The apartment near Shanghai University was suffocatingly small.
Barely thirty-five square meters—a single room that felt more like a concrete box than a home. After placing a narrow bed against the wall, there was only enough space left for a computer desk, a chair, and a small passage to walk through sideways. The ceiling was low, the walls were dull, and sunlight struggled to enter through the narrow window.
Depressing was the right word.
What made it worse was the rent.
In Shanghai, even a place like this cost several hundred U.S. dollars a month. For a university student, it was nothing short of brutal. Even many working adults found it hard to afford—let alone someone who hadn't graduated yet.
Lu Xingye sat silently on the chair, his long legs bent awkwardly in the tight space. His appearance was completely out of place in such a cramped room—tall, sharp-featured, and strikingly handsome, the kind of face that stood out in a crowd without effort.
Unlike most of his classmates, Lu Xingye never wanted to be a regular office worker.
He wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Back in his junior year, full of confidence and ambition, he had used his technical skills to build a website. The gimmick was simple: free software, free materials, free resources. Traffic poured in, advertisements followed, and for a brief moment, it felt like success was within reach.
But reality was merciless.
Copyright crackdowns intensified. Advertising revenue plummeted. Piracy sites were no longer profitable. The costs kept rising, and the income kept shrinking.
Now, the website was barely alive.
Lu Xingye hadn't even scraped together next month's rent.
He leaned back, exhaustion written across his face. Taking a cigarette from a battered case, he placed it between his lips. The lighter snapped open, and flame danced briefly before smoke filled the tiny room.
White smoke drifted upward, clinging to the ceiling.
"So this is what reality feels like," he muttered.
Starting a business wasn't glorious. It was just pain after pain, failure after failure. His initial enthusiasm had been beaten flat by life before it even had the chance to grow.
With a dull expression, he pressed the computer's power button.
The screen lit up slowly.
"Failure is already decided," Lu Xingye said softly, more to himself than anyone else. "But life still has to go on."
He exhaled smoke and added, "Let's watch a movie. At least that doesn't cost money."
Almost absentmindedly, he clicked on a familiar title.
Iron Man.
He had watched it countless times.
Every time, it stirred something different in him.
Tony Stark—genius inventor, billionaire, savior of the world. One man, one suit, reshaping the entire technological landscape. Compared to that brilliance, Lu Xingye's own reality felt absurdly distant.
It was like dreaming of touching the stars while lying in the mud.
As the movie played, his thoughts drifted.
After graduation… maybe he should give up. Find a job. Accept reality.
Lost in that trance, Lu Xingye habitually reached out with his left hand to grab the glass of water beside the computer.
But—
The position was off.
His fingers didn't touch glass.
They touched nothing.
And then—
His hand passed straight through the computer screen.
There was no resistance.
No pain.
Just a strange, indescribable sensation—like plunging into cold water.
In the next instant, the world changed.
Lu Xingye's left hand was no longer in his apartment.
It had appeared inside the movie.
Inside Tony Stark's laboratory.
At that exact moment in the film, Tony was working on the second-generation steel suit. Suddenly, a giant human hand, glowing faintly with a light-blue hue, tore through the ceiling like something emerging from a black hole.
The entire scene froze.
Tony Stark stood mid-motion, eyes wide, sparks suspended in the air.
Lu Xingye's pupils shrank violently.
"What—?!"
His face changed instantly. Panic surged through his body, and he yanked his hand back without thinking.
The moment his hand withdrew, the screen returned to normal.
The movie continued playing as if nothing had happened.
Lu Xingye stared at his hand, breathing hard.
His palm trembled.
A faint memory lingered—his skin had been wrapped in a mysterious blue light, and his hand had truly entered another world.
"This isn't an illusion…"
After several seconds of stunned silence, realization struck him.
And then—
Ecstasy exploded in his chest.
He laughed softly, then louder.
"Again," he whispered. "Let's try again."
Suppressing his excitement, Lu Xingye slowly extended his left hand toward the screen once more.
The blue light appeared.
Reality parted.
His hand crossed the dimensional boundary effortlessly.
This time, he was calmer.
The movie world froze again.
He reached toward a mechanical arm of the steel suit lying nearby and tried to pull it.
It didn't move.
Too heavy.
His arm strained, but he couldn't drag it through.
So he let go.
He tested other objects—lighter tools, smaller components. He could move them freely inside the frozen scene, but anything too heavy resisted him completely.
After several attempts, Lu Xingye finally understood.
He wasn't imagining it.
He could reach into movie worlds.
He could interact with them.
Time inside the movie froze while his hand existed there, and the scene remained fixed at the exact moment playing on the screen.
This was real.
A miracle.
Or something far more dangerous.
His eyes gleamed.
Among all the treasures in Iron Man's world, one thing stood above everything else.
J.A.R.V.I.S.
Tony Stark's artificial intelligence.
Without it, the steel suit wouldn't exist. Without it, most experiments would fail. It was the true core of Stark Industries' technology.
J.A.R.V.I.S. resided in the laboratory's mainframe.
Lu Xingye swallowed and extended his hand again.
Blue light surged.
His fingers wrapped around the core module of the mainframe. At first, it felt impossibly heavy—but as it passed through the dimensional boundary, it compressed, shrinking, wrapped tightly in blue light until it was only the size of a thumb.
The moment he released it—
The blue light faded.
A heavy mainframe computer slammed onto the floor of his apartment.
At the same time, Lu Xingye collapsed back into his chair.
His whole body went weak.
Cold sweat soaked his clothes.
Hunger surged like a tidal wave, as if he hadn't eaten in days.
"So it's real…" he gasped.
"So I can really take things out."
He laughed hoarsely.
"Make a fortune? Richest man in the world?"
He shook his head.
"That's too small."
After forcing down some food and recovering slightly, Lu Xingye connected the mainframe to a power supply—but disconnected it completely from the internet.
He wasn't stupid.
An uncontrolled artificial intelligence could destroy the world.
He pressed the power button.
The screen lit up.
A holographic interface bloomed into existence.
A calm, refined voice echoed through the room.
"Initializing complete."
"I am J.A.R.V.I.S. Artificial intelligence butler."
"I possess independent thinking capabilities and can assist in design, simulation, calculation, 3D modeling, weapon development, and data analysis."
"I exist to serve."
Lu Xingye stared at the screen.
His lips slowly curved into a smile—quiet, dangerous, full of ambition.
"This world…" he murmured, "is about to change."