Wheel of Heroes

The night was exceedingly quiet. Moonlight streamed in through the window, falling across the cluttered desk and illuminating the face of Li Mingxing, who sat behind it. He frowned and instinctively shrank further into the shadows, as if trying to avoid the moon’s gaze.

As he moved, the business card on the desk glinted in the pale light. It was one he’d received earlier that day from an old man he’d met at the talent exchange market while job-hunting. The old man had claimed to be impressed by Li Mingxing’s abilities, but Li found that hard to believe—after all, he’d been frequenting the job market for nearly half a year since graduating college, and never before had he encountered a company that would hand over their card after just a single glance. Even the scam outfits at least set up a few tables in decent corners, so Li Mingxing had been ready to toss the card away.

In the end, though, the card’s design was elegant enough that he decided to keep it. Only after bringing it home and examining it more closely did he realize something was off. The card bore nothing but a roulette-like emblem and the words “Inner World”—not a name, not a number, nothing else.

While Li Mingxing had enjoyed reading fantasy novels during college, the pressures of job hunting had long since kept him away from such mystical tales, and he was out of touch with what was popular in those circles now. He certainly didn’t believe he was about to stumble into some otherworldly adventure. So he simply tossed the card onto his desk and went off to shower.

When he returned, ho