Chapter 15: Mind Palace |
"This is...?"
When Ming Po opened his eyes, he found himself lying in bed.
Dazed, he propped himself up and looked around.
It was an oddly furnished bedroom, yet it possessed a strange, lived-in feel—
On the wall behind the headboard hung several posters for Ouroboros, a game Ming Po had once helped develop. Facing the foot of the bed was a 75-inch smart display.
On one side of the room was a balcony with tightly shut windows and drawn curtains. An office desk with a laptop sat right next to the curtains, along with a stack of three books and a teacup containing leftover tea. On the other side stood a wardrobe and an enormous six-tier bookshelf.
The top and bottom shelves were packed with anime and gaming figures, while the middle four were filled with books. Both the figures and the books were neatly arranged according to some specific rule.
—This was Ming Po's bedroom.
"...Is this a dream?"
But the moment he got out of bed, he realized that was impossible.
With a flip of his right hand, a copper chip appeared between his fingers like magic.
It was a numberless chip. Its outer edge was bordered in red and black, and both sides were etched with an hourglass pattern decorated with black stars.
As it materialized in his hand, the usage method for Time Chips also surfaced in Ming Po's mind.
It was incredibly simple.
—Make a precise request to it, then destroy it.
The method of destruction did not matter; biting, crushing, or smashing it all worked. Time would change from the exact moment it was destroyed.
If the request could be fulfilled, the chip would instantly become brittle; conversely, if the request was impossible to fulfill, it would remain harder than metal.
There was, however, a taboo that wasn't easily triggered: after making the request and before the chip was destroyed, it could not be touched by another Deceiver of the World. Otherwise, the execution would immediately terminate, and it would revert to a solid metal chip.
Ming Po toyed with it in his hand for a moment before putting it away.
Immediately after, he took out his newly acquired Day's False Gold chip.
It gleamed with a dim golden light, its edges bordered in rust and orange. The pattern in the center was a twisted sun.
Ming Po stared at it for a while before confirming that it was definitely not gold.
The color looked a bit like an old fifty-cent coin. Its luster was noticeably darker than pure gold.
Was it brass, then? Though it could also be bronze or pyrite.
Ming Po remembered that before bronze oxidized, its color was an earthy yellow, not cyan. Pyrite was also golden, looking somewhat like the real thing.
As Ming Po repeatedly rubbed the chip with his hand, the sun pattern gradually blurred, revealing a faint "24" underneath. When he pulled his hand away, the number vanished, and it turned back into a sun.
Did this mean... it could be broken down into 24 Hour's Red Copper chips?
However, chips could be broken down but not merged back together. Until he knew exactly what higher-level chips were used for, it was best not to dismantle it.
But...
"Why here?"
Ming Po murmured softly, pacing around the room.
His memory had still not fully recovered.
Every time Ming Po looked at a piece of furniture or fixture in the room, a fragment of memory would faintly surface.
A subtle anxiety stemming from the unknown caused his brows to furrow slightly, yet the reassurance of being in a safe space made him relax.
As his lost memories slowly flowed back in, Ming Po's heart gradually grew calmer. It was as if a hollow void in his heart was being slightly filled... For a fleeting moment, he even felt like he was still that ordinary person living a mundane, stable life.
Ming Po tried taking a book off the shelf and found that he could still read it normally.
He could also open the laptop on the desk, as well as the phone placed by the bed... They could even be charged, but neither could connect to the internet.
"Is this my 'Mind Palace'?"
Ming Po joked, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. "It seems to be... the place I feel is the safest?"
Thinking this, Ming Po walked over to the balcony and pulled back the curtains.
To his surprise, the outside was still that same gray world!
It was exactly like the world outside the building during the game Ming Po had just participated in!
Except, it wasn't frozen; time was flowing—the traffic down below could be seen clearly. It wasn't completely silent either, just much quieter. It was roughly akin to wearing noise-canceling headphones; he could still faintly hear the intermittent honking of horns outside. As for the sound of cars whizzing by, that was completely muted.
Aside from that, the color palette was slightly different.
It was as if the entire world had been covered in a hazy black-and-white filter.
Ming Po tested it and found that the window could be opened. He tossed a ball of tissue paper down and watched it fall... but the moment it hit the ground, it vanished.
"Could it be..."
A thought struck him, and he left his bedroom.
The living room also had color. Although it still had a cool tone, it was undeniably different from the black and white outside.
A soft leather sofa sat near a rather old LCD TV... Ming Po couldn't remember his own age right now, but he had bought this TV back when he was in high school.
Beside it were his game consoles—PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Nintendo Switch. Every game he had played from elementary school all the way through college graduation was here. A plastic bin on the other side was filled with game discs, along with rulebooks and maps for various board games.
Unlike his roommate, who preferred MMOs and FPS games, Ming Po was a console gamer. Sometimes he also played board games—though he rarely had anyone to play with. Back then, he would lay out the board and set up the pieces all by himself. He would simultaneously play the roles of the game master and the player, constantly switching between characters, pacing around the table, and talking to himself.
While it sounded a bit pathetic, Ming Po actually considered it a form of self-entertainment.
Ming Po's family was quite well-off. At the very least, they were wealthy enough to buy him genuine game consoles back in elementary school.
He wasn't a Shanghai local. His parents had come here for business, so they had moved when he was very young. This apartment in the XH District was purchased for his elementary school district—back then, housing wasn't too expensive, barely 5,000 RMB per square meter. After high school, he moved to the Baoshan District. He ended up moving almost every two or three years.
After graduating with his master's degree, Ming Po returned and renovated this apartment.
After all, it was relatively close to his company. It only took a twenty-minute walk, which he treated as exercise.
However, thinking of this, Ming Po hesitated slightly.
If his memory served him right, his parents should both still be alive... right?
His impression of those two family members was incredibly faint.
They were two workaholics who almost never came home. When Ming Po was in elementary school, they would occasionally drop by, but starting from middle school, they left him entirely in the care of the nanny until he went to college.
Even though they were family, they weren't very close.
As he grew older, Ming Po learned to take care of himself, and he had lived in this house alone ever since. They would only come back for a few days during the New Year. The rest of the time, they were practically flying all over the world.
That was until three years ago, when one of Ming Po's few friends moved in after losing his job.
He was the one whose name Ming Po had borrowed in the game: Ai Shiping.
Their relationship was genuinely good. Although it was said that even blood brothers should keep their accounts clear, Ming Po was too lazy to ask him for rent. Having another living person in the house to add a bit of life wasn't a bad thing. So, Ming Po tidied up the guest bedroom for him—it was his old childhood room, perfectly suited for this "son" of his.
And the guy's skin was indeed thick enough that he shamelessly never paid.
This nominal tenant technically had a job, just not a very conventional one. He usually worked as a game booster or a gaming companion, earning a decent income.
Relying on his excellent gaming skills and his silver tongue—especially his knack for sweet-talking girls—he could easily make twenty to thirty thousand a month. Of course, a portion of that came from the extra "pocket money" tipped by his clients.
In truth, if he were willing to become a streamer, he would definitely make far more than that... but he didn't seem to like the idea of relying on his looks for a living, so he was quite reluctant to do so.
Even without paying rent, the guy was a loyal friend. He loved ordering a massive spread of takeout and waiting for Ming Po to get off work so they could eat together.
He was a very cheerful person. Having such a boisterous presence in the house genuinely made Ming Po feel like his mental state had improved significantly.
Living alone for too long really could make a person sick, Ming Po thought.
Feeling a bit nostalgic, he opened the door to his friend's room, wanting to see if he was inside.
However, Ming Po froze.
Because just across the threshold—the room had turned entirely black and white.
The decor inside was no different than before: two connected ultra-wide monitors, a microphone on a suspension boom arm, a PC tower with flashy RGB lighting, two expensive speakers, and two different pairs of headphones hanging on a stand nearby.
Ai Shiping didn't use an ergonomic chair; instead, he had a sci-fi-style RGB gaming chair. Beside it was a small Coca-Cola fridge filled with cans of ice-cold cola.
Unlike Ming Po's, his bed was a complete mess. Pajamas were tossed casually onto the quilt, and the computer was still running, auto-playing a dungeon guide video for Ouroboros. Since the video was still playing, he probably hadn't left that long ago.
Ming Po tried to open the fridge to grab a can of cola—but he failed.
Unlike in the colorful world, his hand phased right through the fridge.
"Could it be... I'm a ghost right now?"
Ming Po frowned and returned to the colorful living room.
Although the lighting here wasn't very bright either, looking somewhat like a dim, overcast afternoon, it still felt far more vibrant than the black-and-white filter.
Ming Po attempted to open the fridge in the living room.
This time, he succeeded.
—However, his pupils suddenly shrank, his gaze turning cold and sharp.
Because inside the empty fridge sat a human head!
Its skin was coated in a thin layer of frost, its eyes tightly shut.
It was exactly Ming Po's own head!