Trapped in the Same Day for a Thousand Years: I'm Free! World, Here I Come!

Welcome to Trapped in the Same Day for a Thousand Years, exclusively produced by Feilu Novel Network, written by Sang Ze and narrated by Wang Xiaomo and Lao He.

Wu Chen was stunned. Why was Mu Qianqian still in his room?

It was impossible. A thousand years, 365,000 days and nights. Wu Chen had grown attached to women before, but whenever he woke again, the space beside him was empty. He was used to waking up alone.

"Caught you, didn't I? You can't even say anything now!"

"You big liar!" Mu Qianqian gripped a baseball bat and tried to look fierce, but she wasn't frightening at all. Her face was simply too cute.

Without her makeup, she had a baby face: big eyes, a high nose, a little softness in her cheeks, and fair skin.

Bang!

Wu Chen suddenly rolled out of bed, landed on the floor, and sprinted for the bathroom.

"Don't run!"

Mu Qianqian thought Wu Chen was trying to hide in the bathroom. She moved to chase him, only to cry out and sink back onto the bed.

It hurt a little. Wu Chen ran into the bathroom.

His clothes were in there.

Yesterday, he had carried Mu Qianqian inside, then carried her back out.

Both their clothes had been left in the bathroom.

He hurriedly dug his phone out of his jacket.

There wasn't even an alarm clock in Wu Chen's home.

These days, few people bought clocks for their homes. Even when they did, they were usually decorative.

Most people checked the time on their phones.

"July 8! It's July 8! Hahahaha! It's July 8!"

When Wu Chen saw the date, he burst out laughing until tears ran down his face.

He pounded the wall with both hands, laughing and laughing, almost out of his mind.

His phone showed 7:03 a.m. on July 8.

Time was finally moving forward.

After a thousand years, Wu Chen felt as though he had escaped a prison and regained his freedom.

No one knew how he had endured that thousand years. Every day reset, effectively giving him an endless lifespan.

He feared neither injury nor death and could do anything he wanted. But every day repeated itself. Though he could do different things and meet different people, everything except the skills he learned vanished when the day started over.

He could build no lasting connections and fall in love with no woman. At most, he could spend a night with one.

None of his daily interactions ever carried over. He always had to start from scratch.

For a while, Wu Chen had thought himself lucky.

He raced cars, robbed banks, played the urban hero, killed people, vandalized public property, and provoked powerful figures. He did whatever he pleased, with no regard for the law.

There was no need to consider the consequences. There were none.

He thought it would be exhilarating, but he soon grew tired of it.

Nothing he did lasted. He felt no achievement, no satisfaction at all.

He began to question the meaning of his life. It seemed to have none.

He could do anything, with nothing off-limits. Yet in truth, he could do nothing and change nothing. The reset erased everything he had done.

People he killed appeared before him again the next day.

Skyscrapers he covered in graffiti stood spotless the next day.

Women he slept with did not recognize him the next day.

Robberies he stopped still happened the next day.

People he helped still needed help the next day.

With endless time, he could investigate anyone's secrets, whether in the city or anywhere else in the world, trying a different approach each time.

He could also devote himself to befriending anyone, and he was certain to succeed.

But what came of it?

Nothing.

He grew weary of it all and, for a time, sank into depression.

He felt like a lonely ghost wandering beyond the bounds of the world. He had no idea what meaning or value his existence held.

An ordinary person had barely a hundred years, yet in that time they experienced aging, illness and death, joy and sorrow, meetings and partings. They had moments of triumph and moments of hardship. That was life.

A mother's proud smile when she learned her son had succeeded. A honeymoon photograph with his new wife. The anxious wait outside a delivery room for his daughter's birth. Growing old and walking with his wife at dusk through fallen leaves, reminiscing about the past. All of that was life.

It was the life everyone could have, but Wu Chen never could.

If he had simply possessed an endless lifespan, he would not have become depressed. He could have kept living and changing the world. He would have found fulfillment, friends and someone to love. His life would have had value.

But Wu Chen did not have an endless lifespan. He lived forever only because time kept resetting.

He had tried to kill himself in hundreds of ways: poison, train tracks, jumping from buildings, slitting his wrists, fire, even boiling oil. Each time, he suffered, fell into endless darkness, and woke again at seven in the morning on July 7, 2020.

Everyone feared death. Wu Chen could not die even when he wanted to.

Wu Chen feared he would go mad, yet part of him wanted to, thinking madness might free him from the pain.

Fortunately, Wu Chen eventually found his answer. He understood that although he could leave no mark on the world, change nothing, and watch everything reset, his memories remained. That meant he could change himself.

It still seemed rather pointless, but over that thousand years, Wu Chen learned more than a hundred languages and mastered every mainstream musical instrument. He studied combat, driving, marksmanship, cooking, dance and acting. His Hacking was world-class; his copies of Picasso's paintings could pass for the originals; and his hairstyling skills rivaled a professional's. In that thousand-year world, he had made himself an all-round talent.

Deep down, he remained afraid. What if he someday learned everything he could and once again found himself with nothing to do, questioning the meaning of his life?

Learning might have no end, but every day still reset.

Wu Chen could not even conduct a complicated experiment, much less pursue knowledge any further. There were things he simply could not learn.

But thank goodness, he had made it through. Today, he had finally escaped the endless loop of time.

"Hahahaha! I'm out!"

"Hahahaha! World, here I come!"

Wu Chen laughed without restraint. The words sounded absurdly dramatic, but they were a cry from the depths of his heart.

The host has passed the thousand-year trial. The Time Loop System is now active.

Host bound. Notice: the Time Loop System is fully operational. The host may choose to lock and reset the current date. The first lock and reset on a given date costs 1 time-space point; the second costs 2; the third costs 4, and so on. The host currently has 365,000 time-space points.

An ethereal voice suddenly sounded in Wu Chen's mind. Before he could react, a screen of data appeared before his eyes.

System host: Wu Chen. Permanently bound. Base attributes: strength 7, speed 9, endurance 8, spirit 10,158.

Time Reset: available. Cost per current use: 1 time-space point. Balance: 365,000 points.

Host abilities: French level 9, English level 9, Piano level 9, combat level 9, marksmanship level 9; 1,354 abilities in total. Expand to view.

A system!

Wu Chen had a great secret he had never told anyone, not even during the thousand years of Reincarnation: he was a transmigrator.

This world was Earth, and so had been his original world.

Wu Chen knew he had crossed into a parallel universe and gained a special power: the constant resets.

The day he arrived was July 7, and every day since had been the same.

At first, Wu Chen had indeed considered the resets a special power. Later, he came to see them as punishment, as torture.

Now it seemed he had misunderstood again. His special power had not formally awakened until he completed the thousand-year trial.

"Was this your doing? Did you trap me in the same day for a thousand years?"

It was a trial. The host was chosen by the God of Time and Space and had to pass the trial to obtain the system.

"Are you kidding me?"

Wu Chen unleashed a string of curses. The system remained unmoved.

"Fine."

Wu Chen sighed, then smiled again.

He had to look ahead, toward the future.

Wu Chen had once been a man without a future. Now he had one. He had made it through, so rather than complain, he would make good use of this system.

He studied the data carefully. Most of his attributes were ordinary; only his spirit was off the charts.

Because time reset, his body could not grow stronger through training. Only his memory and soul could develop.

If nothing else, Wu Chen's memory was extraordinary. He remembered everything that had happened on every day of the past thousand years.

Can I reset time whenever I want? Wu Chen asked silently.

He had experienced 365,000 resets and had suffered terribly because of them, yet now the thought excited him.

Choosing to reset and being forced to reset were two entirely different things.

Being forced meant imprisonment in a single day. Having the choice meant he could redo any day he disliked and let time pass naturally whenever he was satisfied.

Notice: resets are not unlimited. The host must spend time-space points to reset time. The cutoff is 7:00 a.m. One reset cost one point, and Wu Chen had 365,000. How was that different from using it whenever he wanted?

Wu Chen would not reset time for no reason. He felt he could never use that many points in his lifetime.

Further notice: if the host repeatedly resets the same day, the cost doubles each time.

The ethereal voice sounded in Wu Chen's mind. I understand, he replied.

Doubling was frightening. Very frightening.

One, two, four, eight, sixteen—the early increases looked small. But the sixteenth reset of the same day, after fifteen doublings, would cost 32,768 points. After that came 65,536, 131,072 and 262,144.

Reset the same day too many times, and his points would disappear in a flash.

But as long as he did not reset a single day too often, he would be fine.

Besides, Wu Chen could not imagine why he would need to redo the same day so many times. Even if he had a problem to solve, surely one do-over would be enough. He would not need a dozen.

Wu Chen looked back at his host abilities, wondering how to expand the list. He focused his gaze and blinked. The data display opened into an enormous list of 1,354 abilities.

An ordinary person might have only a dozen or so abilities over a lifetime, such as driving, cooking and things learned at school. Most would not be at a particularly high level.

Even an exceptional person would be doing well to have dozens of abilities. Wu Chen had more than a thousand, most at remarkably high levels. Language skills alone accounted for 103 of them—103 languages, all at level 9.

Languages were difficult to learn and required years of persistence. Wu Chen, however, had needed ways to pass the time, so he had come to enjoy learning them.

After he had mastered more than a dozen, though, he discovered that learning another became much easier. The more languages he knew, the easier the next one was.

A thousand years. Three hundred and sixty-five thousand days and nights. Looking at the vast list, Wu Chen suddenly felt an immense sense of achievement. He had not wasted those 365,000 repeating days. These 1,354 abilities were proof.

Before today, even possessing so many abilities would not have made Wu Chen proud. They had meant so little.

Now things were different. Time was moving forward, and his skills finally had a place in the world.

What drove a person to live?

For most, it was recognition and wealth, a bigger house, more money, higher social standing. People spent their lives pursuing those things.

Some said that an ordinary life was a true and fortunate one.

Wu Chen considered himself an ordinary man, but he disagreed.

If people truly had the ability to rise higher, who would willingly settle for mediocrity?

To him, it sounded like an excuse made by those who lacked the ability.

Of course, the words were not wrong when spoken by certain people.

Those people were not incapable. They had simply lived through dramatic rises and falls.

They were not incapable; they had gained perspective.

Wait, I've just thought of something.

Wu Chen asked silently, You said the thousand-year loop was a trial. How could anyone fail it?

I couldn't die. Even suicide caused a reset. Wouldn't anyone pass eventually?

Notice: the reset affects universal time and the host's physical condition, but not the host's soul.

If the host descends into madness during the trial, his soul will weaken until it is extinguished.

"I see."

Wu Chen raised an eyebrow and gave a crooked smile.

He felt a little fortunate. Thank goodness he had been strong enough.

For a while, he really had come close to losing his mind completely. But he had endured, found an answer, and begun learning so he could change himself.

"Are... are you all right?"

A cautious voice came from the doorway. Wu Chen turned and saw Mu Qianqian wrapped in a blanket.

She was still holding the baseball bat, but she no longer looked fierce. Instead, she looked worried.

Mu Qianqian really was concerned about Wu Chen's state of mind. At the bar yesterday, she had first taken him for a lunatic. Later, she had decided he was a liar—an interesting one.

When she had woken before him this morning, her anger had been an act. She had never believed his story about time resetting, so she had not been angry about being deceived.

But after waking, Wu Chen had rushed into the bathroom, laughing wildly, shouting strange things and pounding on the wall. He had seemed completely unhinged.

Mu Qianqian had been standing outside the bathroom for some time, watching him.

She had seen the blood covering both his hands. She had also seen him stand there in a daze after his outburst, his expression shifting from anger to excitement to delight.

Mu Qianqian was frightened. She thought Wu Chen might truly have a serious mental illness—not just delusions, but violent tendencies.

After all, he had smashed his hands bloody against the wall and seemed not to notice.

"I'm fine. Better than fine."

Wu Chen smiled at Mu Qianqian outside the bathroom.

"Your hands?"

Mu Qianqian pointed, looking even more worried.

Wu Chen raised his hands and looked. Only then did he notice that both fists were covered in blood, the skin torn open. They hurt, but not all that much.

Wu Chen had attempted suicide hundreds of times. He had even jumped into boiling oil. He had endured worse pain than this and might have the highest pain tolerance in the world.

Wu Chen frowned slightly at his hands. Injuries like these would probably take ten days or two weeks to heal, and they would leave scars.

A fierce knocking suddenly came from the front door.

"Hm?"

Wu Chen stepped out of the bathroom, glanced toward the door, and called, "Who is it?"

"We wanted to ask if you saw someone drive a sports car around here yesterday."

"A white Lamborghini. We're looking for two people, a man and a woman. They should be staying somewhere nearby."

The person outside spoke in a rough voice.

Damn, they found us already?

His mother's face went pale with fear.

Wu Chen motioned for his mother to keep quiet, then called out, "No! Haven't seen him."

"Open the door. We need to take a look."

The door.

Someone outside answered.

Wu Chen didn't open the door. He hurried to the window and looked down into the alley.

He saw unfamiliar young men looking around, going in and out of different buildings.

His home was on the Fifth Floor. From there, he could see the white Lamborghini parked beyond the alley entrance.

More than a dozen people had gathered beside the Lamborghini, and two were crouched down, checking whether the car had been damaged.

They're Wang Zhuangyuan's men.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

"Is it you?"

"Open the door!"

The men outside suddenly shouted.

They started ramming the door.

This episode has ended. Please keep listening!