The air in Shanghai tasted like metal and electricity.
Chen Wei stood on the corner of a bustling intersection, clutching his chest. It wasn't a heart attack. It was sensory overload. For a thousand years, his reality had been the silent, crushing darkness of the Void. Now, neon holographic advertisements for "Neuro-Link V4" danced in the sky, and silent maglev cars zipped overhead like angry beetles.
"Too loud," he muttered, rubbing his temple. "Why is this realm so loud?"
His right eye, the one swirling with void-purple energy, pulsed in irritation. He quickly squeezed it shut, letting his human brown eye take the lead. He pulled the hood of his tattered ancient robes lower, but he was already drawing stares. A man in cosplay robes standing in the middle of 2034 Shanghai was a curiosity; a man who smelled like a thunderstorm trapped in a bottle was a warning.
His stomach growled. The sound vibrated through his chest like a shifting tectonic plate.
"Food first," he decided. "Then Liu Yue."
He followed his nose to a street vendor selling scallion pancakes. The smell—oil, green onions, fried dough—was the first thing that felt real. It anchored him.
"One, please," Chen Wei said, his voice rusty.
The vendor, a middle-aged woman with a robotic prosthetic arm, flipped a pancake onto a paper plate. "Twenty yuan. Scan the code."
She pointed to a QR code hovering as a hologram above the cart.
Chen Wei stared at it. He blinked. He tapped his spatial ring.
"I... do not have this 'scan'," he admitted. He reached into the void storage and pulled out a coin. It was heavy, solid gold, minted during the Divine Dragon Era of the Upper Realm. It could buy a small city in the cultivation world. "Will this suffice?"
The vendor squinted at the gold coin. Then she looked at his robes. Then she grabbed a spatula defensively.
"Are you crazy?" she shouted. "Get that fake prop money away from me! You trying to scam a hard-working woman? I'm calling the police!"
"It is pure gold," Chen Wei tried to explain, confused. "I can refine it for you if—"
"Police!" she yelled, waving the spatula.
Chen Wei vanished.
He didn't run; he simply stepped sideways, folding space around him, and reappeared in a damp alleyway three blocks away.
"Okay," he exhaled, leaning against the brick wall. "Note to self: Mortal economy has changed. Gold is suspicious. Digital ghosts are money."
He looked down at his robes. The black silk, embroidered with star constellations, was tattered from centuries of void winds. It screamed 'ancient lunatic.'
"I need to blend in."
He closed his eyes and recalled the outfits of the pedestrians he had just seen. He focused on his Void Manipulation. The air around him shimmered. Shadows coalesced, knitting together matter and energy.
Shhh-thwip.
The ancient robes dissolved. In their place, a long black leather trench coat materialized. It was a perfect replica of a movie poster he'd glanced at, except for one detail: the hem of the coat seemed to smoke, constantly fraying into tiny black particles that vanished before touching the ground. Underneath, he wore simple dark jeans and a black t-shirt. He kept his grandmother's jade pendant outside the shirt, the small void crystal embedded in it pulsing faintly.
He looked at his reflection in a puddle.
Silver-white hair tied back. Mismatched eyes. A coat made of solidified shadows.
"Close enough," he muttered. "I look like a generic bad boy. Perfect camouflage."
He stepped back onto the street. Now, fewer people stared, though they still gave him a wide berth. The scent of ozone clinging to him made their survival instincts flare.
"Excuse me," he asked a passing businessman. "Where is Liu Yue?"
The man stopped, blinking. "Who?"
"Liu Yue. She... lives here?" Chen Wei realized how stupid he sounded. "She likes jasmine tea?"
The businessman backed away slowly, clutching his briefcase. "Stay away from me, junkie."
Chen Wei sighed. "Right. Manual search failed. Time for the brute force method."
He stepped into the shadow of a building. He took a deep breath, suppressing his aura to the absolute minimum so he wouldn't accidentally crush the city's sewage system. Then, he opened his Divine Sense.
HUM.
An invisible wave of consciousness exploded outward from him. It swept across Shanghai in a microsecond, passing through concrete, steel, and data cables. He filtered out the noise—millions of voices, TV signals, heartbeats—searching for a specific bio-rhythm. A specific soul signature he hadn't felt in a millennium.
He found it.
It wasn't a person. It was a name. A massive, glowing energy signature of intent and ambition.
He opened his eyes. He looked toward the financial district.
Dominating the skyline was a spire of blue glass and steel, piercing the smoggy clouds. A holographic logo rotated slowly around its peak: YUE CORPORATION.
Chen Wei's jaw dropped.
"She... became successful?" A grin broke across his face—not the arrogant smirk of the Void Ancestor, but the goofy smile of a proud boyfriend. "That's my girl. She actually did it."
He started walking. His pace was fast, eating up distance with strides that were slightly too long for a human.
As he passed a narrow gap between construction sites, a shadow lunged.
It was a pickpocket, desperate and fast. He saw the distracted man in the expensive-looking coat and saw an easy mark. A switchblade flashed toward Chen Wei's ribs—a warning poke to make him hand over the wallet.
Chen Wei didn't break stride. He didn't even look.
His left hand moved in a blur.
CLINK. CRACK.
He caught the blade between his index and middle finger. The kinetic energy had nowhere to go. The steel blade shattered into shrapnel. The thief's wrist stopped instantly, the shockwave travelling up his arm.
The thief gasped, his eyes bulging. He looked at the broken knife, then at the man who was still looking at the skyscraper.
Chen Wei finally glanced down. His right eye flared purple for a fraction of a second.
"Sorry," he said earnestly. "Reflex. You okay?"
The thief's eyes rolled back in his head. He collapsed, fainting from the sheer biological terror of standing next to an apex predator.
Chen Wei stepped over him carefully. "People in this era are very fragile."
Ten minutes later, he stood at the base of the Yue Corporation tower. It was a fortress. Security drones buzzed around the entrance. Men in suits whispered into earpieces. It radiated power—not cultivation power, but the power of money and influence.
Chen Wei adjusted his coat. He smoothed his silver hair. His palms, capable of crushing stars, were sweating.
"What do I say?" he whispered to the glass doors. " 'Hi, I was cultivating for a millennium, my bad'? No, that sounds insane. 'Traffic was bad'? No, that's a lie."
He touched the jade pendant for courage. The scent of sandalwood spiked in the air, masking the ozone.
"Just be honest. She loved honesty."
He pushed through the revolving doors. The lobby was freezing cold, smelling of antiseptic and money. He walked to the reception desk, where a woman with severe glasses was typing on a holographic keyboard.
She didn't look up. "Do you have an appointment?"
Chen Wei cleared his throat. "No. I... I need to see the CEO."
The receptionist paused. She looked up, scanning his frayed coat, his strange hair, the weird vibration in the air around him. Her hand drifted under the desk.
"And what is the nature of your visit, sir?"
Chen Wei stood up straighter. He tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace of pure terror.
"I'm," he started, then his voice cracked. He tried again. "I'm her boyfriend?"
The receptionist stared at him.
"Her... boyfriend."
"Yes," Chen Wei said, gaining a tiny bit of confidence. "From... before. Just tell her Chen Wei is here."
The receptionist held his gaze. Her finger pressed the silent alarm button under the desk.
"Please wait one moment, sir," she said, her voice dripping with professional danger. "Security will be with you shortly."
Chen Wei smiled, relieved. "Great. Thanks."
He turned to wait, completely oblivious to the four armed tactical guards sprinting toward the lobby from the elevators.
"This is going well," he thought. "She's going to be so surprised."