appearing on his body, extremely similar to Jacob's."

"A college student claimed that he had also crossed over into another world, where there was not only Mechanical Civilization, but also superhumans who surpassed ordinary people."

"A high school student claimed that he had not only crossed over into another world, but had also awakened a supernatural ability."

Qing Chen frowned as he read them. This series of news reports had arrived much faster than he expected. Not everyone could be as cautious as he was.

More and more news reports were announcing to the world that this was not special effects, nor was it an advertising campaign. It was real.

People really had crossed over into that unknown world, one filled with fantasy.

And there were quite a few crossers.

Nan Gengchen muttered beside him, "Superhumans, Mechanical Civilization... does that mean we might have a chance to become superhuman after crossing over?"

A classmate asked, "It looks like the odds of crossing over aren't that low. Could there be students at our school who crossed over too?"

"Maybe someone already came to school with mechanical limbs..."

"I want to cross over too..."

More and more students arrived in the classroom. Whenever someone approached, everyone would look over to see whether that person had mechanical limbs.

They were only seventeen or eighteen, at the age when curiosity, the desire to explore, and vanity burned most fiercely. Adults might weigh whether the danger was worth the opportunity, but teenagers were more likely to anticipate it.

When you watched Harry Potter, you would hope that you too could pass through King's Cross Station. When you read novels, you would hope to be guided away by an immortal.

But in the real world, the ones waiting to greet you usually were not immortals, but scammers running a honey trap.

So when everyone discovered that crossing over could make them different from others, they filtered out some of the danger and hoped they too were among the crossers.

Being the protagonist of the world sounded incredibly tempting.

Qing Chen found it difficult to be an exception.

The only difference was that Qing Chen had truly crossed over, and he had really met those legendary people who stood above the ordinary: Lin Xiaoxiao and Li Shutong.

Ye Wan probably was one as well.

Gradually, Qing Chen noticed that the panic on Nan Gengchen's face had faded, replaced by growing vigor.

Qing Chen asked casually, "Was that strange thing you mentioned just now this?"

Nan Gengchen lowered his voice. "I still can't tell you yet, but don't worry. If I get any opportunity, I definitely won't forget you, brother."

Qing Chen nodded. "Mm-hm. If I become rich, I won't forget you."