The pocket universe had no name yet.
Lin Xiao simply called it "Home-Two" in his head.
It was a sphere of absolute black when he first stepped inside, ten cubic kilometers of nothing suspended in the void. No light, no air, no up or down. Just the faint pulse of the seed in his palm telling him this emptiness belonged to him completely.
He spent the first subjective week doing nothing but floating in the dark and crying.
Not from sadness, from overwhelming scale.
Ten kilometers was small by cosmic standards, but it was more space than every apartment, factory, and wet market he had ever known combined a million times over. It was his. No landlord. No cousin. No foreman. No government registry. A place where the laws of physics waited politely for his command.
On the eighth day inside (exactly 11.52 seconds outside), he began to shape it.
He started small.
A single patch of ground, one hundred meters square. Simple grass, the kind that grew beside the polluted river back in his childhood village. Then a breeze. Then a sun, pale gold and gentle, hanging exactly where he wanted it. A wooden bench. A tiny stream that tasted like the mountain water his grandmother used to carry in bamboo tubes.
He sat on the bench and spoke aloud for the first time inside his own cosmos.
"System. Can I bring living people here eventually?"
**[Affirmative. Rank-3 Pocket Universe and above permits stable biological import. Current rank restricts to Host and extracted non-sentient biomass.]**
He nodded. One day his parents would sit on this bench and never cough again. One day.
But for now, there was Earth-Prime, and on Earth-Prime, debts were coming due.
Friday, 6:47 PM, the factory canteen.
Payday.
The air was thick with steam from giant vats of braised pork and the metallic clink of meal cards. Lin Xiao queued with his tray like always, hair still damp from the shower block, when Li Wei's voice cut through the noise like a cheap knife.
"Ey, little cousin! Still eating the worker's set? Thought you'd treat yourself now that you're Jackie Chan."
He was flanked by three of his lackeys from the day shift, all wearing the same smug grin. Phones were already out, recording.
Lin Xiao didn't turn around. "I like the pork. It's honest."
Li Wei laughed too loud. "Honest? That's rich. Heard you've been acting weird lately. Catching trays, disappearing on breaks, coming back with weird bruises. What is it, huh? Drugs? Some rich woman keeping you?"
The canteen quieted. A hundred pairs of eyes flicked toward the drama.
Lin Xiao finally faced him. Calm. Too calm.
"Jealousy doesn't look good on you, Wei-ge."
The lackeys ooohed like schoolboys.
Li Wei's smile froze, then twisted. "Jealous? Of a dropout who solders for twelve yuan an hour? Tell you what, cousin. Since you're so fast now, how about a little bet?"
He slapped a stack of red hundred-yuan bills on the nearest table. Fifty of them. Five thousand yuan, more than Lin Xiao's monthly wage after overtime.
"Arm-wrestle. Right here. You win, the money's yours. I win, you kneel and call me ancestor three times on video. Fair?"
The crowd surged closer. Phones rose like periscopes.
Zhang Wei tried to pull Lin Xiao away. "Don't, man. He's been lifting those protein shakes—"
But Lin Xiao was already rolling his sleeve.
"Table's fine," he said softly.
They sat. Elbows down. Hands locked.
Li Wei's forearm was thick from gym sessions and nepotism-fueled free time. Lin Xiao's looked almost delicate by comparison.
A lackey counted down.
"Three… two… one—GO!"
Li Wei strained instantly, veins bulging, face turning purple.
Nothing happened.
Lin Xiao's arm hadn't moved a millimeter.
Li Wei's eyes widened in panic. He pushed harder, chair creaking, spit flecking his lips.
Still nothing.
Ten seconds passed. Twenty.
Lin Xiao looked bored. He was remembering the Bloodletter on Cadia, the way its daemon-muscle had felt when he held back its axe with one hand.
He sighed.
Then he pressed down.
Slowly. Inexorably. Like gravity remembering it had a job to do.
Li Wei's knuckles hit the table with a dull thud that silenced the entire canteen.
The stack of bills sat between them.
Lin Xiao released the hand. Stood. Pocketed the money without counting.
"Next time you want to bet, Wei-ge, bring more."
He walked away.
The video exploded across every work group chat within minutes.
**Factory WeChat Group – "Night Shift Legends"**
[Video: 47 seconds, 2.3M views already]
Xiao Pang:
holy shit did lin xiao just destroy supervisor li????
Wang-jie:
i felt that slam in my soul
Zhang Wei:
told yall something changed. that wasn't human strength
Li Wei 🐍 left the group.
By the time Lin Xiao reached the dorm showers, his phone was vibrating itself to death. He ignored it, stripped, and let the lukewarm water wash away the day's solder flux.
Under the spray, he whispered, "System. Open personal interface."
Blue glyphs bloomed across the tiled wall, invisible to anyone else.
**Host: Lin Xiao**
**Age: 20**
**Vitality: 127**
**Strength: 34 → 49 (post-Cadia overcharge residual)**
**Agility: 51**
**Spirit: 88**
**Available Points: 3 (A-rank reward)**
**Pocket Universe: Rank-1 (10 km³, basic terraforming complete)**
**Stored Essences: 11 Q-rank, 2 A-rank (Chaos Taint Sample, Cadian Las-Power Cell)**
**Skills: Basic Multiversal Combat (Lv.3), Essence Fusion (Lv.1), Dimensional Anchor (Lv.1)**
He stared at the three glowing points for a long time.
"Add all three to Spirit."
**[Confirmed. Spirit: 88 → 91 → 94 → 97.
Spiritual Sense range expanded to 300 meters.
Minor telekinesis threshold achieved.
Warning: Further Spirit growth may cause visible aura leakage in low-energy planes.]**
The water felt suddenly warm. Realization settled in his bones like lead.
He was no longer pretending to be normal.
Saturday morning, the apartment.
His mother was at the market. His father napped in the recliner, TV muttering stock reports.
Lin Xiao knelt beside the old man and gently placed a hand on the scarred chest that had coughed blood for twenty years.
He had spent the night inside Home-Two researching.
The Cadian las-power cell was not just energy, it was hyper-dense, ultra-pure. Combined with a drop of his own blood and the Holy Water essence from Azeroth, he had forged something the System labeled:
**[Lesser Rejuvenation Elixir – Single Use.
Effect: Rewinds biological age of target by 25 years. Removes accumulated industrial toxins. Success rate 99.87%.]**
He pressed the tiny crystal vial into his father's calloused palm while the old man slept, then whispered a command.
The vial dissolved into light, seeping through skin like warm sunrise.
His father's breathing deepened, steadied. The gray in his hair receded one strand at a time, like time running backward in fast-forward.
Lin Xiao stayed kneeling until the transformation finished. Then he kissed the now-smooth forehead and left before his mother returned.
By afternoon the city was gossiping about "Old Lin from Building 7" who suddenly looked forty-five instead of seventy.
Lin Xiao walked Shenzhen's streets with five thousand fresh yuan in his pocket and the knowledge that he could buy the entire factory if he wanted to.
He didn't want to. Not yet.
Instead, he went to the most expensive café in MixC World, ordered a 68-yuan Blue Mountain coffee he couldn't pronounce, and sat by the window watching rich kids take selfies.
His phone buzzed. Unknown number.
He answered.
"Lin Xiao?" A woman's voice, cultured, a little nervous. "This is Zhao Mengyao. We… we were in the same class, third year of high school. Do you remember me?"
Of course he remembered.
Zhao Mengyao. The class beauty who smiled at him once when he helped her fix a broken calculator. The girl who, senior year, started dating Chen Kai, heir to the Chen Real Estate Group. The girl whose wedding invitation he had deleted unread two years ago.
"I remember," he said neutrally.
"I saw the video from your factory," she laughed, too bright. "You've changed so much! Kai and I were just saying we should catch up. We're having a little reunion tonight at the Peninsula rooftop. You should come! Bring… whoever you're seeing."
A pause. Then, softer: "It's an open bar."
Lin Xiao watched a Lamborghini pull up outside, watched the valet scramble.
He smiled, slow and sharp.
"Send me the address."
That night he stood in front of the mirror and dressed like a man who no longer needed to apologize for existing.
Black dress shirt, no tie. Watch he had manifested inside Home-Two using fused gold essence from a Q-mission dragon hoard. Shoes that cost more than Li Wei's monthly salary.
He looked at the young man in the glass, eyes too old, mouth too calm.
Then he stepped out.
The reunion was exactly what he expected: twenty-three-year-olds pretending thirty, flashing watches and car keys, laughing too loud to hide the fear that this was their peak.
Chen Kai held court at the best table, arm possessively around Zhao Mengyao's waist. When he spotted Lin Xiao walking in, his smirk was a work of art.
"Well well, the factory hero arrives." He raised a glass. "Heard you humiliated some poor supervisor. Very impressive for someone who still smells like solder flux."
The table laughed on cue.
Zhao Mengyao's smile faltered. "Kai, don't—"
Lin Xiao didn't sit. He simply stood at the railing, city lights glittering behind him like his pocket universe had followed him out.
Chen Kai wasn't done. "Tell me, Lin, what is it you do again? Oh right, screw tiny screws twelve hours a day. Must be exhausting. How much did they pay you for that little arm-wrestle stunt? Five thousand? That's cute. That's what I spend on a bottle of Ace of Spades."
He snapped his fingers. A waiter appeared with a jeroboam of champagne encased in gold. Thirty thousand yuan. Maybe forty.
Chen Kai popped it himself, foam spilling like cheap theatre.
"To old friends," he toasted, eyes never leaving Lin Xiao, "and to knowing your place."
Silence rippled outward across the rooftop.
Lin Xiao took one step forward.
The air changed.
It wasn't dramatic. No wind. No glowing eyes. Just pressure, the way the air gets heavy before lightning.
Chen Kai's smirk wavered.
Lin Xiao spoke, voice quiet enough that everyone leaned in.
"Chen Kai. Do you know what I did last week?"
Chen Kai tried for bravado. "Soldered iPhones?"
"No." Lin Xiao smiled. "I held a wall against the end of the universe for two straight days. I killed things that would make your soul leave your body and never come back. I came home with a piece of Chaos in my pocket and a brand new world in my soul."
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a single red bill, one of the hundreds he had won from Li Wei, and flicked it onto the table. It landed in the champagne puddle.
"That's what your bottle is worth to me."
Chen Kai opened his mouth. Closed it.
Zhao Mengyao was staring at Lin Xiao like she'd never seen him before.
Lin Xiao turned to leave. At the glass door he paused.
"Oh, and Mengyao? You look beautiful. You always did. But happiness isn't something you buy with a rooftop membership."
He walked out.
Behind him, the rooftop stayed frozen for a long, long time.
In the elevator down, his phone buzzed again.
**[System Notification – Idle Mode Ended.
New Mission Available – Tier A (High).
Plane: NieR: Automata – Machine Lifeform Core, 10 000 years Post-Collapse.
Objective: Prevent the extinction of the last intact YoRHa android (Designate 2B) for 96 hours.
Optional: Extract one complete Gestalt/Replicant soul matrix.
Warning: Emotional contamination probability 78%.
Reward: Rank-2 Pocket Universe Expansion (1000 km³), Emotion Suppression Module (toggle), 5 attribute points.
Accept?]**
Lin Xiao watched the numbers descend toward the lobby.
He thought of 2B's blindfold. Of the endless war that had forgotten why it began. Of a world that had already ended but refused to die.
His reflection in the elevator mirror looked suddenly tired.
"Accept," he said.
The doors opened to the marble lobby.
He stepped out into the night, and the city lights folded away.
Somewhere far above, on a rooftop now scattered with broken glass and spilled champagne, Chen Kai finally found his voice.
"Who… the hell was that?"
No one answered.
They were all still trying to understand what kind of man could make thirty thousand yuan feel like pocket change, and the night feel suddenly too small.