ChronoDump

“Grandma.”

“Third Uncle.”

“Ah Jing, you’re back! You didn’t come home last year for the New Year.”

“Didn’t your parents come back with you?”

“Ah Jing, you’re wearing glasses now, which makes you look even more refined. You really have the aura of a college student.”

Su Jing dragged his suitcase and greeted the villagers one by one as he entered the village. Su Family Village was a small place, and everyone knew each other well. Although Su Jing hadn’t come back much since middle school, as one of the only two college students in the village, he was a source of pride for the villagers. They didn’t realize that it was now an era where college students were as common as dogs.

Su Jing had graduated from college over a year ago, changed several jobs, and just as he was starting to see some improvement, he was fired for offending his boss. His mood had hit rock bottom, and he had no desire to look for another job. This time, he had come back mainly to rest and adjust his state of mind.

“Ah Jing, you finally remembered to come back.” A young man with dark skin and a robust body was carrying two baskets of fish.

“A Liang, I heard you became a dad,” Su Jing smiled. This young man was Su Liang, a peer of his who he had often gotten into trouble with as a child. He got married two years ago and had a daughter last year.

“Haha, that’s right! You, as the uncle, are too irresponsible; you haven’t even held her or sent any gifts. By the way, why didn’t you bring a girl back with you?” Su Liang set down the heavy baskets and laughed heartily.

“No, I’m just a single loser,” Su Jing made a bitter face.

“Hehe, why not find Shi Qing and rekindle some old feelings? I heard she’s still single and might be waiting for you,” Su Liang winked.

“Stop talking nonsense, this doesn’t connect at all.” Su Jing rolled his eyes, but thinking of Shi Qing’s familiar and sweet face, his heart warmed a little. Over the years, he had seen many beautiful women, yet that face had always been the one he couldn’t forget.

Shi Qing lived in the neighboring village and had been classmates with Su Jing from elementary school through high school. She was a campus beauty, and they both excelled academically, becoming good friends through their discussions on problems, but they also sparked many rumors due to their close relationship.

Shi Qing’s college entrance exam scores were a few points higher than Su Jing’s, allowing her to attend many prestigious schools, but she didn’t go to college because her father had an accident, exhausting the family’s savings and leaving them with no money for her education.

In the time between the end of the college entrance exam and the start of university, Su Jing often went to her house to help out. However, he was limited in ability and couldn’t do much. After entering college, even though they still chatted on QQ, they gradually became more distant.

He heard that her family had only just paid off their debts in the past two years, and her father could start working again. Although they were still quite poor, life was finally improving.

“Don’t procrastinate anymore. If she gets snatched away, you’ll regret it. I won’t talk to you for long; I need to get these fish dried. Come to my house tonight; I’ve prepared a lot of good stuff,” Su Liang said.

“I’m a bit tired from the trip and plan to sleep early tonight; we can talk tomorrow,” Su Jing waved his hand. Su Family Village was close to the sea, and he knew that the “good stuff” Su Liang mentioned was likely various seafood.

After bidding farewell to Su Liang, Su Jing strode to his front door. Looking at the old, almost collapsing house, Su Jing couldn’t help but smile wryly: “How did my family’s old home end up like this?”

Both of Su Jing’s parents were teachers. When he was in middle school, they moved to the city. Initially, they would still make repairs every year and come back to stay during the New Year, but over time, they grew tired of it and would instead stay at his uncle’s house. As a result, the old home had been completely abandoned.

Su Jing originally thought that even if it had fallen into disrepair, he could clean it up and live there, but he never expected it to be in such a state.

Feeling a bit of a headache, Su Jing took out his key to unlock the courtyard gate, but the rusted lock wouldn’t allow the key to fit. He shook it hard, and the lock head broke off. He helplessly tossed the lock and key aside.

Once inside the courtyard, he opened the door to the old house, and a cloud of dust made him cough. The condition inside only made Su Jing feel more like crying: there was a hole in the roof, and sunlight poured in, while the interior was filled with water, likely from rain leaking in two days prior. On the left eaves, there was a large swallows’ nest, with a few chicks poking their heads out, chirping loudly. On a cabinet, a tabby cat stood protectively over three kittens, its fur bristling as it hissed at Su Jing, and the entire house emitted a strange odor.

“I came back to adjust my mood, or am I here to suffer?”

Su Jing sighed helplessly and walked straight through the front hall to the backyard. The old house was near the sea, and from the backyard, one could see the ocean, making it a genuine seaside property. When he felt down in the past, he loved lying on the grass in the backyard and gazing at the sea.

However, this time, he didn’t see the ocean; instead, he was greeted by a backyard overgrown with weeds, resembling a primitive forest. A lychee tree and an orange tree had both borne fruit, but they weren’t ripe yet. There was also a loquat tree and a plum tree, both of which had passed their fruit-bearing season.

“I need to tidy this place up; otherwise, I can’t live here.”

Su Jing noticed that most of the rooms leaked rain, but fortunately, his room didn’t. He carefully cleaned his room and then did a quick tidy-up of the other rooms and the living room.

After finishing these chores, it was already midnight. Exhausted, Su Jing took a quick shower, ate some snacks, and fell asleep.

At around three or four in the morning, a thunderstorm woke Su Jing up, and he couldn’t fall back asleep. The heavy rain pounded on the roof loudly, especially when tiles occasionally fell and shattered, making a loud noise.

“Boom!”

A loud noise startled Su Jing.

At first, he thought it was thunder, but when he felt the sound was right beside him and continued unceasingly, he sensed something unusual. He leaned out of the window and immediately widened his eyes in shock.

Above the courtyard, a massive spherical vortex had appeared, resembling a wormhole from a sci-fi movie.

From the center of that vortex, a chaotic shower of objects poured down into the backyard, toppling the lychee and loquat trees.

Perhaps it was just his imagination, but Su Jing faintly heard a few voices in the sky.

“Haha, we did it!”

“After much hardship, we finally found a stable time-space tunnel in another dimension.”

“Let’s conduct a few more experiments. If it works, we can send garbage from various time-space dimensions through this tunnel in the future…”

As the vortex in the sky disappeared, the faint voices gradually faded away.

The rain began to ease, and the entire world fell into silence.

Su Jing pinched his thigh hard; the pain made him realize that this wasn’t a dream. The large pile of garbage in the courtyard was also telling him that this was no illusion.

Su Jing walked to the backyard and stared blankly at the piles of garbage in front of him.

In the garbage heap, most of the debris consisted of broken stones, shattered porcelain, and wood. Although the carvings on some of the pieces were a bit unusual, there was nothing surprising about it. What truly stunned Su Jing was the large half of a beast's corpse lying among the garbage.

It lay there, its fur pitch black, and its head resembled that of a wild boar, but it was as massive as an elephant. Its long tusks resembled ivory, and below its chest, its internal organs and hind legs were gone, as if something fierce had eaten half of it. Su Jing loved observing humans and nature and was quite familiar with various wild animals, but he didn’t recognize this creature. He dared to say it was definitely not a creature from Earth.

“What the hell is going on? If the voices in the sky are real, then these garbage piles must come from another dimension. Those bastards actual