Jiang Xiang closed the door and sat in his office chair.
His face gradually grew expressionless as he mechanically flipped through the documents.
This body had no need to move for now.
In a corner of Manhattan, inside a lavishly furnished therapy clinic.
An exhausted Jiang Xiang gently rubbed his eyes.
"Hi, Jiang Xiang."
Jiang Xiang forced himself to perk up and looked at the blonde, blue-eyed girl coming through his office door.
"Hi, Gwen. What brings you here? Do you... have some kind of psychological... problem?"
Jiang Xiang picked up two glasses of water and guided Gwen Stacy to the nearby sofa.
"No, I want to study psychology. I heard your family runs a therapy clinic, so I came to ask if you had a recommended reading list or something."
Jiang Xiang and Gwen Stacy had met entirely by chance.
Gwen Stacy was three years younger than Jiang Xiang.
A year ago, Jiang Xiang had returned to his high school as an outstanding graduate to share his experiences, and happened to meet Gwen Stacy.
They had stayed in touch ever since.
"Of course."
Jiang Xiang turned to rummage through his bookcase, scattering books everywhere.
"All right, I admit there was a little mishap with the bookshelf."
"Okay, found it."
Jiang Xiang returned to the sofa and handed Gwen Stacy a book that looked like a personal notebook.
"This is Dr. Mace's recommended reading list. He helped me out when I first got into psychology."
Gwen Stacy blurted out in surprise, "Dr. Mace? I couldn't possibly accept this."
With that, Gwen Stacy set the notebook on the table.
"Don't worry about it. I already paid him."
Jiang Xiang cracked a joke.
Gwen Stacy chatted with Jiang Xiang for a while. Seeing how worn out he looked, she got up to leave.
"Take care."
Gwen Stacy waved. Jiang Xiang watched the lively girl leave, then went back inside and closed the door.
He felt a pang of regret. If only this were a peaceful world.
Jiang Xiang was not native to this world. He had transmigrated here.
Jiang Xiang had been born in Hong Kong in the winter of 1984.
Six years later, he moved to New York to live with Ander Wilson, his mother Li Wei's adoptive father.
His father, Jiang Zhe, was a psychologist. After two years of hard work, with support from Jiang Xiang's grandfather Andre Wilson, he opened several therapy clinics and counseling offices in New York.
In 1992, his mother, Li Wei, died of an illness.
That same year, his father, despite being a psychologist himself, could not come to terms with her death. He grew thinner by the day. Perhaps no one could help him work through his grief, and he died of a broken heart.
His grandfather Andre Wilson stayed by Jiang Xiang's side as he grew up.
His grandfather was not particularly old, not yet fifty.
He took Jiang Xiang back to his father Jiang Zhe's hometown in Qilu, where they stayed until Jiang Xiang finished his first year of high school.
Then Jiang Xiang came to New York, enrolled in Midtown High School, and graduated early from Yale University the previous year.
It was now 2004. At twenty years old, Jiang Xiang had been running his father's therapy clinic for six months.
In his previous life, Jiang Xiang had grown up in an orphanage, so he treasured the family bonds of his new life. Unfortunately, disaster could strike without warning.
When he first returned to New York, Jiang Xiang had dreamed of trading stocks, starting a business, and experiencing life abroad.
The only problem was that it was not particularly safe. After all, every day brought another happy little shooting.
At first, when he entered Midtown High School and received a commemorative Captain America card from his first friend, Jiang Xiang had not thought much of it. He figured his friend just really liked comics. After all, the first Iron Man film, which would save Marvel, had not even been made yet.
Besides, he was not very familiar with English, so he had paid it little attention.
Until one day, when he saw a certain playboy's latest scandal in the newspaper.
Jiang Xiang's heart turned to ice, and his whole body seemed to shiver with cold.
His everyday city life had gone straight to sci-fi hell.
Inside his therapy office, Jiang Xiang summoned the system.
A must-have for most transmigrators, this system had no mind of its own and would not casually threaten to erase him.
Jiang Xiang's system had three functions. The first was to absorb and accumulate emotional value, which he could gain by stirring other people's emotions through his actions. The deeper his impact on someone, the more emotional value he received. Ordinary people provided so little that it was almost negligible; only a large crowd could generate a meaningful amount. People of high status, or characters who had appeared in American comics, provided somewhat more.
The second function was a lottery. He could spend emotional value to activate the lottery pool, draw treasure boxes, and obtain cards and items.
The rewards varied with the amount of emotional value spent.
[Bronze Box] 100-999 points: obtain cards and items of rank D or below. [Silver Box] 1,000-9,999 points: obtain cards and items of rank C or below. [Gold Box] 10,000-99,999 points: obtain cards, fragments, and items of rank B or below. [Platinum Box] 100,000 points: obtain rank B cards, fragments, and items. [Diamond Box] 1,000,000 points: obtain rank A cards, fragments, and items.
Ranks A, B, C, and D did not solely represent combat power. They reflected aptitude, or rather potential, with room for advancement. Supplying certain rare items could raise a card's rating.
Note: the first opening of each box type guarantees a reward of its highest possible rank.
The third function was a shop. So far, it contained only one item, the Sea God Divinity. Redeeming it required not only one hundred million emotional value but also some unusual things.
Since returning to New York in 2000 and activating the system, Jiang Xiang had opened one Silver Box and seven Bronze Boxes.
The main reason it had taken him so long to earn over a thousand emotional value was that he had spent the first year working hard to learn English.
After learning English, Jiang Xiang had felt lost. After all, in his previous life he had been an ordinary person who attended an ordinary university and then became a corporate wage slave.
Jiang Xiang could not even make a decent plan for his life after graduation, let alone figure out a strategy for the system.
He spent a year staying put and observing, studying hard, earning credits, and getting into university.
After entering university, he stumbled through a few attention-grabbing exploits. A year's worth of savings finally gave him enough to open two Bronze Boxes.
The thousand-plus emotional value he had saved in the final year was largely thanks to meeting Gwen Stacy. By then, Jiang Xiang had concluded that she might be the Gwen Stacy connected to Spider-Man. In one "short" year, she had provided seven or eight hundred emotional value, while Jiang Xiang's uncle and grandfather had provided another seven or eight hundred.
Jiang Xiang realized that his grandfather and uncle must hold fairly high positions.
The items from the Bronze Boxes were hard to describe. They were mostly everyday supplies, just from different worlds.
The system's core abilities lay in its cards.
There were many types of cards, and Jiang Xiang had already seen several.
[Disaster Card - Minor Earthquake] [Rank: E] [Effect: designate an area to experience a magnitude 2 earthquake.] [Description: earthquakes need to happen on the ground, you know.]
[Special Incarnation Card] [Rank: D] [Special effect: obtain an incarnation that can act independently of you.]
[Skill Card: stage magic, disguise, costume changes, lightfoot techniques...]
As an ordinary person in this currently stable world, Jiang Xiang naturally found it difficult to earn emotional value on a large scale. He could only rely on Gwen Stacy, his uncle, and his grandfather to keep him afloat.
Jiang Xiang had originally planned to lie low until Iron Man debuted and supernatural powers emerged. Then he would not stand out so much and could work hard to develop his abilities. After all, he vaguely remembered that Iron Man would not appear until 2008.
Jiang Xiang was not a die-hard fan of the films. He had only watched most of them once or twice, and some he had never seen at all.
As far as he remembered, he still had four years to develop his abilities.
Until Jiang Xiang opened his first Silver Box and obtained a Character Card.
[Character Card - Cheng Yang (younger version)] [Rank: C] [Effect: you may invent a manner of appearance, and the character will enter the world accordingly. Note: some invented entrances require the necessary basic conditions.] [Skills: Qi Magic, excellent memory, brewing a fine pot of tea...] [Description: aiya! One more thing!]
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