After finishing his conversation with [Exile], Qin Siyang left the warehouse, returned home, washed up, and went to bed.
"Hopefully tomorrow goes smoothly," he muttered to himself as he drifted off to sleep.
[Blue Star Calendar, January 22, 2010]
[Gregorian Calendar, Friday]
[Lunar Calendar, Year of the Ox, 8th day of the 12th lunar month – Laba Festival, Auspicious for Travel]
It was Friday, but Qin Siyang did not go to school.
Time was far too tight.
Safe Zone Exit 38324 was twenty-one bus stops away from his home.
Even with his enhanced physical strength after his Sequence advancement, walking there would take five or six hours—and double that for the round trip.
That did not even include the time he would need to wait for a chance to hide the silver coin.
If everything was factored in, he would likely not make it back home until the early hours of Saturday morning.
As for taking the bus?
He could not get off before it reached its stop, which would restrict his movements entirely.
His own two feet were the only never-failing means of travel.
Of course, that was only if he had enough stamina.
To avoid any further delays or trouble on the way, Qin Siyang chose to set off at the crack of dawn.
By the time he reached the area near Safe Zone Exit 38324, it was already one o'clock in the afternoon.
At this hour, the exit was not particularly crowded.
The Sequence Ability users had all left for lunch or to rest, and the ordinary people hoping to leech off their success had scattered with them, leaving only a handful of lone figures loitering nearby.
Qin Siyang pulled the hood of his sweatshirt low over his face, counted the floor tiles carefully, then walked past them casually. Seizing a moment when no one was looking, he flipped up a small crack in the tile with lightning speed and flicked the silver coin inside.
He set the tile back in place and stepped on it, pressing down to ensure it sat flush with the others, indistinguishable from the rest.
*Thud. Thud.*
After two firm stomps confirmed the tile was secure, Qin Siyang turned and walked away.
Next, he found a corner where ordinary people gathered to rest—a cramped spot where dozens sat or lay huddled together, snatching what rest they could. For when the Sequence Ability users set out beyond the safe zone to hunt gods, they would be busy too.
The space was packed, hundreds crammed into a tiny area—all because it was mere steps from the safe zone exit.
If a Sequence Ability user approached, they would see them the second they looked up.
It was bitterly cold this close to the exit, but huddled together, they could shield each other from the biting wind.
Besides, compared to the chance to turn their fortunes around, a little cold was nothing at all.
Qin Siyang carefully stepped around the people napping on the ground, found a spot just big enough to stand, and squeezed past the others beside him.
Then, under the disdainful stares of those around him, he plopped down on the ground just like they did.
He pulled his lunchbox out of his bag and began eating ravenously.
The second he opened the box, the people nearby pulled faces of disgust.
They were all ordinary folks, poor but still able to afford ingredients and cook at home.
No one's cooking—not even the worst—smelled as foul as the slop in Qin Siyang's lunchbox.
Not even a simple stir-fry with oil and salt could possibly emit such a sickening stench!
Finally, a middle-aged woman beside him could stand it no longer. She turned to Qin Siyang and said, "Young man, you're still so young—this must be your mom's cooking, right? She's a terrible cook! What a waste of good ingredients!"
Qin Siyang swallowed a mouthful of nine-tailed black rat meat and said flatly, "My mom's dead."
The woman froze for a moment, then asked, "Your dad made it, then?"
"My dad's dead too."
The woman's mouth fell open. She stared at him for a long time, wanting to say something, but in the end, she fell silent, turning away and not speaking another word.
An elderly woman next to Qin Siyang muttered to herself, "Poor boy. Looks like he just graduated high school, and already his life has no future."
Qin Siyang kept eating the cafeteria slop, paying no mind to the words around him.
When he finished, he tidied up the lunchbox, put it back in his bag, and planned to use the bag as a pillow to lie down and rest.
This time, he did not have to squeeze for space. The people around him moved aside voluntarily, making room for him to lie down.
"Thank you," he said.
He did not look at anyone in particular, offering a quiet thanks for the faint kindness shown by those around him.
As he lay down, he did not close his eyes to sleep. Instead, he stared blankly in one direction.
Others might have thought he was wallowing in sorrow or lost in memories.
But in truth, his gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the tile where he had hidden the silver coin.
Though [Exile] had told him to leave the coin by nightfall, Qin Siyang did not believe the other party would wait until tomorrow to retrieve it.
*If I were [Exile], I'd find a way to get the coin tonight,* he thought.
*This was never an equal deal. [Exile] would have all the forger's real information, while the forger knew nothing—not even if [Exile] was male or female. No one who seeks a fake registration would be willing to be so thoroughly at someone else's mercy.*
*The deadline is tonight. Tomorrow, the other side of the deal would likely station people here, lying in wait to find out who takes the coin.*
*That would raise the risk of exposure exponentially.*
Qin Siyang was certain his judgment was correct.
He watched in silence, biding his time.
The lunch break ended, and groups of Sequence Ability users began setting out from the exit.
The crowd swarmed forward once more, jamming Safe Zone Exit 38324 to the point of being impassable.
Qin Siyang was swept along with them, staying close to the tile at all times, never letting it out of his sight.
Every time a Sequence Ability user entered or exited, the crowd would surge toward them, shouting offers of deals—selling houses, offering services, even peddling their own daughters.
Qin Siyang was tossed to and fro by the throng, making no move of his own.
His numb expression was hidden beneath his sweatshirt hood, leaving those around him wondering what the silent boy was even doing there.
But no one asked.
To the other ordinary people, an extra silent fool beside them meant one less competitor.
Perhaps he was too shy to speak his purpose. Or perhaps he hoped to become some female Sequence Ability user's toy, and had not yet found a target.
No one cared about Qin Siyang's thoughts.
Everyone who came here held a fierce resolve, a single goal: to turn their fortunes around today. Who had time for a nobody?
And so, Qin Siyang moved like a puppet, his actions not his own, swept along by the ebbing and flowing crowd—until he found himself right beside that tile.
He had deliberately kept a small distance, only ensuring he could see it, to avoid alerting the snake.
Yet the crowd had carried him straight to it.
*Forget it. It's just a coincidence, being pushed here. If I dart away now, I'll only look guilty.*
Qin Siyang kept up his act of passivity, letting the crowd carry him where it would.
Finally, he was pressed directly onto the tile—and his foot came down on it.
*Thud.*