Staring blankly out the window, Yan Hao was suddenly interrupted by the vibration of his phone.
His scattered gaze refocused on the Wang Wang Milk carton, and after a moment of hesitation, he opened QQ.
It was a group notification for tomorrow’s school reporting.
The message stated that registration would take place tomorrow morning, followed by the distribution of supplies in the afternoon to prepare for military training.
His beautiful summer vacation had come to an end just like that.
Because it was the summer after graduating from middle school, Yan Hao had no homework.
However, when the high school entrance exam results came out, his performance had been barely satisfactory, and he had only managed to get into the worst private school.
Consequently, to show him the consequences of not studying hard, Yan Hao’s father had dragged him to work for one month.
During the remaining month, Yan Hao mostly stayed home watching television and playing games.
Unusually, Yuan Qing had not come over this holiday to play games or watch dramas with him.
Closing his phone, Yan Hao stood up and stretched.
Just as he was about to leave the room, a voice called out from outside the door.
“Dinner is ready, Yan Hao! School starts tomorrow, and all you know is how to play games every day. Come eat, quickly!”
Yan Hao called out in response as he walked out of the room.
The last rays of the evening sun brushed past the tips of his hair.
Outside the window, the cicadas’ chirps rose and fell in waves.
The evening breeze stirred the leaves, casting fragmented shadows on the ground like an unfinished puzzle.
Somewhere deep in the mountains, amidst the densely wooded slopes, there was a rare clearing.
Looking inside, it felt like another world entirely.
Amidst the sounds of birds and cicadas, a man in strange clothing with blood dripping from his left arm held a solid Black Blade.
Under the cover of dusk, he emerged from that clearing…
The night arrived, carrying damp, sweltering heat.
Swarms of country mosquitoes poured in from the rice fields, their sharp buzzing circling his ears.
These mosquitoes were both numerous and venomous; a single bite would result in a large welt.
In the living room, only a single rusted ceiling fan rotated overhead, fending off the mosquitoes’ assault.
Yan Hao glanced at the food on the table.
Tonight’s dinner was fairly sumptuous.
Glossy stir-fried pork with chili and green garlic, neatly arranged sliced cucumbers, and fried eggs with green onions and curled edges.
Slices of bitter melon soaked in ice water maintained their vibrant green.
The aroma of the food mixed with the metallic scent of the rusty fan as the breeze carried it to his nose.
He couldn’t help but swallow his saliva.
“Stop playing games all day. You should have spent some time at home previewing high school material. All you do is play games. You’re such a big boy now; it’s a stroke of luck that you actually passed into a public high school. If you hadn’t, the family wouldn’t have had the money to send you to a private school, and you would have gone straight to work with your father.”
Yan Hao scratched his head and didn’t respond to his mother.
Instead, he served himself a bowl of rice.
After standing in the hall for only a short while, he felt an itch on his calf.
Looking down, he saw a red welt had already formed.
“Are there any mosquito coils?” he asked.
“On the table.”
Yan Hao scanned the area and spotted the coils among a pile of odd items, but he didn’t see a lighter.
Just as he was about to ask, his mother added, “The lighter down here is broken and was thrown away. There’s still one in the woodshed upstairs.”
“I’ll go grab the lighter then.”
With that, Yan Hao left his bowl, chopsticks, and phone on the table and walked toward the stairs.
There should still be a Spatial Path Mark in the woodshed.
He wondered if the Spiritual Power on it had faded.
Since summer began, he had mostly lived downstairs and hadn’t gone up.
This was a good opportunity to use the Space Path to go up and get the lighter while checking if the mark was still functional.
Yan Hao activated his Spiritual Power, sensing all the nearby items he had marked.
He also felt the mark upstairs.
The Spatial Path Mark in the woodshed seemed to be on a useless old workbook, and the mark on it had already grown very faint.
Yan Hao was about to teleport when he suddenly sensed a strange Spiritual Power on the mountain behind the house.
He froze in place.
‘Is it one of Yuan Qing’s people?’
He had never sensed a strange Spiritual Power so close to home.
At almost the same moment, the man on the mountain sensed Yan Hao’s Spiritual Power.
The man muttered something in an Otherworld Language as he sat up from a rock.
From his appearance, he had also been “serviced” by the mountain mosquitoes.
Through his Spiritual Power detection and personal skill, he had already killed countless mosquitoes, but the things seemed infinite.
He glanced in Yan Hao’s direction.
Yan Hao’s Spiritual Power was very weak, but they had already perceived each other.
The man grasped the air, and a Black Blade appeared in his hand.
Then, the man began leaping rapidly down the mountain toward Yan Hao.
Yan Hao felt that Spiritual Power rushing toward him and immediately realized something was wrong.
Realizing his phone was still on the living room table, he sprinted back, grabbed it, and bolted out of the house.
Ignoring his family’s confusion and questions, he ran toward the fields.
As he ran, he placed Spiritual Path Marks on small stones and grass along the way.
Sensing that the Spiritual Power was still rapidly approaching, he dove into the fields.
Damp mud splashed into his shoes, and wild grass scraped his arms, leaving fine, itchy scratches.
While continuing his frantic escape, he opened his phone and searched through the QQ interface.
Finding nothing on the main screen, he immediately went to his contacts.
Finally, he found a user with a Rachel avatar and the nickname Zero.
Fortunately, Zero’s avatar was one he had uploaded, so he was able to quickly pick Zero out of his cluttered contact list.
He hurriedly opened the profile and clicked the message button, typing “HELP!”
He also sent his location.
The chat interface stayed on the loading circle as the message attempted to send.
He could see that the previous message was from November of last year — also two simple words: “HELP!” and a location.
A moment later, the message was successfully sent.
Still running, Yan Hao felt a surge of relief the moment the location went through.
Sensing that the Spiritual Power was no longer far away and that the distance was closing even faster, Yan Hao stopped running.
By now, the sky had turned completely dark.
He suppressed his Spiritual Power.
This would delay the other party’s search, and the marks he left on the road could cause some interference.
The reason he hadn’t suppressed his Spiritual Power until now was that if he didn’t lure the stranger away, his family might not have been spared.
Next, he just had to wait for Zero to arrive to clean up this mess.
If Zero didn’t come, Yan Hao didn’t know what he would do.
Judging by the speed and the Spiritual Power he sensed, if the opponent was simply lost, that was fine, but if they intended to kill him, he would have almost no room to fight back.
He looked at his left hand; on his wrist was a Red Stone Bracelet made of a ring of strange red stones.
Yan Hao found a spot with his back against a haystack and sat down in the field.
He checked his phone; 2 minutes had passed since the message was sent.
Even if Zero saw the message and came immediately, it would still take time.
If he simply kept hiding, that person might still go to his house, which was something he couldn’t accept.
He carefully observed his surroundings, listening to the frogs and cicadas in the fields.
After a few more minutes passed without hearing anything, he suddenly felt afraid.
He thought of his mother and grandfather.
‘What if…’
Reaching this thought, he activated his Spiritual Power to probe the surroundings.
In an instant, both sides discovered each other’s location.
This time, the Spiritual Power did not move toward him quickly, but approached slowly.
At about 20 meters, Yan Hao caught a glimpse of the source’s silhouette in the night.
It was a tall man, at least two heads taller than a 160 cm shorty like himself, holding a large blade.
Yan Hao was terrified; the stranger clearly looked like he had ill intentions.
Yan Hao’s legs shook as he stood up tremulously.
Just as Yan Hao was about to try communicating in his poor Otherworld Language, the man charged at him with the Black Blade.
Seeing this, Yan Hao didn’t say another word and took off running.
He didn’t care how bad his Otherworld Language was anymore as he sprinted and screamed, “What are you doing?! (Otherworld Language)”