Double Happiness

Chapter 2: A Double Blessing

[The God Eater sequence has awakened.]

[Digest gods to grow stronger.]

[Current sequence level: Level 1, Glutton]

[Skill: Blood Drink. Skill description: Eating gods can enhance one's strength.]

When he snapped back to his senses, that eye in the starlit sky had already vanished.

The sequence... had it awakened?!

He did not know much about sequence abilities. The only thing he knew was that sequence users could view their own sequence information in their minds.

I... have also awakened a sequence ability?!

Qin Siyang was still in disbelief when he suddenly felt a surge of energy flow through his body, making his mental state much stronger than before. His previously gaunt and starved arms even sprouted muscle lines.

They always say that after awakening a sequence ability, the body gets enhanced. It turns out to be true!

Yet when he thought of that bird's eye, he felt a bit perplexed. Could it be that everyone awakens in such a strange way? I always feel like both my awakening method and my sequence name are somewhat odd. I should figure things out clearly before telling others.

The [God Eater] sequence... That name is certainly straightforward enough. I'll wait and look it up in the [Godslayer Camp].

The [Godslayer Camp] was a forum for sequence users to discuss and communicate. To enter the forum and search, one needed a mobile phone or a computer.

As for his home, let alone a computer, there wasn't even a single household appliance that ran on electricity.

Evening self-study ended. The apocalypse's power resources were insufficient, and internet cafes were not open 24 hours a day; they were already closed now.

Qin Siyang returned home and let out a long sigh. "I'll sleep, and head to the internet cafe tomorrow morning!"

Early the next morning, he carried his only ten copper coins and a schoolbag to the internet cafe.

There was only a faint smell of smoke in the internet cafe, not as pungent as the ones in his memories of his past life. It was somewhat shabby, decorated with nothing more than patterned stickers, and seemed to have hardly been renovated; however, it was still much better than Qin Siyang's living quarters.

In Qin Siyang's eyes, anyone living nearby who could afford electricity was a wealthy household. Anyone who could afford to run such a power-guzzling internet cafe was a mega-tycoon indeed.

In impoverished places like the edge of the safe zone, few people could afford the luxury item of paid internet access.

Yet, an internet cafe happened to be opened right here.

With the internet cafe's special location came naturally special reasons. When Qin Siyang passed by on his way to and from school, he often felt that all sorts of odd people were coming and going, which seemed to corroborate this point.

"Open a terminal, half an hour is enough!" He tossed ten copper coins to the internet cafe manager. With power resources extremely scarce, the cafe's fees were very expensive. Those ten copper coins were his wages from a week of work-study at the school library, and his heart bled as he handed them over.

The plump internet cafe manager in his thirties sitting at the counter stared at Qin Siyang for two extra moments, then emotionlessly pointed at a terminal. "That one over there, go ahead."

After Qin Siyang sat down, someone not far from him wearing a suit was clacking away on a keyboard. Qin Siyang glanced over again and finally understood why the smell in the internet cafe of this lifetime was much more pleasant than in his past life.

Because the fees were expensive.

Those who could afford the disposable cash to come here were generally people looking up information or conducting transactions, completely lacking the kind of internet cafe regulars from his past life whose food, clothing, housing, and transportation all happened in one spot.

Qin Siyang stopped thinking about other things and focused on the screen in front of him. But this machine was very slow, taking two full minutes just to enter the interface.

There was no help for it; computers with faster speeds required extra money.

He logged into the sequence users' forum, the [Godslayer Camp], and checked the sequences that had appeared so far. The pinned post was about the statistics of currently awakened sequence abilities, and he clicked into it immediately.

From New Year's Day in 2005 to the present-a full five years-several thousand types of sequences had already awakened. Everyone had awakened suddenly like being struck by electricity, and no one had ever seen a bird's eye before awakening.

What surprised Qin Siyang even more was that among the thousands of sequences, no one's sequence ability was related to devouring gods. Neither had anyone else experienced his method of awakening, nor did anyone possess a sequence ability like his.

Qin Siyang swallowed hard and muttered to himself,

"Could it be that I am the chosen one?!"

His own sequence was unsearchable.

Should he make it public? He might become the center of attention!

Yet when his gaze lingered on a post, he fell into hesitation.

"Humanity has yet to be able to digest the remains of gods. If someone awakens a sequence that allows them to devour gods and grow stronger, they might get captured and studied!"

Getting captured and studied...

Having gained a preliminary understanding of sequence abilities, he knew that his [Godslayer Camp]-wait, [God Eater] sequence was a unique existence.

Sequence users in the [Godslayer Camp] also yearned for this kind of sequence ability in their hearts.

Because hunting gods on one hand while growing stronger on the other would undoubtedly be a terrifying perpetual motion machine.

Qin Siyang cautiously realized that he apparently did not possess the strength to match this miraculous sequence.

As the old saying goes, "An ordinary man is not guilty, but his possession of a treasure is a crime."

If a person possessed wealth mismatched with their own strength, crises would lurk on all sides.

Should he choose to believe in himself?

Or should he choose to believe in others, resting his own life and future upon the noble morals of other people?

To a normal person.

This question was not hard to answer.

Qin Siyang instantly made up his mind:

This matter had to be kept secret.

Making a fortune in silence.

Whether in his past life or the present, that remained an unbreakable truth!

As he was pondering his future plans, the computer suddenly jumped back to the password screen and displayed a message:

[Your internet time has expired. Please go to the counter to renew if you wish to continue using.]

The internet time he had purchased with ten copper coins was up.

This was the difficulty of having no money.

No matter how heaven-defying your sequence was, you still had to log off on time.

Fortunately, in just half an hour, Qin Siyang had already found the information he wanted.

At the very least, he absolutely could not let others know about the God Eater sequence.

Qin Siyang shouldered his schoolbag and left the internet cafe under the somewhat puzzled gaze of the bloated internet cafe manager.

Looking through the air-raid glass of the safe zone at the endless starry river that hung in the sky year-round, as well as the huge deities that wandered past from time to time, Qin Siyang felt a bit lost once again.

Next, should he go to the safe zone exit or to school?

Inside the Godslayer Camp, those sequence ability users said that teams of sequence ability users who hunted deities entered and exited the safe zone exit every day.

The United Government provided various support policies and resource tilts for sequence ability users.

In exchange, the sequence ability users had to hunt deities outside the safe zone.

Moreover, the more and larger deities they hunted, the more generous the rewards for the sequence ability users would be.

To prove that they had hunted a deity, sequence ability users would bring back a special part of the deity's remains as a voucher to claim their reward.

Therefore, Qin Siyang thought that waiting at the safe zone exit might give him a chance to take a bite of a deity's flesh and verify whether this God Eater sequence could make him stronger.

If the verification succeeded, then perhaps he could soar straight up.

He could hide outside the safe zone and keep hunting deities until he became an peerless expert, and then return to the safe zone to dominate everything.

He could improve his strength in the process of hunting deities, making him practically a perpetual motion machine.

Yet Qin Siyang checked the information panel in his mind again, calmly analyzed his skills, and shook his head.

"The description of Blood Drink is that eating deities alive can also improve strength."

"It didn't say it can fill your stomach..."

"If it can't stave off hunger, it means I can't save money on meals by eating deities."

For him, the problem of eating meals was the number one priority that ranked above the sequence problem; he could not be anything less than cautious.

A single meal could stump a great hero.

Qin Siyang stopped thinking about where to go.

Because he only had one option-to go to school.

Going to the safe zone exit to try his luck indeed carried the possibility of growing stronger.

However, today's Gregorian calendar said [Inauspicious for all undertakings], indicating that it was very likely unsuitable for doing things that relied on luck.

Qin Siyang was not normally superstitious.

However, since unscientific things like rebirth and the doomsday had even happened, superstition also seemed quite reasonable.

Once a person encountered things beyond their cognition, they could not help but become superstitious.

School had lunch and dinner.

More importantly, today was Friday.

Saturday and Sunday at school were days off.

When the cafeteria closed during holidays, it meant he would not be able to freeload meals.

Missing today's cafeteria meant that penniless him would have to go hungry for another two days.

Not only did he have to go to school, but he also had to beg Auntie Zhang from the cafeteria to give him a bit more food in order to solve his two meals or single meal of the weekend.

Auntie Zhang, who served food at the cafeteria, also knew that he was an orphan and took very good care of him.

He could go to the safe zone exit over the weekend, since sequence ability users did not rest on weekends.

Sequence ability users needed to submit deity remains to the United Government in order to obtain resources, which was not much different from self-employed small individuals.

Since they were self-employed, the times for going to work and taking holidays were not so clear-cut.

Qin Siyang made up his mind.

On the gloomy main road, there was only one dim street lamp every few dozen meters.

Illuminating a distance of two or three steps. Air-raid glass was also connected to the top of the street lamps, seemingly serving a supporting role.

In Qin Siyang's view, the only significance of these street lamps existing was to tell passersby that this street was the main road in the marginal area of the safe zone.

Other than that, they were of not much use.

Even the lights illuminating the internet café were several times brighter than the streetlamps.

Qin Siyang walked along the dim main road for over ten minutes before arriving at the school.

The Qin Siyang of his past life had studied at an ordinary county high school, and the school's conditions were not particularly good.

It was much the same in this world.

He had no choice.

There was only one school nearby, the Ju'an School.

The Ju'an School encompassed a twelve-year educational system ranging from primary school to high school.

Children on the edge of the safe zone started school at six or seven years old and did not leave until they turned eighteen.

It could be said to be a second home.

The students at this school were all ordinary people, and the students' parents were also ordinary people.

In a safe zone where Sequenced Ability users were not rare, gatherings consisting entirely of ordinary people were few, and they were all distributed along the edges of the safe zone.

Anyone who managed to awaken a Sequenced Ability would without fail move their entire family away from this dangerous and dilapidated marginal area to live in safe zone regions with better environments.

At the school, everyone was a bottom-tier figure in the safe zone.

Yet Qin Siyang's family conditions were right at the absolute rock bottom.

He did not even have a home. With no parents, he lived alone.

Had it not been for the United Government's policy waiving tuition fees for orphans,

he would not have known where he would be right now or what he would be doing.

Qin Siyang walked along the dim streets to the school.

The teachers on duty at the school gate had not yet arrived, and early self-study had not started.

Daily early self-study ran from eight to eight-fifteen in the morning.

He had just awakened his ability and was very excited, so he woke up early this morning. Even after spending half an hour at the internet café, it was still very early.

The school was filled with lights.

The school was the brightest place in the entire safe zone perimeter, possessing the best electrical systems and electric lights.

In a safe zone where electrical resources were expensive, this was extremely rare.

The United Government believed that the hope of saving the human race and counter-killing the gods rested on every child. No matter what, education could not be made to suffer.

Only when educational conditions were raised would the new generation develop a sense of belonging to the United Government and the safe zone.

And only then would they become more enthusiastic about devoting themselves to the cause of hunting gods.

The United Government also proposed giving every child equal access to education, because you never knew which child would grow into a hero.

Yet policies were policies, and once they trickled down to individual schools, they warped into all sorts of bizarre shapes.

People like Qin Siyang, who neither paid tuition nor had any future, were the bloodsuckers of the school, and the teachers held them in little regard. Even after the apocalypse, the blood the teachers sucked from the school far exceeded anything Qin Siyang ever took.

The head teacher placed his desk in the corner of the classroom, a place where no one paid attention.

It was identical to his spot in the previous life.

The Qin Siyang before his rebirth had grown lonely and desolate inside because of this, but the reborn Qin Siyang found it thoroughly comfortable. At least here, no one would disturb him while he zoned out.

The other classmates all took out their textbooks and began previewing the day's lessons. Meanwhile, Qin Siyang rested his chin in one hand, staring blankly out the window at the gods occasionally flying past the safe zone.

Could he beat a god in a fight? And what would a god even taste like?

"Qin Siyang."

Right at that moment, his daydreaming was interrupted.

He looked up to see a pretty female classmate standing beside him.

"Oh, Li Jingwen, what is it?"

She was here. She had come.

She walked over carrying a load of unbearable memories.

Li Jingwen was Qin Siyang's high school classmate.

She was adept at playing the green tea bitch and keeping men on the hook.

To the current Qin Siyang, she seemed childish, but among her teenage peers in high school, her ranking was not low.

It was no wonder Qin Siyang himself had been strung along by her for three years. Every day, he preferred going hungry to using his work-study money to bring breakfast for Li Jingwen. Li Jingwen's homework was also entirely written by him. For Li Jingwen, Qin Siyang granted every request.

Yet Li Jingwen had never agreed to his confessions, continually stalling by saying they could not let it interfere with their studies.

However, whenever Qin Siyang wanted to give up his pursuit of her, Li Jingwen would take the initiative to find him, offering encouragement and saying this was merely testing him, hoping he would persevere.

This kind of talk was simply too hard for a pure-hearted high schooler to refuse.

It was more intoxicating than a blade-forging competition, trimming donkey hooves, or washing carpets.

Thus, Qin Siyang steadfastly served as a warrior of pure love.

Regrettably, it was only after graduating from high school that he learned Li Jingwen had gotten together with Zhou Yang from the next class.

Zhou Yang's family conditions were quite good; his uncle was a section chief in the education department, and his parents' jobs were also relatively respectable. For Li Jingwen to be with him could be considered achieving a leap across half a class boundary.

He still remembered Li Jingwen's sneer when he saw her and Zhou Yang holding hands:

"So stupid, you deserve to be an orphan!"

Living this life over again, even though the world had undergone drastic changes, most of those classmates from his past life had not changed at all.

Seeing Li Jingwen again, there was not a single ripple in his heart, and he even felt a sense of sudden enlightenment.

The spring breeze returned to a youth once more, and today at last I know I am myself.

Romance was wonderful, but one had to beware of people using it to do evil.

Li Jingwen said in a coy voice, "Qin Siyang, you haven't brought me breakfast for three days now."

"Oh, I ate the breakfast myself," Qin Siyang replied indifferently.

Li Jingwen froze, then asked with some astonishment, "Then what about my breakfast?"

"Didn't you tell me before that you have breakfast at home, so I didn't need to bring it?"

Qin Siyang only learned later that Li Jingwen had regifted the breakfast he gave her to Zhou Yang from the next class in order to ingratiate herself with him.

It could be said that in order to be with Zhou Yang, Li Jingwen had also worked extremely hard.

Except that she dragged Qin Siyang along to work hard with her.

"I was just testing you! If you back down so easily, how can I feel safe being with you in the future?"

Gazing at Li Jingwen's expression of mingled anger and spoiled petulance, Qin Siyang chuckled lightly. "If you don't feel safe, then let's not be together. It's not like we're boyfriend and girlfriend right now anyway."

Hearing Qin Siyang's reply, Li Jingwen felt a sense of foreboding in her heart. She could not understand why Qin Siyang, who had previously been entirely at her beck and call, seemed like a completely different person over the past few days!

Yet her primary focus was hastily getting back the homework Qin Siyang had written for her so she could go find Zhou Yang to check their answers together.

"Then give me my homework."

Qin Siyang opened his schoolbag, fished out three exercise books, and handed them to Li Jingwen.

Li Jingwen took the homework, flipped through two pages, and instantly widened her eyes. "Qin Siyang! Why is the homework blank?!"

"Homework doesn't write itself. If no one writes it, naturally it's blank."

"Bu-but didn't you say you'd help me write it?"

Qin Siyang fished out another three notebooks and opened the blank homework sections to show Li Jingwen. "I didn't even write my own, why would I write yours?"

"You! If you do this, you'll get me yelled at by the teacher!"

"Oh."

"Aren't you worried if I get yelled at by the teacher?"

As if hearing something utterly hilarious, Qin Siyang glanced comically at Li Jingwen, then spread his hands. "When the head teacher made me stand as punishment yesterday, you weren't worried either."

Tears shimmered in the corners of Li Jingwen's eyes. "Qin Siyang, I feel like you don't like me anymore."

Qin Siyang turned a blind eye to her acting, instead giving her a thumbs-up. "Li Jingwen, that is the only human sentence you've spoken all morning."

With that, Qin Siyang leaned against the window, continuing to gaze at the bizarre-looking gods in the sky-if you ate one of these things, wouldn't it give you diarrhea?

Li Jingwen was completely dumbfounded.

She had arranged to meet Zhou Yang to check homework answers and intended to pass along the breakfast Qin Siyang had given her.

Now that Qin Siyang was dropping the ball here, how was she supposed to explain to Zhou Yang?!

Faced with Qin Siyang's indifference, she said angrily, "Qin Siyang, if you act like this, we have no future together!"

Qin Siyang gave a cold chuckle, turned back around, and stared at the calendar hanging at the back of the classroom.

[Earth Era January 1, 2010]

[Western Calendar, Friday, New Year's Day.]

[Lunar Calendar, Ji Chou Year, November 17, Auspicious For Nothing]

"Who says today is auspicious for nothing?"

"Isn't this a double blessing?"