Volume One, Chapter Eight: Joining the Order of Discipline

Seeing Li Yan’s clarity, Yue Chengze chuckled, his tone lightening. "We would like to invite you to join our ranks."

"You mean... join you?" Li Yan raised an eyebrow. The request was easier to accept than he had imagined. He even felt a strange heaviness settle on his shoulders, a fleeting, Marvel-hero-like illusion that the burden of saving the world had truly fallen upon him.

He quickly regained his composure and asked, "After joining, do I have to hide in the shadows like you, completely cutting ties with life in this world?"

After all, having been reborn, his primary goal was to make up for past regrets: to earn back the money he had lost and to protect the people he cared about. If he had to vanish into mystery for the sake of some "Order," no amount of excitement could fill the void of his lingering resentment.

Yue Chengze seemed to read his thoughts. He gestured vaguely in the air and smiled faintly. "We cannot reveal our identities, but we have never abandoned our respective worlds. We traverse parallel dimensions to carry out missions and return to our daily lives once they are finished. Take me, for example; in my own world, I am still an ordinary person working a nine-to-five job."

"Oh," Li Yan realized. "So, you’re just experts hiding in the city?"

"Something like that." Yue Chengze dropped his smile, his tone turning serious. "But there is a rule: if you drift outside of space-time for too long, not only will your own world reject you, but you may also lose your seven emotions and six desires. Those who lose control risk becoming monsters like the 'Magic Eye'."

Li Yan felt a jolt. So the "Magic Eye" that devoured space-time had once been a living human being.

"Never mind, then," he said, waving his hand instinctively. "I don't want to become a heartless monster."

Wu Xu, who had been silent until now, suddenly looked up, his voice low. "Don't be too afraid. Most people don't become 'Magic Eyes'; at worst, they just turn into trash that only knows how to consume."

Li Yan: "..." That was hardly reassuring.

He steadied himself, refocusing on the "rebirth advantage." This was what he cared about most. But Yue Chengze’s next words doused his enthusiasm like a bucket of cold water.

"Are you thinking that you can use the time difference from your rebirth to stir up trouble and rise above the rest?" Yue Chengze’s gaze was sharp, as if piercing through to his soul.

Li Yan’s mouth twitched. Wasn't that the standard script for a reborn protagonist? Otherwise, what was the point of living again?

"You mean... I can't?"

"Key nodes cannot be moved." Yue Chengze tapped his fingertip against the table. "Every period has events that must happen; they are pinned to the timeline like punctuation marks. If you move them, things get chaotic. Chen Hansheng, who is locked up next door, tried to preemptively register 'Xiaomi' and jump-start mobile phone development after his rebirth, and he ended up turning the timeline into a knotted mess. We must intervene and stop such things."

He paused, then explained further, "The parallel worlds in your time period follow roughly the same trajectory. The rise of Microsoft, the emergence of Apple, the birth of platforms like Meituan and Douyin... these are constants. They belong to who they belong to. If you insist on usurping them, you will only cause chaos in the space-time projection."

Li Yan suddenly recalled game mechanics and probed, "Like a static NPC in a game? If you steal an NPC's job, the system crashes?"

Wu Xu, rarely cooperative, snapped his fingers.

Yue Chengze nodded. "That's about the size of it."

Li Yan’s face fell instantly. If he couldn't touch those trending industries, what was the point of being reborn? He had been planning to crush the tech giants and dominate the market...

"Sigh, what’s the point then?" He slumped his shoulders, like a deflated balloon.

Seeing his dejected state, Yue Chengze smiled. "It's not entirely hopeless. For someone like you, a career in politics is likely a dead end. You lack that specific 'hue'; even if you passed the exams, you’d only ever be a run-of-the-mill clerk. But business is possible. As long as you don't touch those 'benchmark industries' and instead focus on your own new inventions or creations, the Order Department will turn a blind eye."

Li Yan twitched the corner of his mouth. This man certainly understood the national situation well. He was suddenly curious about what Yue Chengze’s true identity was in the real world.

"So, you mean I just have to break new ground?"

"Exactly." Yue Chengze stood up. "Alright, that’s enough talk. But not just anyone can enter the Order Department. You need training first, so you don't end up dead, devoured by those monsters during a mission. Follow me."

As he followed the two into another room, Li Yan couldn't help but look around. The walls glowed with a soft white light, the floor was covered in a silicone-like padding, and a faint metallic scent hung in the air.

His mind began to race again: would they teach him superpowers? Controlling lightning—crackling and flashing, that would be cool as hell. Or maybe fire...

Wu Xu spoke up, cutting off his fantasies. "Your first lesson is to control your power."

He pointed to the padding in front of him, his tone flat yet carrying an undeniable sense of pressure. "You have the power of four overlapping space-times within you; it’s currently a tangled mess. An ordinary person couldn't withstand it, and you can't control it. Therefore, you must first learn to 'be an ordinary person'."

The room remained bathed in that soft white light, making it impossible to tell day from night or measure the passage of time. Li Yan followed Wu Xu’s instructions, starting with the most basic exercises in releasing and restraining power. At first, the brute force of the four overlapping space-times was like a wild horse; a moment of carelessness would shatter the training equipment. Only when he could control it as easily as turning a faucet did he move on to the next stage.

The training content was shockingly complex: from combat techniques for facing monsters—every move aimed at a vital point—to the codes of space-time travel, where even the pressure differences between worlds had to be memorized. He even had to devour piles of manuals, from antique appraisal to quantum physics, from piano chords to hacking techniques...

Li Yan felt that he could now go toe-to-toe with the "all-around experts" on television.

He couldn't say how long he had been training, only that the muscle memory was etched into his bones, and even his dreams were filled with dismantling combat maneuvers. Strangely, he never felt tired or hungry here, as if his body had been stripped of its basic physiological needs, leaving only his consciousness operating at high speed.

"Alright, your basic training is complete." Wu Xu looked at him, his usually tight-lipped expression softening into a rare, faint smile of approval.

Li Yan’s eyes lit up. "Does that mean I can go back? I must have been here for at least three or four months, right? My parents must be worried." His greatest fear was disappearing for too long and being unable to explain it.

Yue Chengze walked over, fiddling with a metal box. "Don't worry, the time flow in the Order Department is independent. We marked the exact moment you were taken, and when we send you back, time will align perfectly."

"That's a relief." Li Yan sighed, though he couldn't contain his excitement. The skills he had learned these past few days were enough to impress anyone.

Take instruments, for example—singing while playing the guitar would charm a crowd, and a piano solo would command the room. Wasn't that the ultimate tool for picking up girls?

Yue Chengze handed him the box. "Take this. It's a space-time locator and also a communicator. Missions will be issued through it."

Li Yan opened the box with delight, only to find a watch with a very unique design inside.

It looked cool enough; he figured it would attract plenty of attention on his wrist. He didn't pay much more mind to it.

Once he understood how to operate it, and the moment Yue Chengze helped him put on the locator, Li Yan officially became a member of the Space-Time Order Department.

Locating the marker for his own time, an invisible door appeared.

Eager to return, Li Yan yanked the door open. Just as he was about to step through, he heard Yue Chengze say, "Oh, by the way, the space-time locator changes its disguise based on the situation, so don't be surprised."

"Oh, got it. I'm heading back now. No need to see me off." Li Yan didn't want to stay another second.

In a place where time didn't flow and one felt neither hunger nor fatigue, staying too long could drive a person to depression.

The invisible door closed slowly. As soon as Li Yan opened his eyes, he was back on the familiar streets of South Avenue.

He instinctively lifted his left wrist to check his space-time locator.

But when he saw the watch on his arm, his mouth twitched uncontrollably.

"What the hell?"

Wrapped around his wrist was a pink Hello Kitty watch—and it was neon pink, for God's sake.

"Are you kidding me? I'm a man! A hardcore, pure-blooded man! With this thing on, how am I supposed to face anyone?"