Fang Qingze carried his schoolbag as he walked through the bustling Xiushui Square.
Xiushui Square is located within Yuhu Park, the largest park in the East District of City Number Seven. The total length of the Yuhu Park lakeside trail is ten kilometers.
Ever since he moved here two years ago, Fang Qingze would come here for a jog every holiday morning. Even though he had undergone the tempering of mysterious flames and could run five laps in one go without feeling tired, he still insisted on running.
In the square, crowds of elderly residents, children, and young couples were divided into two opposing factions, occupying the left and right sides respectively.
On one side were the elderly women dancing freely to deafening music, accompanied by a group of old men who wanted to blend in but couldn't quite catch the rhythm.
On the other side were a bunch of kids playing with skateboards, roller skates, and various toys. Both sides kept to themselves, living in peace without interfering with each other.
Fang Qingze took off his headphones; in the clamor of the square, it was impossible to hear whatever noise was playing inside them.
He had ignored these headphones all night and originally planned to untangle them slowly when he got home, but somehow they had magically untangled themselves from their knotted state right in his pocket!
Walking past Xiushui Square, the Xiushui Residential Area was not far away.
By now it was ten o'clock at night. Grandpa Zhang, the security guard, was reclining in his chair inside the security room with his legs propped up on the desk, comfortably scrolling through short videos on his phone.
On the phone screen, a scantily clad woman swayed her body, wriggling with exaggerated curves while casting flirtatious glances.
"Grandpa Zhang!"
"Who's that?!" Grandpa Zhang gave a violent start, nearly tumbling out of his chair as his phone dropped, smacking against the uniform on his chest.
The screen flipped upward just as the image came into Fang Qingze's view.
"Oh, it's just you, you little brat," Grandpa Zhang said irritably. "You scared the life out of me."
As he spoke, he pressed the button to open the gate.
"Tsk tsk, if you haven't done anything shady, you don't need to fear ghosts knocking on your door," Fang Qingze said, twitching his eyebrows and eyeing Grandpa Zhang's phone with a wicked grin.
"What do you know!" Grandpa Zhang instantly grew flustered, hurriedly blanking the screen of his phone.
"I know, I know, just boosting your mood, right?!" Fang Qingze teased.
"You talk way too much, kid. If you don't get in here right now, I'm locking the gate and you can go sleep on the streets!" Grandpa Zhang glared, making a motion to close the gate.
Fang Qingze slipped past the entrance in a flash, leaving only a sentence lingering in the air: "Going home to sleep, Grandpa. You go right on boosting your mood..."
"This little rascal!" Grandpa Zhang watched the receding figure, left fuming in the security room with his beard bristling.
Fang Qingze came back very late every night. Everyone in the security room knew he was a working student and recognized him well. He was closest to Grandpa Zhang, and trading jabs was a regular occurrence.
Walking along the path amidst the green belts, the sound of insects wove together, delicate and crisp like a beautiful natural symphony.
There were three residential buildings in the Xiushui Residential Area—A, B, and C. Each building had eighteen floors, with seven apartments on each floor.
Because the residential area was right next to Yuhu Park and not far from No. 7 High School where Fang Qingze studied—reachable directly by bus in ten stops—
and formed a triangle on the map with Uncle Zhang's barbecue restaurant, each occupying a corner, it offered beautiful scenery while making both commuting to school and work convenient.
Most importantly, the landlady was very kind.
The apartment Fang Qingze rented—a one-bedroom, one-living-room, one-kitchen, one-bathroom unit—normally cost 2,200 New Dollars a month. Knowing Fang Qingze's family situation, the landlady directly slashed the rent by 1,000, bringing the total to under 1,300 including utilities every month.
At first, Fang Qingze felt the discount was too steep, but the landlady's reply made him understand what true dominance meant:
"All three buildings in this entire residential complex belong to me. Do you really think I care about your petty little pocket change?"
That was the first time he learned what it meant to truly look down upon the world, and boy, had he been thoroughly looked down upon!
*Wuu wuu...*
How could rich people be like this?
Fang Qingze's monthly salary at the barbecue restaurant was 4,100 New Dollars. With 1,300 for monthly rent, 9,700 for annual tuition plus 9,900 for book fees split into nine monthly installments of 1,100, and around 100 for cat food, he was left with 1,600 New Dollars a month.
1,600 New Dollars a month was plenty for Fang Qingze to eat his fill at school.
For breakfast, he could spend eight or nine yuan at the steamed bun shop by the park entrance to buy a few fist-sized buns and a cup of soy milk to fill his stomach.
As for lunch, the food at the No. 7 High School cafeteria was first-class in both appearance and taste, even featuring real meat. Although it was quite expensive, by skipping the real meat he could eat very well for eleven or twelve yuan.
As for dinner, because he had to work, Fang Qingze usually just grabbed something random from a street vendor or supermarket to tide himself over and fill his stomach.
Food cost him only about 1,000 a month. Even adding his daily commutes by bus and subway, it barely topped 1,200. You could say he was very easy to support; not only could he afford to feed a cat, but he could also quietly send a little money to the orphanage, though it wasn't much.There are three elevators in Building C. Fang Qingze was the only person inside the middle elevator. After a brief sensation of weightlessness, the elevator shot upward, his eardrums popping slightly from the pressure.
The digital display changed rapidly until it stopped at 15.
The fifteenth floor had three different layouts, totaling seven units in all.
Among them, C1506 and C1507 were both one-bedroom, one-living-room, one-kitchen, and one-bathroom apartments, situated at opposite ends of the same hallway, facing each other across the corridor.
Fang Qingze lived in C1506. Only three units on this entire floor were unoccupied, and C1507 directly opposite him was one of them.
Last weekend, the female landlord had come by with six or seven people to clean up apartment 07. They had replaced all the furniture and appliances with brand-new sets, though there was no telling who they had rented it to.
"Click!" The key turned in the lock, and the front door swung open. Pitch-black darkness and a somewhat stuffy heat rushed out to meet him.
Stepping inside, he casually reached out to feel for the wall switch and turned on the light. The illumination banished the darkness, instantly brightening the living room. The apartment was tidy with minimal furniture, but it had all the essentials.
The total area of the layout was fifty-five square meters. To the left of the entrance was the bathroom. It wasn't large, lacking a wet-and-dry separation, and contained only a water heater, a toilet, a washbasin, and a large mirror above the sink.
To the right was Fang Qingze's bedroom, which came with a balcony.
Walking further in brought him to the living room, where a long and a short sofa formed an L-shape around a coffee table, with a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall opposite the seating.
Further ahead was the kitchen, separated by a glass door.
Overall, Fang Qingze was very satisfied with this apartment.
"Meow—"
As he closed the front door, a meow came from the bedroom. Immediately afterward, a white-and-black-striped tabby cat sprinted out of Fang Qingze's room, ran to his legs to circle him, and kept rubbing its head and neck against his shins with its tail held high.
"Hey, your old man is back~"
Fang Qingze changed into his slippers, squatted down to scoop Xiaoliu up from the floor, and walked over to the living room sofa. He set the bag of cat food down on the coffee table and took out a can.
With a crisp "Click!", the can popped open. Xiaoliu, who had been wriggling between Fang Qingze's legs, instantly perked up, fixing its eyes squarely on the can in Fang Qingze's hand and stretching its neck out to sniff.
The moment Fang Qingze placed the can on the floor, Xiaoliu hopped down from his lap.
"Ungrateful wretch." Fang Qingze squatted down to rub Xiaoliu's head, but the cat, busy licking the can clean, completely ignored him and tucked into its meal with gusto.
"I was right not to buy you that cheap junk. The moment you start eating, you forget everyone you're related to."
Resigned, Fang Qingze stood up to check the cat bowl. He had filled it with a full day's portion in the morning, and a little bit was still left. There was also water in the bowl, so it probably hadn't gone hungry.
He lay down on the lounge chair and began scrolling through his phone on WeChat.
The explosion at Shengxian Pavilion was still fermenting. People's discussions only grew louder, and the class group chat was no exception.
Evening study sessions ended at nine-thirty, the same time Fang Qingze usually finished work. The students were either heading home or back to their dormitories.
In just half an hour, the group chat named "Class Group 2" already had hundreds of new messages. This group consisted entirely of students, while the teachers were in a separate chat.
Normally as cold as a mortuary, the group chat had now exploded like a tinderbox because of the Shengxian Pavilion incident.
"What do you guys think the background of that guy in black actually is? Jumping down from such a high place and disappearing right through a black hole," Zhang Wen asked out of curiosity.
Chen Hao replied: "That is insanely magical! Could this be the legendary Transcendent? I want that kind of ability too."
Zhang Wen @ Chen Hao: "Rat, actually I do have that kind of power. If you don't believe me, jump down from your balcony. I'll be right down there on the ground on the first floor to catch you for sure."
Chen Hao's reply was concise and clear: "Get lost."
These two seemed to be like this forever, bickering no matter where they were.
There were many different opinions, but they were basically similar to the views on the internet, except that everyone's tone was far less aggressive.
Fang Qingze glanced at it twice and lost interest, but one message made his hand pause as he was about to exit the chat window.
"I think Transcendents might actually be mutated humans," someone suggested out of the blue.
"Whoa! How do you figure that?"
"I think, just like Desolate Beasts, they mutated after absorbing Crimson Blood Vine pollen.
Desolate Beasts also mutated from ordinary wild animals, and not all animals turned into Desolate Beasts anyway—many people's pets didn't change at all."
"So you think Transcendents were also affected by the Crimson Blood Vine pollen?
But the problem is, Desolate Beasts appeared at the very beginning of the cataclysm hundreds of years ago. Why are Transcendents only making the news these past few years?"