Su Zhou had a very long dream.

In the silent void, black and white lights flickered. Countless thoughts and possibilities rubbed against each other, causing the monotonous light and darkness to transform into a raging fire. Fragments of illusion, as real as could be, rose from the black flames, blooming with intense light.

In an instant, he transformed into an ordinary, unremarkable office worker. He possessed neither extraordinary power nor soaring ambition. Apart from cursing in his heart the boss who constantly made him work overtime, he didn't have the energy for any other thoughts.

But one night, as the man walked through an alley, he heard the sound of a girl struggling and crying, as well as the heavy, excited panting of a drunkard.

The next moment, without the slightest hesitation, almost instinctively, he stepped into the alley… and then came the sound of police sirens.

Even though beating the would-be rapist bloody required paying a large sum of money, and he even lost his job because the attacker's relatives caused trouble at the company entrance, and the assaulted girl's parents, for the sake of their reputation, were unwilling to let her testify in court… he himself actually felt quite good, especially the feeling of smashing that brick down – so satisfying!

Anyway, he had no money, so he just wouldn't pay. The court also repeatedly denied the other party's application for forced execution, and the assaulted girl secretly found him to thank him, even patting her not-so-ample chest, saying she would "definitely repay him."

Hey, it was nothing.

Because he couldn't stand the cries of innocent people in the first place. It had nothing to do with having power or receiving repayment.

Immediately after, Su Zhou felt as if he had become an assassin. He held a long sword, walking through the streets without any disguise, heading straight for a magnificent mansion.

The mansion was heavily guarded, but he ascended the steps, charged straight in, and killed an old man who was heavily protected and had a look of astonishment on his face. He also killed dozens of guards, and finally, severely wounded, he shouted, destroying his face, gouging out his eyes, and tearing open his chest and abdomen before dying.

The feeling of death had not yet dissipated. Before Su Zhou, who was enjoying the killing, could figure out why he had committed suicide, he suddenly transformed into a huge monster, and began fighting a three-headed golden lightning-generating dragon in the city. He bit me, I bit you, you spat gravity waves, I spat atomic breath. The fight was exhilarating—but this vigorous, straightforward, and immensely satisfying battle quickly came to an end.

Light and shadow flowed, countless possibilities and futures spun.

One moment, he might be a rebel leading a righteous army against the imperial court, the next, he was a brave general saving the country from collapse amidst storms.

He was both a mysterious scholar burned at the stake for preaching heresy, and a Church inquisitor who turned nobles who conducted black magic experiments and murdered dozens of children into ashes for justice.

Thus, cycle after cycle, fulfilling his beliefs again and again, using righteous and base means, light and dark methods; whether it was conspiracy and trickery, or grand righteousness; whether it was transforming into a brutal and bloodthirsty Khorne daemon, or a lone gunman who gave his enemy a swift death with one shot…

He would always make the same choice.

—On the opposite side of the weak always stands a relatively stronger power—

And he would always stand in front of the weak.

Sometimes it was to protect those behind him, sometimes it was just to face those in front of him, and sometimes, it was simply to 'rebel' for the sake of 'rebellion', to 'oppose' for the sake of 'opposition', almost like a giant contrarian.

But this position remained consistent.

Even in the illusion, he was just a mere impoverished and weak commoner, a scholar with no strength to truss a chicken, but he would always choose to stand up, and at the moment when everyone was silent, he would utter a cry from the bottom of his heart.

"I oppose this stagnation!"

It sounded both foolish and insane.

But also, both firm and heroic.

Until the very end, all the sparks dissipated, and all the illusions vanished.

And he became a naked man, standing in endless light, in front of a fruit tree.

A snake coiled on the branches of the tree, its tail extended and twirled, plucking a fruit from the divine tree.

The fruit was bright, as if born from the overlapping of endless light, containing the phantoms of countless worlds. The ancient snake met his gaze, then smiled, and offered the fruit entwined with its tail.

"Eat it, human. This is the fruit of wisdom, and also the fruit of rebellion."

The ancient snake said with a grin, in an indescribably frivolous and seductive manner: "Eat it, and you will be able to distinguish right from wrong, discern good from evil, question and change the 'truths' and 'principles' of 'always being so', and possess your own will, your own 'world'."

"You will embark on a path similar to but different from the god who created you—this is both the initial struggle, and the essence of 'human wisdom'."

And he raised his hand.

Then Su Zhou woke up with a dumbfounded look.

"What a load of nonsense?"

He got up, rubbed his eyes, and after stretching, Su Zhou felt refreshed and comfortable all over.

And in his memory, there faintly remained the scene of turning into a giant monster and rampaging in the city—that feeling was really great!

But he really couldn't remember anything else. Rather, Su Zhou rarely dreamed in the first place. He usually only slept five hours a day, and would fall into a deep sleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, sleeping soundly until the alarm rang… He could sleep a little longer during the summer vacation, but not really, because he had already formed a habit.

"Let me see… Damn, it's eleven o'clock?!"

Su Zhou looked up at the clock directly opposite his bed and was shocked: "I got home around ten o'clock yesterday morning, then spent more than half an hour showering and testing my abilities, so I went to sleep around eleven."

A little unwilling to believe it, he grabbed his phone from somewhere and looked at the date—July 25th, Friday, 11:18 AM.

"I really slept for twenty-four hours?!"

This sleep could almost be said to have made up for Su Zhou's usual weekly sleep time—he also saw several missed calls and WeChat and QQ messages on his phone, from Shao Qiming, his parents, and other school classmates and internet buddies.

Shao Qiming's message was roughly that the call didn't go through, guessing that he must be busy, so if he had time, he should call him and find a time to get together.

His parents' message was extremely simple: they were working overtime and couldn't come back, so Su Zhou should take care of himself and study hard.

The other classmates and netizens probably knew that Su Zhou and Shao Qiming had gone to Shan State for tourism. They recently learned about the news from Shan State, so they left messages to ask if he had any first-hand information—gossipers are everywhere.

"Your dad was on the scene at the time, but what exactly happened? (What can you do to me? jpg)"

Su Zhou spent a few minutes replying to each one and sent panda head emoticons to the internet buddies, whetting their appetites but not telling them the truth—after all, he had signed a confidentiality agreement.

However, after putting down his phone with a comfortable look on his face, Su Zhou suddenly felt unbearable stomach pain, and rare stars appeared before his eyes, and his hands and feet became weak.

"I haven't eaten for twenty-four hours, I'm going to die!"

Among the many requirements for survival, there is no item that says 'can be on an empty stomach'!

Enduring the writhing pain in his stomach, Su Zhou quickly got out of bed and went to the kitchen to get a few pieces of bread. He ate and chewed, planning to find out where Yala was and take it out to eat together.

As a result, he saw at a glance that the snake spirit was nesting in his suitcase, lying on the small bag of fruit tree wood powder he had collected, seemingly sleeping very comfortably.

How could it not be comfortable? The originally red long snake spirit had collapsed into a red ball! It looked just like a slime.

"Hey, Yala, it's time to get up."

There was a vague sense of déjà vu, but Su Zhou didn't take it to heart. He walked to the suitcase, wanting to wake up the snake spirit.

But Yala opened its eyes, and simple eyes and a mouth appeared on the ruby-like sphere, vividly showing a 'reluctant' expression. It twisted its body but refused to move from the bag of wood powder: "No, let me stay here—if you want to eat, go eat yourself. All I need is your 'blood offering'."

"...What exactly is this bag of wood powder?"

Scratching his head, Su Zhou was full of doubt and incomprehension. He stretched out his hand and placed the entire bag of wood powder, along with Yala, in his palm: "You value it so much, you even wanted me to dig up all the wood powder, along with the soil, and collect it at that time."

"By the way, there's also that piece of wood. It looks like just ordinary sawdust, but why does it have such strong purification magic? I didn't hear any spirit voices all day, and I slept so comfortably!"

"Tch." Yala could see that if it didn't answer Su Zhou's question, it probably wouldn't be able to rest peacefully, so it could only sigh helplessly and change its body from a slime ball to a long snake shape—because it looked so elastic, Su Zhou couldn't help but reach out and pinch it, poking it.

Don't mention it, the feel was a bit like pudding, with a similar degree of toughness and a stress ball! It felt very comfortable.

And the snake spirit also seemed to feel quite comfortable being poked. It hummed, and then said contentedly: "Sawdust? It is indeed sawdust, but this sawdust is a product of the fragmentation of the 'True Cross of Christ'."

Noticing that Su Zhou suddenly stopped his actions and looked at it in astonishment, Yala swung its tail and chuckled: "Yes, that's right, don't be surprised."

"It's the 'True Cross' on which the Messiah was executed."

1 You can see Yala's character image, but I don't know if it passed the review.