Chapter 1: Picking Up a Daily Intelligence System!
Bang—clang!!!
A deafening crash rang out.
An irregularly shaped stone fell from the sky and smashed straight into the windshield of a 4.2-meter cargo truck.
The glass shattered instantly. The stone punched clean through it and landed amid the cluttered center console inside the cab.
"Holy f—!"
Inside the truck.
Jiang Tao, who had been holding his phone and calculating how much interest he'd need to pay if he borrowed eighty thousand yuan on Taobao Loans, was jolted out of his wits by the sudden explosion of sound.
Still shaken, he stared at the windshield, now cracked like a spiderweb.
Then he looked at the fist-sized stone sitting on the console.
Jiang Tao felt his head go numb.
Which bastard threw a rock at my truck?!
He slammed the door open and jumped out.
Scanning the area furiously, Jiang Tao searched for the culprit.
But after looking around, he found that within a fifty-meter radius, there wasn't a single soul in sight.
Unable to find anyone, Jiang Tao raised his head and looked up at the gloomy, overcast sky above the capital.
"Don't tell me… that rock really fell from the sky?"
"Damn it. When your luck turns bad, even drinking water gets stuck between your teeth."
Replacing a windshield would cost at least four or five hundred yuan.
That meant one or two days of work—gone.
Just when Jiang Tao was at his most desperate for money, the heavens decided to land another brutal blow.
Today was already the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. With just over twenty days left until the New Year, Spring Festival was right around the corner.
And the closer it got, the more anxious Jiang Tao became by the day.
This year, he was more afraid of the New Year than a hog waiting for slaughter.
For those who made money, going home for Spring Festival was truly celebrating the New Year.
But for someone like him—broke and buried under debt—
Going home meant going back to face judgment.
Just today alone, Jiang Tao had received four calls from creditors demanding payment.
He still owed over twenty thousand yuan in unpaid wages to the construction crew who built his house.
Another ten thousand-plus in labor fees hadn't been settled with the renovation workers.
He owed more than twenty thousand for decorative materials.
And installing air-source heating and underfloor heating at home had cost another twenty thousand or so.
All added together—over eighty thousand yuan in debt.
As the twelfth lunar month rolled in and year-end approached, the creditors seemed to have coordinated their efforts, all calling at once.
Debts had to be repaid—it was only natural.
He couldn't blame them for pushing. He could only blame himself for not earning enough.
"Sigh… why has this year been so damn hard?"
Staring at the shattered windshield, Jiang Tao let out a helpless sigh.
Originally, he and his wife, Xu Li, had planned to buckle down this year and clear all their debts no matter what.
Sure, doing freelance hauling jobs in the capital wasn't as stable as working in a factory for a fixed salary.
But over the course of a year, he could still average more than ten thousand yuan a month.
If nothing unexpected happened, and the couple tightened their belts a bit, saving seventy or eighty thousand yuan in a year wouldn't have been difficult.
But, as fate would have it—
Something unexpected happened.
Back in July, Jiang Tao slipped and fell while walking on a dark road at night.
That night, it didn't feel like much. He thought he'd just strained his back and figured one night of rest would fix it.
But when he woke up the next day, the pain was so severe he couldn't even get out of bed.
A hospital check revealed a serious patellar ligament injury.
If he didn't want to become crippled, surgery was necessary—and immediately.
Jiang Tao was only thirty, in the prime of his life. Of course he chose to spend money to save his leg.
The surgery cost over twenty thousand yuan. After insurance reimbursement, he still had to pay more than ten thousand out of pocket.
They say injuries to muscles and bones take a hundred days to heal.
For someone like Jiang Tao, a "freelancer" who relied on physical labor, it was nothing short of a fatal blow.
Over a hundred days without income, while expenses kept piling up—pure negative cash flow.
By October, his leg still hadn't fully healed, but Jiang Tao rushed out of his hometown anyway to start hauling jobs again.
On his very first day back, before even finishing his first job, something went wrong again.
His "old partner" that had fought alongside him for over five years broke down—the transmission was completely wrecked.
Not only did he earn nothing, he also had to shell out more than seven thousand yuan to replace the entire transmission assembly.
Then in November, his daughter Jiang Xue caught a cold, developed a fever, and ended up coughing herself into pneumonia.
She was hospitalized for over half a month at the children's hospital in the city near their hometown, draining several more thousand yuan.
By the time year-end arrived, after Jiang Tao paid medical insurance for the whole family this month, he didn't even have five thousand yuan left on hand.
And just now—crack—
A rock had fallen from the sky and shattered his windshield.
One piece of bad luck after another, relentlessly piling up.
Even Jiang Tao, who had never believed in gods or Buddhas, was starting to think about finding a high monk to see whether he'd offended Tai Sui this year.
Returning to the cab, Jiang Tao's gaze fell on the fist-sized stone on the center console.
A sudden thought surfaced in his mind.
Could this be a meteorite?
If it really was a meteorite—and one that he had personally witnessed falling—
Then it would be a "witnessed meteorite"!
Witnessed meteorites were worth far more than ordinary ones.
And this stone was pretty big, too.
Selling it for several million—maybe even tens of millions—wasn't impossible!
If that happened, a disaster from the heavens would instantly turn into a windfall.
All his debts could be paid off immediately.
He might even shave decades off his struggle.
Gulp.
The more Jiang Tao thought about it, the more excited he became, swallowing hard.
He quickly took out his phone and snapped several photos to preserve the scene.
After that, he recorded multiple videos.
"Ancestors above, please bless me! Let me strike it rich just once—please!"
Hands clasped together, Jiang Tao bowed toward the empty air before cautiously reaching out to touch the irregular stone.
The instant his fingers made contact—
Bzzzt!
A tingling, numbing sensation surged through his entire body.
At the same time, the stone vanished in a flash.
The air in front of Jiang Tao rippled, like the surface of water disturbed by a stone.
A deep blue virtual panel appeared before his eyes.
[Bind Daily Intelligence System immediately?]
Staring at the words on the panel, Jiang Tao froze completely.
A system?
A Daily Intelligence System?
As a long-time reader on Qidian, Jiang Tao was more than familiar with this kind of thing.
A hallucination?
Meditative delusion?
He hadn't eaten any mushrooms!
Jiang Tao squeezed his eyes shut, then snapped them open again.
The blue panel was still there—and a countdown had started.
[Bind Daily Intelligence System immediately? Countdown: 10, 9, 8…]
"Bind it! Bind it! Bind it now!"
Seeing this "System Bro" start a countdown at the slightest disagreement, Jiang Tao made a decisive choice.
Bind!
Whether it was real or fake, illusion or reality—bind first, worry later!
[Binding Daily Intelligence System. Please wait…]
[Progress: 1%… 5%… 17%…]
Watching the steadily changing progress bar, Jiang Tao held his breath, eyes glued to the panel.
The thought that he was about to become someone with a system—a certified cheat—
Made his heart surge uncontrollably.
[Daily Intelligence System successfully bound!]
[Host]: Jiang Tao (30 years old)
[System Level 1]: Unlocks 1 piece of intelligence per day.
[Today's Intelligence 01]: While you are waiting for work today at the West Gate of Hongxing Secondhand Furniture Wholesale Market, you will receive the following intelligence—
Inside the third trash can from the left on the right side of the West Gate, there is an Iced Black Tea bottle cap that can be scanned to win an iPhone 15.
"An iPhone 15… from a bottle cap?"
Seeing today's intel, Jiang Tao's eyes lit up instantly.
Weren't those QR-code bottle cap prizes all scams?
Other than the classic "another bottle free" under the cap.
He usually couldn't even be bothered to scan those QR codes.
A few cents here and there—not even enough to cover the data usage. A complete waste of time.
And now the system was telling him there was an Iced Black Tea bottle cap in a trash can that could be scanned for an iPhone 15?
A'Hong… are you serious this time?
(End of Chapter)