Chapter 1

Time: 2014

Location: New York.

The glaring afternoon sunlight reflected off the billboards as Yi Xiao slowly walked through Times Square. Unlike the crowds around him, who were either packed together or rushing to their destinations, Yi Xiao was not in a hurry.

"Great. Very good. I still have an hour, plenty of time, if I only knew where the hell this company is!" Yi Xiao doubted his intelligence for the first time. He had been wandering around New York for two days but still hadn't found the damn company.

Yi Xiao had always considered himself very smart, and he was indeed. He was an orphan, abandoned at the door of an orphanage in Shanghai when he was just an infant. According to the nuns at the orphanage, there were no tokens, no jade pendants, and no blood-covered mother lying at the door. Of course, this was a different era.

Yi Xiao's name came from a code. When he arrived, Number 1 was vacant, so he was given the name Yi, a phonetic translation. As for the character "Xiao," he chose it himself because he felt it suited him.

The reason he was considered smart was that he started trying to understand the world when he was just one or two years old. Yi Xiao believed no one else would recognize their situation and learn to hide at the age of three, as he had. He knew that being a genius wasn't always a good thing, so after the age of three, he didn't show any extraordinary behavior, acting like any other child. Of course, this was also because he couldn't speak before the age of three.

After a few years of compulsory education, the orphans had to go out and make a living. The orphanage was short on food, after all. Yi Xiao, with his cleverness and superior intelligence, managed to connect with an old teacher.

The old teacher had retired due to his advanced age, but he had dedicated his life to education. Even after retirement, he still wanted to do something for the children, so he joined the cause of teaching orphans.

Seeing Yi Xiao, the old teacher took a liking to him and used his connections to get Yi Xiao a job at a university library, where he was provided with food and lodging, though without a salary. This was thanks to the old teacher's reputation and the fact that Yi Xiao was an orphan.

With the library's vast collection and the use of a computer, Yi Xiao, with his remarkable talent, earned a Ph.D. in psychology within a few years, finally securing a source of income. He was nineteen years old at the time. Apart from his pale skin, he had no distinctive features. If anything, staring at him for too long gave people a slightly eerie feeling.

"Damn it, if I don't find this damn place soon, I swear I'll hack the entire New York network," Yi Xiao muttered angrily. The crowd was so dense that people kept bumping into him. "Oh, sorry." Yi Xiao wasn't particularly muscular, and his black suit made him look somewhat thin.

"Phew." Yi Xiao let out a long breath as he finally squeezed out of Times Square and stood in a relatively deserted area.

"Maybe I should go back," Yi Xiao said with a helpless expression. "Perhaps this whole trip was a joke, and there's no such thing as a supernatural research institute."

Yi Xiao wasn't short of money. On the surface, he was a psychology Ph.D., but in reality, he was proficient in languages, medicine, physics, chemistry, and many other disciplines. He was also a member of Mensa, as he believed it would help with alchemy. Yi Xiao loved alchemy, or more precisely, he was very fond of mysterious powers, whether Western demons, Eastern qi cultivation, or historical records, both official and unofficial.

This job was recommended to him by a British member of the club, the Association for the Study of Supernatural Powers.

When God gives people a talent, He also gives them a flaw. Yi Xiao had long discovered his own issue: he had an astonishing learning ability and remained relatively rational in any situation, but this came with the side effect of being too rational, making him indifferent to any emotions.

Yi Xiao, being an expert in psychology, didn't need to see a therapist. This condition hadn't been classified as a disorder, so it was likely a psychological issue that humans hadn't yet discovered.

A life without emotions was incredibly dull. With no passion, no excitement, no hope, and no despair, neither movies nor extreme sports could satisfy Yi Xiao. So, he had been seeking something interesting, or rather, emotions.

Yi Xiao turned and walked towards the airport. Since it was a joke, there was no need to waste more time. Just then, a gust of wind blew down the street, swirling a few newspapers up and down.

"Interesting." Yi Xiao sensed the movement behind him, turned around, and quietly watched the empty street. He felt a call from deep within, a voice from his heart saying, "Go forward, go forward."

Yi Xiao shivered and walked deeper into the street. After about ten minutes, it was still empty, and the street seemed to stretch endlessly. Yi Xiao instinctively felt something was wrong, and then his vision went black. He staggered a few steps, trying to grab the wall, but his body lost strength and he collapsed on the ground.

No one saw Yi Xiao's body gradually fade and eventually blend into the ground.

...

"Incomplete multi-dimensional loading successful."

...

"Constructing the body, extraordinary destiny loading successful."

...

"Notification loading successful."

...

"Objective achieved: Renowned worldwide."

...

...

Dizzy and disoriented, Yi Xiao勉强 opened his eyes. With his medical expertise, he immediately realized his condition was not good. He was weak but, fortunately, not injured. He struggled to sit up, feeling the softness beneath him. It was a bed, not a kidnapping. He had no enemies, he thought, and he believed his actions wouldn't make anyone hate him to this extent.

As Yi Xiao struggled to sit up, a warm hand gently pushed him back down. He faintly heard a fluent Chinese voice say, "Child, rest well."

Unable to resist, Yi Xiao fell unconscious again, thinking, "Damn, how did I end up back in China?"

...

After an unknown amount of time, Yi Xiao regained awareness of his body. He lay in bed, not moving, just listening to the sounds in the room. There was no one else, only the ticking of an old clock.

Yi Xiao opened his eyes to see an ancient and elegant room. The wooden bed had a quilt embroidered with a pair of mandarin ducks. The wooden windows and table had a mannequin for acupuncture, along with some teacups and acupuncture tools.

Yi Xiao looked around the room again. It was a residence, or more precisely, a traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture clinic.

The stairs creaked, and Yi Xiao smiled slightly. "I'm very curious, where am I."