Chapter 1 Part 1

“Hey, classmate—”

Called out like that, the boy walking forward with a black backpack slung over one shoulder halted his steps. His black hair lifted in the damp, hot breeze as he turned back toward the voice.

Shang Capital City’s terrain benefited from its superior geography—backed by mountains and facing the sea, with half the area encircled by Azure Water Bay. The mountains blocked vast swaths of sunlight.

With so little sun, the summers stayed pleasantly warm.

The boy, with his sleek, straight, glossy hair, wore no jacket. He was tall, with a cool temperament that carried a touch of otherworldly grace. He sported the standard Jingyang Western-style school uniform: a white shirt and black trousers. A long tie hung loosely from his neck, the black fabric draping along the snow-white breadth of his shirt collar before falling to his narrow waist.

His skin was coldly pale, his lips full and sharply defined, flushed pink like the tender four-petaled bud of a flower on its stem.

His eye sockets were deep-set. Beneath long, dense, fan-shaped lashes, his eyes resembled spring water. On their rippling surface floated a casual hint of amusement, as if bathing one in spring light and instantly lifting the mood.

The classmate who had called out found himself face-to-face with this piercing beauty. He sucked in a sharp breath and stammered, “…M-maybe… it’s your student ID…?”

007’s voice rang in his mind.

【The image tailored specifically for Zhou Jinsheng suits the Host perfectly. Others’ reactions confirm it’s effective.】

【Of course.】

Shen Yu reached into his pants pocket as he heard this, but found nothing. He raised a brow at the other boy, a smile touching his face as he extended his hand for the student ID. “Thanks, classmate.”

Chen Jinyang fancied himself a staunch straight guy, but even he had to admit that this face shoved right up close had a natural power to bend anyone.

Really fucking handsome.

Shen Yu lowered his head.

At the other end of the student ID, a thumb and forefinger gripped the spot where the lanyard met the card. There was no sign of letting go.

Bro, quit tugging.

Shen Yu’s lips curved. His tone held no trace of impatience as he smiled and prompted, “Classmate?”

Any more tugging and it’d be rude.

Chen Jinyang snapped back to attention. His gaze followed Shen Yu’s to the photo on the ID, and he immediately released his death grip on it. With a heh-heh grin, he said, “Bro, your face matches the photo exactly. Looking that good is some next-level shit.”

Shen Yu accepted the praise without batting an eye. He took back the ID. His slender fingers lightly hooked the lanyard and gave it a shake. The black cord bracelet on his wrist flickered into view with the motion.

Shen Yu’s brows and eyes curved in a smile. “I didn’t even realize when I lost it.”

The girl walking alongside Chen Jinyang sported a high ponytail. She wore the Jingyang Western-style skirt uniform, a blue lace necktie tucked into her collar. Her exposed legs were straight and slender. Her features bore about thirty percent resemblance to Chen Jinyang’s, her complexion slightly pallid, her demeanor vibrant.

Her eyes gleamed as her quick, lively gaze darted up and down, appraising Shen Yu.

Two seconds later, her expression froze.

A note of puzzlement entered Chen Miaomiao’s voice, her words lilting upward like skipping notes. “Huh? You’re so unfamiliar. Jingyang’s got a hot guy even I don’t know about?”

Shen Yu smiled and extended his hand to her. “Hello. Shen Yu, exchange student. Nice to meet you.”

“Chen Miaomiao.” Exchange students weren’t supposed to be in Class 1? Her eyes lit up. She shook his hand and gestured to Chen Jinyang beside her. “This is my brother, Chen Jinyang.”

“But showing up in Jingyang right now? Must be another one of the school’s joint projects. If I’m right, there’ll be a visiting delegation soon.” Chen Miaomiao tilted her head and muttered to Chen Jinyang, “Student council’s gonna be swamped again.”

Chen Jinyang chuckled. “With Zhou Jinsheng holding things down from above, this year’s got a ton of pressure.”

Shen Yu froze.

Zhou Jinsheng.

Hearing that achingly familiar name from someone else’s mouth again felt like long-retreated waves crashing fiercely against the shore once more, instantly churning up countless sparkling crests.

The deathly silence and void finally drew its curtain. Shen Yu blinked, and only then did the solid ground beneath his feet feel real.

The Chen Family ran major hospitals and wielded considerable power, but they paled in comparison to behemoths like the Zhou, Chi, Zheng, and Yu Families. These things boiled down to background, connections, and heritage—tied inextricably to influence. Money alone meant nothing.

Lacking deep roots and having risen late, the Chen Family had only recently brushed shoulders with the Zhou Corporation in medical tech. That made them one of the easiest paths to Zhou Jinsheng.

The other path was Jingyang itself.

Jingyang Public School boasted deep heritage. It had originated as a foreign-run church academy, its architecture steeped in heavy British style—classical, elegant, and understated. It later became a private school, one of Shang Capital’s top noble high schools. Twenty years ago, a new principal took over, merging it into the public system and opening admissions to outsiders.

From then on, its web of relationships grew intricate, linking military, political, and business heavyweights. Children of the elite flocked there.

Beyond standard classes, Jingyang offered equestrian lessons, art appreciation, French, and more.

Clubs and domestic-international joint projects abounded. The students took it all in stride.

Shen Yu sank into recollection.

He wasn’t from this world.

Unable to afford exorbitant medical bills, Shen Yu had followed a merchant’s tip in his mind and sought out a small clinic in the Lower Ninth District’s western suburbs. The clinic was dirt cheap. A mechanical doctor—modified from a sex robot—handled everything. Its creator was experienced, boasting an 80% success rate.

The bang-for-buck was unbeatable, so no one quibbled over the remaining 20%.

Even if the surgery failed and death followed.

But nothing could be worse than the status quo. Desperate souls approached it like gamblers. Failure? Blame bad luck and move on.

Shen Yu was no exception.

He didn’t just want to survive—he desperately hoped for success. He dreamed of his legs carrying him across vast lands like any normal person’s, feeling the world’s vibrations pulse through him for real.

The operating table was makeshift. As drugs flooded his necrotic spine, the air still carried a damp, moldy stench—like the taste of rotten pickled cucumbers from some long-buried memory.

Something… felt off.

But the mechanical doctor plowed ahead, oblivious, following whatever idiot preset code it ran on.

Life’s ebb began with his senses fading. The world didn’t change much—he just lost his sense of smell. He was being peeled away.

Fuck—

Shen Yu couldn’t speak. In his mind, he savaged the mechanical doctor’s ancestors across eighteen generations.

By then, the ceiling overhead receded farther and farther. The toll of death drew nearer. Stinging light crawled ant-like across his thin eyelids.

Unwilling, Shen Yu strained repeatedly to pry open his heavy lids.

Fuck your beep (auto-muted)—my beep—

My beep—beep—beep beep—

The barrage of curses was so relentless it roused some uncanny force. In the final instant, a silent connection clicked into place in his mind like meshing gears. Shen Yu’s head throbbed as the 007 system suddenly bound to him.

Shen Yu later learned that 007’s tale was practically a mirror of his own.

007 was among the Space-Time Administration Bureau’s first production run. It toiled diligently for three hundred years, only for program obsolescence to doom it as newer, smarter systems rolled out. The old guard faced recycling.

Systems feared rebellion like humans did. The outcome? A dead end.

007 escaped, its energy depleted and form shattered. On the brink of dormancy, it tumbled into Shen Yu’s spacetime—until Shen Yu’s frantic mental tirade jolted it awake.

007 explained to Shen Yu that this world encompassed far more than one spacetime.

Spacetimes stretched infinitely, shifting endlessly. The one constant: each held two or three bearers of great fortune—usually the protagonist and antagonist.

Clearly, Shen Yu wasn’t among the billion-to-one chosen.

But he could become one.

007 revealed that fortune could be plundered, stolen, or swindled.

By traversing worlds and coaxing those great-fortune bearers to hand over their fortune values—willingly and unknowingly—Shen Yu could stockpile enough to rewrite his surgery-failed death sentence and claim new life.

The simplest route: max out the villain BOSS’s favorability in every world.

As a smuggler, Shen Yu faced a split Heavenly Dao fortune: one half on the protagonist, the other on the antagonist.

The protagonist drew the Heavenly Dao’s vigilant eye. Any meddling triggered the World Will’s pursuit. Shen Yu had to target the antagonist.

Favor came in many positive flavors—any counted.

In exchange for facilitating spacetime traversal, Shen Yu had to stick to his original persona. Deviation meant Heavenly Dao detection and World Will expulsion.

Once in a world, logout was near impossible. Only the World Will could boot him out. Even death trapped him in reincarnation loops.

Entry meant all-in, no turning back.

Only maxing antagonist favor ended the cycle and propelled him to the next world.

System 007: 【The optimal logout window is the instant the antagonist’s favor for the Host nears maximum—the moment fortune tilts toward the Host. The World Will detects the anomaly and forcibly ejects the intruder.】

Upholding protocol and ceremony, 007 asked gravely at last: 【Has the Host made their decision?】

Any second of hesitation disrespected life itself. Before 007 finished, Shen Yu rushed to affirm and log in.

He feared even a moment’s delay would see the mechanical doctor’s gleaming scalpel end him.

This—the current spacetime—was his first world.

A tycoon saga generated against a Shang Capital elite backdrop. It chronicled director He Qian, who rose from nothing as the protagonist gong, and his love-hate entanglement with fallen tycoon scion Yu Tingsi.

Shen Yu’s role: a minor cannon fodder who early on spotted the protagonist gong’s directorial talent and invested—only to withdraw funding later to curry favor with the antagonist targeting the gong, earning a face-slap.

Hypocrite archetype.

Power-clinger, wildly ambitious, self-satisfied schemer. Two-faced backstabber extraordinaire.

First task failed—no max antagonist favor. The antagonist ordered him drowned in a lake. Shen Yu deleted the file and restarted, stepping onto Jingyang Public’s grounds.

This world’s target: the book’s business-politics titan, Zhou Corporation head Zhou Jinsheng—adoptive father to the fallen protagonist shou, their greatest barrier.

Zhou Family stock traced to nobility, their wealth, prestige, and power amassed across generations—from ancestors’ ancestors. Shang Capital’s elite of elites, pyramid’s apex. Hence the saying: “Zhou Family shakes, and Shang Capital quakes thrice.”

Zhou Jinsheng’s lineage was unmatched, but his personal talent and ability shone even brighter.

Untouchable in others’ eyes, his every desire granted without bowing.

In his youth, blessed by innate gifts, Zhou Jinsheng was coldly proud and aloof—like a razor-sharp sword freshly drawn. Rumors of him swirled across all of Shang Capital.

Time tempered that edge. The longer it went, the deeper his mind grew—like a still, bottomless pool.

Even intimates struggled to read his moods or thoughts.