Chapter 45: USB Drive

I don't know how much time passed before Chen Ling finally calmed down. He said coldly:

"Chief Han Meng, if your questioning is over... please leave my house."

Han Meng didn't speak again. He stood up silently and walked toward the door.

He pushed the door open, and swirling snow drifted into the room. His four-striped black windbreaker fluttered slightly... He paused for a moment and looked back at Chen Ling.

"Whether you believe me or not, I have always been fulfilling my duties... If you truly feel this world lacks justice, why not become it yourself?"

"You passed the martial arts exam as the top reserve, and you are now an official Law Enforcer. You can report to headquarters tomorrow."

"Also..."

"The qualification to enter the Ancient Treasury of the War Path is also yours."

After saying this, he stepped into the heavy snow, his black windbreaker gradually disappearing at the end of the street.

Chen Ling’s gaze swept over the empty room, his expression somewhat complex... Once Han Meng was far away, he also left the house and headed toward the back mountain.

……

The potter's field.

Chen Ling carried the uncut cake and sat slowly in the snow.

"A-Yan, I'm here." He looked at the uneven pit he had dug and spoke softly.

Snowflakes stuck to the boy’s temples, making him look white-haired. He took the candles off the cake one by one and stuck them into the snow.

"You already made your wish earlier, so I won't light the candles... I'll cut the cake for you."

Chen Ling took a plastic knife from the packaging box and cut the cake into two portions bit by bit. He placed one portion neatly in front of the pit and took his own portion from the box.

Ice and snow covered the surface of the cake with the wind. Chen Ling took a bite, unable to tell if it was cream or ice shards.

As he chewed, he spoke indistinctly:

"A-Yan, you know what?"

"This world is truly ruined... This cake tastes so terrible, yet it cost two hundred copper coins. In my original world, a cake bought for two hundred would be bigger than this and taste much better."

"If I had the chance, I’d really want to take you back. Even though your brother is just a corporate slave, the money I earn would be enough for you to eat and drink without worry."

"But then again, if you came back with me, you’d definitely live better than I do... You’re good-looking and sing well. If you just became a short-video blogger, you’d have millions of fans, a proper inheritor of traditional culture."

Chen Ling’s face was frozen red in the cold wind. He took a few hard bites of the cake and looked up at the sky.

"But there are good things here too..."

"The aurora here is beautiful, both day and night."

"But what good is beauty?"

"Just staying alive is already taking everything I have..."

"The path you gave me seems very powerful, but it also seems to affect my mind... Is this the 'rough road' you were talking about?"

"Han Meng wants me to join the Law Enforcers, but the 'Extinction' Calamity in me is a ticking time bomb. Once it erupts, I’ll become a target for everyone... Looking at it that way, if I join that society, would that be a shortcut?"

"Instead of letting them discover me and arrest me, why not stand on the opposite side from the start?"

"A-Yan... how should I walk the road ahead?"

Chen Ling muttered to the pit.

*Plop*—

Just then, something slipped out of his pocket and landed in the snow.

Chen Ling picked it up; it was the small silver cube Chu Muyun had given him. In the biting cold wind, it felt bone-chillingly cold to the touch.

Chen Ling remembered Chu Muyun saying that through this, he might be able to understand them better... But how was this thing supposed to be used?

He fiddled with the small silver cube in his hand for a long time. With a gentle push of his fingertip, a silver sliding cover detached from the main body, revealing a piece of silver metal with some square holes. No matter how he looked at it, it looked like a standard...

"USB drive?!"

Chen Ling stared at the USB drive in his hand in astonishment, his heart filled with bewilderment.

Since coming to this world, Chen Ling had always assumed its technological level was stuck in the era of his previous world’s Republic period—kerosene lamps, rickshaws, salt for melting snow, old-fashioned pistols... But seeing this USB drive, Chen Ling was suddenly stunned.

This thing... is it supposed to appear in this world?

Where would there be a computer in this world?

Without a computer, where do you plug this USB drive in?

One question after another flashed through Chen Ling’s mind. As if possessed, he picked up the USB drive and inserted it into the snow beneath him...

The next moment, a string of deep green code automatically appeared on the snow!

【ID 129439】

【Reading...】

【Reading Complete】

Chen Ling rolled his eyes and fainted on the spot.

……

*Whoosh*—

The sound of rushing water rang in his ears.

Chen Ling opened his eyes abruptly, as if just waking from a nightmare, cold sweat soaking his back.

Before he knew it, he had left the potter's field and arrived in a small, square space. The sound of a toilet flushing faded away, replaced by a series of urgent knocks on the door.

"Bro, are you done yet? I can't hold it anymore..."

Chen Ling regained his senses, his gaze sweeping rapidly around...

"...A restroom?"

Chen Ling’s eyes widened in shock.

It wasn't the dilapidated restroom in his home on Frost Street, but a clean, bright, modernized restroom. Whether it was the sensor light overhead or the "TOTO" toilet behind him, everything gave Chen Ling a strong sense of familiarity.

"Did I... transmigrate back??" Chen Ling’s eyes were filled with confusion.

"Bro, if you're going to put your pants on, hurry up. If you don't, I really can't hold it anymore..." The man’s voice at the door was full of anxiety.

Chen Ling immediately pushed the restroom door open. A man in a polo shirt at the door was overjoyed, squeezed into the stall, slammed the door shut, and followed it with a groan of relief...

Chen Ling looked around and subconsciously quickened his pace, walking out of the restroom.

The first thing that caught his eye was "Heytea."

Next to it were KFC, Muji, Zhou Hei Ya, Da Niang Dumplings...

Looking at these familiar brands and the pedestrians walking through the mall, Chen Ling’s pupils contracted slightly... As if thinking of something, he started running like a madman, weaving through the crowd and rushing out of the mall under countless strange gazes!

The moment he witnessed the high-rise buildings with his own eyes, only one thought remained in his mind...

He really had returned.

"Was I... dreaming?" Chen Ling held his head with both hands, muttering to himself. "No, if it were a dream... why would I wake up in a restroom?"

"Just now I was at the potter's field, talking to A-Yan... then I stuck the USB drive into the snow, and then..."

"Was it that USB drive??"

Just as Chen Ling was talking to himself, the large screen on the building opposite suddenly flickered.

"Breaking news."

"At nine o'clock this morning, a crimson meteor grazed the Earth. At the same time, earthquakes occurred in extremely small areas across the country..."

"Within just three minutes, hundreds of buildings split and collapsed, including the Meishang Hotel, the Jiangkou Stadium, and the Beijing Grand Theater... According to incomplete statistics, the current death toll has exceeded two thousand..."