Electronic Ghost

Mo Fei felt a surge of excitement as he listened. This feeling sounded quite similar to his own.

No, to put it more accurately, it was a bit more serious than his. At least he had never been influenced by the black dragon when he was fully awake; only in his dreams and in the game would he fail to tell reality apart.

Mo Fei: "And then?"

Shadow Fang: "I was afraid that eating raw meat would make me sick, so I went to the hospital. After a check-up, I was amazed to find that I had digested all that raw meat completely without a single abnormality. The doctor even said my physical condition was shockingly good, completely free of the usual occupational illnesses of office workers, and even asked me if I often went running or did some kind of exercise.

But in reality, I am a total shut-in. Aside from going to work, I just go home and lie in bed playing games."

Mo Fei: "How did you feel at the time?"

Shadow Fang: "Scared, yet excited. I felt like I was undergoing some kind of evolution. Perhaps if I kept going, I might even gain superpowers, or so I thought. But at the same time, I also worried whether my mind would be influenced by the game, and whether I would eventually turn into a beast or something.

Because I could indeed feel that my mind seemed to be undergoing some changes as well. I started becoming more aggressive. Sometimes, when taking the elevator at work, I would look at the neck of the person standing in front of me and imagine what it would feel like to suddenly pounce on them and take a bite.

I went to see a psychologist, but it didn't help much. I tried my best to maintain human lifestyle habits, but I was still uncontrollably influenced by the game. To be honest, I was a little scared, and for a while, I didn't even dare to log into the game."

Mo Fei: "What about you now? Are you still like this?"

Shadow Fang: "No, I've recovered by now."

Mo Fei: "Ah, how did you pull that off?"

Shadow Fang: "Because my character died. You know that guy Nesingwary Hemet, right?"

Mo Fei: "That legendary dwarf hunter?"

Shadow Fang: "That's right, that bastard. This fellow heard that a powerful panther had appeared in a certain area, so he ran over to my territory and triggered a story event called [Hunt for 'Shadow Fang'].

Originally, I could have survived by hiding, but who knew that a bunch of adventurers would run over to accept the hunting quest and help that dwarf search for me? They searched for three consecutive days. I was so scared that I logged straight off. I thought that if I hid for another three to five days, I'd be safe, but as soon as I logged back on, I got cornered dead to rights. Damn it, this guy didn't even use Beast Taming; he just blew my head off with a single shot. A level 50 rare elite, about to advance into a boss, and it was all gone in an instant."

Mo Fei: "And then you got better?"

Shadow Fang: "Pretty much. That night, I dreamed of 'Shadow Fang' for the last time. I dreamed it was standing on the edge of a jungle, looking at the pitch-black forest in the distance. I knew right then that this might be the last time I would see it. I thought it would say goodbye to me, rub against my arms, or gaze intently at me, but no. It just stood there, didn't even show me its face, and looked at the distant forest.

When I couldn't help shouting for it, it suddenly ran into the jungle without looking back and disappeared. That ungrateful bastard...

I never dreamed of it again after that.

For a long time afterward, there was an empty, very uncomfortable feeling in my heart. But later on, I slowly came to terms with it. If I hadn't died back then, I don't know what I would have turned into by now."

Mo Fei keenly caught a hidden meaning in the other person's words.

"So you feel that 'Shadow Fang' is an independent individual, rather than an avatar of yourself?"

Shadow Fang: "Yes. Although it sounds strange, and I hadn't thought of it this way before, it wasn't until that moment that I suddenly realized it and I were not one entity. Perhaps we were at the very beginning, but as time went on, the real me and Shadow Fang grew more and more different, gradually becoming two people—or you could say one person and one beast.

Although we usually overlapped, that night, I saw its true form."

Mo Fei: "Then what do you think it actually is? Is it your subconscious?"

Shadow Fang: "No, definitely not. At first, I thought maybe I was just too deep into character. You know that actor who played the Joker, what was his name?"

Mo Fei: "Phoenix?"

Shadow Fang: "No, I'm talking about the Joker in The Dark Knight."

Mo Fei: "Heath Ledger?"

Shadow Fang: "Yeah, yeah, that's him. It's said that he committed suicide in the end because he got too deep into the role and couldn't walk out of it. At first, I wondered if I had also gotten too deep into roleplay and genuinely started thinking of myself as a black panther.

But later I found out it wasn't like that at all. I knew very well that I was a human, not a black panther, and I could clearly tell the two apart. When I acted like a black panther, it was more like I was possessed by some kind of program or spiritual entity. This entity was controlling me to do those things, and I had actually become a bystander. It was just that because I could synchronously feel the panther's emotions and reality's feedback, I couldn't clearly distinguish the difference between the two."

The more Mo Fei listened, the more alarmed he became. This description was almost identical to his own situation back then.

Mo Fei: "Are you still playing this game?"

Shadow Fang: "Still playing. No choice, this game is too fun and impossible to put down. But I remade a character, a rogue leader. I found that as long as you don't deliberately roleplay, you won't be affected. I'm already past level thirty now, and I haven't dreamed of this new character even once.

So I guess this phenomenon might be related to roleplay. We deliberately roleplay a virtual character in the game, and after playing it for a long time, this virtual character becomes real."

Mo Fei nodded inwardly. This theory could barely explain the conditions for the birth of such 'virtual life'. He had indeed been continuously playing Black Dragon Lord Mephisto, and its behavioral habits, speech, and manners were completely different from his real self; it seemed they were all bestowed by him during his live streams.

However, this still didn't explain what that black dragon actually was.

Mo Fei: "What do you think these things actually are?"

Shadow Fang: "Who knows? I have actually made many speculations and guesses. It might be a certain kind of intelligence AI simulated by computer programs based on our previous behavioral patterns, loaded into our brains like software to affect our thinking and change our behavioral habits.

It could also be some kind of supernatural electronic ghost...

Or perhaps a second personality awakened within oneself...

But none of these guesses can explain why the physical body changes along with it.

To talk some nonsense, it might also be a kind of system. If Shadow Fang hadn't died, maybe I would have already awakened superpowers or something by now...

This game is too bizarre, and it will probably be impossible to verify in the future. I don't plan to delve into it any further; I've actually let go of this matter.

The reason I told you so much is mainly because keeping this matter hidden in my heart made me feel very uncomfortable. Being able to talk about these things with someone who has had the same experience can, to some extent, be considered a reconciliation with my past self.

As for you, your situation is much more serious than mine. You'd better be careful."

Mo Fei: "I'm not as serious as you. At least up until now, I haven't been affected in real life yet."

Shadow Fang: "That's what you say, but what troubled me back then was only a beast, a rare elite. What troubles you now is a black dragon, a world boss! Although there are no creatures like dragons in reality, according to the game officials' monster introductions, aren't creatures like dragons supposed to be very cunning, extremely cruel, and skilled at camouflage?

There might even be some kind of supernatural power.

You said it has been communicating with you in your dreams and probing you for information; maybe it has long been able to control you and is just hiding itself.

So I think you'd better be careful. My experience can serve as a reference for you, but you'd better not take it entirely lightly.

Whether it's a blessing or a curse, I feel that everything happening to you will be much more serious than mine."