Never mess with a food delivery guy, especially one wearing flip-flops. Hu An was a certified good-for-nothing: a 21-year-old vocational college student who got docked pay for deliveries, yelled at by his landlord, and rejected by women on blind dates. Every day, he teetered on the edge between wanting to die and being unwilling to give up.
To scrape together his rent, he spent five yuan at a secondhand market on a dull gray, broken-looking bead, thinking it was just a knickknack.
But from that day on, strange things started happening.
His eyesight returned, his physical abilities soared, and he developed a photographic memory. Even Old Man Wang next door, who had been paralyzed for ten years, could suddenly walk after Hu An "accidentally" touched him.
At first, Hu An thought he'd gained a cheat ability, until he realized that the bead was a bottomless pit.
It didn't produce golden pills or teach cultivation techniques. It only consumed.
It devoured the "years" held in antiques, the "spiritual energy" between heaven and earth, and the little bit of vitality Hu An had worked so hard to build up.
To keep this demanding treasure fed, Hu An had no choice but to start collecting scrap, riding his three-wheeled bike through the streets and alleys in search of old objects forgotten by time.
Beneath the towering skyscrapers, hidden cultivation families, bizarre practitioners of evil arts, and ancient monsters who had lived for thousands of years all set their sights on this young man riding an electric bike and smelling of sweat.
Hu An was nervous, and a coward to boot.
He didn't want to save the world or become some Immortal Emperor.
He just wanted to feed the bead, then go back to his hometown, build a house, get married, and live a peaceful life.
But he had no idea that by the time he rode that rickety tricycle to the summit of the Myriad Worlds, the world would have changed beyond recognition.
And just when he thought it was all over...
