An Feng woke up to the unmistakable sensation of drool cooling against his cheek.
A small, glistening puddle had formed right on the quarterly report he’d been pretending to study.
Great.
Twenty-five years old and still drooling on company property like a bored intern.
He quickly wiped it away, cheeks burning, and scanned the open-plan office.
Luckily, his colleagues were either glued to their screens with dead-eyed focus or quietly dozing in that special post-lunch coma.
No witnesses.
Small mercies.
Before he could dwell on the strange dream still buzzing at the edge of his mind, the manager’s secretary approached with all the warmth of a parking ticket.
“An Feng, Manager Li wants to see you in his office.
Five minutes.” An Feng nodded, straightened his documents, and walked over.
Here we go.
Manager Li sat behind his desk like a man who had practiced this conversation in the mirror.
“The company’s struggling.
Upper management gave me ten layoff slots.
You’re one of them.” The news landed with clinical detachment.
“We’ll give you three months’ severance for your time here.” An Feng took it in.
Three years down to a severance check.
Part of him wanted to feel something bigger—anger, disappointment—but mostly he felt a quiet click of acceptance.
The signs had been there for months: stalled projects, shrinking teams, the slow grind wearing everyone down.
Pushing back wouldn’t change the numbers.
He simply nodded.
“Understood.” “Any questions?” “None.” He left the office without drama.
Back at his desk, he packed his things into a cardboard box.
Three years.
Not nothing.
The job had covered rent and kept him afloat, but it had also started to feel like he was fading into the background of his own life.
Maybe getting cut loose isn’t the worst timing.
The thought settled comfortably.
No point in dragging it out.
He said his goodbyes—some warm, some the polite kind that wouldn’t last past the elevator.
Zhang Li, the colleague he’d spent the last year trading sharp jokes with, came over looking unusually quiet.
An Feng kept it light.
“Come on, this is your big chance.
Roast me while I’m down.
I know you’ve got material saved up.” Zhang Li curled her lip.
“I’ll let you live this time.
What are you planning to do now?
Jump straight back into job hunting?” He shrugged.
“I’m thinking I’ll take a little time first.
Catch my breath, figure out what’s next.
No rush.” Jumping into the same grind again right away felt pointless.
Better to step back and look at the options clearly.
“If you need any leads, I can ask around,” she offered.
“Thanks, Zhang Li.
I appreciate it.” As he headed out, he caught the gossip squad already swarming her desk.
“Ooh, Sister Li’s heart is acting up?” someone teased.
“Shut up!” Zhang Li laughed.
“I just lost my favorite verbal sparring partner.
Invincibility is boring.” An Feng smiled to himself the whole bus ride home.
The usual afternoon crowd shuffled on—older passengers claiming seats like it was a strategic mission, shooting looks at anyone younger who didn’t instantly give way.
He took the back row and watched the city slide past the window.
That was when the dream came back.
The same weird, recurring dream he’d been having since college.
It came and went in waves—sometimes quiet for months, sometimes hitting night after night.
Doctors had never found anything.
The content had always been total nonsense, like corrupted code… until this morning.
A calm, mechanical voice had laid out clear instructions: Activate a locator at two exact points in time.
The first window had closed two years ago.
The second was a little over a month away.
Blueprints, materials, and steps had poured into his mind, feeling oddly familiar.
This sounds completely insane.
But the pattern was hard to ignore.
Same dream for years, never changing, and now suddenly understandable?
Worth testing, at least.
He still had severance money, a small safety net, and no one depending on him.
Worst case, he wasted some time and supplies.
Best case… well, he wasn’t ready to rule anything out yet.
The dreams kept coming harder over the next five days.
Each time he closed his eyes, the information pressed in.
He woke up exhausted, mind racing.
After turning it over again and again, he made the call.
“Go crazy while you’re young,” he muttered to his reflection one night.
“If it’s nothing, I move on.
If it’s something, I’d regret ignoring it.” The parts were easy enough to find.
He worked methodically for the next month—checking connections twice, testing what he could, surviving on instant noodles and stubborn focus.
The finished locator looked like a raccoon had assembled it in a junkyard: microwave-sized, wires sprouting everywhere, held together with tape and hope.
On the night of the activation window, An Feng sat in front of his laptop, heart steady.
Three minutes left.
The thing looked ridiculous.
If this fries the building, at least it’ll be memorable.
He pressed the button.
A sharp crack!
ripped through the air.
Sparks flew like a broken fireworks show.
Every light in the apartment died.
The whole building went dark.
Burning plastic stench filled the room as angry voices echoed through the walls.
An Feng coughed, cracked a window, then quickly shut it again when more cursing floated up.
Power draw was clearly underestimated.
Still, he grabbed a flashlight and checked the device.
Most wires were toast, but the core looked okay.
He reached inside—and froze.
There was something there.
A palm-sized black box that definitely hadn’t existed before.
His hands weren’t completely steady as he pulled it out.
It felt unnaturally cold and solid.
Okay… that’s new.
A clear thought surfaced: Open it.
Inside lay a medical syringe filled with shimmering blue liquid.
An Feng stared at it for a long stretch.
Completely unknown substance.
Every normal instinct told him this was a terrible idea.
But the dreams had been consistent for years.
The locator had actually produced something real.
If this is the real deal, stopping now would be the bigger mistake.
He rolled up his sleeve.
“If this is crazy… then let’s see it through.” The liquid slid into his vein.
For five tense minutes he sat there, waiting, mind running through every possible outcome.
Then his head started to burn—not painfully, but like every circuit had suddenly lit up at full power.
The world went white.
He woke up on the floor a full day later, dried blood under his nose, with a strange new clarity humming in his skull.
It felt like part of his mind had split off and was now running in the background like a powerful processor.
Information started flowing.
Nano-robots.
Bionic cells.
Biological computer integrated with the cerebral cortex.
He tested it.
Controlled nuclear fusion.
Pages of data appeared—messy and disorganized in places, like a hard drive dumped with no filing system, but undeniably real.
An Feng let out a quiet laugh, rubbing his temples.
Future tech in my head and it’s organized like my old laptop.
Of course.
He started turning the new knowledge over carefully, looking for the most solid pieces to examine first.
His eyes drifted back to the black box.
There was a second compartment.
When he opened it, sunlight hit a dozen diamonds, exploding into brilliant sparks of color—clear, pink, vivid blue, several impressively large.
He picked up the biggest blue one and held it to the light.
Flawless.
These stones were immediate, tangible, and probably worth more than he’d made in his entire life so far.
An Feng sat on the floor, surrounded by diamonds and impossible technology quietly humming inside his brain, and allowed himself a slow, genuine smile.
“Well… this just got extremely interesting.”