Reckless Play

“My name is Chen Wang. This world is a play woven from delusions. I enter the play and break it, but I will never become the god of the stage.” The year Chen Wang turned eighteen, the world went completely mad. In the corridors at two in the morning, a headless ghost walked the same route over and over. Anyone it touched died, and the only way to survive was to uncover its rules for killing. His parents, who had been by his side every day, revealed the vertical pupils of strange beasts. Only then did he learn that the entire human world was a maze where strange beasts raised their prey, and anyone around him could be a butcher hiding beneath human skin. One moment, he was escaping death at a supernatural crime scene. The next, he woke with a start in a psychiatric hospital bed, where everyone told him that ghosts and strange beasts were all delusions conjured by his madness. In his desperate situation, Chen Wang awakened two innate talents. Born with a delusional nature, a single wild thought could turn reality and illusion upside down and twist the rules. The madder he became, the stronger he grew. With the origin of the Way of the Stage, he could step into a role and become it: play a loyal official, and he would gain an unyielding spirit; play a vengeful ghost, and he would command the rules of killing. Whatever he played, he became. But power never came without a price. To command ghosts, he had to endure their corruption and backlash. One wrong step, and he would become a murderous evil spirit. To indulge in delusion, he had to fall into the abyss between reality and illusion. One stray thought, and he could lose his mind completely. To enter a story, he had to become a puppet of its script. Lose himself too deeply in the role, and he would become the very stage god he despised. Everyone else was trapped in this delusional play, at the mercy of others. Chen Wang alone wielded delusion as his pen and drama as his blade, tearing up the script written for him and rising against the gods above! The ending of this grand play called the human world is mine to write!