[You have voluntarily disconnected, please choose whether to reconnect.]
"Thank you, but not for now~"
[Execute the wake-up program?]
"Please do~"
[Received, now it's 22:15 on January 3, 2049, you will wake up in a minute.]
It took Motan about two minutes to acclimate to the suddenly approaching night after leaving the game cabin. After all, when he logged off, it was still sunny inside the game. This experience was no longer strange in this era of prevalent spiritual simulation devices. However, each encounter could still bring him a wave of hazy illusion.
Like being caught in the crevice between the spiritual and the real, it's peculiar and intoxicating.
"Such a pity that time is precious~" Motan managed to dispel that wonderful sense of dissonance in a very short time, expressing his regret: "Moreover, starting two days ago, the time under the night sky has become even more precious to me ... "
He made himself a cup of coffee, with only sugar and no milk. Instead of hastily drinking it right away, he set it down on the table beside him. Then, he made his way to the soft couch and directly fell back onto it.
Closing his eyes to ponder~
[Who am I? Do I truly exist?]
[I can control my actions, like gently lifting my finger ...]
[But does this process truly exist in 'reality'?]
[Do my emotions spring from my 'true heart'?]
[What does 'true heart' mean? How can a person prove their existence?]
[Is life a scripted play, or a pure product of chance and inevitability with no set position?]
[Do I really exist? Why am I me?]
[...]
This seemingly childish train of thought was not a bout of insanity from Motan, but a subconscious self-hypnosis process. His focused yet meaningless contemplation had only one purpose—to actively execute a personality switch.
So far, this method was the only one he could guarantee a high success rate and would not cause much harm to himself.
Thoughts are fascinating, and so are humans. We often enter a wonderful 'detached' state under certain circumstances, as if observing ourselves from a god-like perspective that no one else can perceive.
This is not an exaggeration. At least some people (like the one typing on the keyboard in front of the monitor at this moment) have had similar experiences. During a bout of insomnia, they started to question and deny their existence—an odd attempt.
In simple terms, find all kinds of evidence to prove your existence, such as wanting to move your finger, then ordering yourself to 'move the finger.' And then questioning it from another perspective—actions, thoughts, dimensions, destiny, existence.
At some point in this process, a confusing feeling will descend, as if there is a layer of water membrane separating you from the outside world, isolating thoughts and actions. Although you can still control your body, there will be temporary delays...
It is somewhat frightening, but also a fascinating state.
I call it 'upper layer thinking'. During subsequent intentional experiments, I successfully entered this state a few more times. Frankly, the experience was not pleasant—it felt like I was isolating myself from everything around me, and I couldn't even confirm my existence.
[Note: This is the author's personal experience and it is unknown if it is universal. Interested friends can try it a bit, but please don't take it seriously. Maybe just my sanity is not quite right, but yours may not be.]
Now, let's get back to the story.
After many years of experimentation, Motan found that this state he stumbled upon by chance, could greatly assist him in the 'switch.' Even though this process would consume a large amount of energy, it remained to be his best option so far. Among these, the process of switching the personality to [Absolute Neutral] was his most proficient one.
After all, it was the most normal personality in daily life, and somewhat moderate in character (but not mediocre), at least not as extreme as the other two. It wasn't too troublesome to switch…
So, after a while, when Motan emerged from that slightly magical state, the confusion and perpetual laughter in his eyes had vanished, replaced with a gentle and slightly lazy temperament.
"Coffee...." He walked to the coffee on the corner of the table, hesitated slightly, then pulled a small bag of instant sweet milk from the drawer and poured it in, sighing, "It's more suitable with some milk."
Motan, who finished the coffee in one gulp, felt much more energized. After stretching lazily, he laid back in the game cabin, noted the current time, and logged into the game.
….
[Spiritual connection detected and your personal information is being synchronized...]
[Connection complete, reading character information]
[Welcome back, Hei Fan of Absolute Neutral, loading into the Realm of Innocence, wish you a good night]
"As expected, nobody noticed~" When Motan regained consciousness, he found himself sitting on a bench on the central road of Stacked Rock City. There were many pedestrians around at this time but no one noticed the sudden appearance of a person. He couldn't help but sigh, "What tricks did the system play on these NPCs' perceptions? Or is my existence just too insignificant?"