Chapter 1: Who Am I, Where Am I?

Song Cheng felt that everything around him was very dark, the kind of darkness where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. He wished for some light to help him see. And then... "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."

The darkness around him transformed into a hazy white mist. However, he still couldn't see anything because he realized that he had no eyes, not just eyes, but he had no body, limbs, or even a head. All he had was a form of "thought."

The "surroundings" changed as he thought about it. Just now, because he wanted to see, he felt a sense of "brightness." However, in reality, nothing had changed, and there was nothing around.

"Where is this?" he wondered.

The experiences he was going through were inexplicable. Unlike a dream, he had experienced a kind of half-awake state in dreams before. Although dreams were also filled with strange and unpredictable events, he felt that dreams were distinguishable from reality.

"This is definitely not a dream," he concluded. "I've never dreamt of being without a body."

After a short time of contemplation, he remembered what had happened before. He had just finished a blind date with a girl, and both of them felt that they could continue getting to know each other. They had made plans to go out together the following weekend to see if they could build a future together.

Then he left the restaurant... or at least, he tried to leave. He remembered that he had walked toward the exit with his date, waiting for the automatic doors to open. In that short moment, he watched in horror as a small truck sped towards them.

They didn't have time to escape; they were too close to the door.

"I might have died," he thought, the recent shock causing him to momentarily forget about the accident when he regained consciousness in this strange place.

"Or maybe I didn't die," he thought, "perhaps I'm in a worse state like a vegetable for someone else to take care of."

Perhaps being in a vegetative state would be more fitting for his current situation. He would be conscious, but unable to do anything.

He had heard that some people in a vegetative state could hear external sounds and feel some sensory stimuli at times. Under clinical conditions with targeted stimulation, there was even a possibility of regaining consciousness.

Song Cheng didn't know the current state of his body, but now that his "consciousness" had returned, he naturally began to think about various things.

"Where is this?" he thought about the question again.

"If this is a personal consciousness space in a vegetative state, what can I do here? If it's not, then where am I, and have I already died?"

He surveyed his surroundings. There was truly nothing there, no visible objects, not even "invisible" ones. This space had no boundaries, no long distances, no height, and no "direction." He had no up or down, no forward or backward. This viewpoint couldn't be described because it wasn't seen through the eyes; his consciousness was at a certain point, and from that point, he could "see" in any direction at the same time.

Since his sensations could change with his thoughts, he wondered if he could change his "environment" with his thoughts.

"Turn into a room?" he tried thinking.

And then, in his perception, the surroundings transformed from emptiness into an illusory, tangible, four-sided room as he had imagined.

"Why a room?" Because a closed environment provided a sense of security. Just recalling the scene of the accident, Song Cheng felt the need for personal safety.

"Is this a room?" he wondered, more accurately, it should be called a box – square, with no doors, no windows, no stone, no wood, no table, no chair, no bed, and no blankets.

"Maybe I wasn't specific enough?" So, he thought, "I want" various things. The initially empty box gradually took on the appearance he had imagined.

"Maybe I'm like a god here, saying 'let there be' and it appears," he thought somewhat jokingly.

Unfortunately, this place was not reality; it was virtual... at least, based on everything he had experienced so far. He couldn't experience "touch," and as soon as he tried to make it more elaborate, the room he perceived disappeared in an instant, and the surroundings returned to nothingness. However, when he tried to make it a room again, it would reappear.

In the void, there was no concept of time. He didn't know how long he had been in this state. He repeatedly experimented with creating and erasing various things, imagining and elaborating on details. When he felt tired, he would return to the initial state, turning it back into a room and making various detailed changes inside.

It was like playing a simulation game, entering the building construction mode. How many rooms to divide, the size of the rooms, the type of wall decor, the type of flooring, the design of wall lamps, hanging lights, the position and style of the bed in the bedroom, the pattern of the sheets and pillows, arranging the wardrobe, the number of windows, whether to use wood or alloy for the frames, creating a study with a desk, what the desk looks like, the type of desk lamp, how the bookshelves are arranged, and what books to place on them. He thought to himself, "Reality (money) limits my imagination."

Later on, Song Cheng realized that the rooms he decorated were always comfortable to him, mainly because he couldn't imagine the feel of more expensive or luxurious items he hadn't used. It was similar to different types of spiciness; without tasting them, it was impossible to describe them purely as "spicy."

People would get tired and go to sleep, and then their consciousness would fall silent. But Song Cheng didn't know if he was tired or not. He didn't need to sleep, and he couldn't sleep because he didn't have a body. He simply entered a state of non-activity when he felt like it.

Once he had finished decorating the rooms, he would read novels for entertainment. Since everything here was altered based on his cognition, he couldn't learn new things. This place also didn't seem to access his subconscious, so the things he had read and seen before wouldn't be brought out for him to study again. Those things were stored in his brain, and he couldn't use them now. So, he would read novels, but they were novels he had read before, and he couldn't remember many of the details.

He led a dull life, burden-free, without worries, without danger, without breaks, and without desires. He deliberately avoided thinking about things in the real world because his "life" here remained unchanged, and he couldn't use it as a benchmark to judge his state in the real world.

Time might have passed for a long time, or it might have been a brief moment. It was difficult to determine time in the realm of consciousness, just like some say that when a person dies, their entire life flashes before their eyes, but was that moment long or short?

The only thing Song Cheng was certain of was that he wasn't watching a "life flash." It wasn't as empty and boring as a life review before death. A life review should be a recollection, not daydreaming.

However, change eventually came. He couldn't measure time, so when this change occurred, he didn't know how long he had been there.

He only knew that it signaled one thing.