Chapter 2: Good News And Bad News
The vast universe was like an endless black ocean, flickering with specks of starlight, like countless silent eyes gazing down below.
Cold and desolate, this was a stage where death and destruction intertwined, with a hint of unease permeating the silence.
Two massive fleets clashed fiercely in the endless starry sky, enormous ships shuttling through the cosmos like giant beasts, dazzling energy cannon beams flashing, slicing through the darkness and illuminating the indifferent universe into a dazzling battlefield.
Energy beams streaked through the void like sharp blades, instantly tearing apart the sturdy hulls of the ships.
One massive warship after another was hit and shattered into fragments, countless debris floating in space, like dust in the cycle of fate, silently recounting past glory and honor.
“Ah…”
Su Yaoyang sat up from the bed with a loud cry, a tattered quilt sliding off him, revealing his bare and muscular upper body.
“Young master… having another nightmare?”
A crisp yet slightly groggy voice sounded by his ear, followed by a soft and tender body hugging him from behind.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine.” Su Yaoyang reached back to embrace the smooth and soft body, softly comforting her: “Xiao Lu, it’s still early, go back to sleep.”
“What about you, young master?”
“I’ll get up and have some tea.”
“Alright then, I’ll sleep a bit more.”
Perhaps due to expending too much energy last night, soon a gentle breathing sound arose, and the girl fell back into deep sleep.
After letting out a long breath, Su Yaoyang glanced around; it was still pitch black. He fumbled by the bedside and found a box of matches.
With a “click” sound, the match was lit, casting an orange-red glow that illuminated the room. He then lit the oil lamp by the bed and carried it to the table in the middle of the room, pouring himself a cup of cool boiled water and gulping it down.
After downing a large cup of cool water, his parched throat finally felt a bit better.
“Boom…”
As he set down the teacup, a whistling sound came from the sky, followed by a massive explosion with orange-red flames shooting into the air, the ground beginning to tremble slightly, with faint gunfire sounds in the distance.
Su Yaoyang quickly pushed open the window and saw flames soaring in the distance, along with faint heart-wrenching cries coming from afar. Seeing this scene, a feeling of anxiety mixed with helplessness surged in his heart.
“If we don’t find a way out soon, we’ll really be stuck.”
Closing the window, he sat back on the creaky stool that squeaked under slight pressure, surveying the surroundings again. This was a house built of earth and wood, only about twenty square meters in area, furnished with a small wooden bed, a table, and two stools including the one under him—that was all the furniture in the room.
Even for such a rundown shack, the monthly rent was two silver dollars, making Su Yaoyang curse the innkeeper’s black heart while growing even more anxious.
He turned around again and saw a calendar on the wall printed with an image of a woman in a cheongsam. The top line clearly read, from top to bottom, Republic of China Year 26, November 8, Year of the Ox in Dingchou, in bold black characters, and at the bottom in small font from right to left: December 13, 1937, printed by Beiping Palace Museum Press, etc.
Yes, the time Su Yaoyang was in matched exactly with the date on the calendar, and the city he was in was called Nanjing.
Su Yaoyang felt he was the unluckiest transmigrator; he had been happily drinking beer and watching a game in his self-built villa back home in the countryside when suddenly the entire house was destroyed by an unexpected beam of light, and he himself was vaporized on the spot.
Logically, dead was dead, at least without pain, but after who knows how long, his consciousness slowly awoke, and a guy looking like a big-headed doll told him he was a being from a fifth-level civilization who had made a small mistake during spacetime transfer practice, causing him to be accidentally injured.
To express apology, he could transfer his consciousness to another parallel spacetime very similar to Earth, allowing his life to continue.
At first, Su Yaoyang was unwilling about this compensation: I was living fine on Earth, you screwed up and killed me, if you don’t send me back and compensate me with billions, this isn’t over.
But soon, harsh reality taught him otherwise.
The being, who had seemed decent and looked like a big-headed doll, immediately changed expression upon hearing this, telling him to take it or leave it, and if he kept babbling, he’d erase his consciousness.
Only then did Su Yaoyang truly understand what it meant to be at the mercy of others.
Fine, better to live poorly than die well. Seeing the guy’s irritable temper, if he kept talking, he’d probably really erase his consciousness.
What followed was as described at the beginning: his consciousness was transferred into a young man with the same name who was on the brink of death.
Of course, before transmigrating, after Su Yaoyang’s desperate bargaining, the being claiming to be from a fifth-level dimensional civilization reluctantly gave him a necklace.
According to the being, this thing was called a matter converter, a toy his clan gave him as a child to practice mental power.
He didn’t need it anymore and casually gave it to Su Yaoyang.
Matter converter, as the name implied, meant converting one substance into another by altering certain structures or processes.
In China, ancients had long described such phenomena, like turning stone into gold, calling a deer a horse, scattering beans to make soldiers, and so on.
Of course, this differed somewhat from the matter converter’s true function, but the idea was the same.
What Su Yaoyang didn’t expect was that he did transmigrate to a parallel space almost identical to Earth, but the timeline and location seemed off.
This was actually Nanjing in December 1937, and he wasn’t alone—he had a tag-along… a maid who had grown up with him since childhood.
Still, anger aside, life had to go on.
Over the past two days, through indirect questioning from the tag-along, Su Yaoyang had figured out some details about this body.
He came from a landlord family in Rehe Province; two months ago, the Japanese immigrant development group targeted his family’s land, so they brought Japanese soldiers to rush into Su Family Village, slaughtering the entire village without sparing anyone, and his parents both perished.
His predecessor had luckily been studying in Chengde, the provincial capital, and thus escaped.
After receiving the tragic news from a kind classmate, his predecessor didn’t dare stay in Chengde and fled Rehe with his personal maid, heading to Nanjing to seek a distant relative.
Unexpectedly, upon arriving in Nanjing, they found the relative had long moved away. Just as the master and servant were worrying about where to go, the Japanese had already reached the outskirts of Nanjing, leaving them dumbfounded.
There’s an old Chinese saying: when the roof leaks, it pours. Just a few days ago, their remaining travel funds were stolen somehow, and in a fit of anger, the original owner collapsed from illness on the spot.
Amid the chaos of war and unfamiliarity with the place, without guidance, the little maid could only ask someone to fetch a doctor, who prescribed a few doses of medicine for Su Yaoyang. Unexpectedly, the doctor was a quack; after taking the medicine, the original owner’s condition not only didn’t improve but worsened.
At the moment the original owner was on the verge of death, Su Yaoyang’s consciousness took over the body.
Retracting his thoughts, Su Yaoyang removed the silver-white necklace from his neck—indistinct in material—and examined it closely. This necklace was the thing given to him by that runaway big-headed doll.
According to the big-headed doll, this thing was called a matter converter; it could convert matter using mental power, and if used well, turning stone into gold or soil into grain would be no problem.
Honestly, at first Su Yaoyang scoffed at this; he was at least a high-achieving graduate of nine years of compulsory education—you’re telling me fairy tales.
But as soon as he said it, the big-headed doll mocked him: You, a pleasure-seeker from a civilization that hasn’t even reached level one, daring to question a level five civilization—who gave you the courage?
Hearing that, Su Yaoyang immediately shut up.
Thinking about it, it made sense: a civilization that couldn’t even leave Earth mocking a level five civilization was like ants crawling on the ground ridiculing gods—calling it overreaching was polite.
Thus, these days besides recuperating, Su Yaoyang did one thing: desperately trying to communicate with the necklace around his neck as the big-headed doll instructed.
Through his efforts, though he hadn’t established communication with the necklace, it wasn’t without results—for example, just last night, he finally took the little maid.
Don’t call Su Yaoyang a beast; with such a tender, obedient, pure, and lovely girl sleeping beside him every night, any normal man couldn’t resist, and Su Yaoyang holding out for over ten days was already good.
Though the little maid had just reached marriageable age, which in the 21st century would be middle school age, in this era, many girls her age were already married.
With the idea of seizing the day, Su Yaoyang still acted like a beast this time.
Under the dim light, Su Yaoyang turned to glance at the figure sweetly sleeping while hugging the quilt, then turned back, gripped the slightly cool necklace, habitually closed his eyes, focused his mind, and probed toward the necklace using the method taught by the jerk who sent him here.
“Huh…”
Perhaps because losing his virginity improved his luck, Su Yaoyang suddenly found his mind miraculously syncing with the necklace—what’s commonly called resonance.
This sync was crucial; he instantly felt an itch at the pineal gland in his forehead, followed by an image of a big-headed doll appearing in his mind.
This big-headed doll was none other than the culprit who caused him to come to this spacetime.
The big-headed doll, with a mocking expression, spoke in his mind at the same time: “Congratulations, newbie, you’ve finally met the minimum requirement to connect to the matter converter.
Next, you qualify to view the gift I left you. Though it’s just some low-level junk, it’s enough for a newbie like you.
To take care of you, newbie, I’ve specially stored various weapons and civilian data from your original spacetime inside. In the future, if you need something, just convert it using the data inside.
How about it? I’m pretty nice to you, newbie. Have fun in this spacetime, goodbye… no… for you short-lived carbon-based lifeforms, it should be farewell… right, there are some precautions I need to tell you next…”
