The hot sun blazed down, and sweat soaked through to my back.
By the time Huai Shi came to his senses, he was standing on the playground. Continuous shouts of "HYAH!" came from behind him, as if he were performing some kind of radio calisthenics with the guy opposite him.
Before he could react, a foot kicked him from behind. A muscular man in a tank top pointed at him and cursed, "Chen Bo, you wimp! Didn't you eat?"
After speaking, the man pushed his opponent aside and got ready to spar. "Come on, let's practice."
Peering over the man's shoulder, Huai Shi saw a slogan on the wall behind him.
*Sweat more in peacetime, bleed less in wartime.*
Before he could react again, his body seemed to move on its own, charging straight towards the muscular man—no, the instructor—in front of him.
BANG!
A punch to seal the door.
Huai Shi's vision went black; pain throbbed.
"Again!" the instructor beckoned Chen Bo with a hook of his finger.
Only now did he realize that he seemed to be in a bizarre state of Possession, passively experiencing this body's sensations, like a ghost tethered to his back. It felt like he was in a daze, as if dreaming, yet the only real thing was the pain, undiminished in the slightest.
BANG!
Another trip and joint lock; Huai Shi felt his face smash into the ground.
"Again!"
BANG!
"Again!"
BANG!
…
The scene was constantly transforming. Among those fragmented dream sequences, he seemed to be repeatedly tortured by several instructors in varied ways.
It was as if they were specifically targeting the unlucky soul he had possessed. If his movements weren't precise, they'd beat him up. If his response was slow, another beating. A beating before meals, and yet another after training started.
Eating, sleeping, and beating up Chen Bo…
Amidst the stench of body odor and feet, Huai Shi had completely abandoned all hope.
Chen Bo eventually learned to barely hold his own for two rounds against several instructors using military boxing. He had evolved from a complete noob to a slightly bigger one. Only then was he expelled for fighting with idle members of society during police training…
He had become a new idle member of society!
It was truly a cause for celebration. Huai Shi was almost in tears—finally, he would no longer be beaten up.
What the hell was this?Had he accidentally acquired some kind of super getting-beaten-up system?
His ensuing experiences were indescribable as his identity constantly transformed within the shattered nightmares. He went from being a trainee brutalized by an instructor's military boxing to a small-time thug wielding a knife in the scorching heat. Then, he became a gatekeeper, squatting at a door to watch for police raids on prostitution and illegal operations. After that, he turned into Dead Turtle Public, greeting guests every night to view the ladies. In the end, he became a balding, middle-aged man perpetually attending meetings...
This bastard really loved meetings.
Study meetings, symposiums, inspection meetings, field trips, report meetings… He seemingly devoted his limited energy to endless meetings…
All those fragmented pieces kept piling up like a rickety tower, layer upon layer, until they reached their limit. Then, they collapsed with a thunderous crash, fragmenting into thousands of pieces once more.
Huai Shi's consciousness was pulled and torn apart along with them. Countless versions of himself ran parallel in countless nightmares, trapped in an endless Cycle.
It was like a computer assembled for 150 yuan hubristically trying to run the workload of a galactic computer. Finally, his intensely operating brain felt as if it were rubbing against the inside of his skull, generating flames that burned everything to ashes.
All the nightmares shattered violently.
Huai Shi opened his eyes, panting heavily. Sweat dripped from his face, sliding down the armrest of the chair and falling onto the wet floor.
The wall clock continued to move slowly.
It had only been five minutes since he closed his eyes.
He had been beaten nearly ninety times and gotten into dozens of fights. He'd been sent to the hospital several times, been on leave for hundreds of days, and ushered scantily clad girls into small pink rooms a thousand times. He had also attended countless meetings.
It was truly a one-stop social experience.
…
"Truly... Hell..." Huai Shi mumbled dully. Unable to support himself, he slid from the chair.
In his grogginess, he closed his eyes.
Might as well let me die...
For a moment, he seemed to see his miserable Future and wished from the bottom of his heart for it to end.
Then, it became like all the wishes Huai Shi had made before—improbable to be fulfilled.
「. . .」
When he opened his eyes, it was the morning of the next day.
He was still lying on the floor, but his body felt much more comfortable, as if he had taken some kind of Elixir.
Soon he saw the IV needles stuck in his arms—a saline solution and a glucose solution...
"You awake?"
A Raven's head suddenly popped out from an angle, cheerfully congratulating, "We've cured your ailment of seeing everyone as pigeons!"
"...Then I really can't thank you enough."
"A doctor's heart is like a parent's. Think nothing of it."
The Raven flapped its wings, flew over to the table, and sat down, cocking its legs. One wing held a cigarette from who-knows-where, which it lit with practiced ease. It smoked in a way that screamed 'streetwise,' yet the smoke dissipated from beneath its feathers, looking incredibly odd.
"So, did you gain anything?" the Raven asked.
"Does waking up alive count?"
Huai Shi grudgingly got up from the ground. Not daring to remove the IV, he carefully settled down into the chair.
It was then that he realized he was no longer the person he had been before—he had become a man with an attribute panel.
He hurriedly opened the Book of Fate to examine his data on the title page.
Ignoring the inexplicable "Stress Period" label at the front and the empty slots for Stigma and Miracle Imprint, the Skills section below was straightforward and easy to understand.
His general knowledge, representing education and common sense, was still an embarrassing Level 3. Having not even graduated from high school, he'd already returned some of that knowledge to his PE teacher.
The art category, representing his Cello Skills, was at Level 6, which made him somewhat proud. It had reached the professional domain. Moving further up would require ninety-nine percent perspiration and that crucial one percent of talent.
The inexplicable Skill "Death Perception" remained greyed out.
It felt more and more like some strange game.Was he expected to spend real money on it?
Huai Shi felt a vague worry within him.
After utilizing it the previous night, Huai Shi had finally come to a preliminary understanding of its classification. According to the Book of Fate's rules, only Abilities that were skillfully mastered and could be used at will would be recognized as Skills.
For ordinary people, the limit that their Skills could reach through learning and continuous practice was Level 10, the highest level.
The initial levels of most Skills were relatively easy. However, much like the manipulative designs of unscrupulous game producers, climbing higher required hundreds of times more effort, even for a slight improvement.
And while Level 10 might be the end for some, for others, it might just be the beginning.
Huai Shi was acutely aware of this.
It's like comparing two tests, both with perfect scores.
Levels sometimes didn't mean much; they were just a convenient measure provided by the Book of Fate for him to gauge himself.
Feeling the gravity of the long road ahead, Huai Shi continued to read. To his surprise, he discovered he had gained several new Skills overnight.
[Melee·Basic Military Boxing Level 4]
[Reconnaissance Level 4]
And a somewhat comical [Illegal Group Operation Level 3]
Then...
"Holy shit?"
Raven exclaimed, "How did your Copywriting Skill get to Level 6 already?"
Huai Shi couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Bullshit. You try having hundreds of meetings in a row and then writing up hundreds of meeting minutes and reflections!"
Huai Shi didn't have deep experience with other Skills like military boxing; he could only learn the basics by passively getting beaten up and observing.
But it was only when writing those hundreds of records and reflections that he truly shed blood and sweat over every word and felt the bitterness of each line.
This night, his greatest gain was not learning how to fight with military boxing or how to look out for the police… but how to pad out his word count in documents!
Now, he had even surpassed his 'teacher' in this regard, able to seamlessly inject an entire Pacific Ocean of filler into his updates without a trace. Moreover, he could precisely segment it every three thousand words to avoid being shortchanged by word count.
He tapped the Book of Fate in his hands, smugly crossed his legs, and declared, "You should make a good note of this section. In the future, when writing records, follow this format. If I were to write a novel like this, I'd make a fortune!"
"Not a single novelist has a good ending," Raven ominously said beside his ear. "Many of them start balding before middle age, like that Hu What, that Guo What, and that wandering Army What..."
Huai Shi shuddered.
They were not to be trifled with; better leave it at that.
"But coming back to the point..."
Huai Shi flipped open the book to its last pages, where the appendices were. It seemed the records there had lost all value. Most of the writing had faded, leaving only a spartan chart.
"Why would these people's memories appear in the book?"
"Oh, don't you know?"
Raven seemed surprised, speaking calmly, "The Book of Fate is now bound to you and will only record things related to you. The reason these fragments were collected, I suppose, is that they all died because of you. Right?"
"..."
Huai Shi was stunned.
"Ah, there are actually more than seventy of them," Raven said lightly. "Unfortunately, only four or five had active enough Source Substance to leave behind the most vivid memories from their minds. The number of people today with the aptitude for awakening is dwindling. You should be thankful to them."
"..."
Huai Shi inhaled sharply, feeling goosebumps all over his body. He instinctively leaned back, trying to put more distance between himself, Raven, and the book.
But he quickly realized that even throwing the book and Raven into the deepest sea trench would likely be futile.
He finally understood why the military had abruptly taken him in for such relentless questioning.
Perhaps it was because the people from yesterday... were all dead?
All of them were dead.
Only he remained.
The mere thought sent shivers down his spine, as if that blood-stained Ferocious Ape were already standing behind him, sneering.
After a long, long time, he finally calmed down and managed a dry, bitter laugh. "Does it have to be this exaggerated?"
"Yes, it is that exaggerated, Huai Shi. The world is just like this; it isn't as stable as you imagine. This sky, this earth, this country, this city... they all hide much more than you have ever seen.
"—Truths that must never be known, Borders that ordinary people must never cross, and a Hell that no one must ever glimpse.
"If you remain forever cocooned within the narrow sanctuary of the Current Circumstances, you will never learn the truth."
As she spoke, she admired the stupefied look on the young man's face.
Then, in a gentle voice, she asked, "—Huai Shi, do you yearn for a Soul?"