Chapter 1: An Unexpected Encounter

  "Since you don't believe me, I have nothing to say. Why not ask your boss to come out and take a look? I don't know what's wrong with me that makes you feel uncomfortable. I'm just a mechanical engineer who came for an interview, although I don't have any university diplomas or certificates, but I believe I have the ability to do the work assigned by the company."

  This conversation took place between a 1.85-meter-tall "super tall Chinese" named Zhang Yu and a blonde American female secretary. Zhang Yu had come to this US-based Chinese company just to make a living, as it was recruiting high-paying mechanical and chemical industry technical talents, with engineers receiving particularly good treatment. Moreover, the company claimed to have absolutely no racial discrimination, which for Chinese people struggling to survive in the US was like a pie falling from the sky or a lifesaving straw at a critical moment. For Zhang Yu, whose stomach was already somewhat empty, such a company would be hard to find even with a lantern.

  From the initial test to the subsequent interview, the two links were still handled by Americans. Just as Zhang Yu was wondering whether this company was mainly composed of Chinese people or not, he was informed that he had passed the qualification, which means that half a foot or even half a body had already entered the company, and the remaining last link was also very simple, just to meet the boss and let the boss understand his future employees.

  For such a result, Zhang Yu was naturally very satisfied. When he was still dreaming about how to get promoted and make a fortune for the company, the secretary in charge of the handover couldn't believe her eyes: a Chinese person could be over 1.8 meters tall, with a dignified appearance and a handsome face. Upon further reflection, she thought that her boss was also Chinese, similarly tall and handsome, but still made her doubt one thing - Zhang Yu claimed to be the Chinese mechanical engineer who had already obtained the qualification for the job. The meticulous secretary repeatedly checked the materials in her hand, this guy who only wrote his birthdate and place of birth, without any information about his family background, education, or work experience, which made her even more suspicious, so a dispute was inevitable.

  "Alright, I apologize for my rudeness earlier. I assure you that what I said is true. If you still don't believe me, why not ask your company's boss to come out and meet with me in person? Let him test me and decide whether or not to hire me. What do you think, beautiful secretary who is diligent in her duties?" The argument would only make both sides more convinced of their own answers, but Zhang Yu quickly changed his attitude after calming down.

  "Alright, sir. I can arrange for our boss to see you specially, but whether you grasp the opportunity is up to you." After finishing speaking, the secretary, holding a few documents and wearing high heels, quickly disappeared around the corner of the corridor. About five minutes later, she smiled as she walked in front of Zhang Yu and said: "Our boss heard that you are a Chinese person and is very happy. Your conversation with him will not have any time limit. Please go ahead!"

  "Alright, thank you." Zhang Yu suddenly felt a sense of unease, unable to explain why. It was as if the female secretary's attitude before and after she came in had changed. Could it be true what people outside said, that the company's boss had a "quirk" and especially liked yellow-skinned women? Thinking about this made Zhang Yu break out in a cold sweat, but for the sake of work, he still tidied himself up and followed the secretary out.

  "Are you Zhang Yu?" As soon as he entered the door, a young man behind a desk filled with various documents and materials said to Zhang Yu. "Please sit down, we have time to chat slowly!" After finishing speaking, the young man gestured for the secretary to bring over a leather chair for Zhang Yu.

  As soon as he sat down, Zhang Yu suddenly had a "homecoming" feeling. In fact, Zhang Yu had already noticed the layout of the company's office, and it was said that bosses and employees were naturally in an adversarial relationship. Knowing each other could lead to high salaries and benefits, but the result of a quick scan made Zhang Yu feel a sense of homecoming, accompanied by an even stronger feeling of unease, especially after sitting on the swivel leather chair and seeing the boss's attire.

  After the secretary left tactfully, Zhang Yu formally began his conversation with the boss. The clichéd conversation revolved around work and future treatment issues, of course, interests, hobbies, and family situations still need to be slightly understood.

  "Starting tomorrow, you can officially go to work. The probation period is one month, and the salary will be half of the formal salary. The company can provide free accommodation and three meals a day, but there is no medical insurance." As the young man spoke, he realized that he might have said something wrong when Zhang Yu frowned across from him. "What I meant by medical insurance wasn't anything else, simple work-related injuries or accidents, the company can provide some assistance, of course, we also have a clinic, fever and colds can be treated for free! Alright, if you're willing, you can sign this document now."

  "Oh, I see what you mean!" Zhang Yu nodded in agreement, but the feeling of unease in his heart grew stronger. In another time and space where he had undergone rigorous training, he wouldn't have missed the unusual smell, but this faint scent couldn't shake off the sense of danger, so he could only attribute it to the fear of his first day on the job.

  As soon as Zhang Yu left the company gate, there was another conversation in the boss's office where he had just stayed.

  "Get someone to investigate him immediately, but don't let anything slip!" The young man said in a low voice to another person. He had too many questions and doubts in his mind. A young Chinese who could pass two rounds of interviews and receive excellent comments, when did China produce such a genius? It's unlikely that a Qing dynasty overseas student would have such a high level of achievement. Moreover, since he came for an interview, who would wear such ill-fitting clothes? In short, there were too many questions that made people vigilant.

  The next morning at 8 o'clock, Zhang Yu, who was supposed to start work formally, didn't feel any excitement. The unpleasant things that happened after the interview yesterday made him very unhappy. He had already thought about quitting his job once, but he thought of the high penalty for breach of contract and still came to work with a hard heart. However, before that, he needed to figure out what had happened yesterday that made him so unhappy.

  "I'm very disappointed, extremely extremely disappointed!"

  "Don't mention whether you're disappointed or not, I just want to ask you one thing, who exactly are you?"

  Zhang Yu had just entered the company when he was called to the boss's office by the secretary. Feeling that things were going as planned, the loud sound of the door closing reminded him that there was only him and the young boss in the room. So Zhang Yu directly expressed his dissatisfaction, but didn't expect the young man behind the desk to react even faster, instantly turning the tables on Zhang Yu who had felt he had the upper hand just moments before.

  "Don't tell me you're the son of a wealthy family, and due to some unexpected change in your family situation, you, an excellent student, ended up wandering abroad, even to the point where you can only afford to live in a park. Nor do I want to hear that you're some kind of genius; this world already has a self-taught Edison, and without basic cultural education, it's impossible for someone like you to emerge from the Qing dynasty. Besides, your kung fu skills aren't bad either!" The young man spoke out about the main reason behind yesterday's events: suspicion and confrontation, stalking and counter-stalking, until finally, the person being stalked couldn't bear it anymore and attacked.

  "Are you also so lawless in your home country? If I'm not mistaken, I reckon you must have committed a capital crime back home and fled to the US. The New York police are really incompetent, letting a monster like you run amok for so long! You don't belong in this era, do you? Maybe you've also figured out my background, but I couldn't care less - your situation is truly worrisome."

  "I finally understand why my graduation score was just passable, not excellent like other subjects. Intentional disguise will always reveal inevitable flaws, and the truth is always true." Zhang Yu's identity was exposed, his first failure in executing a task plus his first "real combat" experience made him realize his inadequacy, understanding why the base gave him a passable score instead of an excellent one, and also understanding why he couldn't perform external tasks. Even the boss of a small company quickly discovered that his background was unclear, what else could he say?

  "I'm not a strict post-80s, how about you?" The young man also felt that he had revealed his true self and naturally spoke out his origins. He said this without any worries because the person in front of him was also Chinese. It's not easy to come to the 20th century to "play around", so everyone should be harmonious and mutually beneficial. "Oh, I forgot to tell you, my name is Zhang Yusheng. Many people say that my name is the same as a celebrity but different in character, between the two..."

  "My real name isn't Zhang Yu, I only know that I followed my mother's surname, and my real name can't be revealed until the ban is lifted. And what did you just say about being a post-80? What post-80? The year I graduated was the millennium, 3000 class of United University Engineering Mechanics major graduate, how about you? You shouldn't be an upperclassman from the 80s, but you don't look old at all?"

  Zhang Yu's words came out, and it seemed that he didn't consider Zhang Yusheng an outsider. However, the one who was being choked now was the young man with the same name as the singer, Zhang Yusheng. "What? A graduate of 3000 years ago? Brother, you're not kidding me, right?! This is 1910 New York, USA, where even electric lights and telephones haven't arrived yet! You're telling me you're a person from the 30th century? Were you beaten silly by those seven or eight people yesterday? Either you're sick or I'm sick! The ones I've seen, whether they're science fiction or fantasy, are all from the same era. We're young people from the 21st century."

  "21st century?"

  。。。。。。。。

  Over the next few days, the two people who crossed over from the same Tianya began to have in-depth discussions about their identities and family situations. They spent more time exchanging views on this era, and young people always have many common topics and hobbies. After a few days of getting along, their relationship naturally improved a lot.

  "Dude, I'm asking you how did you end up in this place? You said the 30th century was fine, so why did you have to come to the 20th century, which is such a dark and chaotic era? As Chinese people, we don't even want to think about the miserable history of the first half of the 20th century. But you're actually willing to come here and experience it yourself! With technology being so advanced, shouldn't you be traveling to an even better era?"

  At night, in the dormitory for employees, two people each brought a dozen beers and a small stack of beef, starting another deep conversation before sleep. Zhang Yu Sheng, full of curiosity, always wanted to figure out the origin of this high-level employee. In just five or six days, he had clearly sorted out the technical project planned by the company, and his profound knowledge of science and engineering made Zhang Yu Sheng excitedly exclaim that it wasn't Lin Daiyu who fell from the sky, but another Edison-like character. Although he was a product of higher education in later generations, using other people's knowledge and theories, in this world, he was already a treasure, and could be the main force to assist Zhang Yu Sheng's dreams.

  "You think I wanted to come over? No matter how advanced our technology was back then, it's impossible to have the technology to send humans back a thousand years. But you, a 21st-century netizen? You can even be mesmerized by binary computers!"

  "Haha, I was controlling a telescope in my dormitory at that time, didn't expect to see a very bright white light suddenly appearing in the vast and dark universe, it looked great. I thought of what many people said, making a wish upon seeing a shooting star. I wished that I and my country could reach the standard of developed countries, and no longer suffer from the bullying of America, dwarves, and Korea. As a result, I came to this era, and even landed directly in the United States. Later, I realized that perhaps heaven wants me to create what I want by myself, starting again from the humiliating history of the Chinese nation."

  "You should have fallen into the 19th century, like during the Opium Wars or something? And what you're facing isn't a shooting star, maybe it's a comet cloud, making a wish can take you through, why do scientists need to bother with that?"

  "But my wish back then was to be able to drive a Mercedes-Benz, or to cruise around with a Hummer convoy fully armed, and for our country to be like 21st-century America, where there's trouble, our aircraft carriers would be there. Let the embassy be bombed, planes be hijacked, territory be maliciously divided, and ancestral cultural heritage be deprived - all the injustices caused by national strength would disappear. As for why it became like this, I'd have to hear your story to determine the answer."

  Who would be willing to live in a strange place, and it's a country full of discrimination and injustice, a country that you hate deeply. What reason is there for you to feel comfortable? The longing in your heart is as unbearable as a butterfly before breaking out of its cocoon. But the promise you made earlier haunts your mind like a ghost, constantly reminding you that this is not just a game, nor an empty dream. You can only get a little peace when you are half asleep and half awake, and the best way to achieve this state is by drinking alcohol, a wine career that started since college.

  "I'm really, really sorry, but I was brought to this society by a white light entity. My story is much more complicated than yours, so listen carefully as I tell you." Zhang Yu then began his journey of complaining, pouring out the hardships of these days to his older 'brother'.

  Zhang Yu was originally a graduate student who had just graduated from the First United Industrial University of the Universe. As an orphan since childhood, he had always hoped to pilot his own spaceship and explore new planets to develop his own territory. After graduation, he used his inheritance and a large government loan for entrepreneurship to buy a 100,000-ton interstellar cargo ship - Tianyu No. 1. His university classmates also contributed, with the wealthy contributing money and the less well-off contributing labor and technology, to renovate the ship at a space repair factory owned by one of their parents. They successfully obtained navigation qualifications and soon received their first cold business from the company online.

  He wouldn't have minded the lonely, months-long voyage of small-time trading, but his luck seemed to run out when he was modifying his spaceship and getting a pilot's license. On his first trip, he was robbed by someone else. Interstellar pirates robbed Zhang Yu, demanding money and goods. It wasn't until later that they realized the owner of the goods was actually related to the pirates. Those guys were thinking of cheating the insurance company out of accident insurance, and getting free transportation from Zhang Yu. Who knows, maybe they could even take down Zhang Yu's ship and crew.

  As a result, Zhang Yu ran wildly and blindly, straying far from the route. Unintentionally, he rushed into a suddenly appearing white light body. When he came to, he found that he and his Tianyu No. 1 spacecraft had been buried in the Taklamakan Desert in China. The thick yellow sand had long hidden the massive shape of the Tianyu No. 1, while Zhang Yu himself seemed to have slept for thousands of years.

  After settling the spaceship, he entered the mainland of China only to discover that he had come at the wrong time. China was in a state of turmoil during the late Qing dynasty and the revolutionary party's momentum was growing stronger by the day. The Xinhai Revolution would soon erupt, and domestically, it was a scene of white and blue factions clashing, with officials fighting and civilians suffering. Zhang Yu could only come to America and hope to establish his own foundation there, so that when the domestic situation stabilized, he could return to China and display his talents. He had taken a liking to the Asia-America company and accepted their recruitment offer. As for what happened next, even Zhang Yu himself knew about it. Of course, as for this self-explanation, Zhang Yu didn't know if it would be enough to convince Zhang Yu, but from Zhang Yu's satisfied smile, it seemed that he had already passed the test.

  "What are you planning to do? You can't just waste your talents and be content with being a small employee, can you? Even I, a graduate of a second-rate university, know that one must have ideals and pursuits in life, and make something of oneself. Especially when faced with such a heartbreaking motherland, don't you want to do something worthy of a man?"

  "Sorry, I was born into a military family, if you hadn't appeared, I would have known what to do anyway."

  "Huh? You're from a military family? Then why did you say earlier that you were just a college graduate?" Zhang Yu-sheng's good drinking capacity, trained since his school days, wasn't just bragging. No matter how drunk he was, his ears still had some clarity, so he could always hear the ringtone of his girlfriend's call. After a dazed thought, he said: "Is it necessary for your era to have militia?" As soon as these words came out, his eyes were already closing into a line.

  "Heh, okay then! Brother Zhang, you're drunk, go to sleep!" Zhang Yu took the cup from Zhang Yusheng's hand and let him lie down, covering him with a quilt. After that, Zhang Yu returned to his own bed, thinking quietly for a while before falling asleep as well.