[Exile]

Qin Siyang did not go home right away.

First, he found a secluded corner, took off his clothes, and burned them.

He still worried that someone might track the scent on them, even though he had drenched them in the canteen's strongly flavored sauces.

Watching his coat slowly burn to ashes, Qin Siyang sighed.

"It hasn't even been that long, and I've already burned three or four coats. At this rate, I'll be wearing short sleeves in this freezing world."

Most of those coats were things he had scavenged from the dump after other people threw them away. He had not paid for a single one.

But his penniless days would probably continue for a while yet.

"I'll find some time to visit the dump again and hunt for treasure."

Then he dumped the food in his lunchbox into a foul-smelling ditch and washed the lunchbox before finally returning home.

He hurriedly ate some leftovers he had brought home yesterday, then went out again.

After making sure no one was following him, he returned to the Internet Cafe.

When Wang Defa saw Qin Siyang at the entrance to the Internet Cafe, he reluctantly walked outside.

"Boss, your silver coin."

Yesterday, Qin Siyang and Wang Defa had agreed that he would come back today to collect this silver coin and use it to pay someone to falsify his Sequence information.

Wang Defa took a silver coin from his pocket and placed it in Qin Siyang's palm, but his fingers refused to let go. His face still showed how reluctant he was to part with it.

"Thanks. I'll pay you back."

Qin Siyang tugged the silver coin out of Wang Defa's hand and pocketed it.

It was a little shameless, but Qin Siyang had no other choice. A silver coin really was hard for him to come by.

Wang Defa's eyelids drooped. "Boss, unless there's something important, let's stop dealing with each other from now on. I'll just consider this a lesson you taught me."

Wang Defa had gained absolutely nothing from Qin Siyang and might even end up in trouble with the Sequence Ability Management Bureau. He felt as miserable as if he had swallowed shit.

But Qin Siyang could not worry about all that. He still had plenty of things that required internet access, and Wang Defa's Internet Cafe was his only safe way to get online.

"How could we stop dealing with each other?" Qin Siyang said. "I still need to use the computer in your storeroom tonight."

"Huh? You're coming back again? The Police Bureau hasn't inspected us today yet!"

"It's already ten. Isn't your Internet Cafe closing soon? Why are you still worried about an inspection?"

Wang Defa pursed his lips and said nothing.

"Don't worry. I'll make it worth your while. But you'll have to wait until I get through this."

Qin Siyang patted Wang Defa's shoulder, then headed for the storeroom.

Once Qin Siyang entered the storeroom, Wang Defa beat his chest and stamped his feet in fury. "Damn it! Someone kill this bastard!!!"

Qin Siyang sat down at the computer and immediately opened the Aixico Virtual Chatroom.

The Aixico Virtual Chatroom was a place to make friends online.

Unlike other chatrooms, the Aixico Virtual Chatroom had remained popular for so long because it used technology that concealed users' network addresses.

Everyone here was anonymous, and their login addresses were completely hidden. No one knew who the people in this chatroom actually were.

Even Aixico's backend staff could not look up the identities of visitors in the chatroom.

That absolute confidentiality created a natural environment for gray-market dealings.

Naturally, the Police Bureau had also set its sights on the chatroom, and undercover officers lurked inside.

To avoid accidentally doing business with the police, the people trading here used all sorts of coded methods.

For example, the person who falsified Sequence information identified prospective clients by having them enter and leave the chatroom eight times in a row.

As for how this method of making contact had spread, or how Roylena had learned about it, Qin Siyang had no idea.

Following Roylena's instructions, he entered the chatroom eight times, then stopped and quietly waited for the mysterious person to contact him.

The chatroom's interface was very simple. On the left was a list of current visitors, in the middle were advertising links for various games and gambling companies, and on the right was the person he was currently chatting with.

Below was the public chat area, where Qin Siyang could see advertisements for loans, forged identities, and other services scrolling past nonstop.

The chatroom's interface could not help reminding him of his previous life.

Of course, he had been just as poor in his previous life as he was in this one, with no money to buy a computer.

So he had only occasionally visited a nearby internet cafe to contact Li Jingwen, spending his dinner money to talk to her in a chatroom.

Usually, Li Jingwen would open a private channel with other people and play games together, while he quietly listened and did her homework for her.

Looking back now, he really had been like a dog.

Still, in this life, he probably would not end up quite so pathetic.

Qin Siyang's thoughts raced past, then returned to reality.

The right side of his chatroom interface was completely blank.

After a few minutes, the empty chat window finally flashed.

Qin Siyang clicked it open. Someone named [Exile] had initiated a chat with him.

"Are you looking for someone?"

"No, I'm waiting for someone," Qin Siyang replied.

He noticed that his current handle in the Aixico Virtual Chatroom was [Future].

"Who are you waiting for?"

"Someone who won't waste time asking questions like that."

[Exile] fell silent for about two minutes before replying, "You should have a better attitude when you're asking someone for a favor."

"Tell me your rules," Qin Siyang said, cutting straight to the point.

"No. First, I want to know where you learned how to contact me."

Without hesitation, Qin Siyang typed out the excuse he had prepared. "A friend who doesn't want to give their name told me."

"You're spouting useless nonsense. It'll be hard for us to work together if you keep this up."

"Business is business. Anything unrelated to it shouldn't be discussed in the first place. If you don't want to do business, I'll find someone else."

"It looks like you're very afraid of your friend. If you tell me, will your friend come after you, or even kill you?"

Qin Siyang did not respond to the speculation.

He kept Roylena's warning firmly in mind, remaining wary of the person on the other end while considering ways to counter them.

"Tell me your rules, [Exile]. I'm still very interested in making this deal happen."

"Give me your personal information, then find a way to put one silver coin beneath the tenth floor tile from the left in the tenth row at Safe Zone Exit No. 38324 before the end of tomorrow. After that, you can wait for someone from the Administration Bureau to contact you."

"What personal information do you need?"

"Thumbprints from both hands and a recent one-inch photo of yourself. Your name, current occupation, and home address. And, of course, what 'identity' you need. This is the internet. Even an anonymous chatroom might be monitored, so I can't spell it out too clearly. You understand what I mean, right?"

Qin Siyang immediately understood that the so-called "identity" meant the Sequence he needed falsified.

"That's too much. I can't give it to you today."

"That's fine. To be safe, all of that needs to be exchanged offline anyway. You can pay me first. I'm often logged into the chatroom. Come back and contact me whenever you have time."

"The same way as today?"

"No. Once you've paid, enter the chatroom and say 'I'm new here' in the public chat area, then enter and leave the chatroom five times in a row."