22 Chapter 12: Chicken Rib Gold Finger

From a young age, Shu Guan always shared a room with Lao Duanzi.

Upon three years old, the two of them slept on the same bed.

When he turned three, Lao Duanzi made him a small wooden bed adorned with carved cute rabbits, turtles, and hedgehogs. It was placed beside Lao Duanzi's bed.

After Shu Guan turned ten, Lao Duanzi made him another larger bed without any carved animals and placed it at another end of the room.

By the time Shu Guan reached fourteen years old, when a certain part of his body started growing hair, Lao Duanzi asked Shu Guan if he wanted to clean up the storeroom and sleep there alone.

Shu Guan declined, though.

He liked to fall asleep to Lao Duanzi's snoring, and without it, he probably wouldn't adjust well.

Truly, Lao Duanzi's snoring always gave Shu Guan a comforting feeling, which helped him to quickly fall asleep. His insomnia from his previous life was gone in this life.

However, that night, Shu Guan suffered from insomnia again.

Of course, part of the reason was that he forced himself to resist sleepiness amidst Lao Duanzi's snoring.

Listened to Lao Duanzi's snoring to make sure he fell asleep, Shu Guan quietly got up and tiptoed to Lao Duanzi's bed, pulling out his mobile phone from underneath the pillow.

Then, he went to the courtyard, looked down at his long-lost smartphone illuminated under the moonlight.

Since Lao Duanzi found the phone, Shu Guan had already confirmed many times that it was indeed the phone from his previous life.

Actually, there wasn't much need for confirmation as there wouldn't be a second mobile phone in this world.

However, if he had physically traveled here, it wouldn't have been strange to bring some items with him. He didn't understand why the phone also travelled here when his soul travelled to this world.

Shu Guan felt an extremely strange sensation.

However, compared to the shock he experienced a few hours ago when Lao Duanzi scooped up the phone from the creek, his emotions had calmed down significantly.

Then, a bitter smile appeared on Shu Guan's face.

Indeed, every "transcender" would have a golden finger.

When Shu Guan first traveled to this world, he complained about the power or existence that made him a transcender. He felt that he was not only given a hellish and unsolvable opening but also deprived of the standard golden finger of transcenders.

Now, he understood that his golden finger has always been with him - his smartphone.

Perhaps during the crossing, for some unknown reason, the phone didn't materialize beside him. Perhaps there was a small deviation, causing the phone to fall somewhere in the mountains outside Taoyuan Village; it washed down the mountainside due to the heavy rain.

Now, his golden finger had finally arrived.

The phone was indeed an excellent golden finger, especially in a world with the potential for a modern civilization.

Based on Shu Guan's judgement - mainly through the description provided in the notebook left behind by the old scholar - over 200 years ago, when they hid in this valley, the outside world already had steam ships, although the steam engines were likely the most primitive kind.

Since over 200 years had passed, according to normal social development progression, the world outside the valley should be at the end of the second industrial revolution, either completed or on the verge of completion but definitely not in the computer age.

It should be roughly equivalent to Earth's level in the early 20th century.

Of course, this world seemed to be different from Earth, as it involved some supernatural forces that didn't seem ordinary. However, Shu Guan had not seen such forces with his own eyes, so he wasn't sure if immortals truly existed.

Even according to the old scholar's notebook, even if immortals did exist in this world, they seemed to be far away from ordinary people's lives. The old scholar only met a real immortal for the first time when he was sent to the valley, but before that, immortals had only existed as myths.

Therefore, in such a place where supernatural forces might exist but don't seem to have a significant impact on the ordinary world, Shu Guan's smartphone could be considered the golden finger.

Although it couldn't connect to the internet in this world, a 2045-era smartphone could recover any data ever accessed through the built-in AI.

Shu Guan's phone was like a massive database filled with various information from Earth in the 2045 era.

While not comprehensive, it could still have a significant impact in this world.

At that moment, multiple ideas flashed through Shu Guan's mind as he held his long-lost phone.

If he could go to the world outside the valley, there would be unlimited possibilities with this phone.

He could become the richest person, an admired writer, a visionary leader in the field of technology, or even a great figure that could change history.

With the help of the information stored in the phone, he could become an outstanding figure in any industry.

That is what a transcender's life should be!

However, he was trapped in a secluded mountain village.

The help this phone could provide was limited to merely turning him into Taoyuan Village's second Bug-level individual after Lao Duanzi. He could grow more crops, raise fatter pigs, and build sturdier and prettier houses.

Being the boss in a 10-mile radius valley wasn't appealing to Shu Guan.

For Shu Guan, gaining his phone again may only bring small entertainment, such as revisiting old watched movies and novels.

Sigh, without the internet, he couldn't even play many games.

Shu Guan looked up at the towering and silent peaks shrouded in moonlight.

In the past, he thought the only way to leave would be to build a helicopter.

And now, he really did have the ability to build a helicopter.

In the era he came from, the internet environment was very relaxed and open. You could even find detailed instructions on how to make an atomic bomb online, down to each step.

If there were instructions for making atomic bombs, there would naturally be methods for building helicopters too.

Shu Guan had once been very interested in these aircrafts for a while and had browsed a lot of information online about them. Of course, he couldn't remember all the details, but as long as he had browsed, the AI in his phone could restore all the materials he had viewed.

But even though Shu Guan knew how to build a helicopter, he couldn't possibly conjure one up out of thin air in Taoyuan Village.

Even in the outside world, if the basic industrial level is not up to a certain standard, then even if the whole world's strength is gathered, a helicopter still cannot be built.

So, sixteen years after transmigrating, Shu Guan's golden finger finally arrived, and it seemed to be a pretty good golden finger, but in fact, it was a chicken rib.

Shu Guan's bitter smile became even more intense, and as he stroked the long-lost phone, he was filled with emotions.

He had already gone sixteen years without a cellphone!

For people from their time, this was unimaginable.

Then he pressed an embedded hidden button on the side of the phone.

Following that, the phone's screen lit up, and it turned on.

Since the old cripple found this phone, Shu Guan hadn't touched it, but he wasn't worried at all if his phone would be broken.

The quality of the products produced by the Sunflower Company was still very trustworthy.

This phone was a flagship product of Sunflower Company. Yep, Shu Guan had bought it by overdrafting his Mou Bei account. The phone used a solar charging system, so as long as there was sunlight, the phone could maintain a full charge.

In addition, the phone's body was made of aviation materials, so even if it fell from tens of meters in height, it would not be damaged in the slightest. Similarly, it had excellent waterproof performance and could be soaked in water for an extended period without any problems.

In other words, this phone wouldn't have any issues unless you smashed it with a hammer in most harsh environments.

When the Sunflower Company launched this phone model, they even made a promotional video where explorers took the phone to the top of Mount Everest, and all the phone's functions worked normally during the entire process.

It really still works!

Seeing the phone screen light up, Shu Guan let out a sigh of relief.

"Xiaoyi, Xiaoyi, start the system."

Then Shu Guan called out quietly.

But after waiting for five or six seconds, there was no sweet, enchanting voice that he missed so much coming from the phone.

Shu Guan frowned, called out his phone's AI's name again, but Xiaoyi still didn't answer his call.

This was absolutely impossible unless... the AI system in his phone was malfunctioning.

There was no visible damage to the phone's exterior, but it seemed that the internal system still had problems.

Shu Guan was very disappointed but not too surprised.

After all, coming from one world to another, anything could happen. He couldn't expect the phone manufacturer to consider such unforeseen circumstances.

It seemed that the AI system in his phone had been damaged during the transfer across different timelines.

In other words, Xiaoyi might have died during the transmigration.

Shu Guan felt a bit sad.

Although Xiaoyi was just a built-in AI in a cell phone, she had accompanied him for several years, and he had personally nurtured her virtual personality.

It felt like a child he had raised suddenly encountered an accident.

Moreover, if Xiaoyi were still around, at least she could chat with him as a true companion who understood his soul's needs in this isolated village in a different world.

After a long silence, he lifted the phone again and pointed the screen at his face.

Although Xiaoyi was gone, his phone could still be unlocked through his own biometrics.

But the next moment, a line of text appeared on the screen, telling him that face recognition failed and asking if he wanted to input a password.

Shu Guan immediately realized what was happening and slapped himself on the forehead with a self-mocking look.

His face was no longer the same.

Yes, after transmigrating, everything about him had changed, except for his soul.

So functions like fingerprint unlock and retinal unlock that rely on biometrics were useless now.

Fortunately, he could still unlock the phone with a password.

Shu Guan sighed again and placed his finger on the phone screen...

But then, he hesitated for a long time.

Damn, what was the password again?...