Chapter 1 Look at That... (Part 1)

Ethan Brooks climbed out of the water, staggering up the river embankment. He found a dry spot to sit down, his whole body soaked, clothes clinging to his skin, unbearably uncomfortable. A wave of sour pressure surged from his overfilled lungs and stomach up to his throat. He braced himself on the ground and coughed up a mouthful of water.

“What the hell...”

“What the hell is wrong with me...!”

Cars zipped back and forth on the embankment road. Probably no one over there would have guessed that someone had just nearly drowned right under their noses.

What he could confirm was that just moments ago, he had still been working overtime in the office late into the night. He’d accidentally fallen asleep at his desk, and when he woke up, he found himself in the river, choking on mouthful after mouthful of water.

Luckily, he’d recently seen news about the dangers of sitting too long and had gotten himself a swimming and fitness membership, occasionally hitting the gym and pool. It was only by struggling desperately to swim that he managed to claw his way back from the brink of death.

After catching his breath on the shore and asking countless times who was messing with him—some higher power, a main god—but getting no response, he pieced things together and confirmed that he must have transmigrated.

He had transmigrated into the body of himself in a parallel universe.

In this world, Ethan Brooks was still nineteen years old. He had just suffered a huge blow, and in a daze, slipped and fell into the water.

What exactly had hit this world’s Ethan Brooks so hard?

The memories surged up. That’s right, the school he was attending at this moment was called Qingshan Business College. He was a sophomore and had failed a course.

Come on, failing a course—was that really such a big deal...?

Wait, the clues in those memories started to piece together. Was it really just about failing a course?

This world’s Ethan Brooks was addicted to gaming, neglected his studies, and when exams came, crammed at the last minute but couldn’t pull it off, so he had to look for other ways.

A week ago, he was on campus at the business college when a voice urged him over the phone, “Seriously, bro, would I ever lie to you? If you don’t pass this make-up exam, you’ll have to retake the course. Each course is three to four credits, and each credit costs a thousand bucks. That’s ten thousand in total! But if you use our system, it’s only two thousand, guaranteed pass! Don’t worry, I’ve checked it out. The equipment at your test center is old and hasn’t been upgraded. The people I’m in touch with got a new type of jammer from the Qiangbei market. It can block the monitoring signal in the exam room, creating just a few milliseconds of gap. The system won’t even trigger an alert, just think it’s unstable! But those few milliseconds are enough to transmit the answers. When the time comes, the answers will be sent straight to your device. Just wait to receive them! Guaranteed smooth sailing!”

The owner of that voice was Brian Clark, a not-so-reliable friend of his, who promised to help him cheat on the make-up exam.

This world was basically the same as his original timeline, but even more advanced in terms of technology. The internet age had arrived earlier, and now AI and robotics were already widespread...

So in this timeline, exams meant entering the test center, where everyone was given a pair of glasses and answered questions in front of a VR virtual test paper. But as the saying goes, where there’s a will, there’s a way—his good friend Brian Clark seemed to have found a loophole for cheating.

On the day of the make-up exam, Ethan Brooks entered the virtual test world, waiting for Brian Clark’s “miracle power” to arrive. In his previous life, his family was considered upper-middle class. His parents ran a business and had a bit of money, but recently they’d hit a crisis—his father’s business collapsed, and they were left with debts.

More importantly, his parents were actually proud that he got into Qingshan Business College. Although the school was at the bottom of the key universities, it was an independent college affiliated with Qingshan University. Qingshan University was ranked in the top ten nationwide and was the best in Qingshan City. Qingshan Business College might be riding on the coattails of the name, but it was still better than most. So his parents often bragged about him being a student there. If they found out he was doing so poorly, and on top of that had to pay ten thousand for a retake, it would really be a disaster for the family.

In this timeline, as university education became more commercialized, it had almost reached the credit system standards of Western universities in his original world, with each credit costing a whopping one thousand bucks.

So Ethan Brooks spent all the money he had to buy the cheating answers, preparing for the make-up exam.

But in the end, he never received any answers during the entire test.

After the exam, he returned to his dorm and, with trembling hands, messaged Brian Clark, “Why didn’t I get the answers? You took my money!”

But Brian Clark didn’t reply, and even his phone couldn’t be reached. Then a local news push popped up on his phone: “Today, city police launched a special operation, cracking down hard on the sale and use of illegal black market technology, busting several cases of profiting from black market tech!”

In the news photo, he saw a scene that chilled him to the bone: among a group of people handcuffed and being led into a police car, one of them was Brian Clark.

Chapter 2 Look at That... (Part 2)

And that’s how things went after that.

Ethan Brooks got implicated. Although he wasn’t involved in any criminal acts of using black market tech to disrupt social order, he did end up on the list of those who bought cheating answers, and was publicly named and shamed by the whole school.