Four Split Personalities

Chapter 466: Northbound Ship

Real-time date 27th February 2049

AM04:43

Motan finished his cup of coffee that was without sugar or milk and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

It was over, the ’war’ that could well be called protracted had finally come to an end.

This day, as long as a month, had also finally ended.

"Feels like I just woke up..."

He looked through the window as if in another world, watching the faint lights outside, and murmured softly, "I always feel like it’s not quite real."

Then he shook his head with a chuckle, turned around to head to the kitchen and washed the cup in his hand, adhering to the principles of energy conservation and emission reduction. He turned off the lights in the entrance hall and the bedroom before quickly tidying up the chores.

Clearly, Motan at this moment was not the ’Hei Fan’ from Misha County. After holding onto ’Absolute Neutrality’ for an entire day, he was forcibly disconnected an hour ago and left the game with an ’Orderly Good’ persona.

Because he had exhausted too much energy today and the last battle had pushed his mental state to the limit, even if he had the will now, he couldn’t switch personalities and re-enter the game immediately after going offline. Various concerns also prevented him from comfortably logging into the game with his current persona, so Motan simply decided to log off and rest.

He made himself a late-night snack, just enough to fill him up to seventy percent satisfaction, took an efficient hot shower to ease the fatigue, and finally popped open his computer to browse the official forum of The Realm of Innocence, a task that had almost become part of his daily routine for reasons that need no explanation.

It’s called the official forum, but in fact, most of the sections within were established by player votes. The moderators and deputy moderators were not employees of Innocent Company but players who had passed official vetting and had the time, energy, and enthusiasm for the job. Apart from the absence of the ’Live Streaming’ section, which is popular in other games, the forum was incredibly rich in content. It had not only the more regular sections such as [General Discussion], [Strategy], [Science Popularization], [Data], [Profession], etc, but also a wild array of sections like [City Mates], [Food Exploration], [Meme Gallery], [Rational Breakdown], [Hot Issues], [Odd News & Gossip], [Roleplay], [Cosplay Hardcores], [Weather Forecast], [Popular Mobile Games], [Danmei Romance], [Yuri Heaven], [Seed Sharing], among others. The total sections added up to nearly a hundred, and recently many who weren’t even part of The Realm of Innocence community started looking for things of interest there. Some even came across the forum first before diving into the gaming pit.

It’s undeniable that the almost non-existent management by Innocent Company had paradoxically had a positive effect, though it’s uncertain if this was intentional or just a fortunate accident. Objectively, the former seems highly likely, but the old-time gamers familiar with the company’s style feel that maybe the company is just plain lazy.

However, Motan... cough cough, Motan under his current persona generally browsed only a few specific sections: [General Discussion], [Odd News & Gossip], and [Hot Issues]. The sections viewed when ’Absolute Neutrality’ and ’Chaotic Neutral’ personas were in control were more varied, especially the latter, with all kinds of bizarre interests, but to effectively avoid mental contamination, let’s not delve into those here. (PS: Even Tan Mo has no interest in [Danmei Romance] that ladies favor, so please don’t let your imagination run wild.)

In short, the post titled [Misha’s Diary] was something Motan had just found in the General Discussion section. As it was stickied quite prominently, it was hard to miss.

The diary was written by a player who was almost entirely involved in the anti-epidemic relief work in Misha County, and the writing wasn’t bad. It was highly praised in the vast general section and the followers for the updates had broken ten thousand, with 9999+ stickers on the first post alone. It was one of the most popular serial posts at the time, second only to the coverage of a few star players.

However, since Motan usually paid attention to other types of posts (such as ’psycho killer’ stories), he hadn’t really paid much attention to it before, and stumbling upon the final Chapter of this diary today was pretty much an accident.

Until now, people frequently adding ’Black Fan’ as a friend (at least a hundred each day) could be explained; he had indeed become a celebrity and been given many nicknames of different sorts, with the nicest sounding one being ’the Black Zhuge Liang’, the most common ’Impressive Commander’, the most bizarre ’Crazy Dave the Second’, and the most sarcastic ’Mr. Freeloader’.

As for this Morant himself, he didn’t care too much, at least not now, the only perplexing part was that Yu Chen had also revealed her player identity in today’s post. Even though he felt indifferent at the moment, Motan thought he would be scratching his heart and clawing his lungs with distress once he switched to the ’Absolute Neutrality’ persona.

"Heh, I remember being super worried when I went offline last time; why don’t I feel much of anything now..."

Motan placed the cup back in the cupboard, shook his head somewhat helplessly, and returned to the living room, where he sat on the cushy sofa and spaced out for a while before closing his eyes to attempt switching personas.

There were still many things left unresolved on that side, and he was also a bit worried about the situation with student Yu Chen, so now was not the time to rest.