Chapter 4

Inside the supermarket, Jiang Li found himself in a staring contest with the five gold coins lined up before him.

The coins were the size of ordinary coins, glittering with a brilliant gleam that was unmistakably pure gold.

Before he could even figure out why he and his supermarket had transmigrated, he had already encountered his first customer from an alternate world. And after finishing his shopping, that customer had actually left him five gold coins?!

Jiang Li’s feelings were thoroughly conflicted.

Regardless of whether the coins were real or fake, he put them away for now. That adventurer had bolted so fast that Jiang Li had not even had time to call him back, so he would just have to return them if their paths ever crossed again.

As for chasing after him…

Through the newly replaced glass doors, Jiang Li could see that the outside world had changed drastically. It was no longer the familiar street where he had grown up. The architecture had shifted into an old-fashioned European style, most of the passersby wore coarse homespun cloth, and horse-drawn carriages rumbled past. Aside from his supermarket, everything had become alien.

…Just where had he ended up!

Aside from Chris, no other customer wandered curiously into the shop, which gave Jiang Li plenty of time to catch his breath and think.

Jiang Li had read and watched plenty of transmigration and alternate-world stories with his college roommates, so simply seeing the earth-shaking changes outside was enough to tell him he was no longer on Earth.

Still, other people had a catalyst when they transmigrated. Why had he ended up here?

Yesterday’s shooting star surfaced in his mind, and Jiang Li’s gaze quickly landed on the hourglass nearby.

If there was any catalyst, thinking it over, it had to be this hourglass. He remembered distinctly that right after he set the hourglass down, that adventurer customer named Chris had pushed open the door and walked in.

Jiang Li picked up the hourglass once again.

Outwardly, apart from its exquisite craftsmanship, there was nothing unusual about the hourglass. Because the passage was blocked in the middle, it could not even serve its intended purpose as a timer, making it nothing more than a simple decorative ornament. Jiang Li turned it back and forth in his hands, trying to find anything different about it.

As he flipped it over, something seemed to catch the corner of his eye.

Jiang Li looked up and froze instantly.

The street beyond the glass doors had reverted to the familiar concrete road, where a big orange cat lay lazily basking in the sun outside the entrance.

Had he transmigrated back again?!

A thought struck him. Keeping his eyes glued to the outside, Jiang Li flipped the hourglass over again. He watched as the world outside spun in a blur. In barely the span of a breath, everything outside transformed back into the vintage street he had seen moments ago. Looking through the glass doors, even the moss in front of the shop across the way remained unchanged.

Flipped one way, a concrete road. Flipped the other, a cobblestone street.

Flipped one way, T-shirts and short sleeves. Flipped the other, rough homespun linen.

After repeating the experiment several times, Jiang Li set the hourglass down. Outside the door, the view had returned to the street where he had grown up, but his mind remained reeling for a long time.

Suddenly, Jiang Li remembered something. He pulled out his phone and checked it; the signal bars were completely full again, and the message that had failed to send was still sitting on the screen. He tapped the red exclamation mark, and the failed message went through with a soft whoosh.

Ding-dong!

【Haven’t you woken up yet?】

【Yes, yes, yes! Absolutely! Heavens, please let me transmigrate to a world without civil service exams^[1]! My brain is fried, completely fried!】

Jiang Li slowly lowered his phone.

Indeed, this was still Earth.

“Xiao Jiang^[2]?”

Granny Chen stepped into the supermarket and asked in puzzlement upon seeing him sitting behind the checkout counter, “Where did you go just now?”

“Just now?” Jiang Li answered instinctively. “I’ve been here the whole time.”

Granny Chen expertly picked up a bottle of vinegar from the shelf. Hearing his reply, she immediately said, “When I came by to buy something just now, your supermarket doors were shut tight. I was about to send my grandson on an errand instead, but when I came back out, your doors were open again.”

Jiang Li parted his lips. Remembering his bizarre experience, he said vaguely, “Right, I stepped out for a bit.”

After seeing Granny Chen off, Jiang Li pulled up the surveillance footage again.

The camera had been diligently recording everything happening inside and outside the store. Jiang Li rewound the playback to shortly before, watching nervously.

On the screen, he had remained seated behind the checkout counter the entire time until Granny Chen walked in, and no strange customer had entered during that interval. If not for the five glittering gold coins before him, Jiang Li would have thought he was hallucinating.

After closing the surveillance playback and looking at the hourglass once more, his eyes filled with wonder.

Even though he did not know where the hourglass had come from or why the camera had recorded nothing, the phenomenon itself was undeniably fantastical.

He and his supermarket could actually transmigrate?!

…

Over the next few days, Jiang Li conducted a few more experiments.

When he flipped the hourglass, he could travel between the two worlds: on one side was Earth, and on the other was Lalan Continent, a fantasy realm filled with magic and mystical creatures.

The hourglass seemed bound to his supermarket; taking it elsewhere and using it triggered no reaction whatsoever. Jiang Li had even specifically asked others to take a look, but aside from him, no one else could see the hourglass at all.

Jiang Li guessed that both the hourglass and the supermarket served as media for his travels between worlds, and neither could be dispensed with. As for why only he could see it, perhaps it was because… on that day, only he and his supermarket had been struck by the meteor?

After repeated testing, during a slow daytime shift, Jiang Li flipped the hourglass over and headed to the other world along with his supermarket.

Duolei City.

The door of an ordinary-looking shop opened from the inside.

Jiang Li stood in the doorway and looked around. He seemed to be on a commercial street flanked by various shops. Unable to read the local script, Jiang Li could only guess based on the storefront decor. Diagonally across from him, for example, several mannequins stood behind a window display, suggesting it was a clothing store.

He felt the five gold coins in his pocket and boldly stepped out through the supermarket doors.

Jiang Li had initially hoped to learn about this world from supermarket customers, but after waiting several days, no one else had set foot inside aside from that first customer.

Left with no choice, he had to take the initiative himself.

He first visited the clothing store to buy a ready-made outfit and change into it, then strolled along Commercial Street. Though he could not read the script, communication went remarkably smoothly, perhaps an added perk granted by the hourglass. He walked along, pausing now and then to observe and ask about the continent.

After half a day, Jiang Li had gained a fresh understanding of this world.

This was Lalan Continent, and the city he was in was Duolei City.

In addition to humans, this world was populated by various mythical races that typically only existed in fantasy tales: dragons, elves, dwarves… Jiang Li even saw a dwarf walk out of a blacksmith shop with his own eyes. As for the rest, they were not so easily spotted. Duolei City was a human city, and most other races preferred to live in seclusion.

Jiang Li purchased a map of Lalan Continent as well as a few books, mainly to learn… how to read.

If he wanted to explore this new world, learning could not wait!

Besides that, Jiang Li had also gained a basic grasp of the prices in Duolei City.

The gold coins Chris had given him were the highest denomination of currency; below them were silver and copper coins. To ordinary people, five gold coins were an outright fortune, not to mention that those five coins had bought nothing more than a few packs of instant noodles.

Jiang Li felt an even deeper pang of guilt toward that adventurer customer…

Even so, Jiang Li understood why Chris had developed such a misunderstanding.

He had wandered by chance into a shop selling magical implements. A magical lamp that emitted light, which in Jiang Li’s eyes was just a desk lamp, carried an exorbitant price. Other items, even modest novelties, were similarly expensive, where five gold coins would amount to mere pocket change. Still, Jiang Li had discovered intriguing items there as well. For example, the backpacks sold in the shop featured spatial expansion, capable of holding several times their own volume, a true specialty of a magic world.

Of course, strapped for cash, he couldn’t afford it. After casting a couple of regretful glances back at it, Jiang Li walked out under the clerk’s almost palpable glare of disdain.

At dusk, the shops in this other world began closing one after another. Taverns lit their lanterns, and adventurers returned in groups from outside the city.

Jiang Li returned to his supermarket, grabbed a quick dinner at a small restaurant outside, and then headed home to open the books he had bought from the other world.

Pulling out a notebook, he got down to studying!

…

Meanwhile.

In the forest outside Duolei City.

As the sun sank below the horizon, Chris lit a campfire.

Chris and his companions had taken on a quest to capture a magical beast, and until they finished it, they would be staying outside the city. Therefore, after accepting the quest, they had prepared enough supplies to sustain them through many days in the wild.

When Chris was about to skewer the meat onto a branch as usual, the companion beside him immediately let out an agonizing groan. “No, no, no… I can’t eat any more roasted meat!”

Chris asked, “Boiled, then?”

His companions let out a collective wail of despair.

Most of the time, what adventurers ate in the wilderness was the meat of the magical beasts they hunted, either roasted or boiled. No matter how delicious a food was, having it day in and day out would wear anyone down, not to mention that most magical beast meat wasn’t all that tasty to begin with.

A companion complained, “Don’t we have any other food?”

“The bread ran out days ago.”

“If only we had some booze.”

“I’m starting to miss that last meal we had back in Duolei City…”

As his companions chimed in one after another, Chris listened, and then suddenly remembered something. He sat bolt upright.

“No,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “We still have one more thing.”

“What is it?”

Chris opened his backpack and rummaged through it for a moment. Under his companions’ watchful eyes, he carefully pulled something out.

“This!”

Holding it in both hands, Chris said solemnly, “Food I bought from that mysterious shop-“

“Instant noodles!”