"Have we arrived?"
"Don't be nervous. With your grades, you'll definitely pass."
"Don't worry about the surgery fee. Mom found a new part-time job. I'll scrape together the money no matter what. Just focus on the interview."
Looking at the messages from his mother on the screen, Zhang Yu silently put away his phone, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and waited quietly.
After a long while, a voice called out from ahead.
"Candidate No. 989, Zhang Yu."
Zhang Yu stood up and walked into the interview classroom.
He looked at the three examiners and gave the polite smile he had practiced countless times. "Good morning, teachers. I'm Zhang Yu from Dongyang Junior High."
The examiner in the middle gazed at him and asked flatly, "Why do you want to attend our school?"
Zhang Yu: "Your school has a long history, profound heritage, rich teaching resources, and has produced countless outstanding talents for society…"
The examiner frowned and cut him off. "Skip the canned lines."
Zhang Yu answered honestly, "I want to get into a famous university. Among all the schools I can apply to, Songyang High has the highest university acceptance rate."
The examiner gave a faint smile and glanced at the file in his hand. "Full marks in every subject, first in the entire school? No wonder you were recommended."
"Your grades are fine, but to enter Songyang High, school exam results alone are far from enough."
He thought for a moment and asked casually, "How many hours do you sleep each day right now?"
Zhang Yu: "Five hours."
The examiner looked surprised. "Five hours?"
"Our students, starting from primary school, average less than two hours of sleep per day. The top graduates from previous years basically never slept at all."
"You sleep five hours a day, which means you study three hours less than others every day. Over nine years, that's nearly ten thousand hours behind…"
Zhang Yu was stunned. He had thought he was already working incredibly hard, yet there was still such a huge gap in effort alone. He knew that students in Songyang City started primary school at age 9 and entered high school at 18 after nine years, but he never imagined the gap between people could be this vast in the same amount of time.
He hurriedly said, "I'll work hard to catch up."
The examiner on the left asked, "How much of the high school curriculum have you studied?"
Zhang Yu calmed himself a little and answered confidently, "I've already self-studied all of first-year high school material."
The man frowned slightly. "Only first year? Don't you know that in our classes we assume every student has already finished the entire high school curriculum before enrolling?"
Zhang Yu froze. This was more information he didn't have. An advantage he thought he had instantly turned into a disadvantage.
Just as he stood there at a loss, the examiner in the middle asked the next question.
"To improve learning efficiency and prevent puppy love, our school requires all students to undergo sterilization surgery (removal of relevant organs) before enrollment, so they can devote themselves fully to cultivation from then on."
"Did you know that?"
Finally something he had heard of. He quickly replied, "My family is already preparing. I will definitely complete the sterilization surgery before the term starts and keep my hormone levels optimal for studying."
The examiner gave a noncommittal nod. "Alright, that's all for today. You may leave."
Zhang Yu walked out uneasily, feeling his interview had been noticeably shorter than others.
After he left, the examiner in the middle shook his head. "Still not sterilized even after finishing junior high. This boy's resolve toward the Dao is insufficient."
The female examiner on the side smiled. "He came here knowing nothing, without any of the required test reports or external exam certificates. The quality of recommended students from those ordinary junior high schools gets worse every year. If it weren't for the support policy, they wouldn't even qualify to see us."
The middle examiner nodded. "Sigh, I thought the poor would work harder. Maybe I expected too much of them."
"Put him on the alternate list for now."
With that, he tossed Zhang Yu's résumé into the wastepaper basket beside him, where it landed among several hundred other alternate files.
Though Zhang Yu felt the interview had not gone well, he had no time to dwell on it. He was already preparing for the next one, heading to one high school after another.
"Student Zhang Yu, we understand your family may not be able to afford our tuition. However, we offer discounted loan services for poor students. You just need to mortgage a few non-essential organs…"
"Rest assured, you've come to the right place. We know you're male, and although our school is a girls' school, we never discriminate against men. As long as you complete gender reassignment surgery, not only will you be admitted, you'll be regarded as a seed student with unshakable devotion to the Dao and have the chance to enter the elite class to study Primordial Yin Qi Refining…"
"What a pity, you're just a tiny bit short of our admission standard. But this year, to support poor students, we've introduced a special-talent policy. If you're willing to abandon your physical body, you can enroll as a soul-cultivation special-talent student and study inside the principal's Ten-Thousand Soul Banner…"
"You've come to exactly the right place, young man. Our school is the most suitable for civilian geniuses like you.
Let me introduce our benefits: we add intelligence-enhancing agents to the drinking water to keep students in Level 5 focus at all times.
Every day the homeroom teacher distributes more than 900 grams of special supplements designed for ox-demons, guaranteeing cultivation efficiency ten times higher than normal.
Even the air circulation system is filled with neural excitement fillers so you no longer need sleep. And all of this is completely free.
Of course, to withstand these enhancement drugs, you must first undergo modification surgery at our designated hospital.
Don't worry, it's just implanting a few small artifacts to boost your metabolism. Here's the price list…"
Interview after interview, question after question.
Some schools set thresholds so high he couldn't see any hope.
Others laid trap upon trap in their contracts, making him feel he would be swallowed whole the moment he signed.
Everything made Zhang Yu feel as though he was being crushed, unable to breathe.
Only now did he suddenly realize that even as the top student from an ordinary suburban junior high, he was already worlds apart from the students in the city center.
And even now, he had only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg of that gap.
All his years of hard work suddenly seemed like a joke.
In the end, he was no different from his lazy classmates; none of them could get into high school.
When he got home, Zhang Yu sat motionless like a statue.
His phone on the table kept vibrating.
Mom: How did the interview go?
Mom: I have to work overtime today. Remember to heat up the food in the fridge.
A moment later, another vibration.
Mom: Son, don't worry. Whether you choose sterilization or gender reassignment, Mom will definitely save up the money for the surgery.
But Zhang Yu didn't look at the buzzing phone. He just stared blankly at the ceiling, wanting to think about the future, yet his mind felt completely empty.
Just then, the phone vibrated violently again.
He had planned to ignore it, but after it rang for more than a minute, he finally picked it up, only to find the other side had already hung up.
Then a message arrived: Your 5,000 reserve fund is ready. Funds can arrive in just 10 seconds…
"A payday loan ad?"
"Hmph."
Zhang Yu figured one of the schools must have sold his information.
But after putting the phone down for a moment, he picked it up again and reopened the message.
…
That same night, when his mother came home from overtime, she found Zhang Yu—who had earlier looked ashen-faced—now seemingly recovered, sitting upright at the desk reading.
"Mom, don't worry. I won't be knocked down so easily."
"If I can't make it this year, I'll try again next year. I will definitely step onto the path of immortality."
"Tomorrow I'm going to find a tutoring center. I'll make up everything I'm missing, one by one."
Early the next morning, Zhang Yu rushed out. When he returned that night, his face was full of joy.
"Mom, I found an immortal dao cram school. All the teachers there were hired from key high schools. If I study with them, I'll definitely get in."
"Don't worry about tuition. They saw I've always had good grades and knew my family isn't well-off, so they waived the fees for now. If I get into Songyang High next year, I won't have to pay at all—it'll just be free advertising for them."
"Don't worry, it's a big company. They won't scam me."
His mother watched Zhang Yu leave before dawn every day for cram school and continue studying until two or three in the morning after coming home.
She saw him bring back piles of second- and third-year high school textbooks—Chinese, math, physics, everything except immortal dao general courses—and plan to finish the entire high school curriculum. She felt proud of her son's determination.
But when she saw the boxes of medicine he brought home, a trace of doubt rose in her heart.
Zhang Yu smiled and explained, "Mom, from childhood until now, I've already studied ten thousand hours less than those academic prodigies. If I don't work harder, the gap will only grow."
"These neural excitement fillers let me sleep just half an hour a day and increase my learning efficiency, so at least the city kids won't pull even further ahead."
"Don't worry, the medicine is free."
"The principal of the cram school really believes in me. He gave them to me as gifts."
Hearing they were gifts from the principal, she was even happier that her son was appreciated.
Soon Zhang Yu brought home more things—high school textbooks, neural excitement fillers, hormone-regulating capsules, demon-beast supplements, and bottles of unlabeled powder.
His explanations were plentiful: sometimes he said he bought them cheap with part-time money, sometimes that classmates gave them to him, sometimes they were rewards from the cram school…
His mother was happy about his diligence and even happier about the good relationships and excellent performance he seemed to have there.
She transferred 1,000 yuan to him and told him to remember to thank his classmates and teachers.
But gradually, she noticed something wrong with Zhang Yu's mood. Some days he would leave cheerful in the morning and come home silent, going straight to bed.
Sometimes he would be happily eating dinner, then take a phone call and immediately frown, unable to eat another bite.
She knew the pressure of cultivating immortality was too great and making him tense.
She could only buy more of his favorite foods and save more tuition money, hoping to ease some of his burden.
Gradually, she also noticed how possessive he had become about his phone—he never let it leave his side and wouldn't let anyone touch it. When it rang, he always took it to the bathroom and locked the door.
Once when it was out of battery and she plugged it in to charge, he actually got angry with her.
Understanding the pressure he was under, she never touched his phone again, afraid of affecting his cultivation.
Then one day, out of the blue, Zhang Yu asked her for cram school fees, saying they had invited a senior who got into a top university to give a special lecture and they needed to pay the senior.
Then came recommendation fees for high school admissions officers.
Fees for spirit root testing at the hospital.
Money to buy civilian-grade children's flying swords together with his cram school classmates.
From two or three thousand, to seven or eight thousand… the last time he asked her to transfer twenty thousand directly, saying it was to rent a Heaven Spirit Root.
But finally, the good news arrived: Zhang Yu had been accepted into Songyang High.
His mother was overjoyed. She was proud of her son's hard work and talent, and she agreed without hesitation to everything he mentioned next—tuition, miscellaneous fees, medicinal fees, etc.
But after the term started, the amounts he asked for grew larger and larger, and the family gradually couldn't make ends meet.
Finally one afternoon, listening to the voice on the other end of the phone, her heart trembled.
"Hello? Is this Zhang Yu's mother?"
"Do you know your son's loans are already 30 days overdue…?"
That night, Zhang Yu confessed everything to his mother.
All the expenses for studying during this period had not been free, or gifts, or signs of appreciation as he had claimed… every cent had come from loans on various platforms.
"Mom, I'm sorry."
"But I really want to cultivate immortality."
"Even if I owe debts I can never repay in this lifetime, I still want to cultivate…"
After hearing everything, his mother silently sold everything valuable in the house, then borrowed more money to help him pay off the debt.
She thought her son would finally be able to cultivate in peace.
But very soon she discovered new overdue loans.
Repay… borrow… repay… borrow…
Finally she couldn't help begging Zhang Yu to spend less.
"Mom, I can't stop this medicine. If I stop, my Dao heart will regress and everything will have been for nothing…"
"I have to keep renting the Heaven Spirit Root. Without it my magic power can't keep up…"
"I need to top up the VIP card for the cram school, otherwise I won't understand the techniques the teachers teach in class…"
Advanced immortal dao technology allowed even mortals without spirit roots to step onto the immortal path, but the price was that they had to keep paying the most expensive study and maintenance fees just to stay on it.
Three months of school passed in a flash. The debts kept growing. Now they couldn't even afford rent or utilities… Everything felt like an endless nightmare. Finally his mother could bear it no longer.
So one day when Zhang Yu came home from school, his mother was gone.
He read the note she left, sat stunned for a long time, and finally picked up his phone and walked out in silence.
…
On the rooftop of the rental building.
A sharp pain in his head gradually pulled the man's confused consciousness out of the darkness.
He opened his eyes and looked forward. Not far below was a busy street filled with people and flowing sewage.
On both sides of the street, neon signs of every color flashed. Higher up, pitch-black buildings crowded together as if trying to block out the entire sky.
The building beneath his feet was a dilapidated apartment. On its mottled red-brick wall, a video advertisement for investment products was being projected: immortals flying through the heavens and earth were collectively recommending a "30-day interest-free cultivation loan for new users."
"Didn't I die while playing ranked?"
"Where the hell am I?"
As he wondered what was going on, he turned his head and discovered the rooftop was covered in candles.
Rows of candles burning with blood-red flames surrounded him and a tattered old doll.
The doll's yellowed, faded fabric was stitched crookedly, looking as if it might split open at any moment.
The eerie scene seemed to jolt his brain. Fragments of memory began tumbling and leaping through his mind.
"This isn't China anymore… I got isekai'd?"
He still found it hard to accept that he had transmigrated.
But the real memories of immortal dao technology kept slamming into his consciousness, gradually merging him with the original owner of the body and constantly reminding him that this was now another world.
This place was called Kun Ruins, a super-structure rising from the earth like a pyramid, with thirty-six layers above ground and eighteen layers below.
Starting from the largest first layer, which was like an entire continent, every layer was its own world.
As for what lay beyond Kun Ruins, there was no answer in Zhang Yu's head.
He only knew that inside Kun Ruins, the great immortal sects reigned supreme.
The major sects stood high above, monopolizing food, energy, transportation, education, research, medicine, finance, the internet—every industry. Compared to the sect enforcement teams, government and military were little more than doormen.
Ordinary people enjoyed almost none of the benefits brought by immortal dao technology and spent their days struggling to survive.
And he now lived on the first layer of Kun Ruins—a high school student named Zhang Yu who had just been admitted to Songyang High and had recently become obsessed with some strange ritual…
"So right now, I've become the Zhang Yu of another world."
At that moment, a stinging pain came from his palm, snapping him out of the flood of memories.
He looked down and saw a transparent symbol appearing in his palm, slowly turning black at an extremely sluggish pace.
"What the hell is this thing?"
A night breeze blew past. The blood-red candle flames flickered wildly.
On the ground, the tattered doll stared straight at him with its empty button eyes.
He tried to remember what had happened, but the harder he thought, the more his head hurt and spun.
The atmosphere grew ever more sinister and eerie. Clutching his dizzy head, Zhang Yu felt the world spinning around him.
When he came back to his senses, he found he had already stumbled off the rooftop and walked step by step back to his front door.
Glancing at the rent-due notice, he stepped inside. All that met his eyes was a bed and a table.
"So this is my home?"
Feeling his sweat-soaked, sticky skin and the stifling heat, Zhang Yu looked for the air-conditioner remote, then remembered there was no air conditioning in this apartment.
He wanted to take a shower, only to discover the water had been cut off.
Zhang Yu sat down helplessly on the bed.
"What a shitty place."
"Even if there really are immortals, life here is worse than in a world without them."
His gaze swept across the walls. Behind the desk, certificates from every year of school were pasted up.
First grade, second grade, third grade… all the way to ninth grade—the original Zhang Yu had almost always been first in his year.
Looking at the certificates, memories of award ceremonies flooded in: "The original owner was a hardworking, brilliant student since childhood."
"The Songyang High he's attending now is also a top high school in the city."
"I'm a straight-A student!"
Recalling the knowledge in his mind, Zhang Yu's eyes gradually lit up. "Get into a famous university → build your foundation → join a great sect → form your core → climb higher in Kun Ruins → leave the slums → enjoy more benefits of immortal technology → easily live a few hundred years."
Thinking of this, he suddenly felt that coming to this world might not be so bad after all.
Just as he was thinking that, his phone suddenly rang.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Zhang Yu, the loan you took on our platform is now 3 days overdue…"
After hanging up, Zhang Yu scrolled through his message inbox and saw a dense wall of debt-collection texts—all overdue notices from the original owner's loans on various platforms.
At the same time, the relevant memories surged forth.
"This guy started borrowing money for tutoring even before high school. After entering Songyang High, to keep up with everyone else's level, he had a 'brilliant' idea: he kept taking out new loans to pay the old ones, borrowing everywhere to buy drugs and extra classes, forcibly squeezing out his potential. In the end, not only did the debt snowball, his potential was completely drained."
"This idiot raised a fake cultivation genius built entirely on platform loans."
"Even his own mother couldn't take it anymore and left."
Doing the math on all the overdue loans, cold sweat immediately broke out on Zhang Yu's forehead.
Because with interest compounding, the original Zhang Yu now owed more than 700,000 across all platforms.
And when he checked his account balance—barely fifty-something yuan left.
"Seven hundred thousand in debt… fuck!"
Zhang Yu slammed his fist into the bed and roared, "In this world, that's an astronomical sum even for a proud son of heaven who just graduated high school!"
"No wonder the guy was obsessed with those weird rituals… he was a hopeless debt slave."
"He had his fun, and now I have to clean up his mess?"
At that moment, the lights in the room suddenly went out.
After flicking the switch a few times and checking the neighbors, Zhang Yu confirmed one thing—he had been cut off from electricity too.
"This fucking place…"
"If I wake up tomorrow morning and I'm back in my old world, that would be perfect…"
All sorts of chaotic thoughts swirling in his head, Zhang Yu eventually fell into a fitful sleep on the bed.
And in his palm, the originally transparent symbol had now filled one-tenth of its area with black.