Bloodshed

When Sun Cheng came back to his senses, blue light flickered in both pairs of his mechanical eyes.

"Only one second passed before and after I lost consciousness?"

After learning of the change in time from the [Core] within his body, Sun Cheng was clearly astonished. Unable to believe it, he hurriedly connected himself to the computer in front of him again. After hacking into the Internet and synchronizing with this world's time, he finally confirmed that he had not made a mistake.

The long night in the other world, along with everything he had experienced the following morning, had not affected this place in the slightest.

It was as though a mysterious pair of hands had frozen time in this world with inconceivable power at the very instant he crossed back into reality.

It was truly miraculous!

"Unbelievable!"

He murmured in amazement, though what came out was a burst of electronic sound. Sun Cheng pulled his right arm out of the computer tower and had just shut down the computer, preparing to leave, when he suddenly heard a smack. Following the sound, he discovered that a palm-sized object had fallen from the chair beside him.

Not far away, a palm-sized phone lay quietly on the floor—a phone that should not have existed.

When his high-definition electronic eyes clearly caught sight of the phone in the dim surroundings, Sun Cheng froze.

"Could this be... my iPhone 5?"

Looking closely, was it not the iPhone 5 developed and manufactured by Apple in the United States?

Apple also existed in this parallel world, but the timeline had only reached 2007. Let alone this phone, hailed as "Apple's last classic," even the first-generation iPhone had only been released two months earlier and had not yet officially gone on sale.

Though filled with confusion, he immediately jumped down from the stool, bent over, and picked up the phone. The moment he lifted it, he checked the back. Sure enough, there was a barely visible scorch mark—the mark left when he had accidentally burned it with a cigarette butt while eating with his roommate two years ago.

At once, Sun Cheng confirmed that this was the phone his family had given him when he entered university.

"It really is my phone. Strange... how did it cross over with me?"

He quickly entered the boot password and opened the phone's interface. Looking at the completely empty signal bars, Sun Cheng's heart was filled with questions.

Just as he was puzzling over it, his expression suddenly changed. He had keenly caught the sound of footsteps coming from the hallway outside the office, followed by a middle-aged man's voice.

"Huh? Why is there light in the office ahead? Hey, Tom, is anyone working overtime tonight?"

"Oh no!"

Sun Cheng cursed inwardly. Although he had shut down the computer, the glow from a phone screen was extremely conspicuous in the dark.

Instinctively, he turned off the phone screen!

But the instant he did so, Sun Cheng regretted it. Wasn't that practically announcing that there was something here?

Sure enough, almost the moment he turned off the screen, the previously unhurried footsteps in the hallway sped up considerably. The middle-aged man's voice also grew tense. "Unknown light detected on the second floor. I repeat, unknown light detected on the second floor. Possible intruder..."

Not being a professional spy, Sun Cheng remained flustered for quite a while before he regained his wits. He first placed the phone on the computer desk, then immediately activated his transformation ability, turning himself into a tape recorder and carefully hiding.

Although he had transformed into a tape recorder, it did not affect his observation of the outside world in the least. His field of vision was merely much narrower than in humanoid form.

Sun Cheng clearly saw that around twenty seconds after his transformation, the office door opened, and a beam of flashlight light shone into the room.

"Is anyone here?"

It was the middle-aged man he had heard earlier. The man was cautiously hiding outside the door, holding a flashlight in one hand and a Colt revolver in the other as he carefully called into the office.

After calling out four or five times and failing to find any suspicious figure lurking inside, the man, who appeared to be a research center security guard, finally lost patience. He temporarily held the flashlight in his mouth, raised his gun with one hand to cover the office, and carefully fumbled along the wall with the other. Once he found the light switch, he pressed it without hesitation.

Smack!

The dim office instantly lit up. Only then did Sun Cheng clearly see that the person cautiously standing guard outside the office door was a bald Black man in his forties. Though he had a large belly, his thick arms made it obvious that he exercised regularly.

Once the lights came on, everything in the office was visible at a glance. There was no sign of anyone.

However, the Black security guard did not lower his guard. Still holding his gun, he slowly stepped inside. Only after carefully checking the few spaces beneath the office desks where someone could possibly hide did he finally let out a long breath and return the gun to its holster.

"Hey, Hutch, what's the situation? Do we need to call the police?"

An urgent question came through the walkie-talkie at the Black guard's waist.

The guard wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead and helplessly picked up the walkie-talkie. "Sorry, buddy. I guess I saw it wrong. Maybe it was a phone someone left behind that suddenly got a call..."

He walked over to the desk where Sun Cheng had transformed and spotted the iPhone 5 Sun Cheng had placed there. The Black man picked it up and fiddled with it for a while, making Sun Cheng tense up, ready to cancel his transformation at any moment. Yet the man simply put it back where it had been.

"Oh, Hutch. Now I finally understand why they were so eager to retire you before the Iraq War was even over. Buddy, I suggest you go see a psychiatrist!"

"Shut up, Tom!"

Perhaps having been mocked by his companion, the Black security guard snarled irritably into the walkie-talkie before turning it off.

He shoved it heavily back into his pocket. Still seeming dissatisfied, he turned and viciously kicked the desk beside him.

Bang!

The desk shook violently, and the iPhone 5, which he had casually placed near the edge of the desk, fell to the floor with a smack.

"Damn it!"

The moment he saw the Black guard kick the phone to the floor, rage surged through Sun Cheng's heart. This phone held extraordinary significance for him.

Seeing that the Black guard merely gave the fallen phone a casual glance before walking toward the office door, with no intention of picking it up—and even stepped on it, leaving behind a dirty print—Sun Cheng's anger rose even further. He activated his transformation ability again, instantly changing back into humanoid form before leaping high into the air and flying toward him.

The sudden sound of movement behind him clearly alerted the Black guard.

Unfortunately, as he turned around, the corner of his eye caught only two silver-white blurs. In the next instant, pain struck his throat and forehead at the same time. His eyes bulged wide as blood rushed into them, and after twitching for only two or three seconds, his body crashed heavily to the floor.

Bang!

Sun Cheng landed steadily beside the Black man's corpse. Suppressing the discomfort of having killed someone, his mechanical body trembled faintly. Yet after giving the man only a cold glance, he immediately walked over and picked up the phone.

When he saw the obvious dent on one corner of the phone, his heart ached and his hatred deepened. The remorse and lingering fear that had still been boiling within him vanished along with it. Without looking back, he left the office.