Chapter 0.2

For the next few days, Ling Xia had his work cut out for him with his spirit-crushing training and the military hounding him to make that device.

It was a complicated device, and to simplify the magnitude of it would be crime. Time was ever so cruel, though.

The device was able to connect to a capsule, and the person inside the capsule would be able to pull out a soldier trapped in the system after coming across them and inputting the that soldier's real name and their host's name.

However, there were a few dangers.

For example, if they got the wrong person, the flow of the world they were in might be disturbed. Then there was also the problem of the device never being tested. All of these supposed functions of it were just hypotheticals. It all depended if the device even worked.

Still, it was being put into use.

As for Ling Xia's plan if it failed? None.

All of his plans were based around the faith that his algorithm would work. Right after entering the world, he was planning on acting as conspicuous as possible to draw all the soldiers to him.

Not too much of course, for he feared being burned at the stake on accounts of being possessed by a devil, albeit not too much of an inaccuracy. And after the first few worlds, the Axians would catch on and implement some preventive methods as well.

His plans were set then.

The night before, the acting captain of fleet zero had given the other trainees a quick intro to how Ling Xia's device. Then arrived the day many dreaded: the day they had to dive back into the simulation to realize their pipe dream of saving every soldier before the end of the fifteenth day. If they failed, their friends' anguished wails would haunt them to their grave.

Even Ling Xia found this a daunting task. Although his outward optimistic attitude calmed many, nerves were never one to leave him be. His doubts plagued him relentlessly.

What if he was stuck when he reentered the system? Would he be left to rot?

What if the device didn't work and instead of doing its duty, it all killed those that were attached to it? Would he be hung then? Would he be put on trial for his possibly traitorous intentions?

Aware of his habits, how nervousness did not serve him well, he took a few silent deep breaths to calm himself. It seemed to soothe his nerves well, as it always did, but nothing but action could ever make the source vanish.

On the chair next to his, Su Hua started up a conversation abruptly, giving Ling Xia a well-needed break from himself. "Did you ever meet Yang Lizhen? While in the system, I mean."

Ling Xia shuffled his feet. He was acutely aware that this question could either mean the world to her or bring her devastation to light, beyond reading the way she had asked it. Yang Lizhen was her boyfriend, the person who had accompanied her through thick and thin. She would be virtually alone otherwise, given her estrangement from her family.

Unbased guilt was eating away at him, and he knew it. Still, he responded cautiously. "Sorry. I wouldn't know even if I did meet him. I didn't do anything outside of the script because I didn't want to be punished.

Su Hua waved off his apology with a bitter grin, "It's alright."

It wasn't though. They both knew it, and they both similarly kept quiet.

"I'm just surprised you managed to remember his name," Su Hua went on to joke, trying to thin the smog of depression overhead. "Everybody I asked didn't even know who he was."

Ling Xia chuckled. The only reason he was able to remember was that when he was inside the system, it had given him a notebook to write down what happened in each world while telling him menacingly that he would need it in the future.

But Ling Xia, being Ling Xia, decided that that would be useless because he was going to leave anyway. Instead, he used all of his pages for writing down everything he remembered from the real world. He didn't want to forget any of it for when he finally got back to the real world.

"Yes, it has been a long time since we've been here," Ling Xia responded.

Su Hua hummed in agreement. "It's very nostalgic, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Nostalgia really is the best feeling," Ling Xia sighed and looked up at the ceiling, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

Su Hua only looked at him oddly. She had never considered it so.

"Ms. Su." Ling Xia started when he heard his friend's name being called. "Capsule number 06. Mr. Ling. Capsule number 08. Ms. Xu..." The voice continued to tell the soldiers what capsule they were assigned, unfazed by Ling Xia's surprise at the sudden departure. He was not expecting it to happen so quickly.

He used his feet to propel himself off of his chair. A few stretches later, he turned to Su Hua and saying, "Well, see you tomorrow."

Su Hua snorted at his horrible attempt to lighten the atmosphere but returned the joke nonetheless. They both went to their respective capsules and laid in them, getting as comfortable as possible, for movement was not possible for the next few hours, or maybe even days.

As the capsule lid closed over Ling Xia's body, he shut his eyes, mentally preparing himself for what was coming next. The next time he opened his eyes, he would be in a different body and in a different world.

...

Li Ming was always a smart child. He was born into a normal family when it came to intellect, and it seemed like he was the only odd one out.

Like every other Wednesday, Li Ming was using a dangerous shortcut to get home because otherwise, he would be late for his tutoring session. He had to tutor a rich second generation(1), and the boy's parents had made it very clear that if he was late by over five minutes for any session, he would be fired immediately. They were not very flexible when it came to the boy's schedule, but they paid extremely well.

Li Ming really needed that money. His future was awaiting, but he needed money to get there. Although his family was pretty well-off, getting him and his brother into college would still take a lot of money, too much money, unless he got a scholarship.

Unfortunately, the school he went to only gave scholarships to the top person in the grade during one of the monthly exams(2). Nobody knew which monthly exam the school would choose, but so far, the ones that have been chosen were all rich people that got the highest score. Call it coincidence, but Li Ming hadn't wanted to take that chance.

He had figured that he would need to start gathering money soon, before it was too late, so he had started being a tutor to earn some extra money.

So Li Ming had school on Wednesday, and he always went through a certain shortcut as to not be late to his tutoring session. There seemed to be nothing wrong with this, but that shortcut actually went into territory that was often used for gang fights, but he needed the money, so he disregarded that. What were the odds that the gangs would fight during the one day of the week Li Ming used this shortcut and also right after school anyway?

Well, apparently, they were pretty high because, after only half a year of tutoring the boy, he had already encountered a gang fight.

That fateful day, Li Ming witnessed the fight happening, but there weren't many people. He decided that since they were so focused on their fighting, he could probably slip right past them. They didn't even have many weapons, so it seemed like a fairly reasonable thing to do.

It was just that, when he turned the corner, there were many more people, and with guns too. The sound of gunshots assaulted his ears and the stench of blood stung. Suddenly he was trapped in between a rock and a hard place. Should he run forward and risk getting killed, or retreat and lose almost any chance of having a good future?

Through all the chaos, Li Ming managed to see that the fighting here had a very short range. Meaning, if he sprinted for another ten seconds or so, he would be in the clear.

He put his foot forward, ready to bolt straight through. Right as he was about to push off, fear overtook him. A sword hung over his head, ever-present, but now sharper than ever as the possibility of death showed its presence to be greater than he could have ever imagined.

Was risking death worth money in any situation?

Despite his asking himself, he already knew the answer. He began to turn around, but he was stopped by the a sudden pain. It radiated from his abdomen. He immediately knew what had happened, but he did not know what had happened.

Fear crawled up his throat. His gaze finally met the growing red on his torso. He touched it, and to his horror, he felt the a sticky liquid coat his fingers as he drew his hand away. It was red, it was sticky, it came from his body. What else could it be but blood?

His face paled as the dizziness hit. His knees grew weak, unable to hold himself up, and so he fell to the cold pavement beneath him. He was going to die here, he realized, because of a stupid decision he could never take back now.

Yes, he was going to die here, but he at least wanted to know by whose hand he would die. He raised his head, barely even able to. His eyes searched.

Nobody even looked at him. To them, he was just another casualty in a fight, not a dying man.

Then his eyes met another's. He knew him. He was Chu Yan. They went to school together, and for a moment, Li Ming thought he could be saved, but the sinister smile that stretched on Chu Yan's face immediately pointed to a different conclusion.

All hope drained from him, horror replaced it. The other seemed to have noticed what he was thinking because he nodded. It was a slight nod, barely noticeable, but it was enough to confirm his suspicions; Chu Yan had shot him.

But... they were friends, Li Ming protested silently. It couldn't... It couldn't be true.

He collapsed, never to wake again.

But Li Ming isn't our main character; Ling Xia is. So let's go back to a week before all this happened, the day Ling Xia arrived in this world as Li Ming.

Notes:

1: Rich second-generation: Basically means a person with a parent(s) that built their own business or made a lot of money, and their kid gets all the benefits of it. Usually, they're described as arrogant and rude with a lot of pride, which is the connotation I'm trying to use here.

2: Monthly exams are taken every month in Chinese schools, and the rankings and everybody's scores are put up on a board for everybody to see.