Fiery Golden Eyes

At two in the afternoon, in Dormitory Room 520 at Jinling University.

The door to Dormitory Room 520 opened, and two figures stumbled inside, one after the other, propping each other up.

"Holy crap, I'm never going out for a meal with those guys again. They're all fucking maniacs when they cut loose. They forced more than ten cups of Shaoyang Aged Liquor down my throat. That was fucking exhausting." The moment Zhang Zhengxiao, the eldest of the roommates, entered, he flopped onto his bed. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the world spinning and bouncing.

If someone had given him a stage right then, he could have danced until the entire world turned into a mantis shrimp.

Jun Wangchen was still shaken too. Those Tai Chi Fist classmates might not have been much in a fight, but when it came to drinking, every one of them seemed to have unlocked premium privileges. They downed liquor without so much as a frown—walking booze barrels, the lot of them.

During lunch, he had even seen one student drink straight from a bottle. That was over five hundred milliliters of hard liquor, and the guy had actually drained it in a single go.

More terrifying still, he had been completely fine afterward and had even started pole dancing...

If Jun Wangchen hadn't repeatedly confirmed that the student wasn't a martial artist, he would have assumed some martial arts master had used internal energy to expel the alcohol from his body.

"I'm done. Time for some sweet dreams. Number Four, don't interrupt my dream hookups, or your little brother down there might not survive!" Zhang Zhengxiao deftly stripped off his clothes, rolled over, and curled up beneath his blanket, transforming into a pig.

Jun Wangchen didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Dream hookups—what a cultured turn of phrase. These days, you really needed some education to understand this animal's vocabulary.

Leaving him alone, Jun Wangchen took a sip of water, pulled out the Groundhog Phone, and opened WeChat.

"Bzz, bzz, bzz..."

The moment he opened WeChat, one vibration after another came through without pause, rivaling the frequency of a certain popular women's toy.

Jun Wangchen froze, then took a closer look and discovered that the messages were from Zhuge Liang. He was still sending buzzes, and his messages alone had already reached 99+.

Puzzled, Jun Wangchen opened his chat with Zhuge Liang and typed, "What can I do for you, Mr. Zhuge?"

Zhuge Liang was delighted. "Fellow Daoist, you've finally appeared! Tell me, did you sell my Divine Calculations to Zhang Zhongjing?"

Jun Wangchen paused, feeling rather sheepish. Crap. When I traded with Zhang Zhongjing this morning, I was so focused on the profits that I forgot Divine Calculations was Zhuge Liang's manual in the first place. Looks like he's here to demand an explanation.

He was just about to invent an excuse when Zhuge Liang sent another message. "Fellow Daoist, I'm not here to blame you. Since Primordial Heaven Venerable sent Divine Calculations out as a red packet item, and you claimed it, whether you sell it or keep it is naturally entirely up to you.

"It's just that Zhang Zhongjing used Divine Calculations to fleece me out of quite a few merit points this morning, which left me rather annoyed. I happened to hear that he traded you the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases and Hundred-Year Acupuncture. Would you be willing to sell those two manuals to me? I'm willing to offer an item in exchange."

Jun Wangchen immediately brightened. He had thought Zhuge Liang was here to pick a fight, but instead, he wanted to trade for the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases and Hundred-Year Acupuncture. Jun Wangchen had already learned both manuals anyway, so selling them to Zhuge Liang wouldn't hurt. He would even get something new out of it. Why not?

Without hesitation, Jun Wangchen replied, "A trade is fine, but that depends on what you're offering, Mr. Zhuge."

After some thought, Zhuge Liang typed, "Fellow Daoist, I don't have much worth offering. However, on my birthday a few days ago, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven gave me a manual called Fiery Golden Eyes. Would that be acceptable?"

"Fiery Golden Eyes?" Jun Wangchen blinked, then his eyes lit up.

As a child watching Journey to the West, his favorite scenes had been those in which Sun Wukong used his Fiery Golden Eyes to see through the disguises of demons and monsters. He had even often used leaves to sprinkle water onto his own eyes, imitating Sun Wukong's Fiery Golden Eyes.

Now that he could acquire Fiery Golden Eyes, he would be fulfilling a childhood dream.

With that thought, Jun Wangchen agreed at once and sent both the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases and Hundred-Year Acupuncture to Zhuge Liang. Without hesitation, Zhuge Liang immediately sent Fiery Golden Eyes back.

After exchanging a few more messages with Zhuge Liang, Jun Wangchen eagerly opened his wallet and tapped Fiery Golden Eyes.

Manual: Fiery Golden Eyes. Learn?

"Learn!"

The instant Jun Wangchen tapped "Learn," an enormous flood of information poured straight into his mind.

"They say Taishang Laojun's Eight Trigrams Furnace can burn the heavens themselves, yet who would have thought that after forty-nine days of roasting, it would burn my eyes red and help me, old Sun, master Fiery Golden Eyes?

"Dark clouds cannot hide the sun, and true gold fears no trial by fire. Before my eyes, all illusions shall shatter, and every secret shall reveal its true form..."

"Just what you'd expect from the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. These Fiery Golden Eyes don't just identify demons, monsters, and false objects. They can also see the true nature of things, with an effect like X-ray vision. This is absolutely insane!" Even a brief look at the abilities of Fiery Golden Eyes left Jun Wangchen deeply shaken.

These days, how many hormone-fueled young men dreamed of X-ray vision?

With X-ray vision, every beauty would be laid bare before his eyes. That "left hand, right hand, one slow motion" routine could even double its original speed, and he could also... Wait, back to the point. We were perfectly respectable people here!

Without another word, Jun Wangchen followed the instructions and activated Fiery Golden Eyes. In an instant, both his eyes turned gold.

With a single glance, the entire dorm room seemed transparent to Jun Wangchen. Objects that obstructed an ordinary person's sight simply ceased to exist in his eyes.

"Holy shit! The socks I lost six months ago are stuck behind the wardrobe!"

"Damn, he actually hid a USB drive with hundreds of gigabytes of porn inside his underwear. Number Two really is something else!"

"What the hell! So that's why I keep hearing squeaking in the middle of the night. A mouse dug a hole in the corner of the bathroom ceiling and is hiding inside."

After scanning the entire room, Jun Wangchen was even more astounded by the incredible power of Fiery Golden Eyes. Based on what he had just experienced, any X-ray device would look pathetically weak beside them.

"Fiery Golden Eyes are useful, but they really drain my vitality and mental energy. I used them for less than thirty seconds, and I'm already feeling tired. Looks like I can't use them carelessly!" Rubbing his temples, Jun Wangchen deactivated Fiery Golden Eyes. After a sip of water, he sat down on a stool, seemingly lost in thought.

By now, the Groundhog Phone in his hand had transformed much of his life. With all these abilities gathered in one person, he had begun meeting various influential figures and gained a certain degree of standing.

Although this was a good development, it was also a bad one. First, suddenly possessing all sorts of supernatural abilities might make him arrogant and contemptuous of everyone else. Second, those abilities could easily attract the covetous attention of others, or even the government. If someone suddenly learned to fly one day, people's first thought wouldn't be envy. They would want to extract the secret of flight from him, even through unethical means.

Therefore, while possessing these unusual abilities, he had to remain levelheaded and keep himself from going astray. He also had to do everything he could to conceal his secrets. Even those closest to him couldn't be allowed to learn any of them.

Once he had reached that conclusion, Jun Wangchen began considering his future path. Compared with other people, his greatest extraordinary advantage was the Groundhog Phone, because immortals existed within it.

However, he couldn't guarantee that the phone wouldn't vanish without warning someday, nor could he guarantee that some immortal wouldn't take his abilities back. Viewed that way, the wisest thing he could do now was establish a place for himself in the world as quickly as possible.

Then, even if he lost the Groundhog Phone and all his abilities, he could still ensure a worry-free future. At the very least, he wouldn't have to live a mediocre life, scraping by just to survive.

Having thought all this through, Jun Wangchen felt a little more grounded. He took another sip of water, went to the bathroom, and showered, washing away the smell of alcohol and his fatigue.

Once he was done, Jun Wangchen picked up a pen and paper, intending to map out his future.

Before he could begin, the Groundhog Phone suddenly rang. He turned to look and saw that his roommate Number Two was calling.

"Hey, what are you calling me for?"

"Number Four, hurry over to the volleyball court opposite Cafeteria One. The student council's holding a Dice Guessing event today. The winner gets not only a three-thousand-yuan happy dating fund, but also two vouchers for a three-day trip to the Maldives. As our dorm's top dog, you've got to carry the flag, so I signed you up. No need to thank me. It was nothing!"

Hearing Number Two's sleazy voice over the phone, Jun Wangchen first froze, then immediately unleashed a torrent of curses. "You bastard! You signed me up for another fucking bullshit event? That Valentine's Day event you entered me in last time made me the first person ever to get heatstroke in winter! I'm not going along with your craziness this time. Find someone else."

"Number Four, what if I told Number One that you accidentally deleted ten gigabytes of his porn the day before yesterday? What do you think he'd..."

"Give me one minute. I'll be right there!"

"Hahaha! Love you, mwah! Hurry over!" Number Two laughed on the other end, then hung up.

Jun Wangchen's face darkened. Fuck. If you didn't have something on me, I'd beat the crap out of you with Tai Chi Fist today.

With an inward sigh, Jun Wangchen wasted no more time. He straightened his clothes and hurried straight to the volleyball court opposite Cafeteria One...