31 Lin Feng's Past and Linley's Present...

Linley was sleeping right now in a bed. He was sweating in anxiety. He was reminiscing his past life as Lin Feng.

Lin Feng in his life before he had reincarnated was really not anyone special. Truly mediocre.

Ignorance is blissful. Intelligence is troublesome. Talent was needed. Hard work is an asset. That could easily described how the competitive nature of education was.

Do not believe that sufficient hard work can bring you anywhere in life. A minimum of talent was needed at the very least. After all, not everyone are lazy bums and if everyone was equally hard working then the talented truly would stand at the very top.

Talent simply meant two things. The first was that if one was talented enough then one doesn't need to input that much hard work to achieve good results. The second was as long as one was hard working and talented enough then one would reach the extremely high or even the very top results itself.

Lin Feng wasn't stupid nor was he smart. He was average. He wasn't dumb enough to be happy for his poor future. He wasn't smart enough to make a good future for himself. Still he wanted to at least to make it the best he could.

Lin Feng was from a slightly poor household. His father was unremarkable and so was his mother. But he had learn from them very early on about the importance of hard work.

Lin Feng was wise enough to know from a young age during his primary school years that being smart and having a good education can guarantee one a good future. That's why Lin Feng strives his best in schoolwork, studying textbooks, and diligently paying attention in his classes.

Lin Feng has personally slaved himself away for hours everyday during his childhood. Sacrificing his time to enjoy his youth, to play with his peers, or even do something remotely entertaining. All just to study for school.

Lin Feng spend any and all of his available money whether it was from red envelope, birthday, or even other sources of wealth given to a child on materials that help and broaden his ability to succeed at education.

In the competitive nature of the China's educational system, Lin Feng had reached his so-called peak. His limit. And it wasn't even good enough to considered better than average.

Lin Feng sacrificed his chances of socializing and to make friends. Even sacrificing his own personal happiness. His precious time of youth.

He didn't even get placed within the top 500 of an unremarkable public school that was no special by any means. It was out of only a 1,000 students for his year.

It seems no matter how much hard work Lin Feng strives to put in school. He simply couldn't get over the barrier known as talent.

Lin Feng had no friends due to being a stiff unsociable person who couldn't even mutter a greeting. Lin Feng was not shy, but just lack too much self-esteem and confidence to even try.

His parents tried to emotionally support him, but Lin Feng felt only pity and sadness in their voices. Every time Lin Feng tries to talk to one of his parents, he had always felt he was disappointing them.

His father had asked his friend to gave Lin Feng a part-time job. It was originally meant for Lin Feng to tries his best at something new and feel proud of earning something tangible for once in his life.

Lin Feng was barely able to add this new source of labor to his schedule while still taxing himself everyday studying.

Surprisingly one day, Lin Feng didn't buy any study materials and instead he bought a smartphone and was paying for his own phone bill.

Lin Feng intended to use that smartphone to help him to surf across this so-called internet that would allow to browse and see more available information and possible study materials at hand. Hoping to allow him to increase his ability to be better at school.

Lin Feng, somehow coincidentally, was introduced into the world of anime, manga, and novels one day. It was a world-shaking experience for a loner like him.

These stories, these fantasies, everything about it had made him excited. The characters, the plots, the settings, and whatsoever made him feel like the world was way bigger than his personal bubble he was used to.

Reading novels or manga was his go-to experience for his new found sense of enjoyment. It was much faster than watching anime. Lin Feng didn't watch anime that much, because it usually takes much too much of his schedule time.

Lin Feng couldn't be considered as an addict at first. But rather someone who was in moderation since he's only spending 1 to 2 hours each days onto this new hobby.

Just this little amount of time lost and new found experience of enjoyment costed Lin Feng a lot. His grades was slowly going down, while his rankings within the school was steadily decreasing.

This had caused Lin Feng new found depression and anxiety. He didn't stop his new found hobby. But delved even deeper into it to relieved the pressure on his mental state. Therefore wasting even more time on anime, manga, and novels. A few hours became several hours then even wasting days.

It was a downward spiral. An unstoppable unproductive cycle. Lin Feng couldn't stop himself. After having a taste of this amazing enjoyment. He couldn't go back to his boring lifestyle anymore. If he did, he would know his depression would reached his breaking point.

The severity of this problem had reached even to the point that Lin Feng was at the bottom of his class, his year, his peers of this generation in terms of education. The public high school was reaching to the point of expelling him along with other terrible students just so the average school's rankings would go up at least.

Lin Feng tried to keep this as a secret from his parents was lying to them that it was okay. Lin Feng truly became a depraved person at this point. Since the lie has then snowballed too hard and it became rather too later for Lin Feng to fix this mess.

Lin Feng no longer cared about school and was full on rushing through manga, novels and anime just to completely dived in and self-indulge himself into the fullest.

One night, his father burst into anger at discovering his son was being a degenerate and was soon about to be expelled from school. Lin Feng's dad smashed his smartphone and accusing it to be the wretched thing that made his son mentally retarded.

Lin Feng for the first time in his life has felt anger to his dad and calling him a bastard as he then ran away from home.

Lin Feng felt like he screwed up everything in his life. He wasn't smart enough for his hard work to pay off. He wasn't able to make himself a good future. He wasn't able to make his parents proud. He wasn't able to do anything that was considered at least good in his life. Giving up to temptation of fun has made him discarded all of the effort and hard work he had been doing for most of his life. He hated himself the most for what he has done now.

Insulting one's parent was one of the lowest thing a Chinese-born person could do. And Lin Feng did it.

Lin Feng had a pathetic death that followed him as well. He wasn't hit by a truck nor was he killed by someone like in one of those novels. He simply had bought some instant ramen from a vending machine. Then he choked while eating it and died in a public park.

In this new reincarnated life, as Linley Arthur. Lin Feng wanted to be different from before. Someone who was not like him at all one bit.

Linley tried his best at acting out his favorite main characters from certain novels and series. He was even overthinking about what had others thought of him to the point he was forgetting what was going on at some point.

Linley was too overly sensitive to matters that are insignificant. He had believed that acting and playing out the plot or setting would be the best thing to do.

Linley was actually indecisive at his core. He was too afraid of making a bad decision in this new life of his. He was only picking out decisions that only main characters seems to pick. He thought rational options might be good sometimes. Picking what seems best is also good. Linley never really had much thought or emotions into the choices he made spontaneously without even acknowledging the proper consequences.

Linley felt that the man in the Spiderman costume was right about him being garbage now. He was afraid of what he was doing now.

Unlike the weak coward that he was before, he was quite the arrogant asshole or at least on the way of being that type of person. Wasn't that being a hypocrite now? Shouldn't he instead be a modest person now at least? Someone who respect the weak and uphold a sense of what is right and what is wrong.

Linley had only felt humbled towards those who were stronger than him. It was only respecting power and not the individual.

Linley had neglected his own sense of morals. His sense of integrity in this world. Perhaps Linley would have became a real degenerate if left to his own devices.

Linley didn't really held a sense of altruism. Linley had never had the sense of need to help others. It was more like he really didn't care about anyone and not even himself that much. Was this what it means to be indifferent?

No. Technically, Linley just was unable to acknowledge his sense of worth one bit at all. It was because of his original weak nature and his lack of faith to himself to the point of not even believing he could help others. It tend to contradict and head straight into conflict of his desires of not wanting to be a burden at times.

Linley's eyes opened. His body was trembling. His skin was pale. Linley knew there were intruders on this airship. He had to move at the very least. It's not like Linley didn't trust his elf maid, but rather he had felt the intruders was much more complicated than it seem.

Linley rolled out of his bed and ended up falling to the floor. He knew his own body definitely could not walk right now. He felt a certain illness strangling over his entire body.

Linley tried to crawl across the floor and out the room. But his body wasn't able to respond to him effectively at all. His whole body felt extremely sluggish and heavy. Linley begin sweating and panting heavily.

"Hah..." Linley made a weak and feeble noise.

Linley without his System and added with his current state. He couldn't really do much. But he doesn't want to repeat his past life's mistake of being a disappointment.

If he was going to try his best. He would at least tried his hardest until the very end. He couldn't stop and fall once again into depravity once more.

Linley was sweating but as he stared at the door of the room that was his first obstacle. Yet it was too difficult to overcome.

Linley soon felt incredibly dizzy as he kept staring at it. To the point he had started believing he was hallucinating.

Linley was seeing an another of himself, a Linley Arthur, waiting by the door smiling and waving at him. Linley knew exactly what he looked like since he did look at himself in a mirror before.

The other Linley walked over to him and patted him on the back.

"You should cheer up. A person can always grow up and change themselves for the better or for the worse. No one is ever born strong and with hair on their chest. It takes time to grow after all." He gave off an odd advice.

"...I'm delusional." Linley commented.

"Even though I'd rather prefer you to fight your own battles. Because of the peculiar situation and circumstances at hand. I will take care of this . Remember to rely on only yourself in the future. Only oneself can take of one's problems." The other Linley chatted casually.

"What?" Linley felt confused on what his delusion was on about. Isn't his delusion a part of himself to begin with?

The other Linley who was previously patting him on the back was now rubbing the hair on his head. Then Linley heard a familiar mechanical voice speaking in his head.

[System has discovered new host within the body. The System thanks the newly discovered host for aiding the recovery of the System.]

"Eh?" Linley was surprised that a head rub healed the system.

"Oh, that's interesting." The other Linley commented. As if he had heard the same thing as Linley did. But it sounded as if he didn't know about the system to begin with.

Linley felt even more confused on what was going on. His own body felt rejuvenated and he could properly move now without feeling hindered at all. Linley stand up immediately.

"Good, you're fine and healthy now. Let me warn you, I'm about to take over control of this body right now." The other Linley warned suddenly.

"Wait, what?" Linley was confused about this new possession that was about to happen.

Soon, Linley changed perspective, he was no longer seeing from his own eyes. Instead he was now looking at his own body in third person view.

"Excuse me boy, this might feel confusing at first but it's a lot easier and faster to adjust if we just do this immediately." Linley's body spoke without the consciousness of Linley. "By the way, you can communicate with just your thoughts. Voice is just sound, therefore essentially useless at where you're at right now."

'Who are you?! Why do you look like me?! And what is your purpose?!' Linley shouted by thoughts.

Linley knew for sure this person couldn't be the original Linley Arthur. One must remember that Lin Feng had his soul already fused with that person already and was able to access all of the memories of that Linley Arthur. Thus creating this current Linley. This new Linley looking like stranger was simply too mysterious.

"Haha. There's no point in asking about what you already know. Those questions are easily answered if you think about it. But for now, I let time explain for me. Besides that, we have someone dear to you to save." Linley's body laughed.

'Wait a second. It can't be.' Linley rationalized his thoughts for a moment as he believed he had possibly uncovered the real identity of this mysterious stranger.

Linley's body then grabbed Linley's sword of Kusanagi and then disappeared from the room itself like a gust of wind.