Chapter 2: First Encounter With the Strange

In the world of this book, the country Chen Yi lived in was called Xia.

Although he had transmigrated into a book, he had adapted well to life inside it.

This short-lived villain dad, who looked almost the same as him and even had the same name, also had a family background that was remarkably similar to his in the world outside the book.

They were both phoenix sons who had come out of rural mountain villages, and both had possessed that tiny bit of shine in university, only for it to be quickly worn dull by the great dye vat of society after graduation.

The only difference was probably that he had not met Du Yuan in university, did not have two biological children, and in his original world he still had an official post. His life had not been rich or noble, but it had been stable no matter rain or shine, the kind everyone envied.

Chen Yi had no experience raising children, but the original owner did.

The older brother was independent and sensible. He could be allowed to do things within his ability. As long as Chen Yi praised him more and gave him recognition, it would be fine.

The younger sister was a little more delicate. She liked clinging to people and acting spoiled. Right now, she had also remembered how Mom had tricked them by saying she was taking them on a trip, only to leave them with Dad and go off alone.

Listlessly, she wrapped her arms around Chen Yi’s neck, her little face buried entirely against his throat, refusing to get down no matter what anyone said.

And so Chen Yi held one child and had an arm around the other, letting them watch one more episode of Wangwang Dog.

Seeing the two children’s dependent posture, Chen Yi felt as though he was their entire world.

Even if only for these two tiny, fragile lives, he had to become strong.

Taking advantage of the children not making a fuss, Chen Yi finally had time to look at the system panel before his eyes.

It was an extremely gorgeous water mirror carved with intricate runes.

The mirror surface shimmered with rippling light. No one else could see it. Chen Yi had poked it with his hand before. It was only a thin layer, and his hand passed straight through to the other side. The sensation of penetration was very clear.

This was the thing that had displayed its existence the instant he transmigrated into the book.

The distorted field of vision in the water mirror made the entire world seem twisted and unreal.

It was as though he were in another dimension.

But the one in his arms and the one pressed against his side were both so warm, so tiny, and so full of dependence.

The edge of the oval water mirror was a dark relief carving, like auspicious clouds and also like a totem. Chen Yi could neither touch it nor see it clearly. Staring at it for too long even made him dizzy, filling him with an inexplicable sense of heart palpitations.

At this moment, the mission “Create a Sect,” which had been floating before Chen Yi’s eyes for a long time, already had one item completed.

Main Quest: Establish a Sect

Reward: Sect Main Hall, Scripture Pavilion

One: Establish the Mountain Gate (0/1 incomplete)

Two: Name the Sect (0/1 incomplete)

Three: Recruit Disciples Widely (I) (2/1 complete)

Chen Yi did not know what direction this sect system would ultimately lead him in, but under the threat of the apocalypse, even a tiny piece of driftwood was a life-saving straw to him, let alone a Goldfinger this big.

He chose to follow the system’s prompts and continue executing them.

Even if, in the end, it was not as good as he imagined, it would still be far better than his original ending, where he appeared onstage already inside a grave. At least he would have tried.

At this moment, in the water mirror, the unfinished missions flickered faintly along with the ripples.

The first item always felt like something he could not decide lightly. “Establish the Mountain Gate” was the starting point of all the missions, so it was inevitably the very foundation this system stood on. He had to be cautious.

As for the second item, that was exactly what Chen Yi was focused on right now.

Name the sect.

What name should he choose?

This was a sect system. According to convention, recruiting disciples widely was inevitable. In the later stages, it would probably also require something like promotion points or popularity value. A proper name would definitely be more favorable for expanding and developing the sect, such as Dragon Sect, Haotian Gate, Cang Sect, and so on.

The grander and more impressive it was, and the better it conveyed the sect’s core principles, the better…

The system sensed that Chen Yi wanted to name the sect. Under Chen Yi’s continued attention, the second mission floated faintly, its ripples moving beautifully.

In the end, Chen Yi focused his mind and branded three words onto the sect name field.

The Lurker Sect.

Confirm!

No changing it!

He had transmigrated into a book, and the apocalypse had descended too. Was he not allowed to have a little temper of his own?

Was The Lurker Sect not good?

It reminded himself and the disciples under him to remain low-key and cautious at all times. Nothing wrong with that.

After the name was confirmed, The Lurker Sect appeared above the water mirror, emerging from nothing.

Only, just before it was about to appear clearly, it twisted for a while, carrying a hint of unwillingness as though flustered and exasperated.

Only after a long delay did it finally solidify.

At the same time, the second mission was finally completed.

Chen Yi relaxed, holding the two children in his arms tighter, as though drawing from them the energy to face the future.

That was exactly it.

Do not make a fuss. Do not be high-profile. Accumulate the strength to face the apocalypse. He absolutely could not appear onstage only to end up lying in a grave.

After they had watched three episodes in a row, they had already reached their daily quota for cartoons. The older brother sensibly looked over, wanting to say something but stopping himself.

Then the younger sister also reacted. Compared with her brother, there was more wheedling in her little eyes. Her small mouth pouted, and her meaning could not have been clearer.

Chen Yi did not respond. Instead, he took out his phone, quickly logged onto 12306, and bought three high-speed rail tickets for that afternoon at three, bound for Wolong County.

After that, he gave the phone back to the children.

Dad making a rare exception filled the two children with joy. They also had the tiny secret delight of having taken advantage of Dad, so naturally, they did not ask why they were still staying in the waiting hall instead of going home.

To children, wherever their parents were was home.

Mom had just left, and Dad, who was holding them, was their entire world.

During this time, Chen Yi also sorted through the memories in his mind.

Afterward, he took the children to eat lunch.

They endured two hours in the waiting room before the high-speed train they were going to take finally opened for ticket inspection.

When the children were away from home, they behaved much better than they did at home.

In unfamiliar places, around unfamiliar people, children’s tiny hearts feared losing sight of one another even more than adults did.

He held the younger sister in his arms.

The older brother’s little hand clutched the hem of his shirt, following closely with each step.

Chen Yi pushed the children’s luggage left behind by Du Yuan. He walked a little slowly, and very soon, the main crowd of passengers left him behind.

Midway, a railway police officer hurrying to change shifts passed by. Seeing Chen Yi’s difficulty, he took the luggage from Chen Yi on his own initiative and said with a smile, “I’ll carry this for you. You hold the children properly. There are a lot of people in the station.”

Chen Yi thanked him and finally freed up one hand to pick the older brother up too.

The moment he was lifted, the seemingly strong older brother threw himself into Chen Yi’s arms, tightly wrapping his arms around Chen Yi’s neck without saying a word.

Chen Yi knew how he felt, but he had no time to comfort him.

In the end, he only tilted his head and kissed the little face, then rubbed against it.

Then he quickened his pace and caught up.

The railway police officer not only escorted Chen Yi all the way onto the high-speed train, he also put the luggage onto the rack.

Chen Yi thanked him sincerely, saying thank you several times.

The railway police officer smiled and said, “All right, all right, no need to be so polite. It’s what I should do.”

Chen Yi watched the railway police officer leave. His not particularly broad back looked steady and reliable, and the police badge on his shoulder flashed with dazzling light beneath the lamps.

Some thought surfaced in his mind, giving him another path he had never considered before.

Hand it over to the authorities… It was just that, to convince such a massive institution, he would have to present something first.

Chen Yi lowered his eyes. While absentmindedly coaxing the children, he pondered the road ahead.

The journey went smoothly.

The children were both very well-behaved. Riding a high-speed train for the first time gave them a great sense of novelty. They kept leaning against the window and looking outside, solemnly discussing which scenery they saw was prettier.

When she got tired from looking, the younger sister crawled into Chen Yi’s arms, yawned, and fell asleep.

The older brother held out for another ten minutes. In the end, he lay sideways across the seat, pulled Chen Yi’s palm over to cover his little belly, and also fell asleep.

Chen Yi did not sleep the entire way. His mind was full of things: fear of the future, excitement at having obtained the system. Complicated emotions tangled together, and even his brain seemed to have become quite a bit smarter.

The high-speed train stopped at the station in Wolong County, and twilight was closing in from all sides.

Wolong was a large county at the southernmost edge of East Province. It was located exactly at the opposite end of the province from the economically developed city Du Yuan had gone to, one in the south and the other in the north.

It was still the same routine.

The younger sister was held in his arms, the older brother held onto the hem of his shirt, and Chen Yi pushed the suitcase as the three of them walked out of the train station.

Outside the station, there were many people and vehicles picking others up. There were also taxis lined up waiting for passengers, along with unlicensed cars.

Chen Yi queued up and got into a taxi. He gave the name of the hotel he had booked on the train, then said no more.

For some unknown reason, when the driver heard the place name, he turned back and looked at him a couple more times, wanting to say something but stopping himself.

The older brother was very smart. He could always sense changes in the situation at the first moment. He raised his little face and asked, “Are we not going to Grandpa and Grandma’s house?”

Chen Yi said, “It’s dark. Going into the mountains will take another two hours. We’ll go tomorrow morning.”

“Mm-hm, got it, Dad.”

The younger sister did not care about any of this from beginning to end. Once they finished talking, she patted her own belly. “Little tummy is hungry.”

Chen Yi was amused by the adorable childish words and said, “When we get to the hotel, we’ll feed little tummy, okay?”

“Okay.”

The driver glanced at Chen Yi through the rearview mirror and abruptly asked, “Brother, can I ask, have you booked the room at that hotel already? I know a pretty good hotel. It’s new, and the price isn’t expensive either. I can take you there.”

Chen Yi thought he had run into a driver trying to solicit business and politely refused. “I already booked one online.”

“How much is it per night?”

“Eighty-eight.”

“The hotel I know is only forty or fifty more expensive, and it’s closer to the city center.”

“Thanks, really no need.”

The original owner had been a stay-at-home dad for a year. With two children to care for, he did not even have time to deliver takeout or work as a designated driver. The money in his hands was all living expenses Du Yuan had given him. Being able to make it this far had already used up more than half of it.

Chen Yi, who was wholeheartedly returning to the village to live off his parents, absolutely would not spend one extra cent on lodging.

After being refused repeatedly, the driver stopped talking.

The car drove onto the road and crossed through the city. In the twilight, Chen Yi observed this county town that was not too familiar to him. Only after they passed through the busy district and arrived at the other end of the city did the number of pedestrians on the road gradually decrease. The sky had gone dark, and the sparse streetlights could not illuminate the layers of dense young trees. Finally, they stopped in front of a hotel that stood right next to the road.

Before Chen Yi even got out of the car, his brows knitted.

Perhaps because of the dark sky, this hotel was vastly different from the pictures online. It was a three-story building from the eighties. Under the faint moonlight, the outer walls were mottled like rust, giving off an inexplicably gloomy feeling.

In the entire building, only five points of light were lit. On the first floor, including the reception hall, four rooms were lit. On the second floor, one room was lit. The third floor was pitch-black, and the darkness behind the windows and rear door seemed capable of swallowing everything.

Almost subconsciously, Chen Yi fixed his gaze on the room on the far left of the third floor. He kept feeling that something was wrong with that room.

As he watched, a deathly pale human face suddenly appeared at the window!

“Shit!”

“Aaahhh!”

Chen Yi jumped in fright, his whole body jolting.

The driver also screamed along with him.

Chen Yi’s leg, which he had already stretched out, snapped back in. His eyes widened as he looked at the driver. “You saw it?”

“S-saw what?” The driver clutched his chest.

“The window on the far left of the third floor…”

As Chen Yi spoke, he stopped again.

There was nothing at the window on the far left of the third floor. Only the reflection of the streetlight shone on it.

Chen Yi was momentarily speechless. Could he have seen wrong?

But he very quickly rejected that stupid line of thought.

He had transmigrated into a book!

And it was a high-risk hell-mode book at that!

He clearly knew that the first survival challenge to appear would be something strange, yet he was still indulging in wishful thinking. That was pure sickness. Did he not want to live?

With a bang, Chen Yi shut the door. Facing the driver, who was still shaking his head again and again, his face miserable, clearly knowing something, Chen Yi said seriously, “The hotel you mentioned just now—where is it? Can you take us there?”

The driver nodded. “Sure thing, no problem.”

He slammed down on the gas pedal, speeding away as though some great terror were chasing them from behind.

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