Caged Within

Cold.

Mo Ling struggled awake, his whole body aching. He instinctively tried to stretch, only for his head to slam into a hard wall.

Thud!

What was going on? Mo Ling rubbed his head. Why was there a wall on his bed?

Wincing in pain, Mo Ling opened his eyes.

Faintly glowing metal walls illuminated the cramped space. He was leaning against the wall behind him, sitting with his knees drawn up in his pajamas. He could not even straighten his legs.

Where was this?

Mo Ling fell into confusion. He could not understand why he was trapped here.

Had he been kidnapped?

He stretched out a hand and searched for an exit within the narrow space.

The metal walls were incomparably smooth, their seams fitted together perfectly.

He turned around, but the sight behind him was exactly the same. All four directions were identical.

Carefully raising his head, Mo Ling tapped on the metal panel above him. It made no sound at all.

Even the ground was smooth, indestructible metal, forged from some unknown material.

It was oppressive and cramped, suffocatingly so.

Mo Ling estimated the size of this cubic space. It was roughly one cubic meter.

In other words, he had been locked inside a 1m*1m*1m metal cage.

But why was he trapped here?

Mo Ling kept thinking back to what had happened before he went to sleep, but everything had been completely normal.

Until he woke up in this space.

After moving around a little, Mo Ling shifted into a corner and sat down. At least he could straighten his body there, easing the soreness in his joints.

Gurgle~

But after solving the problem of movement, Mo Ling's stomach began to growl, and hunger washed over him.

"Is anyone there?!" Mo Ling shouted, but his voice sank into the metal walls like a stone into the sea.

Mo Ling began to panic again, desperately pounding on the walls, only to hurt his hands.

Was he going to be trapped here until he died?

In a fluster, Mo Ling searched through his pajamas for some kind of tool.

But who would put tools in their pajamas? Naturally, he found nothing.

Mo Ling found only a piece of candy he had casually stuffed into his pocket last night.

Like an ant on a hot pan, his mind raced wildly.

But no matter how hard he thought, the strength of a frail youth was simply not enough to break through metal made of an unknown material.

Could he hope for someone outside to save him?

He had no way to send out a message. The sturdy walls sealed off everything within from everything outside.

Only despair remained in the cramped space.

Mo Ling raised his hand, wanting to punch the wall, but lost his strength again. His arm drooped limply.

Venting would only make him suffer more. It served no other purpose.

The light in his eyes gradually dimmed as Mo Ling slumped to the ground.

He would wait to die.

He began recalling whom he might have offended, or whether his family had any enemies, but he still could not make sense of it.

Mo Ling had always been mild-mannered, and his family had been honest and law-abiding.

Yesterday, he had helped a neighbor carry some things, and grandmother next door had even given him a piece of candy.

Mo Ling took the candy from his pocket and examined it before his eyes.

Little Black Rabbit Milk Candy.

"At least I can still taste something sweet before I die." He gave a bitter smile.

Good people should be rewarded, shouldn't they?

Trembling, Mo Ling gripped both ends of the candy, peeled away the wrapper, and put the precious sweet into his mouth.

A faint milky fragrance.

Sweetness spread through Mo Ling's entire body. He had never felt so happy before, and the churning in his stomach eased slightly.

He saw his entire body. He saw the space he was in. He saw the hard metal walls.

Then, his sight passed through them.

A lush jungle stretched outside, raindrops still dripping from emerald leaves. There was a clearing in the forest.

A metal cube one cubic meter in size stood in the middle of it.

After reaching the Outside World, his perception became blurred as well. Once it reached a certain distance from the Cube, it could no longer extend any farther.

It was the same in every direction.

His perception was trapped within an 11m*11m*11m cubic area centered on the Cube.

He could even see underground clearly, though his perception encountered slight resistance there.

"Why can I see outside?"

Mo Ling was startled awake from the sweetness, yet this abnormal perception did not disappear.

He found that his thoughts had become incomparably clear, swimming through the metal block as freely as a fish.

Outside, they were slightly sluggish, but he could still see in every direction and hear everything around him.

A rainforest?

Watching clear raindrops fall, Mo Ling could not help swallowing dryly.

"So thirsty."

A droplet fell from a huge leaf, about to land on Mo Ling's head.

He opened his hand and tried to catch it, then laughed at himself.

"How could I forget that I'm trapped?"

Drip!

This feeling was...

Icy cold.

The droplet landed accurately in Mo Ling's hand.

He had no time to think. He brought the precious water to his face and licked it clean.

That tiny amount of liquid moistened his cracked lips, cooling him to the core.

Only after Mo Ling came back to his senses did he suddenly realize that he had caught that droplet in midair!

It had not passed through the metal wall. His consciousness had grabbed it!

Try again.

Once he had made a start, the following attempts became much easier.

Mo Ling selected a square area in the air. Whatever was inside it would be caught and sent into the metal block.

Water droplets, leaves, branches, soil, stones...

Soon, the already tiny metal space was filled with all kinds of debris.

But that did not matter.

Mo Ling repeated the process, and those things were thrown back out of the space.

And inside, controlling them was even more effortless.

At that moment, a bold idea appeared in his mind.

"Can I throw myself out too?"

After a round of attempts, the result left Mo Ling deeply disappointed.

Anything detached from his body, such as hair or flakes of skin, could be thrown out, but he himself could not leave.

It was as if he simply could not select himself, no matter how he tried.

"This is just a larger cage."

Like the iron bars of a prisoner's cell, he could see the blue sky outside, but none of it had anything to do with him.

Within his tiny field of vision, the rainforest scenery repeated itself endlessly.

But at least he could send a message now.

Mo Ling suddenly had an idea. He teleported a stone from outside into the cage, then tossed it into the air.

The stone fell under the pull of gravity and splashed into a pool.

Plop! Plop! Plop!

Beside the lonely metal block, a stone kept falling from nowhere.

Mo Ling had no idea how much time passed. When he was thirsty, he drank some dew. When he was hungry, he chewed on earthworms.

Finally, within this cramped perceptual space, a different disturbance appeared.

Something was coming.

Two Black Imps as tall as the metal block stopped in front of Mo Ling's cage.

The Black Imps wore ragged grass garments. They were short and thin, with long pointed ears and sharp venomous fangs in their mouths.

Their bodies were painted with all kinds of totems in vibrant colors.

They looked like goblins from a game, chattering away in a strange language.

Mo Ling was stunned, not merely because he had seen such fantastical creatures with his own eyes.

It was because he could actually understand them!