True Self

In a place like this, even a pin dropping would sound as loud as shattering glass, let alone footsteps.

In the dead-silent Imprisonment Room, Ji Minghuan woke from his sleep. He lay motionless on the bed, maintaining a faint snore.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the slender figure in the darkness.

The Instructor's footsteps drew closer and closer, the hem of his lab coat brushing against the floor with a rustling sound.

This was not the Instructor's first sudden visit. He had come many times before.

Like Kong Youling, the Instructor was a Mental Superhuman.

Perhaps because one's defenses in the Spirit World were weakest during sleep, he always wanted to enter Ji Minghuan's Spirit World silently while he slept and seek some kind of answer within.

This time was no exception.

With his hands clasped behind his back, the Instructor stopped beside the bed and stood quietly in the darkness. Behind his reflective lenses were a pair of narrow eyes studying Ji Minghuan's sleeping face.

He reached out, gently placed a hand against the back of Ji Minghuan's head, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the Instructor saw an old attic. The bookshelves around him were on the verge of collapse, yellowed books lay piled in every direction, and the floorboards creaked as though they could give way at any moment.

It was a night of bright moonlight, and outside the window, a full moon hung high in the sky.

He knew that everyone's Spirit World was divided into three layers, and their unconscious "True Self" was hidden within the third. As long as he found someone's True Self, the Instructor could ask them every secret they possessed.

And this empty attic was the outermost layer of Ji Minghuan's Spirit World.

The Instructor had been here several times and knew the attic's exit was locked. He shifted through the attic, stepping over old bookshelves and dusty piles of books, then leaped onto the skylight and climbed upward, bracing himself against the eaves with both hands.

But when he looked up, he saw neither the sky nor the heights of the Welfare Home, but a quiet dormitory building.

Every dormitory door was closed, with a mask hanging from each one. Some masks bore the word "Indifferent," others "Enthusiastic," and still others "Mischievous."

He walked through the empty hallway and peered through the opening of the door bearing the "Indifferent Mask." Inside, a child with lifeless eyes was playing a puzzle game alone in the dorm room, his hollow gaze as deep as an abyss.

The Instructor inspected the handles one by one, the clicking sounds spreading through the dead-silent corridor.

Every door was shut tight, and inside each lived a similar child. The difference was that each wore a different expression: lonely and aloof, unrestrained, mischievous, irritable...

Before long, the Instructor finally found an unlocked door in the hallway.

He turned the handle and pushed it open. The world before him changed once more.

This time, a warm little house appeared before the Instructor. The room was empty, save for a framed photograph of a young couple beside the television. Warm firewood burned in the fireplace, and everything was bathed in bright firelight.

A log snapped in the flames with a crack.

Following the route he remembered, the Instructor reached the second floor of the house and found a room nearly filled with toys and snacks. Torn sheets of paper littered the floor, every one of them scrawled with the word "Liar" in red crayon.

Outside the window, wind and rain raged as thunder suddenly boomed.

With his hands behind his back, he stepped over half-torn snack bags, nudged aside a toy train track built from blocks, and walked to the corner of the room. He stopped before a wardrobe, raised his hand, and lightly knocked on its surface.

There was silence inside for a moment, then a voice said, "Come in."

The Instructor smiled and gently opened the wardrobe.

Looking down, he saw a boy in white pajamas hiding inside, curled into a ball, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees and shoulders.

"Hey, little one... why are you hiding in here?" the Instructor asked, bending down close to the boy's face.

The boy spoke softly. "Mom and Dad said... I should hide in the wardrobe and not come out until they return."

He raised his head, and the Instructor saw a childish face, perhaps four or five years old. The boy had wrapped himself round and round in tissues from inside the wardrobe, like a white cocoon.

If nothing unexpected happened, this was Ji Minghuan's "True Self" within his Spirit World.

The True Self would never conceal anything. In experiment after experiment, the Instructor had obtained the information he wanted from the True Selves of countless prisoners.

Yet for some reason, whenever it came to Ji Minghuan, he always returned empty-handed.

"I want to show you a photograph," the Instructor suddenly said.

"Mm."

"Do you know the person in this photograph?" The Instructor pulled a photograph from his sleeve. It showed a figure wrapped in a Giant Cocoon formed from pitch-black Restraint Bands.

It hung upside down beneath a billboard, the police lights illuminating its cocoon shell.

The boy in the wardrobe shook his head. "I don't know him."

The Instructor fell silent for a while, then said softly, "I can take you out. Do you want to come out of the wardrobe?"

"I don't."

The Instructor tried to pull his hand, but countless white tissue "chains" yanked the boy back with force, binding him securely within the wardrobe.

"Alright, then..." The Instructor thought for a moment, then said, "Have you ever considered that Mom and Dad might never come back?"

"They'll come back!" The boy buried his head in his knees and shouted.

"What if they don't?"

"They... they promised me."

"They lied to you."

The boy silently raised his head and glared at him with resentful eyes, like a fierce young wolf.

Soon, he shut the wardrobe again.

"Are you interested in superpowers?" the Instructor asked after thinking it over.

"I don't know what superpowers are... I just want Mom and Dad to come back." The voice from inside the wardrobe carried a sob.

"Have you ever experienced anything strange? Like suddenly discovering that you have superpowers." The Instructor paused. "As long as you gain superpowers, you can bring Mom and Dad back. You won't have to wait for them anymore."

"Really?" the boy asked softly, gently pushing open the wardrobe door. "As long as I gain superpowers, I can bring them back?"

The Instructor froze for a moment. "Yes, then you..."

Tears welled in the boy's eyes as he stared at him and asked softly, "But I... I'm just an ordinary person. If you have superpowers, can you help me bring them back?"

His expression was like that of a puppy soaked by the rain. The Instructor was silent for a long time, then raised a hand and ruffled his hair. He stood and slowly walked toward the outside of the house.

Stopping outside the door, he glanced sideways at the boy hiding in the wardrobe. The wardrobe door quietly closed.

The rain outside grew heavier and heavier, as if it wanted to drown the whole world.

There was a limit to how long one could enter another person's Spirit World. If he stayed too long, his mind could be contaminated, assimilated, and eventually lose itself.

If I don't leave now, it'll be too late... Amid the sound of rain, the Instructor's figure gradually vanished.

This time, he had returned empty-handed again.

After the Instructor left, the boy in the wardrobe suddenly pushed open the door and walked out.

White tissue paper spread from beneath his feet like a tidal wave, like a swarm of venomous snakes with tangible life, swallowing the entire world clean in the blink of an eye.

Like scratching away the coating on a lottery ticket, a real world was revealed.

Ji Minghuan stood quietly, his body still retaining the appearance of a four-year-old.

This was a library, and also the deepest part of his Spirit World. Every book stored here was closely tied to his life.

After awakening his superpowers, he discovered that every time he loaded the memories of a Game Character, it was as though the library had received a new shipment from outside.

A batch of books and photo albums would suddenly appear on the empty bookshelves.

By opening a book, he could read every thought and idea that character had ever had; by reading a photo album, he could see every big and small thing that character had experienced thus far.

At that moment, when he looked up, he could see two figures hanging from the library ceiling.

The first wore a black Swallowtail Windbreaker and a red-and-black mask.

The second wore a white hooded sweatshirt and had a handsome face.

Ropes were looped around both their necks, their heads hanging downward as their bodies remained motionless in midair.

They had probably been dead for quite some time.

After looking at the "Black Cocoon" hanging from the ceiling, then at the "Chess Player" hanging beside him, Ji Minghuan felt far more at ease.

He was very curious what the Instructor would think if he entered his real Spirit World and witnessed this scene.

"I'm really worried those two might come back to life someday..."

Ji Minghuan murmured softly as he moved to sit at the last row of the library. A White-haired Girl sat beside him, accompanying him as he watched the sunset outside the window.

The reason he had been able to conceal his Spirit World and prevent the Instructor from finding his true "True Self" dated back to the day Kong Youling awakened her superpowers.

Thank you all for your support. Requesting Moon Tickets.