"2016, October 9, cloudy."
"Today I was careless and sent the fried tomatoes that were supposed to be served to table 3 to table 6... I am so useless."
"Although the guests at table 6 didn't eat, my third uncle later made another portion for the guests at table 3, but I really shouldn't have made such a low-level mistake... My third uncle is usually very busy, and I actually caused him trouble, oh..."
"My third uncle's birthday is coming soon, but I haven't saved enough money to buy him a gift. Although I have been secretly working part-time at a convenience store every night recently, I still feel that it is a little short. I wonder if Meng Xiang is willing to lend me some? Apart from him, I really don't have any other friends."
"Borrow money, borrow money... How should I ask?"
The tip of the pen gently tapped on the yellowed diary, and the ink slowly soaked into the page. A young man in an apron sat at the table, looking out the window at the bare and dim alley. After a long time, he sighed.
“Why can’t everything in this world be as simple as washing dishes?”
Jingle Bell-
Just as he was lost in thought, a loud alarm rang beside him.
He came back to his senses as if awakened from a dream, quickly turned off the alarm clock, stood up, carefully put the pen and diary back in their original places, and then hurriedly pushed the door open and left.
This building has two floors, the upper floor is where he and his uncle usually live, and the lower floor is his uncle's local cuisine restaurant. It is already past ten o'clock in the evening, and the local cuisine restaurant has long been closed. Only his uncle is sitting in front of the electric fan, taking a nap with a newspaper.
Zhou Ping tiptoed down the stairs and saw his third uncle still downstairs, looking distressed.
It’s already late and my third uncle hasn’t gone back to sleep yet... I want to go out through the main door, but it’s probably impossible.
After hesitating for a moment, he returned to the second floor, locked his door, turned off the lights, and skillfully opened the window in the dark...
Then he jumped down from the second floor.
In the darkness, his body was very light, floating like a swallow through the deserted alley, and landed steadily on the ground without making a sound.
He looked around and made sure that no one saw him, then quickly walked towards the street in the distance.
Xijin is a city that is neither big nor small. Like other cities in the province, there is no such thing as "nightlife". It is as if something scary will happen on the streets after 8:30... In addition, the city has a serious aging population, so after 9 o'clock, the streets are almost empty.
Zhou Ping walked alone on the quiet street, the street lights stretching and shortening his shadow. He frowned, as if he was still worried about how to ask Meng Xiang to borrow money...
If he had a choice, he would rather wash dishes in a local restaurant for ten hours than engage in this kind of socializing. What's more, borrowing money is the ceiling of social difficulty!
While Zhou Ping was daydreaming, he had already arrived at the door of the convenience store. On the dark and deserted street, this convenience store, the only one with lights on, was as dazzling as a beacon, but at this moment, this light was like hell in Zhou Ping's eyes.
He stood in front of the convenience store, took a deep breath, as if he had been struggling mentally for a long time, and then pushed the door open.
“… Good morning, Meng Xiang.”
In the huge convenience store, there was only one uniformed clerk behind the cashier counter. When he heard these words, he was slightly stunned. He looked up and saw the figure walking into the convenience store, and surprise appeared in his eyes.
"Strictly speaking, it's already late at night..." Meng Xiang was about to continue, but when he saw Zhou Ping's gradually flushed cheeks, he immediately changed his tone and spoke gently,
"However, our work has just begun... and you are early again. You still have a full half hour before your work starts."
It has been a while since Zhou Ping came here to work, and Meng Xiang has never heard him talk to him on his own initiative... He stands behind the cash register every day in uniform, with the dark green baseball cap with the convenience store logo printed on it covering most of his face. When customers talk to him, he is very frugal with words, like an extremely cold cash register machine.
And every time a customer paid and left, Meng Xiang could vaguely see... the young face under the baseball cap was already red to the ears.
This boy is just like a college student who is as green as can be!
"… Feel sorry."
Zhou Ping lowered his head and said sincerely.
"?" Meng Xiang looked at Zhou Ping who was really apologizing in front of him, and helplessly held his forehead, "No need to apologize, you did nothing wrong... As a store manager, I wish there were more temporary workers like you. Let me make it clear first, the extra half hour will not be paid."
After hearing the second half of the sentence, Zhou Ping's body trembled slightly. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, and his whole face turned red.
"But Xiao Zhou, to be honest, with your personality, you will suffer a lot if you enter society." Meng Xiang didn't notice the change in Zhou Ping's expression at all. Holding a purchase order in his hand, he went to the shelf nearby to count the goods, while speaking earnestly.
Hearing Meng Xiang talking to himself again, Zhou Ping knew that he couldn't bring himself to ask for a loan.
He walked into the warehouse silently, locked the door, and took off his black shirt. In the narrow dressing mirror in the corner of the warehouse, a body covered with scars was exposed... Dark red scars were distributed on his arms and back, with different shapes. Some looked like burns from cigarette butts, some looked like blood scabs from belts whipping his flesh, and some looked like thin red lines from paper cutters cutting his arms...
Zhou Ping did not look at himself in the mirror. Instead, he carefully folded the shirt in his hand and put it aside. He picked up the convenience store uniform that had been prepared on the other side and put it on. After making sure that he was dressed neatly, he pushed his baseball cap down to the lowest point and walked out of the door.
"People, don't be too honest. Good people are often bullied... This is in a convenience store. If you go to those companies and factories, and you don't know how to curry favor with people, and you don't know how to judge the situation, and you just work hard, won't they take advantage of you? It's a small matter to exclude you and ask you to work more. If you are stupid enough to be dragged over to be a scapegoat, your life will be over...
Human nature is evil. It is their instinct to be jealous and destroy beautiful things. If you want to come out clean after entering this big dye vat of society, then you must be a saint..."
Meng Xiang's soliloquy lasted for half an hour. It was not because he was talkative, but because years of working late at night had made him develop this habit. In the countless long nights in the past, he could only rely on this method to drive away loneliness and sleepiness.
But since he hired Zhou Ping, a model worker who volunteered to work the night shift, was quick and nimble, and required very low salary, he could finally go home and sleep peacefully in the middle of the night.
Meng Xiang looked up at the time, tapped his sore waist, stood up, and handed the purchase order to Zhou Ping behind the cashier counter.
"Okay, I'm leaving. You can count the rest by yourself. Don't forget that there are still a lot of goods to be loaded in the warehouse."
Zhou Ping took the list and spoke subconsciously:
"oh."
Meng Xiang glanced at Zhou Ping who was standing upright, and sighed helplessly, "Don't be so serious. Although we are a 24-hour convenience store, there are almost no customers in the middle of the night. Relax and find something you like to do. The long night is very difficult to endure..."
After he finished speaking, he waved his hand, walked out of the convenience store, and disappeared into the dark night.
Zhou Ping came back to his senses when the automatic door slowly closed. He rubbed his eyes in confusion and bitterness, "I was interrupted and forgot about the important matter... I can only wait until tomorrow to speak again, alas."
The night is dark,
On the dead silent and dim streets, only convenience stores still emit the light of civilization. The outlines of the continuous buildings look like countless crawling beasts in the night, staring at the only remaining lighthouse in this dark world through the glass of automatic doors.
In the convenience store, the only sounds were the low hum of the air conditioner and the ticking of the clock.
"Saint..."
For some reason, Meng Xiang's words just now emerged in Zhou Ping's mind again, and a complex look appeared in his eyes.
Zhou Ping glanced at the clock on the wall. He still needed to be on duty for seven hours in the convenience store. After hesitating for a moment, he took out a small stool from the warehouse, and took something out from under the cash register and held it in his hands.
It was a book, and it was the only thing he could use to pass the time during the long night.
—"The Third Young Master's Sword".
"A saint, is he similar to a hero?" Zhou Ping murmured to himself as he stroked the cover of the book.
"It would be great if there really were heroes in this world..."
…
Boom!!!
The ferocious thunder cut through the misty fog, and above the roaring sea of blood, two huge shadows were fighting in the bloody rain!
A huge monster shaped like a lizard was strangled by the throat by a giant hand that looked like it was carved from gold. It slammed into the raging sea, and the blood-stained sea water burst into huge waves hundreds of meters high, overturning the sky like a doomsday!
Endless sea water submerged the body of the giant beast. It screamed miserably and twisted its huge body wildly, trying to break free from the giant golden hand, but the latter held it tighter and tighter, almost crushing its head!
The pupils of the giant beast couldn't help but shrink. At this moment, the flesh and blood on its waist and abdomen twisted rapidly. The second lizard's head broke out of the skin strangely. The bloody giant mouth suddenly opened, and countless thunders gathered and compressed in it. The next moment, a thick and earth-shattering lightning pillar shot up into the sky!
boom!!
The lightning pillar pierced through the sea water and rushed straight into the sky. The fog that diffused in the world was torn apart. Amidst the countless lightning flashes, the full image of the giant golden hand finally emerged.
It was a golden giant standing tall, with his feet on the sea and his head in the sky. The vast and oppressive Buddha light almost tore the beast's breath into pieces. A pair of golden pupils that looked like burning in the scorching sun were looking down indifferently at the lizard beast drowning in the sea.
At the moment when the lightning column broke through the sea surface, the golden giant's other hand suddenly clenched into a fist and smashed towards the second lizard's head with a whistling sound!
The golden giant fist crushed the surging lightning pillar into pieces with overwhelming force, and then slammed into the second lizard's head, smashing it into bloody mud. At the same time, the other hand also crushed the lizard's head, and the shrill roar stopped abruptly!
Blood and flesh spread in the surging sea water, and the huge beast's body instantly became limp and sank powerlessly to the bottom of the sea...
Amid the blood rain, the towering golden giant gradually disappeared and turned into a human figure standing above the sea.
He was a young man, tall and slender. His well-proportioned and strong body looked as if it had been carefully carved through the tattered clothes torn by battle. There was a beauty that was extremely powerful but not rough. At first glance, he looked like a young Buddha enshrined in an unknown ancient temple.
He looked down at the blood-red sea, the golden light in his pupils gradually dissipated, and he slowly moved his body to pick up the dark red cloak floating on the sea and casually draped it over his shoulders.
After a while, he stepped on nothingness, turned around and walked towards the other side of the sea.
“Venerable Ye Fan… You are Venerable Ye Fan?!”
On the other side of the sea, a blond figure with blue eyes spoke in horror as if he had thought of something. His body was nailed to the surface of the floating wreckage by a straight knife, and his face was extremely pale.
"The front is the territory of Daxia. It seems that your pursuit can only end here." Ye Fan said lightly, "The whole journey of 1,430 kilometers, you all failed to kill me, and I killed you one by one... It seems that the strength of your Olympus agents is only so so."
Hearing this, the blond figure's face showed anger, and he spoke viciously,
"So what if we are in Daxia? You don't have a god in Daxia, how long can you last with just the five human ceilings?! You wait, Lord Gaia will soon lead his people to flatten Daxia, and then you..."
puff!!
The blade flashed, and the blond figure's head rolled onto the deck.
Amid the falling blood rain, Ye Fan casually shook off the blood on the surface of the straight knife, put it back into the sheath at his waist, and said expressionlessly, "You are the running dogs raised by the gods, what else can you do except barking?"
Ye Fan held the scabbard in one hand and the dark red cloak on his shoulder in the other. He glanced at the fog in the distance and walked slowly in that direction.
After an unknown amount of time, a huge foggy border gradually appeared in his field of vision, like an inverted giant bowl, isolating all the fog and war outside... The moment he saw this border, Ye Fan's tense figure finally relaxed a little.
"Finally back..." he murmured to himself.
At this moment, he seemed to have noticed something, let out a light exclamation, and turned his head to look not far away.
In the misty fog, a black-sailed boat was slowly crossing the surging sea, coming straight towards him from the border of Daxia, through the misty wall.
The moment he saw the black-sailed boat, Ye Fan's brows raised slightly, as if he was a little surprised.
"Uncle Shang? Why are you here?"
Inside the Wupeng boat, a somewhat elderly voice came out in a friendly voice:
"I spied on the time today and saw that you would be coming back from here. Since I have nothing to do, I decided to pick you up... Come on board."
As he was speaking, the black-sailed boat just floated in front of Ye Fan. Without hesitation, the latter stepped onto it and walked into the low black sail.
This black-sailed boat was no different from the ones that could be seen everywhere in the south of the Yangtze River in the past. An arched black sail was placed above the hull, and a glass kerosene lamp was hung in front of the sail. The orange light spread across a dim corner. Under the black sail, an old man dressed as a fisherman was sitting at a small square table, looking at him with a smile.
"I don't have the same convenient abilities as Old Chen, so the place is a bit narrow, don't mind."
"I'm very grateful that Uncle Shang came to pick me up." Ye Fan sat down on the other side of the small table, took the hot tea handed to him by Uncle Shang, and drank it in one gulp. The boiling hot tea dispelled the fatigue and coldness after the war, and he immediately felt much more energetic.
Looking at Ye Fan who was covered in wounds, Uncle Shang's eyes flashed with complexity, and he couldn't help but said:
"Wang Qing will be distressed again when she sees you like this."
"Commander? She wouldn't do that." Ye Fan said with a smile, "She has always believed that 'the more you get beaten, the stronger you become', otherwise she wouldn't have let me go into the fog to fight and train alone... Before I left, she also said that if I didn't have a hundred more wounds on my body when I came back, she would heal them with a whip herself."
"That being said, you know her character..."
Uncle Shang smiled helplessly halfway through his speech, then changed the subject and asked, "What did you gain from going into the mist this time?"
"have!"
At this point, Ye Fan's expression immediately became serious. "This time, I heard extremely important news in the fog... It is said that Zeus, the king of Olympus, used a secret method to spy on fate and saw that in the future, an extremely powerful 'blasphemer' will be born, which will threaten the foundation of the kingdom of the gods."
"Blasphemer?" Uncle Shang's face darkened, as if he had thought of something and fell into deep thought...
Ye Fan did not notice the change in Uncle Shang's expression and continued,
"Several other kingdoms of gods are skeptical about Zeus's prophecy and don't seem to be taking any action for the time being. However, the gods of Olympus have completely entered a state of preparation for war and will probably take large-scale action against us soon.
But considering Daxia’s current situation…”
Ye Fan looked at Uncle Shang in front of him, opened his mouth, and didn't continue speaking, but his expression was already extremely solemn.
There are no gods in Daxia, and now there are only five human ceilings. Among these five human ceilings, there is a ceiling like Shang Shu who has almost no positive combat power... Using four human ceilings to fight against the Olympus gods
It can be said that today's Daxia is facing the most dangerous and severe situation in hundreds of years.
Ye Fan paused for a moment, and spoke again with a glimmer of hope:
"Uncle Shang, you are the first person in human history to possess a time-related forbidden ruins. In the future you have glimpsed... where is our way out?"
The swaying kerosene lamp made the black tent dim and bright. Uncle Shang raised his old face slightly, and a glimmer of light flashed in his deep eyes.
"The blasphemer... could it be him?"
"Him?" Ye Fan was stunned, and then seemed to think of something, "Uncle Shang, did you see the Blasphemer in time?"
Uncle Shang nodded slightly, "Not long ago, my eyes accidentally crossed the long river of time and saw a corner of the future... In the future, I saw the gods fighting, I saw evil spirits coming to the world, and I saw powerful humans fighting across the long river of time... But in that vast time, only two stars were the most dazzling.
Of these two stars, one rises four years later, and the other rises ten years later;
I have never seen such shining stars. Their existence illuminates the future of mankind, especially the one ten years later. Even if I tried my best, I couldn't see his figure clearly... His existence is beyond my cognition.
One of these two shining stars should be the blasphemer you mentioned, but I am not sure which one it is. "
"One in four years, and one in ten years? That is, 2016 and 2022?" Ye Fan thought, "So... they haven't been born yet?"
"No, they should have already been born. The time when the stars rise is not the time when they were born, but the day when the gears of their destiny began to turn."
“So, maybe we can find them in our time, and then let them embark on this journey in advance to help us overcome this difficulty?” Ye Fan’s eyes suddenly lit up.
Uncle Shang frowned slightly, as if he was thinking about something seriously.
"It seems possible in theory, but..." After a long while, Uncle Shang smiled bitterly, "To be honest, I don't know if my Forbidden Ruins can do it. [Eye of Time] is the first Forbidden Ruins in human history that involves time, but its function seems to be limited to 'spying'...
If we use it to peer into the future and use that information to change the present, then in some ways that is falsifying history.
We don’t know yet whether the attempt to tamper with history will succeed and at what cost.”
Hearing this, Ye Fan nodded silently.
Just as he was about to say something, Uncle Shang's voice came again: "But I can try."
Ye Fan was stunned. "Uncle Shang, since there are risks in tampering with history, why bother..."
"If everything is as you said, then Daxia will face a catastrophe in the near future... If a rotten wooden shoulder of mine can't even take on this responsibility, how can I have the face to call myself the ceiling of mankind?" Uncle Shang looked at Ye Fan in front of him and smiled with relief. The turbid pupils reflected an orange glow.
"You have your battlefield, and I... have mine."
Ye Fan stared at the gray-haired figure in a daze, and came to his senses after a long time. A ray of light was shining from outside the black sail. He didn't know when the boat had passed through the border waters. At the end of the blue sea, a warship was heading straight towards here.
"Okay then... Uncle Shang, if you need any help, feel free to contact me."
Ye Fan knew that it was time for him to leave. He also needed to pass the message to the night watchman as soon as possible. Uncle Shang on the opposite side smiled and nodded. Ye Fan turned into a stream of light and quickly flew towards the warship.
On the vast ocean, there was only a tiny black-sailed boat left, swaying gently with the waves.
"The field of vision of the mind's eye is limited. The star that will appear ten years from now is too far away to be seen clearly... I can only try to see the one that will appear four years from now." Uncle Shang muttered to himself as he sat alone in the boat.
He slowly raised his head, and in his eyes that reflected the orange fire, a strange silver light ignited out of thin air, and pressure at the ceiling level of mankind suddenly descended upon the sea!
Those mercury-like pupils stared into the void, as if they wanted to burn through time and space. Everything around him twisted unconsciously... Two lines of black tears of blood flowed uncontrollably from the corners of his eyes.
"The shining star that belongs only to mankind... Let me see where you are."
A blurry ball of light and shadow emerged from the depths of his soul, and along with that gaze that burned through time and space, it suddenly disappeared into nothingness!
…
Jingle Bell-
The faint light of dawn knocked on the door of the convenience store. The pale golden morning light shone through the glass doors and windows, casting slowly moving shadows on the white stone bricks.
Amidst the crisp and rapid ringing of the bell, Zhou Ping, who was lying on the table, slowly opened his eyes...
Half asleep and half awake, he stared at the hazy pale golden ground for several seconds before he suddenly came to his senses!
"Fell asleep?!"
Zhou Ping stood up suddenly from his seat, his eyes full of surprise and guilt under his messy hair, "It's over, it's over, I fell asleep in the last two hours... I really shouldn't have sat on the stool, it's easy to get sleepy when I sit down... The inventory list hasn't been counted yet, and the new goods at the back haven't been delivered yet... It's too late!"
Zhou Ping hurriedly put away the completely read copy of "The Third Young Master's Sword" on the table. Just as he was about to take the list and go to check the goods, a breeze brushed his cheek.
Zhou Ping was stunned.
For some reason, an unprecedented sense of foreboding surged into his heart. He didn't even have time to think, and instinctively turned his head to look at the tightly closed glass door of the shop.
"Who? Who is looking at me?"
After saying this, he was stunned for a moment, with a confused look in his eyes...
At the same time, a vague light and shadow emerged from the void. In the dim light of dawn, it was unclear what it looked like, and only the outline of a human figure could be vaguely seen... He just walked through the tightly closed glass door of the shop, and even the extremely sensitive automatic sensor door seemed not to be aware of his presence.
He stood lightly in front of the store, facing the cashier counter where Zhou Ping was. When he heard Zhou Ping's voice, he was also stunned.
"You... can see me?"
Uncle Shang was shocked, and under the blurry light and shadow, his face was completely filled with astonishment.
You know, he just used his spiritual power through the [Eye of Time] to cross the long river of time to come here. Strictly speaking, it was only his gaze that came here, invisible and intangible... And this young man in front of him could actually see his existence?
"I have no ill intentions..." Uncle Shang spoke subconsciously, but then he remembered that he had no entity at all with only mental power left, and no sound would come out when he spoke.
Just as he was hesitating, the young man behind the cashier spoke again.
"No ill intentions?" Zhou Ping frowned slightly, and looked carefully at the blurry light and shadow under his cap. In his field of vision, a figure with gray hair on the temples was gradually becoming clearer...
"So, who are you?" he asked.
He could actually hear himself talking?
Uncle Shang was completely shocked. He was stunned for a while, then he said:
"My name is Wang Shang." He paused for a moment and carefully looked at the extraordinary young man in front of him. "What about you? What's your name?"
The moment this question was asked, the entire convenience store fell into a dead silence. The pale golden morning sun shone all over the ground. Two figures stared at each other at the same time. At this moment, Zhou Ping had not yet realized that, in the dark, the gears of his destiny had already begun to slowly turn...
He was silent for a while, then he spoke:
"Zhou Ping."
…
…
Zhou Ping's extra chapter is here!
It's called Zhou Ping's extra story, but it's actually a long story with Zhou Ping as the main plot. The whole story is probably tens of thousands of words (actually I wanted to write a little longer, but Tomato's extra story can only be written at most 100,000 words), so I finally decided to update it in a serialized form~
The update time is uncertain, probably one chapter every few days (or ten days), and each chapter is much longer than the previous one. I will definitely finish all the updates before starting a new book at the end of September.
In addition, because the cheat code for the new book has not been decided yet, the sequel (about Lin Qiye entering the real world + meeting Ji Qianming + commemorating going home + spoilers of the cheat code for the next book) will be released last, so please stay tuned~~