Daily Disposable Persona

Zong Yan was lying on the rooftop looking up at the sky.

It was an ordinary, everyday rooftop covered with cement. You could even see occasional rough patches where the cement hadn’t been smoothed out.

It was evening and the hot summer temperature had cooled a bit. The air naturally flowed from high pressure to low, forming a cool breeze.

A lot of elderly people grew vegetables on the roof of the tube-shaped apartment building. They scavenged wooden boards to build growing beds on the roof, filled them with soil, and picked up a load of mud from the banks of the Huangpu River each month as fertilizer. Almost every old person had their own small plot, and their vegetable crops flourished with the added nutrients.

Many elderly people did this, but it wasn’t just the old. The entire Chinese nation was filled with wild farming maniacs. No matter where people went, they grew small vegetable gardens. Many of the elders in the tube-shaped building had previously lived in the countryside. Later, after they lost their land, they planted a few vegetables to scratch the itch.

Of course, Zong Yan wasn’t lying on the ground amid the fragrance of the soil. To reach the small platform on the roof he’d nimbly climbed a bamboo pole like a scampering monkey.

On top of this small platform was installed the building’s only solar water heater. Zong Yan avoided the water heater and lay down flat with his legs crossed. There was a dog’s-tail straw stuck in his mouth.

The sky began to darken.

The view above him didn’t exist. It hadn’t existed since Zong Yan had begun high school.

He remembered very clearly that the parcel of land behind the tube-shaped building was acquired by a real estate company in his third year of junior high. For a month, machines rumbled all over doing demolition. By summer vacation before his first year of senior high, the structure was already taller than the three tube-shaped apartment buildings. When Zong Yan lay on the platform and looked up, his view was slightly blocked by the new building.

But right now, the only thing above Zong Yan was sky. The view was endless.

Then there were his clothes. He wasn’t dressed in the school uniform of Qingyang High School, but a simple, ragged sack.

And his hair, which was suddenly incredibly long, was now a different shade, having changed to brown from black.

Zong Yan faintly remembered that he’d looked like this after using the Azathoth persona card.

But he didn’t panic. He could tell that he was dreaming.

In your dreams you can be anything you want. Forget Azathoth, he could even be a Super Saiyan.

But maybe Zong Yan was sleepy. Right now he felt so lazy and empty-headed that he wasn’t thinking about much of anything. It was one of the intriguing aftereffects of using the Azathoth card.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. The setting sun disappeared from the horizon, the last glimmer of daylight was annihilated by the darkness, and the stars began to twinkle in the night sky.

Well, there weren’t enough stars. There could be a few more.

In Zong Yan’s dream world he was the absolute master. So, at the very moment this thought occurred to him, the sky was suddenly populated with stars blinking off and on.

“What are you thinking about?” A man’s calm, low voice came from above him.

Zong Yan lifted his head, and long gray tendrils of hair drifted down like moonlight, blowing coolly against his face.

It was a little ticklish.

And frightening.

Seeing another person’s face as soon as he looked up, especially on such a dark night—the thriller effect was doubled.

Even if the other person’s face was very handsome, it didn’t erase the fact that Zong Yan was almost scared out of his wits.

Generally speaking, he should have screamed or quickly retreated, but Azathoth’s intelligence reduction aura made Zong Yan stupid, and his reflex arc lengthened out into infinity.

So Zong Yan glanced at the other party very nobly and coldly, and returned his gaze to the sky, as if saying I’m far too lazy to care about you.

The Azathoth card had an effect that was difficult to comprehend. It gave Zong Yan the power to be careless about everything. He knew very clearly that he was in the presence of one of the three pillar gods, and normally Zong Yan would have reacted like he was facing a formidable enemy, but instead he felt quite calm and just ignored him.

This, in a sense, was the arrogance that belonged solely to the Lord of the Universe.

Besides, this was Zong Yan’s dream. In his dream he was the boss. The Lord of Time and Space had to step aside.

Just when Yog-Sothoth thought he wasn’t going to get an answer, the other party slowly said, “I want to hit you.”

These very brief words made Zong Yan’s grudge crystal clear.

“Such a thing is not impossible if you truly manage to evolve from a stream of consciousness to the full consciousness of the Lord of the Universe.” The Lord of Time and Space was silent for a moment. He was a little surprised but still made a pertinent suggestion.

The avatar of Azathoth wasn’t capable of it, but the real Azathoth could easily rip the true body of Yog-Sothoth out of time and space and thrash him without a word. And Yog-Sothoth probably wouldn’t dare to fight back.

But that wasn’t the case when it came to other evil gods. Between one Outer God and another, fighting was regarded as a means of expressing intimacy. Usually it only happened between lovers. To some extent it was equivalent to mating.

After all, a fight between Outer Gods was a true battle of immortals. A single blow could demolish thousands of galaxies. For example, Shub, who oversaw reproduction, was one of the three pillar gods. Before reproducing he had to fight the other party, consume their body bite by bite, then use the swallowed energy to reproduce the next generation extracorporeally.

—A battle between the true body of one god and another could easily destroy several small universes until they were finally entangled together. The winner could choose to either make the loser submit or swallow their opponent’s flesh. Whether it was eternal submission or consuming the other party’s energy until the two became one, it was quite a romantic thing in their eyes.

There was a deep mental gulf between human beings and the evil god version of romance. The way they produced their offspring didn’t involve carnal desire and piston movement, but pure external reproduction.

‘Why is His Majesty’s newly created stream of consciousness so insistent about fighting with me? Does he want to mate with me?’

Yog-Sothoth thought with a blank expression.

The Lord of Time and Space had no idea he’d angered the other party with his previous behind-the-scenes actions.

Because he now regarded Zong Yan as Azathoth’s stream of consciousness, he didn’t simulate human emotions. He interpreted everything through the lens of an Outer God.

Of course, back when he still regarded Zong Yan as a human, Yog-Sothoth hadn’t condescended to simulate human thinking either.

Now that Zong Yan’s identity was revealed, Yog-Sothoth viewed the other party from the perspective of another Outer God. In a sense, Zong Yan rid himself of the “tiny ant” label the evil god had automatically given him.

Would an Outer God care about the life and death of ants? No.

So Yog took it for granted that Zong Yan didn’t care either.

Zong Yan didn’t know what was going on in the other’s head. He gave a cold laugh, lazily put his arms behind his head and stretched out his long legs.

In the dream, Zong Yan was absolutely not in a state of temporary madness. He remembered using the Azathoth card to regress time before falling unconscious.

Even though he’d retraced time, Zong Yan was still filled with a lot of anger.

And the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

Maybe he couldn’t fight in reality, but couldn’t he have a good time in his dream? Since this guy dared to barge into his dream world, how could the dream master not discipline this evil god?

With that in mind he glared at the gray-haired man floating in the air. His eyes were full of hostility.

If this were reality, Zong Yan would never dare. But it was a dream. Inside a dream, even an evil god would have to cry and beg for mercy!

The next second, chains suddenly emerged from the void and wrapped tightly around the master of time and space. The air froze with heavy killing intent.

Yog-Sothoth: …?

For a moment he was stunned.

The reason was that just before, Yog’s mind was filled with ‘why does His Majesty’s stream of consciousness want to mate with me‘. He didn’t think the other party would literally take action.

This was indeed Zong Yan’s dream, but for a mighty Outer God, it was only a dream world. If he wanted, he could directly seize control from the dream master. These chains couldn’t trap Yog at all.

But the Lord of Time and Space was so shocked that he didn’t resist for a while. The chains got tighter and tighter, and Zong Yan revealed a wild, rampant smile.

“Father God, what are you doing?!”

Nyarlathotep, who ran over in a hurry, saw this scene and felt extremely alarmed.

“Please let me join in!!”

Finally the gray-haired evil god reacted. When he saw Nyarla, his face instantly froze over.

The next moment, billions of particles of light exploded in the air, the chains broke apart link by link, and the dream world fell to pieces and collapsed, dissolving into a flurry.

Whether it was an evil god who’d entered another person’s dream uninvited or the dream world’s owner, all of them were kicked out.

Zong Yan opened his eyes.

A white ceiling, a bright and spacious high-class hospital ward, mountains in the distance, cascading skyscrapers outside the full-length windows…

And two evil gods standing by the hospital bed.

Actually, there might be more than two, because Zong Yan noticed a third evil god in the room.

To be specific, there was an uninvited guest leaning against the opposite wall.

“Aha, you’re finally back.”

The blond man was holding a cigar. His long, lustrous hair fell over his shoulders and his posture was languorous.

The uninvited guest had a long, tall body exuding hormones. His face was full of deadly charm.

His face was the most striking thing, so profoundly beautiful that it held an almost bewitching attractiveness.

This face far surpassed the beauty that human beings could imagine. It had nothing to do with gender but broke the limits of thought.

Zong Yan recognized him.

In the twenty-first century of today, there were few people who wouldn’t recognize such an extremely famous face.

The superstar, the miracle of the movie industry, the three-time Oscar winner, the winner of sexiest man alive for years running, the dream lover of the world, the undisputed film emperor.

—Shub-Niggurath.

“You’re already back. I was thinking of testing whether the Father God’s dream could support all three of us.”

Shub-Niggurath tossed his cigar into the void and tugged at the necktie on his chest. He suddenly strode forward and bent down over the hospital bed, supporting himself on either side of the black-haired teen. The corners of his lips curled as he gazed directly into the boy’s dark eyes.

“Happy to meet you, my lovely little majesty—”

The evil god stretched out his words. Even his voice was low, sexy, and deadly, revealing a fatal charisma. “I’m Shub-Niggurath.

“Your most devoted believer… almost.”

The last word was reluctantly added because of Nyarlathotep’s hostile gaze.

TL Notes:

reflex arc – 反射弧 – A neural pathway that controls a reflex. The brain receives sensory input while the reflex is carried out, and analysis takes place after the reflex action (Wikipedia) Saying a person has a long reflex arc means it takes them a long time to react

I’m far too lazy to care about you – 一副朕懒得理你的样子 – the “I” is zhèn (朕), “imperial I”. It’s only used once

sexiest man alive – from 最美面孔 – the most beautiful face – “sexiest man alive” is a title awarded yearly in popular media to male movie stars. Also the words “beautiful” and “face” had already been used several times

hostile gaze – 虎视眈眈 – look at fiercely as a tiger does; eye with hostility; cast covetous eyes on; casting a greedy eye on its prey

Zong Yan was lying on the rooftop looking up at the sky.

It was an ordinary, everyday rooftop covered with cement. You could even see occasional rough patches where the cement hadn’t been smoothed out.

It was evening and the hot summer temperature had cooled a bit. The air naturally flowed from high pressure to low, forming a cool breeze.

A lot of elderly people grew vegetables on the roof of the tube-shaped apartment building. They scavenged wooden boards to build growing beds on the roof, filled them with soil, and picked up a load of mud from the banks of the Huangpu River each month as fertilizer. Almost every old person had their own small plot, and their vegetable crops flourished with the added nutrients.

Many elderly people did this, but it wasn’t just the old. The entire Chinese nation was filled with wild farming maniacs. No matter where people went, they grew small vegetable gardens. Many of the elders in the tube-shaped building had previously lived in the countryside. Later, after they lost their land, they planted a few vegetables to scratch the itch.

Of course, Zong Yan wasn’t lying on the ground amid the fragrance of the soil. To reach the small platform on the roof he’d nimbly climbed a bamboo pole like a scampering monkey.

On top of this small platform was installed the building’s only solar water heater. Zong Yan avoided the water heater and lay down flat with his legs crossed. There was a dog’s-tail straw stuck in his mouth.

The sky began to darken.

The view above him didn’t exist. It hadn’t existed since Zong Yan had begun high school.

He remembered very clearly that the parcel of land behind the tube-shaped building was acquired by a real estate company in his third year of junior high. For a month, machines rumbled all over doing demolition. By summer vacation before his first year of senior high, the structure was already taller than the three tube-shaped apartment buildings. When Zong Yan lay on the platform and looked up, his view was slightly blocked by the new building.

But right now, the only thing above Zong Yan was sky. The view was endless.

Then there were his clothes. He wasn’t dressed in the school uniform of Qingyang High School, but a simple, ragged sack.

And his hair, which was suddenly incredibly long, was now a different shade, having changed to brown from black.

Zong Yan faintly remembered that he’d looked like this after using the Azathoth persona card.

But he didn’t panic. He could tell that he was dreaming.

In your dreams you can be anything you want. Forget Azathoth, he could even be a Super Saiyan.

But maybe Zong Yan was sleepy. Right now he felt so lazy and empty-headed that he wasn’t thinking about much of anything. It was one of the intriguing aftereffects of using the Azathoth card.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. The setting sun disappeared from the horizon, the last glimmer of daylight was annihilated by the darkness, and the stars began to twinkle in the night sky.

Well, there weren’t enough stars. There could be a few more.

In Zong Yan’s dream world he was the absolute master. So, at the very moment this thought occurred to him, the sky was suddenly populated with stars blinking off and on.

“What are you thinking about?” A man’s calm, low voice came from above him.

Zong Yan lifted his head, and long gray tendrils of hair drifted down like moonlight, blowing coolly against his face.

It was a little ticklish.

And frightening.

Seeing another person’s face as soon as he looked up, especially on such a dark night—the thriller effect was doubled.

Even if the other person’s face was very handsome, it didn’t erase the fact that Zong Yan was almost scared out of his wits.

Generally speaking, he should have screamed or quickly retreated, but Azathoth’s intelligence reduction aura made Zong Yan stupid, and his reflex arc lengthened out into infinity.

So Zong Yan glanced at the other party very nobly and coldly, and returned his gaze to the sky, as if saying I’m far too lazy to care about you.

The Azathoth card had an effect that was difficult to comprehend. It gave Zong Yan the power to be careless about everything. He knew very clearly that he was in the presence of one of the three pillar gods, and normally Zong Yan would have reacted like he was facing a formidable enemy, but instead he felt quite calm and just ignored him.

This, in a sense, was the arrogance that belonged solely to the Lord of the Universe.

Besides, this was Zong Yan’s dream. In his dream he was the boss. The Lord of Time and Space had to step aside.

Just when Yog-Sothoth thought he wasn’t going to get an answer, the other party slowly said, “I want to hit you.”

These very brief words made Zong Yan’s grudge crystal clear.

“Such a thing is not impossible if you truly manage to evolve from a stream of consciousness to the full consciousness of the Lord of the Universe.” The Lord of Time and Space was silent for a moment. He was a little surprised but still made a pertinent suggestion.

The avatar of Azathoth wasn’t capable of it, but the real Azathoth could easily rip the true body of Yog-Sothoth out of time and space and thrash him without a word. And Yog-Sothoth probably wouldn’t dare to fight back.

But that wasn’t the case when it came to other evil gods. Between one Outer God and another, fighting was regarded as a means of expressing intimacy. Usually it only happened between lovers. To some extent it was equivalent to mating.

After all, a fight between Outer Gods was a true battle of immortals. A single blow could demolish thousands of galaxies. For example, Shub, who oversaw reproduction, was one of the three pillar gods. Before reproducing he had to fight the other party, consume their body bite by bite, then use the swallowed energy to reproduce the next generation extracorporeally.

—A battle between the true body of one god and another could easily destroy several small universes until they were finally entangled together. The winner could choose to either make the loser submit or swallow their opponent’s flesh. Whether it was eternal submission or consuming the other party’s energy until the two became one, it was quite a romantic thing in their eyes.

There was a deep mental gulf between human beings and the evil god version of romance. The way they produced their offspring didn’t involve carnal desire and piston movement, but pure external reproduction.

‘Why is His Majesty’s newly created stream of consciousness so insistent about fighting with me? Does he want to mate with me?’

Yog-Sothoth thought with a blank expression.

The Lord of Time and Space had no idea he’d angered the other party with his previous behind-the-scenes actions.

Because he now regarded Zong Yan as Azathoth’s stream of consciousness, he didn’t simulate human emotions. He interpreted everything through the lens of an Outer God.

Of course, back when he still regarded Zong Yan as a human, Yog-Sothoth hadn’t condescended to simulate human thinking either.

Now that Zong Yan’s identity was revealed, Yog-Sothoth viewed the other party from the perspective of another Outer God. In a sense, Zong Yan rid himself of the “tiny ant” label the evil god had automatically given him.

Would an Outer God care about the life and death of ants? No.

So Yog took it for granted that Zong Yan didn’t care either.

Zong Yan didn’t know what was going on in the other’s head. He gave a cold laugh, lazily put his arms behind his head and stretched out his long legs.

In the dream, Zong Yan was absolutely not in a state of temporary madness. He remembered using the Azathoth card to regress time before falling unconscious.

Even though he’d retraced time, Zong Yan was still filled with a lot of anger.

And the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

Maybe he couldn’t fight in reality, but couldn’t he have a good time in his dream? Since this guy dared to barge into his dream world, how could the dream master not discipline this evil god?

With that in mind he glared at the gray-haired man floating in the air. His eyes were full of hostility.

If this were reality, Zong Yan would never dare. But it was a dream. Inside a dream, even an evil god would have to cry and beg for mercy!

The next second, chains suddenly emerged from the void and wrapped tightly around the master of time and space. The air froze with heavy killing intent.

Yog-Sothoth: …?

For a moment he was stunned.

The reason was that just before, Yog’s mind was filled with ‘why does His Majesty’s stream of consciousness want to mate with me‘. He didn’t think the other party would literally take action.

This was indeed Zong Yan’s dream, but for a mighty Outer God, it was only a dream world. If he wanted, he could directly seize control from the dream master. These chains couldn’t trap Yog at all.

But the Lord of Time and Space was so shocked that he didn’t resist for a while. The chains got tighter and tighter, and Zong Yan revealed a wild, rampant smile.

“Father God, what are you doing?!”

Nyarlathotep, who ran over in a hurry, saw this scene and felt extremely alarmed.

“Please let me join in!!”

Finally the gray-haired evil god reacted. When he saw Nyarla, his face instantly froze over.

The next moment, billions of particles of light exploded in the air, the chains broke apart link by link, and the dream world fell to pieces and collapsed, dissolving into a flurry.

Whether it was an evil god who’d entered another person’s dream uninvited or the dream world’s owner, all of them were kicked out.

Zong Yan opened his eyes.

A white ceiling, a bright and spacious high-class hospital ward, mountains in the distance, cascading skyscrapers outside the full-length windows…

And two evil gods standing by the hospital bed.

Actually, there might be more than two, because Zong Yan noticed a third evil god in the room.

To be specific, there was an uninvited guest leaning against the opposite wall.

“Aha, you’re finally back.”

The blond man was holding a cigar. His long, lustrous hair fell over his shoulders and his posture was languorous.

The uninvited guest had a long, tall body exuding hormones. His face was full of deadly charm.

His face was the most striking thing, so profoundly beautiful that it held an almost bewitching attractiveness.

This face far surpassed the beauty that human beings could imagine. It had nothing to do with gender but broke the limits of thought.

Zong Yan recognized him.

In the twenty-first century of today, there were few people who wouldn’t recognize such an extremely famous face.

The superstar, the miracle of the movie industry, the three-time Oscar winner, the winner of sexiest man alive for years running, the dream lover of the world, the undisputed film emperor.

—Shub-Niggurath.

“You’re already back. I was thinking of testing whether the Father God’s dream could support all three of us.”

Shub-Niggurath tossed his cigar into the void and tugged at the necktie on his chest. He suddenly strode forward and bent down over the hospital bed, supporting himself on either side of the black-haired teen. The corners of his lips curled as he gazed directly into the boy’s dark eyes.

“Happy to meet you, my lovely little majesty—”

The evil god stretched out his words. Even his voice was low, sexy, and deadly, revealing a fatal charisma. “I’m Shub-Niggurath.

“Your most devoted believer… almost.”

The last word was reluctantly added because of Nyarlathotep’s hostile gaze.

TL Notes:

reflex arc – 反射弧 – A neural pathway that controls a reflex. The brain receives sensory input while the reflex is carried out, and analysis takes place after the reflex action (Wikipedia) Saying a person has a long reflex arc means it takes them a long time to react

I’m far too lazy to care about you – 一副朕懒得理你的样子 – the “I” is zhèn (朕), “imperial I”. It’s only used once

sexiest man alive – from 最美面孔 – the most beautiful face – “sexiest man alive” is a title awarded yearly in popular media to male movie stars. Also the words “beautiful” and “face” had already been used several times

hostile gaze – 虎视眈眈 – look at fiercely as a tiger does; eye with hostility; cast covetous eyes on; casting a greedy eye on its prey