Awakening

Welcome, our Number One Player.

Infinite Split Game has been loaded. You are about to enter the Game Character creation phase.

At first, Ji Minghuan thought he had seen a ghost. Though his mind was clear, he could not lift his eyelids no matter what, as if someone had taped his lids to the skin beneath his eyes.

In fact, this was not an uncommon occurrence. Chinese folk tradition often called it "ghost pressing the bed."

Everyone would encounter "ghost pressing the bed" once or twice in their life. The scientific explanation was that after emerging from sleep, some of the brain's nerves had not fully awakened yet, and their connection to the body had not been restored. That was why one could not move, as though pinned to the bed by a ghost.

However, Ji Minghuan soon realized that what he had encountered was not sleep paralysis.

It was something far more mysterious.

Slowly emerging from the darkness was a panel with a red-and-black interwoven background. It looked like the UI of an RPG game. At that moment, a line of pixelated text was displayed in its center:

Before the game begins, there is one question that must be confirmed with the player—"Can you tell whether you are dreaming or in reality?"

Before his eyes was a line of standard simplified Chinese. He could read it without the slightest difficulty, without even a trace of a comprehension barrier.

Logically speaking, no matter how familiar or simple a sentence was, the brain needed at least a second to process and understand it.

Yet when those words entered Ji Minghuan's mind, they flowed as smoothly as a stream flowing into the sea. Their arrangement seemed custom-made for his reading habits.

At that moment, four lettered options—A, B, C, and D—floated beneath the panel.

From left to right, the text inside the four options read: A, I am dreaming. B, I am in reality. C, I am neither dreaming nor in reality. D, This is both a dream and reality.

At that moment, Ji Minghuan suddenly recalled what Instructor had said in the Imprisonment Room earlier.

"Since you said you like playing games, then your ability will likely appear before you in a form related to 'games.'"

"Any form of ability will help its owner understand it. And you... since you enjoy video games, your ability will likely appear in this form—it will turn itself into a game stage to test and guide you, helping you clearly understand how to use it."

"So... this is my ability?"

Ji Minghuan raised an eyebrow. That was what he thought, but instead of immediately studying the question on the panel, he tried shifting his gaze toward the darkness beyond it.

Less than two seconds later, he discovered that his field of vision was firmly locked in that corner, allowing him to focus only on the four "text options" before him.

A locked camera angle in a VR game was one thing, but in reality, the sensation was exceptionally eerie. It was as though invisible beings were hiding behind him, pressing down his head and shoulders and fixing his eyeballs upon a specific spot in their sockets.

Left with no choice, Ji Minghuan withdrew his attention and continued examining the words.

But in that very second, beside the four options, Ji Minghuan suddenly saw something horrifying—a thin, elongated object roughly two centimeters thick. Its surface was covered in skin as pale as a corpse's, almost concealing every blood vessel.

This thing was... his index finger.

That was right. What entered his vision was undoubtedly Ji Minghuan's index finger. He confirmed it from the scratches around its knuckles.

In the darkness, he silently stared at the finger.

Seeing one's own finger under normal circumstances was naturally nothing to be surprised about. It was not as if he were insane.

But the situation was different now. At that moment, only this one finger was placed abruptly, strangely, and all alone in the darkness, as though someone had cut it off and laid it by itself on a chopping board.

In the blink of an eye, Ji Minghuan discovered that he could control this "index finger" with his mind.

More accurately, it felt as though his finger had been separated from his body and turned into a "mouse" in a game interface.

With a single thought, this index finger that had parted ways with his right hand would rapidly move across the text interface before him like a mouse cursor.

An ordinary person might be stunned or disgusted upon seeing one of their organs turn into an independent device.

But who was Ji Minghuan? A month of confinement in the laboratory had long raised his psychological tolerance threshold to an absurd height.

He merely blinked curiously, accepted this series of settings, and treated the familiar yet strange index finger as a novel toy he had never seen before. He moved it up, down, left, and right, even trying to snap his "index-finger mouse" in half with his mind.

When that failed, Ji Minghuan put aside his playful impulses and looked at the question on the panel.

Can you tell whether you are dreaming or in reality?

Is it asking whether I'm dreaming?

Even now, Ji Minghuan could not determine whether he was dreaming.

If this was a dream, then his senses were far too realistic. More importantly, every chain of thought in his mind was crystal clear. There were no logical gaps or leaps whatsoever. Even if he wrote down his entire thought process on a blackboard, he probably would not find any problems.

But objectively speaking, someone in a dream found it difficult to recognize the fact that they were dreaming. Perhaps he was also "in the fog without knowing fog, in a dream without knowing dream."

The "complete chain of logic" he perceived might not actually be complete. It was simply that he could not detect the gaps and fractures.

"Forget it... three short, one long, pick the long one."

Expressionless, Ji Minghuan summoned the mindset and decisiveness of an elementary school student answering multiple-choice questions. His index finger moved straight to the fourth option and clicked it without hesitation.

The text on the panel refreshed the next second.

The player has selected—Option D: "This is both a dream and reality."

Congratulations. Your answer is correct.

As a reward for answering correctly, the player has received one Initial Skill Point. (After creating your first Game Character in the real world, you may use Skill Points to develop the Character Skill Tree.)

If Ji Minghuan still had a head, it would probably have been tilted at a considerable angle right then. Unfortunately, in this pitch-black space, only the severed index finger kept him company.

The text on the panel silently refreshed.

Would you like to begin creating your first Game Character? (You may also choose to begin the Game Character creation phase after gathering more information about the world—the more intelligence you know, the greater the initial strength of the generated Game Character may become.)

Two small text options appeared below: Yes and No.

"Whatever happens, this is at least pretty interesting."

A full month of confinement had left Ji Minghuan's mind extremely listless and numb. He felt stifled from head to toe, and this bit of entertainment appearing at such a moment was like an enormous source of stimulation dancing before his eyes.

So he simply treated it as an interesting "lucid dream" and relaxed, enjoying himself.

Dragging his index finger as though controlling a mouse, Ji Minghuan moved it to the option interface.

Then he pressed the first option—Yes.

The words in the box changed, and denser text popped up. Like juvenile spiders pouring from an egg sac, they were packed together so tightly that they nearly filled his entire vision. Ji Minghuan did not even twitch an eyelid. He silently watched the scene, somewhat glad that he did not have trypophobia.

Next, you will be permitted to create a Game Character in the real world. Once successfully created, you will be allowed to freely control the character's actions according to your own wishes—regardless of where your Main Body is located, whenever you enter sleep, your consciousness may transfer into the created Game Character.

While your consciousness is awake—that is, outside of dreams—the Game Character will formulate a set of "logical inference standards" based on your prior roleplaying behavior, then perform fully automated adaptive actions according to those standards in response to its environment, until you take control of the character again.

Of course, if you wish to control the Game Character while awake as well, you may modify the settings in the game. (Please note—doing so may easily trigger symptoms of Mental Split or even Split Personality: the collisions, friction, and conflicts between multiple perspectives and sensory experiences simultaneously existing in your mind are not something an ordinary person can withstand. This will place an enormous burden upon your mind. Once overloaded, the consequences will be unimaginable. The Game Character may very likely enter a "rampage state.")

Now, please choose one of the following two "identity records." It will serve as your first Game Character and make its debut upon the stage known as the "real world."

Wasn't "make its debut" a derogatory phrase...? I haven't even started playing, and I've already been handed the villain script? Ji Minghuan thought, raising an eyebrow.

Discarding that pointless thought, he continued reading.

Unit 1 Character Record

Name: Gu Wenyu

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Race: Yellow

Category: Superhuman (one of the three major supernatural races; every Superhuman possesses a unique ability, and the manifestation of that ability is closely related to their life experiences)

Basic Attributes: Strength: C-rank; Speed: C-rank; Mental: C-rank

Initial Rating: C-rank

Background: You live in China's capital and are a native high school student of Li Capital. But one night, you suddenly awaken an ability, gaining the power to generate and control "pitch-black Restraint Bands." From that day on, you gradually discover that the family members you have lived with for over a decade seem to be hiding secrets unknown to others...

This Game Character has the following three "growth paths" available: Path One: Hero; Path Two: Villain; Path Three: Gray Character.

Note: Once one growth path is selected, the result cannot be reversed. Please choose carefully.

His gaze swept over line after line in the file, and Ji Minghuan muttered softly, "A Superhuman, with the power to control Restraint Bands... why does that sound a little strange? And Li Capital too... isn't that my hometown?"

More precisely, Li Capital was the city where the Welfare Home in which he had grown up was located. Until he had been abducted to the laboratory, he had never left that Welfare Home even once. He had not even attended school normally like some of the smarter children there.

Using his index finger, he dragged the text panel downward and looked at the second character file.

Unit 2 Character Record

Name: Andre

Gender: Male

Age: 16

Race: White

Category: Anecdote Envoy (one of the three major supernatural races; capable of obtaining Anecdote Fragments from anecdotal secret realms around the world and using the diverse fragment powers within the Anecdote Codex in battle)

Basic Attributes: Strength: D-rank; Speed: D-rank; Mental: C-rank

Initial Rating: D++ rank

Background: You live in Denmark's capital. Since childhood, you have longed for strange tales and fascinating events from around the world, and possessed an undying passion for extraordinary adventures. Then, one morning, you suddenly receive an invitation from Whale Garden Box, opening the door to the world of Anecdote Envoys.

This Game Character has the following two "growth paths" available: Path One: Anecdote Sentinel; Path Two: Evil Anecdote Envoy.

"I don't get it... but it sounds pretty impressive. Since the character category description says there are three major supernatural races, does that mean there's a third kind of supernatural human in the real world besides Superhumans and Anecdote Envoys? What could it be?"

Ji Minghuan was somewhat curious about this, but he did not spend much time deciding between the two character files.

The Welfare Home where he had lived since childhood was located in China's capital—Li Capital—and "Gu Wenyu" in Unit 1's character file also happened to be a native of Li Capital. The moment he saw the city's name, his mind had already made its decision.

If this dream had truly been generated by his ability and had some connection to reality, then choosing Unit 1 would at least make it easier for him to visit the Welfare Home where he had once lived and investigate what organization had captured him and brought him to this laboratory.

The police might not know what had happened, but based on Ji Minghuan's understanding of the director, unless the director was dead, he would definitely know that two children had vanished from the Welfare Home for no reason. Perhaps he might even know where they had been taken.

You have selected Unit 1's character record—"Superhuman Gu Wenyu." Please choose one of the following three character growth paths: A, Hero; B, Villain; C, Gray Character.

After briefly scanning the three options, Ji Minghuan chose C.

The reason was simple: he neither wanted to be a hero nor a villain. He only wanted to know who the people researching him were and how he could get his Main Body out of this godforsaken laboratory.

And as a Gray Character who moved between both sides of the law, he would naturally have more opportunities to obtain relevant intelligence.

The third growth path for this character—"Gray Character"—has been selected, and a unique Character Development System has been generated.

Please wait. Your No. 1 Game Character, "Gu Wenyu," is being generated in the real world, and his existence is being made "reasonable"...

About to log into China's Li Jing... the final countdown will begin shortly.

3...

2...

1...

The moment the number in his vision became zero, Ji Minghuan's sight was swallowed by sudden light.