The Seven Days I Disappeared

Jing City, North City District, 998 Special Hospital, a storage room on the second floor of East No. 3 Inpatient Ward.

Faint light filtered through an imperfectly sealed window in the wall, casting mottled streaks across cardboard boxes piled into various shapes.

Amid the silence, a cardboard box in the corner suddenly shifted slightly, then fell still again.

Several seconds later, accompanied by a rustling crash, the boxes in the corner rolled aside, and a figure covered in blood and grime, looking utterly terrifying, crawled out from within.

Shen Qian stared blankly at the cramped space before him. Before he could figure out what had happened, a tearing pain suddenly exploded in his mind, making him grunt in agony.

Shen Qian crouched down with his head in his hands. It took him quite a while to recover, his pupils gradually regaining focus. A dazed feeling welled up within him, along with an endless hunger.

Why am I here? Wasn't I at the hotel attempting to break through to Extraordinary Quasi-Martial Artist?

The foul stench on his body made Shen Qian's thoughts sluggish. He realized that the first thing he needed to do was take a shower.

Fortunately, although the clothes he was wearing were not his own, his bank card, ID card, and wristband were still with him. The wristband, however, had long since run out of power.

After thinking for a moment, Shen Qian rummaged through the storage room, found a torn bedsheet, wrapped it around himself, and left.

Only after entering a spacious corridor and facing countless strange looks did Shen Qian realize he was in some hospital. After spending ages trying to persuade a driver, he finally got into a taxi.

"Sir, what day is it today?" Shen Qian asked.

The middle-aged driver did not really want to pay Shen Qian any attention, but since Shen Qian had prepaid a hundred yuan for the fare, he answered gruffly, "Wednesday."

"Wednesday?" Shen Qian nodded at first, then froze in shock. "Impossible. It was already dark before I lost consciousness, and that was Wednesday too..."

Shen Qian fell silent because he had seen the date displayed on the taxi's screen.

April 17th!

How could it be April 17th...

The driver did not respond, unable to understand what nonsense Shen Qian was talking about. Meanwhile, Shen Qian was roaring madly inside.

Fuck... I was AFK for an entire week?

What the hell had happened?

Even when he got out of the car, Shen Qian still could not believe it, though he understood that this was most likely the truth.

He hurried into the Tongxinyuan Hotel where he had stayed before. After offering twice the deposit, he convinced the front desk to give him a room, then ordered a two-hundred-yuan delivery of seven dishes and a soup.

After entering Room 209, Shen Qian put his wristband on charge, then lay down in the bathtub. His mind had gradually calmed down.

If a week had truly passed, there was no use panicking now. His most urgent task was to figure out what had happened.

Once his body was more or less clean, Shen Qian summoned the system interface in his mind.

The light flickering over "AFK Record" was brighter than it had ever been. When he entered it with his consciousness, a row of bookshelves appeared in his mind.

The top two rows of the shelves were already filled with folders, all of them Shen Qian's previous AFK Records. On the third row, however, there were five new folders glowing faintly.

"Strange. Wasn't it seven days? Why are there only five folders?"

Shen Qian frowned as he checked them against the dates and discovered that the records for the past two days were missing. Then a thought struck him. Had he been unconscious in that little room at the hospital for two whole days?

Letting out a breath, Shen Qian quickly opened the first folder, labeled "22970410."

Note: This AFK session contains no Combat Experience or Training Memory. To conserve energy, only text records have been retained for the "Ice Soul Aperture Opening Method" portion for the host's review.

The Ice Soul Aperture Opening Method?

Was this the method Huo Ling'er had used?

From this detail, Shen Qian keenly realized that there might be more than one method of opening apertures in this world.

You consumed the Blood Coagulation Agent in your hand (19:37)

Before your blood froze, you began circulating the "Ice Soul Aperture Opening Method" (click to extract method memory) (19:39)

You successfully opened the first aperture: left eye aperture (19:59)

The capillaries at the corner of your left eye ruptured, and 3 ml of blood flowed out (20:00)

Seeing this, Shen Qian subconsciously touched his left eye. Sure enough, there were still faint scars there.

After considering it, he first clicked to extract the method memory. A memory containing its incantation rapidly filled his consciousness, and he naturally understood the principles behind it.

"So that's how it is. No wonder they say opening apertures is a near-death process..."

Shen Qian suddenly understood.

The human body was naturally blocked everywhere. This blockage was not literal, but rather a constraint imposed by the body's own physiological structure.

To give a simple example, without specialized training, most people could not freely control their ears or toes. That was one manifestation of blockage.

Opening apertures meant making the body "unobstructed," awakening those dormant potentials and raising the upper limit of physical improvement.

But the process was far from easy. Forcibly opening apertures was agonizingly painful, and the slightest mistake would only bring backlash. For example, one's left eye might go blind directly, or blood vessels might rupture when one's blood and qi surged upward, eventually leading to death from blood loss.

The principle of the "Ice Soul Aperture Opening Method" was to make one's blood and qi more docile and easier to control, but that alone was not enough. It also required the counterbalance of the "Blood Coagulation Agent."

Otherwise, when the blood vessel at the corner of Shen Qian's left eye ruptured, it would never have bled so little.

And under the system's control, Shen Qian was practically emotionless and unaffected by pain, which was why the aperture opening process had gone so smoothly.

You successfully opened the second aperture: right eye aperture (20:13)

The capillaries at the corner of your right eye ruptured, and 1 ml of blood flowed out (20:13)

You continued circulating the second part of the "Ice Soul Aperture Opening Method" (20:14)

You successfully opened the third aperture: left nostril aperture (20:38)

You successfully opened the fourth aperture: right nostril aperture (20:39)

You sprayed out 10 ml of bloody snot (20:40)

...Did it need to be this detailed?

Shen Qian felt slightly uncomfortable.

Still, he could not help marveling at how absurdly powerful the system was. It had opened both nostril apertures at once, successfully opening four apertures in barely an hour. Huo Ling'er, who had likewise opened four apertures, had taken four to five times as long as Shen Qian.

You continued circulating the third part of the "Ice Soul Aperture Opening Method" (20:42)

You successfully opened the fifth aperture: left ear aperture (21:33)

Blood flowed from your left ear...

Shen Qian skipped that line outright.

You successfully opened the sixth aperture: right ear aperture (22:22)

...

The fifth and sixth apertures had clearly taken much longer, but that was perfectly reasonable... Huh? No, wait!

Shen Qian was suddenly startled. The "Ice Soul Aperture Opening Method" in his memories had only three parts. Shen Qian guessed that either the Huo family's aperture-opening method only went up to the sixth aperture, or the system could only mooch the method for the first six apertures.

Yet although Shen Qian had not carefully examined his body yet, he could vaguely sense that he was completely different. As for exactly how he was different, his perception was still unclear due to the overwhelming hunger.

But he had a feeling that some divine technique had reached great completion.

He had probably opened far more than six apertures...

Then where had the method after the sixth aperture come from?

Shen Qian closed the first AFK Record, which had reached a temporary conclusion, then opened the second folder in his mind with his consciousness.