Li Wei made it back to his dorm room.
Somehow.
He didn't remember the walk.
Or the elevator ride.
Or how he got past the RA who always gave him the stink-eye.
His brain felt like scrambled eggs.
Very spicy, very confused scrambled eggs.
He collapsed onto his bed, the springs groaning in protest.
Demons.
Dragons.
Princesses with flaming swords.
His entire life had officially become a low-budget fantasy anime.
And he wasn't even the main character.
He was the comic relief sidekick who dies in the first season.
He closed his eyes.
Maybe if he went to sleep, he'd wake up and it would all be a weird stress dream brought on by finals and malnutrition.
Yeah.
That sounded plausible.
He was just about to drift off into blissful denial.
Then something started glowing.
**
He opened one eye.
Floating in the middle of his dorm room was a pipe.
Like, an old-school, Sherlock Holmes-style wooden pipe.
It was hovering in mid-air.
And it was smoking.
By itself.
A thin, lazy stream of fragrant smoke curled up toward the ceiling.
Li Wei stared.
He was definitely still dreaming.
Or maybe the hotpot broth had been laced with something.
That seemed more likely.
**
Then the pipe spoke.
Its voice was old, gravelly, and dripping with the kind of sarcasm that had been aged for centuries.
"Congratulations, idiot."
Li Wei sat bolt upright.
"You've been selected for the Yin-Yang Chaos System!" the pipe announced with zero enthusiasm.
"Please refrain from dying immediately. It creates a lot of paperwork."
Li Wei's jaw dropped.
He pointed a trembling finger at the floating smoking utensil.
"You... you can talk?"
The pipe seemed to sigh, a puff of smoke exiting its bowl.
"Of course I can talk. I'm a primordial artifact of immense cosmic power. What did you think I was? A fancy paperweight?"
The voice, which seemed to emanate from the very air around the pipe, continued.
"Call me Old Master Q. I'm your System. Your guide. Your spiritual mentor. And the only thing standing between your dumb ass and a very messy, very permanent death."
**
A screen flickered into existence in front of Li Wei's face.
It was a hologram.
A shimmering, semi-transparent window of light, just like in the video games he couldn't afford.
[YIN-YANG CHAOS SYSTEM]
[HOST DETECTED: Li Wei (Defective)]
[STATUS: Confused, Mildly Traumatized, Smells Faintly of Soup]
Li Wei read the words.
"Defective?" he squeaked. "What do you mean, defective?"
"It means your soul is cracked, kid," Old Master Q said. "Split right down the middle. One half is a bumbling fool with the survival instincts of a lemming."
The holographic text suddenly glitched.
The clean, futuristic font morphed into a messy, crayon-like scrawl.
[Yin Mode: Maximum Derp Activated]
Then it flickered back.
"The other half," the pipe continued, "is a cold, calculating genius who sees the world as one big math problem."
The text glitched again, this time into elegant, ancient calligraphy.
[Yang Mode: Calculating Optimal Insults...]
The screen shuddered violently, the two fonts fighting for dominance.
"Your conflicting personalities are causing... let's call them 'performance issues'," Old Master Q grumbled. "The system is barely stable. Try not to have an existential crisis. It makes the Wi-Fi lag."
**
A new window popped up.
It was bright, cheerful, and had far too many exclamation points.
[NEW QUEST!!!]
[Objective: Assert Dominance!]
[Description: Life is tough. But you're tougher. Probably. Go find an arrogant young master and slap him right in his smug, punchable face.]
[Reward: Basic Dignity (x1)]
[Penalty for Failure: Continued Humiliation]
Li Wei stared at the quest.
Slap an arrogant young master?
What did that even mean?
Where was he supposed to find one of those?
Was there a store?
**
The dorm room door slammed open.
"Li Wei, you absolute slob!"
Chen, his roommate, stomped into the room.
He was wearing designer track pants that cost more than Li Wei's entire education.
His hair was perfectly coiffed.
He smelled of expensive cologne and condescension.
He wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"Did you spill instant noodles on the floor again? This place smells like poverty and sadness."
He kicked one of Li Wei's stray textbooks.
"And clean up your crap. I'm having friends over. I don't want them to think I live with a hobo."
An arrow made of pure, shimmering light suddenly appeared on the holographic screen.
It pointed directly at Chen.
A new line of text appeared below the arrow.
[Target Acquired: Arrogant Young Master (Premium Grade)]
**
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
This couldn't be happening.
The voice in his head, the talking pipe, the video game screen... it was all real.
His brain finally, officially, broke.
The two halves of his soul, which had been cautiously circling each other, declared war.
This is insane! Yin Mode screamed internally. A ghost pipe wants me to assault my roommate! I'm going to be arrested! Or committed! Or both!
A cold, analytical voice cut through the panic.
Fascinating, Yang Mode observed from the depths of his consciousness. The "System" appears to be a quantum field overlay that interacts directly with the host's perception of reality. The quest mechanic is likely a motivational stimulus designed to trigger latent abilities.
It's a GHOST! It's going to possess me!
It is not a ghost. It is a complex, sentient energy construct. I must analyze its source code. The physics are... beautiful.
I DON'T WANT BEAUTIFUL PHYSICS! I WANT MY MOMMY!
Emotion detected. Quarantining irrational panic response. The optimal course of action is to complete the quest. The potential reward of "Basic Dignity" could be a metaphorical representation of self-actualization.
IT'S A SLAP! YOU WANT ME TO SLAP CHEN! HE'LL KILL ME!
Probability of fatal retaliation from Subject Chen: 12.3%. Probability of unlocking new system functions upon quest completion: 78.9%. The choice is logically clear.
NO!
YES.
**
The war in his head spilled out into the real world.
The lights in the dorm room flickered violently.
The half-eaten bag of soggy shrimp chips on his desk levitated an inch off the surface.
The air around Li Wei began to shimmer, distorting like a heat haze.
Chen, who had been ranting about the state of the room, finally noticed something was wrong.
"Bro, are you okay?" he asked, a flicker of concern crossing his arrogant face. "You look... staticky."
Li Wei was clutching his head, his knuckles white.
He was vibrating.
Literally vibrating.
"Must... slap..." Yin Mode whimpered.
"Must... analyze..." Yang Mode countered.
The pressure built.
The quest notification on the screen started flashing an angry, insistent red.
[DO IT. SLAP THE SMUG BASTARD.]
Something had to give.
Driven by a chaotic impulse he couldn't control, fueled by the System's demand and his own fractured mind, Li Wei lunged.
He moved with a clumsy, uncoordinated grace.
His hand flew through the air.
And connected with Chen's cheek.
SMACK.
The sound was crisp.
Loud.
Profoundly satisfying.
**
Chen stood there, his hand on his cheek, his face a perfect mask of utter shock and disbelief.
"Did... did you just slap me?"
At that exact moment, the space in the middle of the room tore open.
A vortex of shimmering phoenix fire erupted into existence.
Feng Yue stepped through the portal.
She looked magnificent.
She looked powerful.
She looked incredibly annoyed.
"Li Wei, we need to talk about your tendency to run away from cosmic..."
She stopped.
She took in the scene.
Li Wei, frozen mid-slap, looking horrified.
His roommate, holding his face, looking violated.
And the glowing, holographic screen floating between them, its quest objective now flashing a triumphant green.
[Quest Complete! You slapped the arrogant young master!]
[Reward: Basic Dignity (x1) has been added to your inventory!]
Feng Yue's eyes widened.
Her fiery gaze fixed on the System interface.
The annoyance on her face melted away, replaced by a cold, dawning horror.
The blood drained from her face.
"That's impossible," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
"The last Chaos Cultivator died three thousand years ago."
đź“Ł [SYSTEM NOTICE: AUTHOR SUPPORT INTERFACE]
Did this chapter bless your braincell or ruin your will to live (in a good way)?Drop a comment or throw a power stone — it's like XP for my soul.