An Accident

However, Huang Si had always been a bit of a troublemaker.

Since it was impossible anyway, he didn't mind trying to see what it felt like to create something that exceeded his own limits.

Would a window pop up with a little "ding," warning him, "Illegal operation: insufficient memory!"?

Just thinking about it made Huang Si laugh.

With that thought in mind, he tried using his consciousness to read the pattern in the Creation Book that represented "himself."

The pattern was enormous and long, but Huang Si found it surprisingly easy to read. Was it because it was himself, so he could understand it instantly?

Following the same routine as before, Huang Si projected the pattern into reality with his power and condensed it.

At the same moment, Huang Si's whole body gave a slight jolt.

Then he suddenly sat up on the sofa, still holding the book.

"That scared the life out of me!" Huang Si cried. What had he just experienced? An out-of-body experience?

No, he had left his body and entered the book!

The terrifying event that had just taken place left Huang Si stunned for a while. After a moment, he suddenly realized that something about the book had changed.

Huang Si hurriedly opened the book in his arms. Sure enough, it had changed. The symbol he'd drawn earlier was still on the second page, but from the third page onward, there were extremely complex patterns and symbols, continuing page after page.

He counted—three, four, five... It wasn't until page 104 that the pattern finally ended.

"This pattern is pretty easy to understand. It should be the structure that makes me up, right? How did I get recorded in the book?"

Huang Si understood the change in the book as naturally as if the book were a part of him.

Thinking it over, could it be that his consciousness had moved into the book just now, causing him to be "imprinted" onto its pages?

Huang Si thought his theory made a lot of sense.

But that raised a question: if the book could record him, could it also create him?

He turned the question over in his mind a few times and studied the pattern in the book for a while. Then Huang Si decided to risk it and give it a try.

After all, he'd never been one to behave himself. It was going to fail anyway, so why not try it for fun?

So Huang Si used his consciousness to understand the pattern in the book. The process was remarkably smooth. Next, his power gathered invisibly in the air, attempting to recreate the pattern of himself from the book in reality.

A moment later, Huang Si's whole body gave a slight jolt.

Then he jolted in alarm.

"That was terrifying!"

Huang Si leaped off the sofa with the book in his arms, his heart still pounding. What had he just seen? He'd been looking at his own arm from the book's perspective!

Had he turned into the book just now?

His consciousness leaving his body?

His soul being transferred?

Huang Si tried to calm himself down.

Suddenly, he sensed that something about the Creation Book had changed. He eagerly opened it...

Huang Si found that reading the record of himself was remarkably easy...

So Huang Si decided to try creating himself in reality. It would probably fail anyway, so no big deal.

A moment later, Huang Si leaped off the sofa again...

After who knew how long, Huang Si checked the pattern in the book and happened to glance up at the clock.

Huh? How was it already nine?

Hadn't he just finished lunch and then leaned back on the sofa to rest?

It didn't feel like much time had passed. How had it gotten to nine already?

There was no light outside, and his phone was out of battery. Huang Si relied on the clock and his laptop to keep track of time.

He'd experienced this kind of thing before. When he played games, he could easily lose track of time, sometimes playing from six in the evening until three or four in the morning without noticing the hours passing.

Then the next day, he'd go to work with dark circles under his eyes and catch up on sleep at his desk.

But he hadn't been playing games now. Other than when he was absorbed in studying his creation ability, every day dragged by so slowly. How could he have leaned back on the sofa with a book for a while and gone from one in the afternoon to nine at night?

Even if he'd accidentally fallen asleep on the sofa, sleeping from one to nine was ridiculous.

Could it be...? Huang Si shuddered at the thought. When his consciousness entered the book, did time pass at a different rate than when he was human?

In other words, had he spent eight hours inside the book before returning to his body?

The theory seemed to make sense. It explained the missing time.

"Wait. I'm not even hungry." Huang Si had noticed another suspicious detail.

If those eight hours had passed normally, there was no way he wouldn't feel hungry after the time from one to nine. Under normal circumstances, he should have been starving by now.

So when his consciousness wasn't in his body, did time still pass normally for his body?

To test this idea, Huang Si decided to risk another experiment.

In other words, he would go back into the book.

It was risky. He might not be able to return, or he might even die. But Huang Si simply couldn't let go of the mystery of the eight missing hours without figuring it out.

Holding the book, he felt that their connection had grown even closer after the imprinting.

With a slight thought, Huang Si again felt his perspective shift. He was inside the book once more.

Now the book was his body. He felt nothing unusual, only that there were several records inside him.

The largest record was the imprinting pattern he had left behind earlier, which covered a total of 102 pages.

Huang Si sensed that he could enter another new record in the book, but at the same time, he couldn't delete or alter any of the old records already inside it—whether it was the name on the title page, the molecular composition and object structure on the second page, or the 102 pages that belonged to him.

However, there was no need to add another record.

Huang Si left the book. He returned to his body, then immediately glanced at the clock.

9:24.

That seemed normal. Time had passed at roughly the same pace as he had experienced it.

It seemed that moving his consciousness couldn't affect the passage of time. So why had he lost eight hours?

Huang Si immediately went to the study and fetched paper and a pen.

He decided to watch the clock and record the time every five minutes from then on.

If the records stopped, he would know which stretch of time he had lost.

So Huang Si began recording the time while thinking things over.

When his records reached 9:40, Huang Si thought of another question.

"If I can record information about myself in the book, doesn't that mean I should be able to create another me in reality?"

Then Huang Si quickly shook his head and rejected the idea. "No. The battery alone would take a lot of power. With my current power limit, even if I used it all, I wouldn't be able to create another me."

And creating another version of himself didn't sound like a pleasant experience, either.

Huang Si had only been mulling it over.

But keeping a constant record of the time was boring. By 9:45, Huang Si couldn't take it anymore.

"Let's give it a try. I'll see if I can make another me in reality. It's bound to fail because I don't have enough power to create one anyway."

As soon as the thought came to him, he acted on it. Huang Si used his consciousness to read the record of himself in the book, then used his power to condense it in reality—

He froze for a moment, and his pen stopped.

Then Huang Si jumped up from the desk.

"That was terrifying! What just happened?"

Then Huang Si looked around, confused. "Why am I by the desk? Wasn't I holding the book and leaning back on the sofa?"

He glanced down at the desktop and saw an A4 sheet of paper and a pen. A series of times had been written down the page.

Starting at 9:25, there was a time recorded every five minutes. The last one was 9:45.

Huang Si was baffled. Why had he written down the time? Wasn't he resting after lunch? His stomach still felt full.

He looked up at the clock, then froze in utter disbelief.

The clock read 9:47!

How had eight hours passed without him noticing?

Had time disappeared? No—then how could he explain that he'd moved from the sofa to the desk?

And the handwriting on the paper was unmistakably his. Yet he had no memory of writing any of those notes.

Huang Si quickly realized what was wrong. Had he lost his memory?

Once he calmed down, Huang Si thought about his usual way of doing things. Most likely, he'd realized he was losing his memory, so he'd started recording the time to find out exactly when it happened.

Huang Si thought back over the past few days. He remembered everything clearly. But something had gone wrong after he finished lunch today and lay on the sofa with the Creation Book in his arms. He couldn't remember anything from then until now.

Judging by the times he'd written down, it seemed he'd lost his memory once before nine, too. That was probably why he'd started recording the time. Unfortunately, he'd now forgotten that part as well.

Huang Si considered what might be causing the memory loss.

The most likely cause was the book. He had an inexplicable sense that a new record had appeared inside it.

He opened the book and glanced at it, then was stunned by the vast record that stretched all the way to page 104.

"Did my memories disappear because they were imprinted into the book?"

Huang Si considered the possibility, but something still didn't add up.

If the book swallowed memories, why had it only swallowed a little over eight hours of them? And what was the rule behind the memory loss?

Wait. Why not consider what he himself would do with the imprinting in the book?

"I might try reading it. Would reading the imprint affect my memory?"

To be safe, Huang Si took out paper and a pen and began writing on the A4 sheet:

"It is now 9:51. I've realized that I seem to have lost my memory and forgotten more than eight hours. I also lost my memory once before 9:25. This sheet contains records from two different periods. I've decided to retrace what I might do. Before each thing I try, I'll make a note."

"First, I had lunch at twelve. Around one, I came to the sofa to lie down with the Creation Book in my arms. Then I suddenly wondered if I could examine the book's structure, so my consciousness entered the book. I was no longer in my body. When I left the book, I found that it was already 9:47. I had lost more than eight hours of memory. Then I sensed that the book had changed. When I opened it, I found that it had gained a record spanning 102 pages. The record was about me. Next, I'll try using my consciousness to read and understand the imprinting of myself in the book."

Huang Si tried to enter the Creation Book with his consciousness and understand his own structure, then left the book.

The process went smoothly. He checked the time, then wrote down what had happened:

"9:53. I'm out, and the time hasn't changed. I haven't lost my memory, either. This shows that reading and understanding the imprinting of myself is safe and won't cause memory loss. So next, I might try to create another version of myself in reality."

Huang Si knew himself well. He quickly guessed what he might do and recorded it.

Then he guided his power and tried to condense a second version of himself in reality.

Huang Si's form gave a slight jolt.

Everything was like a tightly wound spring snapping back to the starting point.