Chapter One: A Broken Phone Falls from the Sky
Huaxia, Imperial Capital.
The streets were bustling with traffic, neon lights scattered across the city like a blanket of stars. The night scene remained unchanged, filled with the seductive melodies of nightlife.
Shi Qingqing emerged from the food street, her spirits weighed down by dejection.
She hadn't managed to recover her mother's wages. Her mother had been severely ill with a cold for several days, and now there wasn't even enough money at home to buy medicine…
That heartless boss had already withheld her mother's wages for three months and still refused to pay!
Shi Qingqing wanted nothing more than to overturn their night market stall…
But she was only a seventeen-year-old high school student—how could she be a match for them? If she made a scene, it would only backfire on her.
Patience—strategy dictates that if you can't endure small grievances, you'll ruin greater plans!
Ah, being broke is such agony! If only she could borrow some money for an emergency!
Every time she pictured her mother still lying feverish in bed, anxiety twisted her heart.
Damn it! If only money could fall from the sky!
Just then, with a dull thud, something hit Shi Qingqing squarely on the top of her head, leaving a swelling lump…
"Ouch! That hurts! Which bastard threw a brick from above?"
She looked up. This was a pedestrian walkway, with a park next door—no buildings around, not even a soul in sight. Did a brick just fall from the sky?
If she'd been killed, there wouldn't even be anyone to hold accountable—how unlucky could she get?
Damn it, she was already so poor she could hardly put food on the table; now even if her head was cracked open, she couldn't afford a doctor. Was life really going to drive her to this? Wait—
That didn't seem like a brick. It looked more like a cell phone?
Under the streetlight, she bent down for a closer look. What else could it be but a phone!
It was battered and barely holding together, as if the slightest pressure would reduce it to dust. The screen was scarred with cracks, darkened, and barely three inches wide…
Seriously, what kind of ancient relic was this, built centuries ago?
No wonder someone threw it away—who would still use such a thing these days!
Shi Qingqing rubbed the lump on her aching head, picked up the phone, and, determined to be a good citizen, decided to toss it in the trash bin at the roadside so no one else would trip over it.
But as she held it, her finger accidentally pressed the power button on the side…
To her astonishment, the screen lit up!
It actually worked!
"No way, in this condition it still turns on?" Shi Qingqing jumped in surprise.
She tentatively touched the battered screen—and up popped a QQ login interface!
Ha!
Could this broken thing actually be a smartphone?
That was an unexpected surprise.
Shi Qingqing decided to try it out, so she quickly entered her own QQ number and password…