Individual imagination and collective imagination

 

Cao Qian was still chopping, seemingly oblivious to the pain. In her eyes, she was pulling off ant legs, but in reality, she was slicing into her own thigh with an eerie excitement in her expression.

Guan Ling, hiding behind Xing Ye, whispered, "Boss, do you think if I hit her on the back of the head and knock her out, it'll help?"

Xing Ye sighed slightly, "Who's stronger, you or Cao Qian?"

Guan Ling shrank back. He wasn't a match for Cao Qian, who could resist ogres head-on.

If violence could solve the problem, Xing Ye would have stopped Cao Qian when she ran back into the building from outside.

When it came to Cao Qian, brute force was useless. Xing Ye could only squat in front of her and speak softly, "Cao Qian, listen to me, you are human."

A hint of confusion appeared in Cao Qian's eyes. She looked down at herself and shook her head, "I'm an ant. But don't worry, I'll cut off these extra legs and pull out my antennae, then I'll turn back into a human."

Xing Ye asked, "Why do you think you're an ant? To me, even if you were an animal, you'd be more like a leopard or a venomous spider, something fierce and dangerous, not a lowly worker ant."

"No," Cao Qian shook her head, "I'm nothing special. I was always the least noticeable in my class, short, with average grades. I studied hard, but my grades were just mediocre, neither the best nor the worst. Sometimes I envied the poor students because at least they stood out in class. I wanted to hand in blank papers on purpose, but I didn't dare. I was afraid of disappointing my parents."

Xing Ye said, "Grades don't define everything. To me, you're someone with high execution ability, willing to endure hardships, and a trustworthy teammate."

He squatted beside her, looking up so Cao Qian could look down at him.

This world seemed particularly harsh to Cao Qian. Guan Ling's gambling was his own imagination and easy to break, but Cao Qian couldn't win just by imagining it.

Xing Ye had a rough understanding of this world now, but the immediate task was to wake up Cao Qian. Once the team was together, he could explain what this world was about and how to avoid going insane.

Cao Qian still had a chance. She knew who she was, recognized Xing Ye and Guan Ling, and knew she had to complete tasks in a game world. She wanted to cut off her limbs because she didn't want to drag everyone down, hoping to turn back into a human from an ant.

As long as she could still recognize this, there was hope.

Xing Ye hadn't studied psychology, but he knew that psychological counselling techniques wouldn't work in this world. Counselling requires a long-term approach, often involving prolonged interaction and multiple sessions while maintaining an absolutely neutral stance to help the patient open up.

That was too slow. In such an extreme environment, it simply wouldn't work.

Xing Ye said, "Look at your hand. If it were an ant's hand, how could it hold a knife?"

Cao Qian, bewildered, said, "This hand is human. I'll keep it."

She looked at Guan Ling with envy and said, "It's nice to be a compliant player. Guan Ling is a lion, so powerful and never a burden."

Guan Ling, on the verge of tears at the sight of all the blood, said, "Sister Cao, if I'm a lion, then you're a Tyrannosaurus Rex! Do I look like a lion to you, maybe a toy lion?"

Xing Ye couldn't see the beast forms of humans anymore, but if he fell into negative emotions, he'd probably see Guan Ling as a lion too. This wasn't their imagination.

Xing Ye thought for a moment and asked, "Cao Qian, you're clearly so strong. You're our backbone. Why are you so self-deprecating?"

He had already seen that Cao Qian's biggest issue was her deep-seated inferiority complex.

Cao Qian looked at Xing Ye and said softly, "I liked playing volleyball in school, but I was really bad at it. The ball often hit me in the face, and I was always a substitute for the class, never actually playing in a game. So I wished I could be really strong and skilful, standing in front of my teammates and protecting them from danger.

"I thought if I did that, they'd see me, praise me, care about me. So I always pushed myself really hard, playing fiercely. But why did they always see me as a fool to be discarded at any time, never as a teammate?

"I was the one getting hurt, the one taking the hits, the one facing the boss head-on. I was hurt too, it really hurt, it hurt so much…"

Cao Qian covered her severed arm, crying out in pain. She was in so much pain, real pain.

Guan Ling wiped away tears behind her. Xing Ye immediately said, "Don't cry. Put away your sympathy and self-pity. Cao Qian doesn't need sympathy, and if you fall into these emotions, you'll lose your own rationality."

Xing Ye said to Cao Qian, "Relying on others' sympathy to get love, don't you find that pitiful? You have this enviable strength, yet you always use a self-destructive style. You don't love yourself, don't care for yourself, and yet you expect others to care for you?"

Cao Qian looked at Xing Ye. She had always listened to him, and now she was silent, consistently waiting for his next words.

"You think you're an ant, believe you have many legs, and think cutting off a few doesn't matter. This is no different from your usual self," Xing Ye continued. "Even in our team, you always fear being a burden, fear being useless. So when you think you're an outcast, you want to escape immediately. But this isn't a trap. Don't you think a strong ant can be useful? With many legs, you can deliver whirlwind kicks."

Cao Qian thought for a moment and let go of the knife, saying, "That seems right…"

Xing Ye continued, "Every world, when I feel pitiful, you're always worse off than me. In Puppet City, and the hospital too. In the hospital world, I chose the difficult mode, but you were worse off in terms of resources. You had no legs even before Guan Ling did. Do you know why?

"Because you want to be pitiful, you're using your misery to attract others' attention. The system responded to your wish, making you helpless in every world.

"Cao Qian, you're not pitiful, nor worthy of pity. Attracting others' attention isn't done by being miserable. You need to make yourself excellent, and you have. To be honest, since I met you, all my battle plans have been centered around you. Without you, our victory rate would be 1%. Because of you, it rises to 10%. Your reckless fighting style has made us win many times.

"If you still think you're pitiful, I have nothing more to say."

Cao Qian looked at Xing Ye, her eyes gradually becoming clearer, but there was still a trace of confusion. In her eyes, everyone was still animals, not humans.

At that moment, a swan suddenly flew out of her pocket, circling around Cao Qian, and a feather fell onto her forehead. The confusion in her eyes finally disappeared completely.

The swan called out to Cao Qian. She extended her remaining hand, and the swan landed in her palm, transforming into a crystal.

"The Ugly Duckling will eventually become a swan." This wish, only understood by the ugly duckling, gave the user a sense of psychological superiority, a weak person's fantasy that made them invincible at that moment. Linda's second initial skill, a derivative of "Self-Deception."

"Self-Deception," Linda's initial skill, allowed her to deceive others by deceiving herself. As long as she believed, others would believe too. It cost 50 points, lasted 10 minutes, and had a 6-hour cooldown.

"Oh, it hurts!" Cao Qian held her arm, "Wasn't I cutting off phantom limbs? It turns out it was my real arm!"

"Yes, if we hadn't come, you would have turned into a human stick," Guan Ling said as he came over to treat her, relieved to see Cao Qian back to normal. "Sister Cao, you really scared me. We can't do without you. Every time you're around, I feel so safe."

"I... I have some dark thoughts sometimes, but I'm not usually this twisted, right?" Cao Qian said, still shaken by her earlier self.

"Thanks to the swan," Guan Ling said, "But also thanks to the boss for waking you up first, so you could regain a good favourability of the swan and it could save you."

However, Linda's initial skills, "Lack of Ambition" and "Self-Deception," were useful but had harsh activation conditions. How degenerate and self-deceptive must one be to fully utilize these two skills?

Cao Qian said, "My intimacy with Linda isn't high. This skill was on the QR code equipment, used according to Linda's will. It's probably a one-time ability. But the activation condition was intimacy over 40. I was so down, thinking Linda couldn't possibly like me, so my favourability dropped. She always wanted to help me but couldn't use her initial skill. Luckily, the boss woke me up a bit, giving her the chance to act."

This was all conveyed through the feather to Cao Qian.

Xing Ye asked, “How long does the superiority granted by Lin Lin last?”

Cao Qian replied, “Six hours. Since it’s a personal sensory ability without any substantial harm to the opponent, it lasts a long time.”

“Then you’re safe for these six hours,” Xing Ye sighed in relief. “We need to act quickly.”

Cao Qian asked fearfully, “Why did I become like this? I feel... normally, I’m a bit confused, but not to this extent. Shouldn’t it be normal for everyone to have some self-doubt and desire for attention? That’s normal, right?”

With her sense of superiority, Cao Qian felt she was truly impressive. The despondent person from earlier was not her at all.

Guan Ling looked at Xing Ye, remembering that during the gambling earlier, Xing Ye had changed the cards, which saved his life. Why was that? What kind of world was this?

Xing Ye saw the questioning eyes of the two and explained, “I haven’t figured out exactly what kind of world this is. If I did, we would have already cleared the level. But I have deduced the rules of this world and its power system.

“This is an idealistic world where everything might be real or fake. There are two types of powers here, both driven by emotions and imagination: individual imagination and collective imagination.

“For instance, Guan Ling, when you were being chased and gambled until you were bankrupt, that was individual imagination.”

Guan Ling asked, “Boss, you mean I imagined a bunch of people who beat me so badly I almost died? Since it was my own imagination, how could I lose?”

Xing Ye said, “Because you believed you would lose. In the real world, you’ve never won. Whenever it came to a last- effort, you always lost. This experience became deeply ingrained in your subconscious mind. Isn’t losing everything quite normal then? After I arrived, you blindly believed in me, thinking that as long as I was there, even if the opponent had the best cards, I could turn the tables. So we won. After we won, those people, your inner demons, disappeared.”

“I see,” Guan Ling nodded. “Is Cao Qian’s situation the same?”

Xing Ye shook his head, “No, Cao Qian’s case is more complex. She’s entangled in both individual and collective imagination, with two types of negative imaginations nearly driving her to suicide.”

Guan Ling said, “Boss, I don’t understand any of this. Can you explain it step by step? What is collective imagination?”

“Collective imagination is the consciousness of this world, constantly present. As soon as we have even a bit of negative emotion, it sneaks into our minds.”

 

Translator : DarNan