Bai Yang's house was in Suzhou, just beside Lake Tai, not far away from Shanghai. It was the place that the saying, "Paradise above, Suzhou and Hangzhou below," referred to. His father's furniture factory was located in the suburban district, roughly half an hour's drive away.
Bai Yang's memory of his father's furniture factory was scant, he could only remember being there a few times to play during his childhood. He hadn't visited much since high school. Although his memory was fuzzy, it was not difficult to find it with his navigation app.
"Dad runs a furniture factor, 'that side' has many trees. If I can bring them here, won't it reduce our factory's cost of operation to the minimum? I hear that some furniture made of precious woods can be sold for even tens of millions, I wonder if there are any precious woods on the other side…"
While waiting for the traffic light to turn green, Bai Yang thought to himself. It was a doable plan, but it remains a problem how he should deliver the goods into his father's hands.
In the end, Bai Yang didn't go to the furniture factory. He passed by a hardware store and saw a chainsaw. He went into the store and asked for the price of the chainsaw. It was selling for 800 RMB and also came with a bottle of oil. Since he still had some money in hand, he bought the chainsaw and went back home…
Such was Bai Yang's personality, he would always take the shortest and easiest way to save himself time and trouble.
When he arrived home, he carried the box, chainsaw, and oil into his room, ready for a proper exploration of the other side.
When opening the equipment he bought from the military store, Bai Yang was dumbfounded. It was then that he understood the meaning of the word professional. Even though the box of equipment was slightly overpriced, it contained nearly everything available.
The list of equipment consisted of a compass, small knife, ignition stick, flashlight, rope, multifunctional military shovel, first aid kit, kettle with filter function, multifunctional folding toolset, and even a small bell, a small solar charging board, and… a gas mask? It was a full set of tactical equipment….
"So… a full set of tactical equipment for 8,500 RMB, did I gain or lose?"
Bai Yang was unable to come out with an answer for it. Perhaps, to the store owner, these equipment were worthless, but to him, 8,500 RMB for this set of equipment was definitely a gain!
Then comes the real question, how was he supposed to carry all these along with him?
"Let's wear the clothes first, then dump the rest in the room. I'll just come back to grab whatever I need whenever I need it!"
Bai Yang quietly praised himself for his intelligence and started preparing. Once more, Bai Yang couldn't help but praise the professionalism showed by the store owner. The tactical suit fitted incredibly well, after wearing even the outfit's cap, he looked like a spiderman with not a single inch of skin left exposed to the air. Although he didn't know what the suit was for exactly, he decided to err on the side of caution and put it on.
After the tight suit was another layer of camo-gear that felt like it was made of high-quality fabrics. A multifunctional belt tied on his waist, a flashlight cum stun baton on the belt, and on his feet were a pair of boots. Judging from its weight, Bai Yang suspected that there were metal plates added to the bottom of the boots so that the wearer wouldn't have to worry about stepping onto any thorns or the like.
"What else? Ah, whatever, I'll see what I need when I am there and come back to grab more later." Such convenience, given that he was able to travel between two worlds at will.
Then, he held the multifunctional military shovel in his right hand and flashlight on his left hand, Let's go…
Bai Yang disappeared from his room and returned to the forest again. After a day's time, the tiger's corpse was already gone; only a pile of broken bones with small pieces of flesh remained.
"A tiger that size and it's gone just in one night? What ate it?"
Bai Yang looked at the paw prints around it and shivered in fear.
He was worried and quickly returned home, grabbed his phone, came back, snapped the photos of some of the paw prints and returned home again. After searching on the internet, he found that the paw prints most resembled those of wolves. The corner of his mouth twitched. The tiger there was almost twice the size of the tigers on Earth, and also judging from the size of the paw prints, the same thing seemed to also apply to the wolves. They would at least be much bigger than the wolves on Earth!
This made it clear to him that if it weren't because he could return to Earth at any time, he wouldn't even survive an hour in that forest!
After returning to the forest, he glanced around and thought where he should begin?
After thinking for a while, he slapped his head as he suddenly remembered an important issue — the time difference between two worlds. If a day here was a year on Earth, he would be in deep trouble for going missing.
He returned to his room and set the timer on his phone. Then, he took out the multifunctional timer from the box of equipment, returned to the forest and started counting. After a minute, he returned to his room and checked the time on his phone, a minute had elapsed. Indeed, both sides had the same flow of time.
"But this doesn't make any sense, if it's not Earth there, how could its flow be the same?"
It was destined that Bai Yang would never know why the answer to this question required deep and wide knowledge in astronomy and geography. All he needed to know was that two sides had the same flow of time.
Although the flow of time was the same, Bai Yang still noticed some differences between the two. After all, they were two different worlds, there was still some difference in time. For example, it was now almost 2 o'clock on Earth but it felt like it was only 7 in the morning here. How did he know? From the position of the sun.
This meant that the length of a day on Earth would be different than the length of a day here. A day would be 24 hours on Earth, but a day might be shorter or longer here.
However, he was still unable to find out how long a day here was as it was impossible for him to stay here for a 'day'. Or otherwise, his parents would report to the police about their missing son. But the chance would come in the future, there was no need to rush for it now.
"When I can, I must buy some high-tech equipment and bring them here to analyze everything. The air, the soil, and some other things to understand this world better. But for now, let's try and find the people in this world."
From the arrow that killed the tiger, Bai Yang was able to deduce that there were humans living on this end here instead of a barbaric and uncivilized world. He was holding the arrow in his hand now, it was about 250 grams, made of an unknown kind of wood. It was solid and sturdy with a grey-whitish metal arrowhead. Bai Yang suspected that the metal as some kind of iron, but further study would be required to truly know its composition.
All in all, it was a whole new world right in front of him. Everything in here was new and unexplored, from the air, to the soils, the plants, the sunlight, and all other things here required systematic research to fully understand. But the research could wait, there was no need to rush.
From what he knew now, this world was suited for living. He had been here a couple of times and hadn't noticed any adverse effects. This proved that the living environment on this end here was somewhat similar to Earth's; it shouldn't be doing any damage to him.
"Now, the next thing to do is to get out of this forest and get in touch with the people here. Only by getting in contact with the civilization of the people living here will I be able to know what kind of world this is. All hail the power of science. With this compass in hand, I will not get lost."
This strange world also had its own magnetic field, thus, the compass was able to point him in a direction. Under normal circumstances, humans would generally prefer lower terrain over higher terrains to live in. The reason was simple, water was most abundant in lower terrains, and survival was impossible without a water source. Bai Yang thought that this was a universal truth, regardless of world.
Bai Yang's Florida Water was bought for nothing. The tactical suit left no opening for the giant mosquitoes in the forest to bite on. On the other hand, he also didn't use the chainsaw to move through the bushes as it would make a loud noise and attract unwanted attention. He didn't want to die so young just yet. Thus, the multifunctional military shovel was used to cut down the bushes on his way while he guided himself with the compass and walked toward lower ground.
"Oh, I nearly forgot, if that tiger was killed by an arrow, then someone must've been here before!"
Bai Yang slapped his hand and turned back to the place where the tiger was killed. Fortunately for him, he wasn't even twenty meters away from the scene and so the return trip was quick.
He carefully inspected the ground and noticed a few footprints. The rotten leaves and muddy soil in the woods were very soft, and because there was no rain, the footprints were clear.
"Then it should be easy to find human civilization in this world if I follow the footprints."
Following the tracks of the footprints, it turns out that his previous thoughts were right. These footprints were headed to the lower terrains. As for why they hadn't erased their footprints, Bai Yang didn't have a clue.
Although Bai Yang was already being extra careful in this unknown forest, he still couldn't avoid getting into trouble. He suddenly felt something wrapping around waist and his breath getting short. It turned out that a giant python had curled around and constricted his waist.
"Damn it, return…" At this moment between life and death, Bai Yang disappeared from the forest and returned back to his room. He lied on the floor, shivering in fear with his heart still pounding in the after shock.
He didn't even manage to take a clear look at what the python looked like. Even if it was just a second or lesser it was on his waist, he felt like the bones in his whole body would've been smashed.
"It's so dangerous!"
An hour had passed, he thought that the python should've left and only returned to the other end. Before going, he has prepared himself to return back here again if the danger persisted.
After he went, he noticed that the python was already gone. A thick trail almost as wide as a bowl's diameter extended into the bushes.
"If I didn't have the ability to come and go as I like, I wouldn't have survived more than half an hour in here. I am still too much of a noob, without this ability, the first thing I should've done was to actually use the stun baton…"
He analyzed the situation and looked around again. Then, he left following the trace of the footprints, but this time, he became even more cautious to the surroundings…