Lin Chen rode his electric scooter through the narrow streets of Jiangcheng at half past eleven at night. Rain had fallen earlier, leaving the asphalt slick and reflective under the streetlights. He delivered food for twelve hours straight—breakfast rush, lunch peak, dinner orders, late-night snacks. His phone showed 487 deliveries completed for the month. Rent was due in three days. He had 1,200 yuan left in his account after paying for scooter repairs last week.
The intersection ahead had poor lighting. A delivery van turned left without signaling. Lin Chen braked hard. The scooter skidded on the wet road. Tires lost grip. The van clipped the rear wheel. Lin Chen flew forward, struck the pavement shoulder-first, then rolled. His helmet cracked against the curb. Darkness swallowed everything.
He woke in a hospital bed. The room smelled of disinfectant and old sheets. A fluorescent light buzzed overhead. His left arm was in a sling; his ribs ached with every breath. The nurse had said he was lucky—fractured clavicle, three cracked ribs, mild concussion. No internal bleeding. They kept him overnight for observation.
Lin Chen stared at the ceiling. His phone lay on the side table, screen cracked but still working. No new orders. No messages from the platform. Just a notification from the bank: overdraft fee pending.
Then something appeared.
A faint golden panel hovered in the air above his chest, visible only to him. No edges, no frame, just floating characters in clean black font.
[System Awakening Complete]
[Core Ability Unlocked: Copy and Paste]
[Description: Observe any skill, technique, ability, object, formula, or knowledge. With a single thought, duplicate it perfectly into your possession. One-time copy per unique target. Mastery granted upon acquisition. No cooldown on repeated use of copied items.]
[Current Status: Ordinary Human (No prior abilities detected)]
[First Copy Available: None observed yet]
[Warning: Overuse or careless copying may attract attention from entities capable of detection.]
Lin Chen blinked. The panel remained. He closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again. Still there.
He thought the word "close." The panel vanished.
He sat up slowly, ignoring the pain in his ribs. The ward was quiet. An old man in the next bed snored softly. Lin Chen looked at his own hands—calloused from gripping handlebars, scarred from minor burns and cuts over years of deliveries.
He whispered, "Is this real?"
No answer came.
A doctor entered to check his chart. Lin Chen watched the man's movements carefully. The doctor adjusted an IV drip with practiced efficiency, wrote a note, then left.
Lin Chen focused on the motion of the doctor's fingers—the precise twist of the valve, the angle of the wrist. Nothing happened at first.
Then he thought: Copy.
The golden panel reappeared.
[Copy Successful]
[Acquired: Basic Intravenous Adjustment Technique (Medical Proficiency Level 1)]
[Effect: You now possess the exact knowledge and muscle memory required to perform safe IV administration. No certification granted.]
Lin Chen stared at his hands again. He flexed his fingers. The motion felt slightly different—smoother, more confident. He could picture the exact pressure needed on the drip chamber, the correct way to tape the line without restricting flow.
He exhaled slowly.
Outside the window, the city lights of Jiangcheng glittered. Cars moved on distant roads. Somewhere out there, people trained in hidden dojos, practiced family martial arts passed down for generations, studied secret qi methods in private compounds. They guarded their knowledge like treasures.
Lin Chen had just copied a hospital procedure in seconds.
He leaned back against the pillow. Pain throbbed in his shoulder, but his mind felt sharp—clearer than it had in years.
The panel hovered once more, unbidden.
[Host Note: The margin between ordinary and extraordinary is thin. One observation. One thought. Choose carefully.]
Lin Chen closed the panel with a thought.
He looked at the cracked screen of his phone. Tomorrow he would be discharged. Tomorrow he would return to deliveries, to the same streets, the same orders, the same empty apartment.
~*~
Lin Chen remained in the hospital bed, eyes closed. The ward stayed quiet except for the occasional beep of a monitor in the hallway and the soft snoring from the neighboring patient. The pain in his ribs continued without change—steady, dull, persistent. It rose slightly with each inhale and eased on the exhale.
The acquired knowledge of the intravenous adjustment technique remained present in his mind, neither growing nor fading. It felt like a small, additional layer of memory: the exact sequence of steps, the feel of the valve under fingertips, the correct tension for securing the tape. No urge to test it arose. No further prompts from the panel appeared.
He kept his breathing shallow to minimize discomfort. Thoughts moved slowly through the haze of mild concussion and medication. He considered the panel's warning: careless copying might attract attention. He had made one copy. That was enough for now.
The fluorescent light above continued to hum faintly. Time passed unmarked. Eventually the night nurse made her rounds, checked his vitals without speaking much, and adjusted the IV drip he now understood in detail. She left without comment.
Lin Chen did not attempt to copy anything else that night. He did not experiment with movements or focus on other staff members. The ability existed; he acknowledged it. Testing it further in a hospital bed, with limited mobility and witnesses nearby, seemed unnecessary.
He opened his eyes briefly to look at the clock on the wall: 3:47 a.m. Discharge remained scheduled for morning. Rent still due in three days. The delivery app still showed his account suspended.
Then he again he closed his eyes.
( Author: He's a Bitch)
The pain in his ribs remained steady. The copied technique sat quietly in his mind, waiting.
Nothing more happened that night.
The end of Chapter 1.