Man Advances in Despair

Huang Si persisted for a while longer and finally finished learning everything related to integrated circuits.

It was already December, and Huang Si could feel his spirits declining day by day.

Previously, he could at least find some amusement for himself, rotating through various tasks so he wouldn't get bored.

However, as time passed, such pleasures became increasingly rare.

Huang Si now felt no enthusiasm for anything; nothing felt meaningful.

What was even more terrifying was that he had started to overthink.

It was December; he had been here for almost half a year.

He didn't know if his parents were looking for him. Perhaps the sudden disappearance of the house along with him would let them know this was a supernatural event, sparing them from excessive worry and searching.

He didn't know what his old friends were doing either. Come to think of it, one of his best friends was getting married soon, and he had even prepared a gift to send over. By now, the wedding had probably already taken place, right?

Huang Si missed them all dearly.

Yet, in this house, there was only despair. Even if Huang Si planned his life as best he could, even if he constantly found things to occupy his mind, and even if his soul had grown stronger, none of this could change one fact.

That was the fact that he had been trapped alone in a house for over half a year, unable to leave, while enduring the mental pressure of a bizarre environment and eating the exact same flavorless, nutrient-poor food every day, relying on vitamin pills for supplementation.

Huang Si was just an ordinary person—the kind who would go straight home after work to read books, watch videos, and play games. He was no hero, nor was he a great man.

Being able to hold on until now was already no small feat.

Every day, Huang Si truly felt his physical and mental state deteriorating. The progress might be slow, but in this enclosed space, it was surely irreversible.

And there was still no hope in sight for returning home.

Sometimes he didn't even know what he was holding on for. When he had first transmigrated, even living naturally had been a problem; he had to create air for himself just to keep from dying.

And now? Should he continue to mechanically create resources for his daily life just to survive? To watch himself wither away day by day?

He dared not think about the future. Perhaps one day, when he could no longer hold on, he would die here silently.

"Ugh..." Huang Si leaned against the bathroom wall and began to retch.

He couldn't keep his food down today. As soon as a few pieces of artificial meat touched his tongue, the greasy texture suddenly made him feel nauseated, and he couldn't help but vomit.

Huang Si stared at the food he had thrown up, dazed for a moment, then silently dumped the rest of the meal into the sink and flushed it away.

Am I depressed? Huang Si wondered.

He glanced at the date on his phone.

"December 31st. Ah, it's almost 2020."

Huang Si moved his feet slowly to the computer and began searching for information related to depression.

After reading through all the materials he could find, Huang Si sat on the bed alone and thought for a very, very long time.

Then, he finally spoke a single sentence:

"I want to go home."

After saying this, Huang Si went into the living room.

He took the Creation Book, which radiated a bright glow day and night, off the shelf and stroked its soft cover.

"I'll leave it to you from now on. If I'm truly on the verge of a breakdown, please help me."

"When that time comes, please restore my body and memories to the state they were in when I first arrived here. I'm begging you."

Huang Si didn't care whether the Creation Book could hear these words or not. He took a deep breath, as if having made a firm decision, and took out paper and a pen to write a note.

"To the me of this moment: If you can no longer hold on, or if you are near death, please connect to the Creation Book and execute the function: 'Create self in reality'."

"If this is your first time seeing this note, then congratulations, you have been rolled back. Please go to the study and read all the notes from number 01 to number 10 on the top shelf."

Huang Si made many copies of these two notes and plastered them all over the house.

This was the final safeguard he left for himself.

If he still couldn't find a way back by the time he became mentally deranged or his body died, he would remind himself to load the record, overwrite the present, and revert to the version of himself that had just arrived.

He was willing to sacrifice all the memories from the beginning until now in exchange for the chance to keep living in this hopeless world.

Even if it remained hopeless, even if he had to cycle through it a hundred times, he still wanted to pursue that tiny, flickering shred of belief.

He wanted to go home.

From that day on, Huang Si stopped worrying about his depression.

If there was depression, then accept it and let it go. If his mood was bad, then he would study how to continue learning and completing his work while in a bad mood.

Every day, Huang Si still insisted on cooking, exercising, and keeping a regular sleep schedule.

Even if there wasn't the slightest smile on his face while doing anything.

Time passed day by day, and notebooks 11 and 12 were added to Huang Si's bookshelf.

The physical and mental discomfort tortured him repeatedly, so to escape this, Huang Si simply threw himself entirely into his work.

If he was researching integrated circuits, he would try his best to hypnotize himself into not thinking about anything other than integrated circuits.

If he was debugging an AI, he would bury himself in making it more perfect all day long, and he would simply refuse to consider anything else.

This was a method he had learned from his research to combat depression: shift his emotions, immerse himself in a task, and thereby forget his pain and worries.

By February 2020, Huang Si's mental state had become fragile to the point of collapse. He could not sustain focus on anything, and his mind was severely scattered.

Yet, even so, he did not stop his research.

Whenever his mental state improved even slightly, Huang Si would immediately sit back down at his computer and continue his work on mechanical automation.

He would only attend to his needs when he felt hunger, thirst, or the urge to use the restroom.

Depressive episodes are terrifying; sometimes, they can cause pain so intense that one contemplates suicide.

Whenever he encountered such a moment, Huang Si would simply sit silently on his bed, waiting for the state to pass, before continuing with whatever he had been doing.

He was like a traveler walking through a swamp.

The depression and physical discomfort clung to his feet like heavy, thick mud, making it nearly impossible for him to move forward.

However, he continued to trudge through the swamp, walking onward even as he felt himself beginning to sink.

Regardless, Huang Si still had the notes plastered all over his room; the moment he felt his mental or physical condition cross the threshold of collapse, he would reset himself without hesitation.

But until that threshold was crossed, anything went.

Amidst this harrowing life, Huang Si's consciousness and soul endured immense pressure.

And under that pressure, his soul strength gradually increased.

One day, Huang Si saw the golden-green light appear once more; he had leveled up. In the Creation Book, beneath his name, his level had changed to "Bloom," and he had received the "Bloom" fragment.

When his soul leveled up, the fragment granted by the Creation Book enhanced his soul's essence once again, which in turn strengthened his ability to withstand mental pressure.

To this, Huang Si only felt a faint joy, nodded, and went back to work.

Later on, he inadvertently discovered a line of explanatory text in the Creation Book's fragment distribution log:

"Record 4: Retrieval of the next fragment failed."

"Record 5: Check of all fragment statuses complete. Currently missing fragments: 5. Fragments distributed: 2. Remaining fragments: 0."

Distributed? The fragments that should have been there were gone?

Seeing this, Huang Si only sighed slightly, closed the Creation Book, and paid the matter no further mind.

By now, such trivialities could no longer shake him.

The "Bloom" fragment's enhancement to Huang Si only allowed him to persist for another month or so.

The mental pressure grew steadily with time.

By April 2020, Huang Si's mind had reached the critical point of collapse; one more push, and he would descend into true insanity.

Every day, he would look up at his notes from time to time to ensure that before he lost his mind, he could immediately grab the Creation Book and roll back his state.

However, Huang Si would silently say to himself, "Wait a little longer. Just a little longer; my design isn't finished yet."

If a real-world psychologist were to see Huang Si, they would surely exclaim that this was impossible—that the man was a psychological miracle.

Because no one had ever been able to continue research and study at such high intensity while on the verge of a mental breakdown.

But Huang Si did it.

Every time he felt he was going crazy, he would glance at his notes, then lower his head and mutter, "Give me a little more time, just a little; this is almost done."

Huang Si's expression became increasingly twisted, and his body twitched from time to time—the telltale signs that he was on the brink of a total breakdown.

Under these circumstances, he endured for another two days.

Just as that moment was about to arrive, for some reason, Huang Si's expression turned calm.

He had completely forgotten his pain, his worries, and even who he was; he had even forgotten about going home.

There was only one thing in his mind: how to design this circuit so that the processor wouldn't overheat and burn out!

The processor in his hand overheated and burned out again. Huang Si took the ruined processor and threw it toward the nearby window without hesitation.

Suddenly, the window opened without a breeze, creating a gap just wide enough for the processor scrap to fly out.

The processor zipped through the gap and fell into the darkness outside.

Huang Si did not notice any of this; his attention was entirely occupied by this damn, unsolvable processor. He had just subconsciously moved his mind to open the window and toss the waste.

Huang Si did not notice that his mind had suddenly become lighter; he simply continued to think about the processor.

And in the process, he did not even notice that his soul strength was rising rapidly.

One processor after another was ruined in his hands, only for a new one to be produced.

In the end, he even forgot to sleep and eat; physical and mental exhaustion could no longer interfere with him.