Through the morning's PE class, then lunch with Bai Zhenzhen and Zhou Tianyi, then the afternoon sessions — Zhang Yu kept stealing glances at his palm. The black mark had spread. Creeping toward the edges of the symbol. *What happens when it fills? Do I die?* No one else could see it.
---
History class. The teacher was ancient, barely conscious behind the lectern. He recited from a textbook and never looked up. Students dozed. Students cultivated. Some left to train. He didn't notice.
Zhang Yu skimmed the textbook, and fragmented memories surfaced.
Kunxu had no nations. The Ten Great Sects controlled everything — land, governance, law. The world was built in thirty-six stacked layers. The first layer, Zhang Yu's entire universe, spanned twice the landmass of a country whose name sat on his tongue but wouldn't surface. Ordinary people lived hard lives. Their technology matched his old world, but the pay was worse, the hope thinner.
University graduates accessed the second layer. Join a great sect, and you climbed higher still — richer spiritual energy, better techniques. Power dictated altitude.
He looked out the window at the sky. *If the first layer alone is twice the size of China, how much space does Kunxu occupy? Am I inside a megastructure? We can't be on Earth. How did I get here?*
His head throbbed. The rooftop ritual memory dissolved into static. He shook it off. More immediate problems.
The cultivation subjects: cultivator's resolve, 150 points. Mana capacity, 150. Martial arts, 100. Dao arts, 100. His ranking was sliding in all four. Expulsion was a matter of when, not if.
*Zhang Yu had no money, no talent, terrible interviews. How did he get into this school?*
The original body had no answer. Just a blurry recollection of walking out of a failed interview and somehow, inexplicably, being admitted.
---
After the final bell, the student body scattered — not to go home, but to cram schools, tutoring sessions, supplementary cultivation programs that ran past midnight. Zhang Yu sat alone in the cafeteria, eating the cheapest meal on the menu. He had stopped attending supplementary classes two weeks ago. The money had run out.
He dialed his mother. No answer.
His father. No answer.
Finally, reluctantly, he called his sister.
"Zhang Yu." Ice.
"Sis. Could you lend me some money?"
Silence. Then: "I told them when you were six. No talent. Wasting everyone's time and money. Mom believed your delusions after the divorce. Tried to support you alone. Even asked us for loans — wanted to touch MY tuition budget. You arrogant fool. How much debt are you in?"
Zhang Yu said nothing. Every word was true. His parents had split. His mother couldn't afford cultivation education, but the original Zhang Yu had taken out loan after loan, rolling them over. His mother bailed him out until the hole grew too deep and she walked away.
"Last contact. Pay your own debts. Drop out. Work. As a courtesy — I'm sending five hundred. Enough to find a job before you starve."
Click.
"Well. At least I got the five hundred."
Combined with Bai Zhenzhen's money, his savings crossed one thousand yuan.
---
He lay on his bed that night, staring at the mold on the ceiling. Falling grades. Zero money. Crushing debt. A body pushed past its limits. Objectively, dropping out was the rational move.
Then pain stabbed through his palm. The symbol — visible only to him — had filled completely with black.
A clear female voice spoke from his bedside. "Boy. The summoning ritual is complete. Three wishes. I'm owed three wishes."
Zhang Yu turned his head. A rag doll sat on the edge of his bed — fabric yellowed and fraying, stitches crooked, two black buttons for eyes. The same doll from the rooftop ritual. The one that had brought him here. "Doll" was generous. It looked like garbage a child had sewn and abandoned.
"Hey. Three wishes. I'm owed three wishes."
Zhang Yu's first instinct was to flee. Gods in this world were administrators who managed nearly every aspect of Kunxu. But legitimate gods never answered calls from cultivation rejects. What his ritual had summoned could only be one of the evil gods — dark entities the Ten Great Sects hunted and exterminated. Every child grew up hearing stories: mortals who made deals with evil gods ended up bodies destroyed, souls scattered.
*Original Zhang Yu hit rock bottom and turned to an evil god.* No wonder the memories made him dizzy. The god itself was suppressing them.
He wanted to flee. His legs were shaking.
But he stopped.
Original Zhang Yu had sought the evil god because there was nowhere left to fall. A lifetime of debt slavery at the bottom rung. Or a gamble — one desperate chance.
"Evil god!" Zhang Yu forced the words out. "My first wish is for you to grant me one hundred wishes."
He swallowed hard. "You can do that... right?"
The doll let out a rasping laugh. "Such a simple request. Of course I can."
Zhang Yu almost smiled.
"But I choose not to. Because the summoning ritual means *you* grant *my* three wishes. You refuse? You delay? You fail? Your flesh explodes and your soul scatters. Those are the terms."
"So. My first wish. You must grant me one thousand more wishes."
Zhang Yu's mind went blank. *The entire ritual was to serve her? Original Zhang Yu was an idiot. One thousand wishes? Is that even enforceable?*
"Ready?" The button eyes fixed on him — two black pits of bottomless malice. "Next wish."
His heart seized. *What if she asks for something impossible? I'm dead.*
"I want you to collect antiques for me. I picked them out already. Just buy everything in your shopping cart."
Zhang Yu pulled out his phone and opened the app. His cart was full — Buddha statues, incense burners, altar tables, wooden swords. Tens of thousands of yuan per item. The cheapest was over ten thousand.
He couldn't afford a single one. Failing to buy them meant failing the wish. Failing the wish meant ritual death.
"Could we... change this wish?" he asked carefully. "I can't afford these antiques."
"Dodging already?" The malice poured from the doll's eyes like black smoke. "If you can't buy, borrow. If you can't borrow, sell your organs. Heart, liver, kidneys, lungs. You'll find the money."
"If I do that, I'll die fulfilling this one wish."
"So?"
"So you lose the person who's supposed to grant you a thousand more. Permanently."
The doll tilted its head. "Go on."
"I did the math. Working normal jobs on the first layer, I'd need decades to afford this cart. But if I join one of the great sects, a few years of sect salary would cover it."
"And?"
"So I study hard. Train. Get into a top university. Graduate. Join a great sect. Earn the money. That fulfills both wishes — the thousand and the antiques. It's the only viable plan."
The room went silent.
"Let me understand this," the doll said. "You're saying you'll study hard, get a job, earn a salary. To fulfill my wishes."
"...Yes."
"You're messing with me." The malice surged. The doll's eyes became holes in reality, pulling light from the room. Zhang Yu clenched his fists, forcing his legs to hold.
"Your first wish is that I grant you a thousand wishes. Your second is that I buy the antiques in my cart. If I die trying to buy the antiques, I can't grant the thousand wishes. If I knowingly choose a method guaranteed to kill me, I'm deliberately failing the first wish — dying to ritual backlash before even finishing the second."
"Study, university, sect, salary. This is the only path that satisfies both."
Dead silence.
"Show me your balance," the doll said.
When it saw Zhang Yu's accounts — and the flood of overdue loan notices — it stopped speaking.
*This shouldn't happen,* the doll thought. *The ritual targets the wealthy. Buying those antiques should be pocket change for the host. But this kid... this kid is so poor he broke the system. He's too broke to even fail properly.*
*Damn it. I told them to find someone rich. How did I get this one?*
"You make... a certain amount of sense," the doll admitted. "Fine. Study. Work. I'll return when you have money. But remember — everything you do is to fulfill my wishes. Slack off, and the ritual kills you."
The doll faded. Zhang Yu collapsed, then shot up. "Wait! What did *I* get out of this?!"
A voice echoed. "Your potential has been awakened. Discover it yourself."
---
Outside, the doll muttered. "Garbage talent. Even awakened, it's probably minor. He can't make university, let alone a great sect. But... his adaptability was interesting. Let's see how long he lasts."
Inside, Zhang Yu stared at his palm. The black symbol was twisting into something new.