William Young booked a two-person soft sleeper for Ryan Bennett. These types of soft sleeper tickets are generally not sold to the public and are mostly reserved for passengers with special status. No one knows what connections William Young used, but he managed to get two tickets. Even the train attendants, as they walked back and forth, would give the ordinarily dressed Ryan Bennett and his mother extra glances, and their service attitude was exceptionally good—completely different from the treatment Ryan Bennett had received during previous winter and summer breaks when he squeezed onto trains. The difference was like night and day.

At this moment, Ryan Bennett felt deeply grateful for the care from his boss. Every time they arrived at a station and he saw the ant-like crowds, Ryan Bennett couldn’t help but feel his scalp tingle. The people coming out after ticket inspection would surge forward like a flock of sheep—every passenger swarming toward the just-stopped train, with cries of “Please make way” and “Let me go first” echoing nonstop...

There were simply too many people returning home for the Spring Festival. Many couldn’t even wait to board through the doors and just climbed in through the open windows. One could imagine that the regular carriages must be packed like sardine cans, crammed full of people, and the smell must be unbearable.

Withdrawing his gaze from the window, Ryan Bennett looked at his sleeping mother. During the time he was injured, his mother had suffered a lot. Even the loud noise the train made while crossing the Yangtze River Bridge hadn’t managed to wake her from her deep sleep.

Mother Bennett’s face looked even more aged and haggard than the last time Ryan Bennett had come home. She was already nearing sixty, and Ryan Bennett couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt. He’d been working for over a year, rarely called home, and only when something happened did he make his mother worry and toil. He really was an unfilial son!

Gently pulling the quilt up for his mother, Ryan Bennett slowly stretched out his legs, which had gone a bit numb from sitting too long. Half reclining on the bed, he began to reflect on everything that had happened recently.

The robbery incident was finally over. Although he’d suffered a bit, it was worth it. The pawnshop was a subsidiary of the city’s investment company, and if he could become a manager there, not only would his benefits improve, but more importantly, he could get a government staffing position. Although Ryan Bennett had no intention of becoming a civil servant, the advantages of such a position were many—like getting loans to buy a house, transferring his household registration to Zhonghai, and making it easier for his future children to attend school.

Thinking of this, Ryan Bennett couldn’t help but laugh at himself for thinking too far ahead. All these years, he’d only had one girlfriend in college. She was the class beauty, gentle in temperament, and for some reason had taken a liking to him, which made his boss and the others green with envy. But just as they’d started holding hands, the girl’s father invested in a mining business and the whole family immigrated to Austria, so she transferred abroad to study. Naturally, the relationship ended without any real result.

Although Ryan Bennett wasn’t especially handsome, his features were regular and his height of 1.8 meters made him look steady and reliable. His grades were always among the top in his class. But in today’s society, talent was less important than wealth, and looks couldn’t put food on the table. After his sophomore-year romance ended, Ryan Bennett never dated again, though he wasn’t unfamiliar with matters between men and women. Of course, he hadn’t learned about that in middle school health class, but rather from his boss’s computer, which was loaded with videos featuring people of all races and languages and was jokingly called a “physiology learning machine.”

After graduating from college, Ryan Bennett unexpectedly returned to Zhonghai. After working at the pawnshop for three years, he would be eligible for a government staffing position. This actually attracted the attention of several local female classmates, but Ryan Bennett had always kept his distance from these girls, who used to look at people out of the corners of their eyes. He had no intention of serving these pampered ladies.

Thinking of women, Ryan Bennett’s mind drifted back to the scene that had happened in the hospital that morning.

“Hallucinating? I can’t be so desperate that I’d ignore my eye injury just to think about women, can I?”

Ryan Bennett recalled the cool sensation in his eyes since the injury. After that romantic scene in the morning, the aura around his eyes seemed much weaker. Could it be...

He rummaged through his backpack and found a palm-sized mirror. Looking into it, aside from his face being a bit pale, there was nothing unusual. But his eyes did seem a bit brighter than before. Ryan Bennett brought the mirror closer and focused on his own eyes. Then, the familiar scene happened again.

As Ryan Bennett stared intently into the mirror, he felt the aura that had been dormant around his eyes start to flow again. At the same time, a flash of blue-green light appeared before his eyes, and the aura in his eyes shot toward the mirror along with his gaze.

At the moment the aura shot out from his eyes, Ryan Bennett saw very clearly that his pitch-black pupils actually split in two in an instant. Although it was extremely brief, just a split second, Ryan Bennett was sure he hadn’t seen wrong. It was definitely not an illusion—he had indeed seen his two pupils become four in less than a second.

What was going on? For a moment, Ryan Bennett felt his scalp tingle. He hurriedly tossed the mirror onto the bed. With something so bizarre happening to him, it would be hard for anyone to stay calm.