The Road to the Inner City

Xiao Wang went to the bathroom, quickly stripped off his bloodstained clothes, and turned on the shower.

April was still a little chilly.

Yet he did not feel cold at all, letting the cold water pour down over his head.

The icy stream cleared his mind even further, allowing him to assess his current situation while sorting through the original owner's memories.

Xiao Wang, eighteen years old, was a senior high school student in the outer city of Mount Yuan City. When he was ten, the apartment building where his family lived had exploded. Three floors, six households, twenty-six people—only two had survived. He was one of them.

Afterward, he had been sent to an orphanage before being adopted by his current foster parents. Over the past few years, he had investigated the cause of the explosion, but found nothing. That was until he met Aries.

The place he was now in was called Mount Yuan City. Located on the Federation's southwestern frontier, it was a key border stronghold on the front line against the rebels.

Xiao Wang quickly scrubbed the blood from his body. Only then did he realize that his left chest was not his only injury—his abdomen and thigh had also been stabbed several times.

For some reason, though, the pain in those places was no longer very noticeable.

He carefully rinsed the wound on his left chest under the running water. The moment his hand touched it, a glowing bead suddenly appeared in his mind.

With all his years of webnovel-reading experience, he knew this was probably his golden finger.

The bead was red at the moment. After watching it for a while, Xiao Wang discovered that its color was slowly deepening. At the same time, the pain from his wounds was fading, and they were healing rapidly.

Could this bead absorb damage and rapidly heal wounds?

Xiao Wang guessed as much. If he could encounter transmigration, then other strange things were hardly surprising.

At the same time, he searched through the original owner's memories and found nothing related to the bead.

Forget it for now...

With that thought, Xiao Wang quickly washed himself clean. After changing into clean clothes, he returned to the blood-soaked living room.

Aries was sitting on the sofa. When he saw Xiao Wang come out, he said, "Leave the dirty clothes here. I'll dispose of them along with everything else."

Xiao Wang tossed the dirty clothes onto the floor and looked at Aries. "So I can leave now?"

"Of course."

Xiao Wang glanced at Aries. "What happens if I never manage to enter the inner city?"

Mount Yuan City—or rather, every city in the Federation—was divided into an inner city and an outer city, separated by towering walls. Nearly everything important in a city was located in the inner city, so it was tightly controlled. People from the outer city could almost never enter it in their entire lives.

Aries did not answer. Instead, he took out a pair of latex gloves from his white suit, put them on, and began dragging the corpses on the floor.

Seeing Aries's posture, Xiao Wang knew he would get no answer—or perhaps he had already been given one.

After pausing for a moment, he headed for the front door. Just as he reached it and prepared to open it, Xiao Wang suddenly thought of several important questions.

"You said we're colleagues now, right?"

Hearing this, Aries stopped what he was doing and looked up at Xiao Wang. "That's right, so..."

"So, is there a salary?"

Aries froze.

It was as though he were seeing Xiao Wang for the first time. The Xiao Wang before him felt somewhat unfamiliar compared to the one he had investigated.

When Aries did not answer, Xiao Wang pressed on. "Then there's at least an official position, right?"

Aries: ???

Damn it, I transmigrated, and I still can't get a proper government post.

Under Aries's confused, blank gaze, Xiao Wang opened the door and walked out.

He passed through the narrow stairwell and soon reached the street.

The rain had already eased considerably, but Xiao Wang still put on the raincoat Aries had brought. He followed Cloudpool Road all the way toward home.

It was already the latter half of the night, and there was not a single person on the streets of the outer city.

Xiao Wang tilted his head to look at the magnificent inner-city wall standing in the distance, forty meters high. The searchlights above occasionally swept over his street, and he instinctively shifted into the shadows beside him.

At the top of the wall, he could still see Federation soldiers carrying live weapons patrolling back and forth.

"Enter the inner city..."

Xiao Wang murmured it to himself and quickened his pace. Half an hour later, he returned home on Defense Road.

After entering, he found that his foster parents had already gone to sleep. He went straight to his room, turned on the light, and checked the time on the wall. It was already five in the morning.

Still dressed, he lay down on the bed. The prolonged mental strain and physical exhaustion soon sent him into a deep sleep.

Two hours later, his foster mother Qin Fengying's voice sounded outside the door. "Xiao Wang, Xiao Wang? Get up."

"Coming."

Xiao Wang got out of bed. Though he had slept for only two hours, he felt remarkably alert, with almost no sense of fatigue.

When he checked the wounds on his body, even he was stunned.

The wounds on his abdomen and thigh had basically scabbed over, while the deepest gash in his chest was visibly healing as well. At this rate, it would heal completely in two days at most.

When he looked at the bead in his mind again, he found that its color had deepened since yesterday. It was now faintly showing signs of turning black.

Xiao Wang took off the clothes he had been wearing and put them away, changed into his usual outfit, opened the door, and walked out.

His foster father Zhou Zhengxiong, foster mother Qin Fengying, and their four-year-old son Zhou Xuanyu were sitting at the dining table having breakfast.

After washing up, Xiao Wang sat down at the table as well, picked up an egg, and began peeling it.

"Where did you go last night? You came back so late," Zhou Zhengxiong asked.

As he peeled the egg, Xiao Wang answered calmly, "I was hanging out at a classmate's house. The rain was too heavy, so I waited until it eased up before coming back."

Zhou Zhengxiong did not press further. Instead, he instructed his younger son, "Xuanyu, go turn on the radio for Dad."

Zhou Xuanyu, who was drinking porridge, climbed down from his stool and quickly ran off to turn on the radio.

As Zhou Zhengxiong listened to the broadcast, he asked Xiao Wang, "You'll be graduating from senior year soon. Which path are you planning to take?"

Xiao Wang did not answer directly. Instead, he asked, "Uncle, do you know how to enter the inner city?"

Zhou Zhengxiong and Qin Fengying exchanged a look.

"Wang, why are you asking that?" Qin Fengying asked.

"I'm just asking. I'm curious."

Zhou Zhengxiong and Qin Fengying exchanged another look. Qin Fengying continued, "Wang, the inner city isn't somewhere just anyone can enter. We should be realistic, so..."

"Auntie, I really am just asking out of curiosity." Before Qin Fengying could finish, Xiao Wang interrupted her.

Zhou Zhengxiong took a sip of porridge and glanced at Xiao Wang. "People from the outer city need a pass to enter the inner city, but those who have passes are either rich or powerful. Of course, the inner city also selects some people from the outer city every year, such as outstanding students from Culture University. I hear they choose them to work for the Federation or conduct research for the three major corporations."

As Xiao Wang listened, he weighed his options. Neither path suited him. He was an orphan with no connection to wealth or influence, and the original owner's academic performance had only been passable. He probably could not even get into Culture University, much less become an outstanding student there.

He put the whole egg into his mouth, chewed twice, and continued, "Uncle, aside from those two methods, are there any others?"

"There used to be one: martial arts. I heard that once you break through the First Limit in martial arts, you can enter the inner city. But this is the age of guns and artillery. Martial arts can't exactly be called declining, but it's no longer unrivaled either. I hear that only a very small number of people have entered the inner city through that route in recent years."

As Xiao Wang listened, he thought that if he wanted to enter the inner city, it seemed he had no choice but this path.

"Uncle, Auntie, I want to go to a martial arts academy."