Qin Siyang did not head straight home.
First, he found a secluded corner, stripped off his coat, and set it on fire.
He still feared the scent on the fabric might be traced, even doused as it was in the pungent, greasy gravy from the cafeteria food.
Staring as the coat burned slowly to ash, Qin Siyang sighed.
"It hasn't even been that long, and I've already burned three or four coats. If this keeps up, I'll be stuck in short sleeves in this freezing world."
All his coats were scavenged from the junkyard—cast-offs from others, not a single one bought with money.
And it seemed this penniless life would continue for a while longer.
"I'll have to sneak back to the junkyard sometime to go treasure hunting," he muttered.
Next, he dumped the remaining cafeteria food from his lunchbox into a foul ditch, scrubbed the box clean, and only then made his way home.
He scarfed down some leftover rice he'd brought back the day before, then headed out again at once.
After confirming no one was tailing him, he returned to the internet café.
When Wang Defa saw Qin Siyang standing at the door, he trudged out with a look of unadulterated reluctance.
"Boss. Your silver coin."
The day before, Qin Siyang had made a deal with Wang Defa—he'd come for the silver coin today, to pay for the fake Sequence registration.
Wang Defa pulled a silver coin from his pocket and placed it in Qin Siyang's hand, but his fingers lingered, his face twisted with greed and reluctance to let go of the fortune.
"Thanks. I'll pay you back."
Qin Siyang tore the coin from Wang Defa's grasp and stuffed it into his pocket.
It was shameless, he knew—but he had no other choice. A silver coin was simply beyond his means right now.
Wang Defa's eyes drooped in dejection. "Boss, if there's nothing else, let's just stop seeing each other. Consider this a lesson you taught me."
Wang Defa had gained nothing but trouble from Qin Siyang, and now he risked being hounded by the Sequence Ability Administration Bureau. He felt as if he'd swallowed something utterly foul.
But Qin Siyang couldn't care less. He still had countless tasks to finish online, and Wang Defa's café was his only safe way to access the internet.
"Stop seeing each other? Impossible," Qin Siyang said. "I need to use the warehouse computer again tonight."
"What?! You're coming back? The police haven't even come for their inspection today!"
"It's already ten o'clock. Your café closes soon, doesn't it? Why still worry about an inspection?"
Wang Defa pursed his lips and said nothing, his jaw tight with frustration.
"Don't worry. I won't short you on your share. But you'll have to wait until I get through this rough patch." Qin Siyang clapped him on the shoulder, then headed straight for the warehouse.
Once Qin Siyang was inside, Wang Defa beat his chest and stamped his feet in a rage. "Damn it! Someone kill this bastard already!!"
---
Qin Siyang sat down at the computer and immediately pulled up the Echo Virtual Chatroom.
The Echo Virtual Chatroom was ostensibly a place to make friends online.
But unlike other chatrooms, its enduring popularity stemmed from one key feature: cutting-edge IP address obfuscation technology.
Here, everyone was anonymous. Login locations were completely hidden, and no one knew the true identities of the people they chatted with—not even the chatroom's own backend staff.
This absolute secrecy had turned it into a natural gray zone for underhanded deals.
Naturally, it had also drawn the attention of the police, with undercover officers lurking in its virtual halls.
To avoid mistaking a cop for a potential business partner, those conducting deals here used all manner of encrypted codes and signals.
The person who forged Sequence registrations, for example, identified potential clients by their repeated entry and exit of the chatroom—eight times in a row.
How this method had spread, or how Roylena had learned of it, Qin Siyang had no idea.
Following Roylena's instructions, he entered and exited the chatroom eight times in quick succession, then stopped, waiting silently for the mysterious contact to reach out.
The chatroom's interface was brutally simple: a list of current visitors on the left, a barrage of links to games and gambling sites in the middle, the user's current chat partner on the right, and a public chat area at the bottom.
Qin Siyang watched as ads for loans, fake IDs, and all manner of shady services scrolled nonstop across the public chat feed.
The clunky interface sent a jolt of nostalgia through him, a flashback to his past life.
Of course, in his past life, just like now, he'd been dirt poor—too poor to afford a computer of his own.
He'd only visited the local internet café occasionally, using his dinner money to chat with Li Jingwen in the chatroom.
More often than not, she'd open a private channel with her friends to play games, while he sat there in silence, doing her homework for her as he listened in.
Now that he thought about it, he'd been nothing but a lapdog.
But this time around, things would be different. He'd never be that pathetic again.
The memories flickered through his mind in an instant, and Qin Siyang pulled himself back to the present.
The chat partner section on his screen was still blank.
A few minutes passed—and then the empty chat box finally flickered to life.
Qin Siyang clicked on it. A user with the alias [Exile] had messaged him first.
"Looking for someone?"
"No. Waiting for someone." Qin Siyang replied.
He glanced at his own alias in the chatroom: [Future].
"Waiting for who?"
"Someone who doesn't waste time asking pointless questions."
[Exile] fell silent for nearly two minutes before replying. "If you're begging for a favor, you'd do well to have a better attitude."
"Tell me your rules." Qin Siyang got straight to the point, no more games.
"No. First, I need to know how you learned to contact me."
Qin Siyang typed the excuse he'd crafted without a moment's hesitation: "A friend who wishes to remain anonymous told me."
"You're spouting meaningless nonsense. It'll be hard for us to work together like this."
"Business is business. There's no need to talk about anything unrelated. If you're not interested in making a deal, I'll find someone who is."
"You seem very afraid of your friend. If you name them, will they come after you? Even kill you?"
Qin Siyang ignored the guess.
Leaving the other party to wonder was his way of seizing the upper hand.
"Tell me your rules, [Exile]. I'm very eager to make this deal happen."
"Provide me with your personal information. Then, find a way to leave one silver coin under the tenth floor tile from the left in the tenth row at Safe Zone Exit 38324 by the end of tomorrow. After that, just wait for the Administration Bureau to contact you."
"What kind of personal information?"
"Thumbprints of both your left and right thumbs, a recent one-inch portrait photo, your name, current occupation, and home address. And of course, the 'identity' you need. This is the internet—even in an anonymous chatroom, someone could be watching. I can't speak too plainly. I'm sure you understand."
Qin Siyang understood at once. The "identity" [Exile] referred to was the Sequence he wanted to fake.
"That's a lot of things. I can't get them to you today."
"It doesn't matter. For safety's sake, these things were always going to be traded in person anyway. You can leave the money first. I keep the chatroom open at all times. Contact me again whenever you're ready."
"Same way as today?"
"No. For paying clients—once you enter the chatroom, type 'I'm a newcomer' in the public chat area first, then enter and exit the chatroom five times in a row."