Huang Si persevered for a while longer and finally finished studying everything related to integrated circuits.★
By then, it was already December, and Huang Si could feel his spirits sinking lower by the day.
Before, he could at least find a little amusement for himself. He could switch between all sorts of activities, and none of them had grown tiresome yet.
But as time passed, those pleasures grew fewer and farther between.
Huang Si couldn't get interested in anything anymore. Nothing seemed worthwhile.
Worse still, he gradually began to overthink everything.
It was December. He had been here for almost half a year.
He didn't know whether his parents were looking for him. Perhaps the house, along with him, had suddenly vanished, making them realize that this was a supernatural event and worry and search for him less.
He had no idea what his old friends were up to, either. One of his closest friends was supposed to get married soon, and he had prepared a wedding gift to send over. By now, the wedding had probably already happened, hadn't it?
Huang Si missed every one of them.
And in this house, there was only despair. No matter how carefully Huang Si planned his life, no matter how many things he found to distract himself, and no matter how much stronger his soul had become, none of it could change one fact.
He had been trapped alone in a house for more than half a year, unable to leave. He had to endure the psychological strain of the eerie surroundings, and every day he could eat only the same nutritionally poor food. Vitamins were his only source of nutritional supplements.
Huang Si was just an ordinary person, someone who went straight home after work to read, watch movies, and play games. He wasn't a hero or a great man.
Just making it this far had been hard enough.
Every day, Huang Si could feel his body and mind deteriorating. Maybe it was happening slowly, but in this sealed space, it was surely irreversible.
And he still couldn't see any hope of going home.
Sometimes he didn't even know what he was holding on for. When he had first arrived, even staying alive naturally had been a problem. He had to create air for himself just to keep from dying.
And now? Was he supposed to keep creating the resources he needed to live, day after day, like a machine? Watch himself grow weaker by the day?
He didn't dare think about the future. Perhaps one day, when he could no longer hold on, he would die here without a sound.♝🐜 👌🎈
"Ugh..." Huang Si braced himself against the bathroom wall and vomited.
He couldn't eat again today. He had barely put a few pieces of artificial meat in his mouth when their slick texture suddenly made him nauseous, and he couldn't stop himself from throwing up.
Huang Si stared blankly at the food he had vomited up for a while, then silently dumped the rest of his meal into the bathroom and flushed it away.
Am I depressed? Huang Si wondered.
He glanced at the date on his phone.
"December 31. Ah, it's almost 2020."
Huang Si slowly shuffled over to the computer and began searching for information about depression.
After reading through everything he could find, Huang Si sat alone on the bed and thought for a long, long time.
Then, at last, he said something:
"I want to go home."
After saying that, Huang Si went into the living room.
He took the Creation Book down from the cabinet, where it had been shining brightly day and night, and stroked its soft cover.
"I'm counting on you from now on. If I really start to break down, please help me."
"When that time comes, please restore my body and memories to how they were when I first arrived here. Please."
Huang Si didn't know whether the Creation Book could hear him. He took a deep breath, as if he had made up his mind, then grabbed some paper and a pen and wrote a note.
"To my present self: if you can't hold on any longer or are close to death, connect to the Creation Book and use the 'Create Myself in Reality' function."
"If this is the first time you've seen this note, congratulations—you've been rolled back. Go to the study and read all the notes numbered 01 through 10 on the top shelf."
Huang Si copied these two notes many times and plastered them all over the house.
This was the last safeguard he had left for himself.♦👺 乂 💚♖
If he still couldn't find a way home before his mind gave out or his body died, the notes would remind him to read the records, overwrite the present, and return to being the person who had only recently arrived here.
He was willing to give up every memory from the beginning until now in exchange for being able to keep living in this hopeless world.
Even if it remained hopeless, even if he had to go through the cycle a hundred times, he still wanted to pursue that tiny glimmer of faith.
He wanted to go home.
From that day on, Huang Si stopped worrying about depression.
If he was depressed, he would accept it, then set it aside. If he was in a bad mood, he would figure out how to keep studying and working through it.
Every day, Huang Si still made meals, exercised, and went to bed early and got up early.
Even when he did anything at all, there wasn't the slightest smile on his face.
The days passed one after another, and notebooks 11 and 12 appeared on Huang Si's bookshelf.
Physical and mental discomfort tormented him over and over. To escape it, Huang Si threw himself completely into his work.
When he was studying integrated circuits, he tried to hypnotize himself into thinking of nothing but integrated circuits.
When he was debugging the AI, he spent all day working to improve it. He refused to think about anything else.
He had learned this method of fighting depression from the materials he had read: redirect his emotions by immersing himself in something, so that he could forget his pain and worries.
By February 2020, Huang Si's mind had become so fragile that it could break at any moment. Whatever he did, he couldn't keep at it for long, and his thoughts scattered badly.
Even so, he didn't stop his research.
Whenever he felt even a little better, Huang Si immediately sat back down at the computer and resumed studying mechanical automation.
He only took care of himself when he felt hungry, thirsty, or needed to use the bathroom.
Depression could be terrifying. Sometimes it made people suffer so much that they wanted to kill themselves.
Whenever that happened, Huang Si would sit quietly on the bed and wait for the feeling to pass. Then he would carry on and do what he had to do.
He was like a traveler trudging through a swamp.
Depression and physical discomfort clung to his feet like heavy mud, making it almost impossible for him to move forward.
Yet he kept trudging through the swamp, even as he sank close to the point of no return.
At any rate, Huang Si still had the notes covering the house. If he ever felt that his mental or physical condition had crossed the line into collapse, he would reset himself without hesitation.
Until he crossed that line, he could do whatever it took.
Amid this terrible life, Huang Si's consciousness and soul endured immense pressure.
Under that pressure, the strength of his soul gradually increased.
One day, Huang Si saw the golden-green light appear again. He had leveled up once more. On the Creation Book, his level beneath his name had become "Bloom," and he had received the "Bloom" fragment.
When his soul leveled up, the fragment the Creation Book granted him further enhanced his soul's essence, making him better able to withstand mental pressure.
Huang Si felt only a faint hint of happiness. He nodded and went back to work.
Later, he happened to notice a line of explanatory text in the Creation Book's fragment-distribution records:
"Record 4: Failed to locate the next fragment."
"Record 5: Check of all fragments complete. Missing fragments: 5. Fragments distributed: 2. Fragments remaining: 0."
That was it? Were there no more fragments to be had?
At the sight of this, Huang Si merely sighed softly, closed the Creation Book, and never gave it another thought.
This little thing couldn't shake him anymore.
The "Bloom" fragment only helped Huang Si hold on for a little over another month.
The mental strain continued to increase with time.
By April 2020, Huang Si's mind was on the verge of collapse. Just a little more, and he would fall into true psychosis.
Every day, he would look up at the notes now and then, making sure that before he lost his mind, he could grab the Creation Book and roll himself back.
But silently, he would tell himself, Just a little longer. Wait a bit more. I haven't finished my design.
If a real-world psychologist had seen Huang Si, they would surely have been astonished. What he was doing should have been impossible; he was a psychological miracle.
No one had ever been able to carry on such intense research and study while on the verge of a mental breakdown.
But Huang Si did it.
Whenever he felt he was about to go insane, he would glance at the notes, then lower his head and mutter, "Give me a little more time. Just a little. I'm almost done with this."
Huang Si's expression grew more and more twisted, and his body occasionally twitched. These were signs that he was close to completely breaking down.
In this state, he endured for two more days.
Just as that moment was about to arrive, for some reason, Huang Si's expression became calm.
He had completely forgotten the pain, forgotten his worries, and forgotten who he was. He had even forgotten that he wanted to go home.
There was only one thing on his mind: how could he design this circuit so that the processor wouldn't overheat and burn out?
The processor overheated and burned out in his hands again. Without hesitation, Huang Si took the ruined processor and tossed it out the nearby window.
Suddenly, the window opened by itself, just enough to let the ruined processor pass through.
The processor shot through the gap and fell into the darkness outside.
Huang Si hadn't noticed any of this. His attention was completely consumed by the damn processor he couldn't get working. He had only opened the window and tossed out the scrap by instinct, with a mere flick of his thoughts.
Huang Si didn't notice his mind suddenly grow lighter. He just kept thinking about the processor.
And as this went on, he didn't even realize that the strength of his soul was rising rapidly.
One processor after another burned out in his hands, and then he made another.
In the end, he even forgot to sleep and eat. Physical and mental exhaustion could no longer interfere with him.
Before you continue