The morning air was thick with an oppressive gray as clouds choked the sun, casting a chill over the suburbs. While most office workers were still deep in sleep, Yang Ying was already up for his mandatory morning run.

He paused by a steamed bun stall, wiping sweat from his brow. "Auntie, the usual, three buns please," he said, handing over two yuan.

"Good boy, exercising again! It must be tough getting up this early every day!" The bun stall auntie quickly wrapped the buns and passed them to Yang Ying. "Here you go, careful, they're hot."

"Mm, goodbye, Auntie."

Yang Ying was rigorously disciplined. To maintain peak physical condition, he ran ten kilometers daily, picking up breakfast on the way back. Years had passed in this unchanging routine, and the local vendors were all familiar with him.

Yang Ying slipped into an internet café and casually greeted the middle-aged man behind the counter. "Morning, Uncle Wang!"

"Oh, Xiao Yang, you're back."

The man behind the counter had a goatee, and his small eyes occasionally flashed with shrewd intelligence. He was the café's owner and Yang Ying's landlord.

Though summer had long passed and the weather was turning cool, Yang Ying arrived at his dwelling drenched in sweat.

His residence was a cramped, twenty-square-meter room adjacent to the internet café, furnished only with a bed, a bookshelf, a wardrobe, and a writing desk. On the desk sat a computer that clearly looked pieced together from various components.

Uncle Wang had once tried to furnish the room with more necessities for Yang Ying, but Yang Ying insisted he didn't need them; in his view, superfluous items were just encumbrances. His life required only books and a computer.

Yang Ying took a quick shower, then settled at his desk. Listening to the low hum of the computer, he took a bite of a steamed bun while pulling up an e-book on mechanical engineering.

Before moving into the internet café, he had been a scavenger. Unlike other scavengers, however, Yang Ying had grasped the power of knowledge from a very young age and seized every opportunity to absorb it.

He cleaned the local bookstore in exchange for the freedom to read there, allowing him to self-study all primary and secondary school curricula. To put what he learned into practice, he turned his attention to the recycling yard.

Eight years ago, at the age of twelve, Yang Ying gave the recycling yard owner the three hundred yuan he had saved from scavenging. In exchange, he gained the right to select materials freely. With an uncanny eye and his self-made testing tools, he sifted through a mountain of scrap to find the necessary components, then assembled them piece by piece into the computer.

Today, that computer had undergone countless upgrades; nearly every part was different from eight years ago. Yet, recalling the five sleepless days and nights of relentless effort, Yang Ying still felt a pang of nostalgia.

He remembered the moment he finished assembling the computer and successfully powered it on. He immediately collapsed and slept for two full days and nights before waking up in the hospital, where the newly built machine had nearly been stolen.

Later, he met Uncle Wang. Impressed by his talent, Uncle Wang invited Yang Ying to join the internet café he was opening, taking on repair duties. Yang Ying, meanwhile, needed a stable place to live, so he accepted.

Since successfully building the computer, Yang Ying had become unstoppable. The radio and television in his room, the refrigerator next to the counter, and three-tenths of the computers in the entire café were all assembled by his deft hands, using nothing but scrap materials from the recycling yard!

Knock, knock.

Someone was rapping on Yang Ying's door.

"Is that you, Uncle Wang?" Yang Ying called out.

"It's me, I'm coming in."

Uncle Wang opened the door and approached Yang Ying from behind. He saw a schematic diagram of a complex machine displayed on the screen, accompanied by a mixture of English letters, Arabic numerals, and Chinese characters underneath.

Uncle Wang had not even finished primary school; he couldn't read the English letters, only recognizing the last four Chinese characters: "" (Type Generator). He couldn't help but ask, "Are you still tinkering with that thing you called... solar power?"

Yang Ying minimized the e-book and replied with a smile, "Yes. If only I could build a solar power plant myself someday."

"Ambitious!" Uncle Wang slapped Yang Ying on the shoulder. "But you need to know, everything requires a diploma these days. If you just stay here, you'll suffer in the future. Listen to your uncle, go to school! Tuition is on me."

"Uncle Wang, you're bringing this up again. It really doesn't matter," Yang Ying smiled gently. "I've audited classes at the university. I've learned everything I can. Forcing myself to waste my youth chasing a piece of paper at a university would be better spent learning more things right here."

"It's not that simple. Today's society is different from the past; without that thin sheet of paper, it’s nearly impossible to move an inch. Look at me—with all this skill, I’ve only gotten this far at my age. You are different from me; your future is long. What does wasting a few years for a degree even count for?"

Uncle Wang truly couldn't bear to see Yang Ying spend his life this way.

"Uncle Wang, four years for university, three for high school—even starting directly from the final year of high school, it would take five years. The difficulties caused by lacking a diploma are insignificant compared to those five years of my life. Life cannot exist without perseverance. If I surrender to that piece of paper now, it only proves that this is all my life amounts to."

I will not bow to this society!

Yang Ying thought secretly.

Uncle Wang understood Yang Ying’s stubbornness. This persuasion was his final effort, letting fate decide. Hearing Yang Ying’s words, he shook his head and opened the door to leave.

After taking a couple of steps, he turned back. "Think about it again. This is a lifelong matter; don't be too hasty. If you regret it when you are thirty or forty, it will be too late."

Yang Ying looked at Uncle Wang's kind face and nodded slightly.

Uncle Wang closed the door and left. Yang Ying leaned back in his chair and muttered to himself, "That may be true, but achieving great things is never easy. In fact, I've already lost at the starting line."

"It's like eight athletes in a hundred-meter dash. Seven of them have already started running, while I'm still in the ready stance. Even if my ability surpasses the other seven, due to this innate disadvantage, I can only secure fourth or fifth place before reaching the finish line. To gain first, I would have to resort to unscrupulous methods to eliminate the opponents ahead. And if a referee disqualified me for a foul, I'd be out of the race early."

Thinking of this, Yang Ying closed the e-book; he had lost the mood for reading.

"Deep contemplation truly isn't suited for me. Thinking about it makes me feel uneasy; I need some entertainment to adjust my mood.

"I remember the first game installed on this treasured machine after it was born was StarCraft. After playing for years, I’ve developed considerable insights. If I entered professional esports, I would probably be considered quite skilled."

Yang Ying double-clicked the StarCraft icon on the desktop, entered the game, selected a map with his right hand on the mouse, and idly played with the last steamed bun in his left hand.

"Speaking of which, so many people online yearn for reincarnation and transmigration. They must all be dissatisfied with the start of the race, wanting to bring the leading seven back to the starting line, or perhaps they just want to switch to a different competition entirely. Since that's the case, I'm one of those dissatisfied people. I should qualify to ask for transmigration."

He held the bun up high and spoke to the empty air: "Spirits throughout the cosmos, Immortals, Buddhas, demons, and monsters, please hear me. I offer this steamed bun as a sacrifice. Transport me to another world!"

In truth, Yang Ying never believed one could truly transmigrate to another world. This request was merely an expression of frustration born from dissatisfaction with society.

However, halfway through his declaration, he felt a sudden lightness in his hand. Squeezing, he found only air; the bun had vanished into thin air!

The screen instantly went black, and a dialogue box appeared before him.

"Are you certain?"

Below were "Yes" and "No" options.

The "No" option had a countdown timer of only twenty seconds, clearly implying that if no choice was made within that time, "No" would be automatically selected.

Yang Ying’s first thought was that his computer had been hacked. But that was impossible, as the machine was completely disconnected from the network. Yesterday, a network cable broke in the adjacent internet café, and at that moment, his supplies were totally depleted. Yang Ying had lent out his spare network cable.

The replacement cable hadn't arrived yet. No hacker, no matter how skilled, could penetrate a computer that wasn't connected to the internet.

A supernatural phenomenon?

Yang Ying moved the mouse pointer over the "Yes" option. He had a powerful premonition: clicking that button would make the event irreversible.

Yang Ying trusted his instincts—experience gained from countless successes and failures.

Guided by this feeling, he grabbed a memo pad from his desk and wrote something resembling a last will and testament.

Since ancient times, gaining something required sacrificing something else; if he were to transmigrate, he must abandon everything here! Yang Ying wanted to apologize for leaving without saying goodbye, thank Uncle Wang for his care over the years, and hoped that he would eventually forget him.

Uncle Wang had a family, a business, a wife, and children. His departure might sadden the older man for a while, but eventually, he would fade from his memory.

Yang Ying streamlined the message, leaving only sixteen characters in the end.

"Apologies, Gone forever, Do not recall! Bowing low, Yang Ying's final words"

He operated his hands with twelve-thousand percent speed and managed to inscribe all sixteen characters in the final second.

As he wrote, he felt foolish for believing in something as absurd as transmigration. Fortunately, if this dialogue box was merely a prank, discarding the note wouldn't be difficult.

Then, he gently clicked the left mouse button.

Instantly!

The entire world dimmed. Yang Ying found himself suspended in a space without a discernible up or down, boundless and infinite.

The room he was in, and every piece of furniture within it, had vanished without a trace. Only where the computer screen had been, a golden "" symbol appeared.

A thunderous voice echoed, "As you wish."

The "" symbol approached Yang Ying from a distance, spinning clockwise, gradually forming a vortex. An immense suction force generated at the eye of the storm pulled Yang Ying inward.

Did I just strike gold? Am I really going to transmigrate? Good thing I left that note. Otherwise, Uncle Wang might have called the police, causing a massive ruckus, unable to find me, and disrupting his business.

This was Yang Ying's last thought before the swirling disorientation pulled him under.

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