Entering a Split Personality — Chapter 1

Hey, it's Banoffee! I'm back again with a new novel by the lovely Long Qi. Never mind about The Marshals Want to Get Divorced, since SilverSoul is continuing it, but this novel, Entering a Split Personality, has a similar premise. I'm excited to start another journey with you all! 🤝

***

The hall was spacious and wide, and its rich crimson and golden brown walls reflected subtly off of each other. Inside, it was decorated with costly works of art and antiques. Even someone who didn’t understand art in the slightest would want to linger here.

It was so gorgeous here that it seemed like a dream manor from ancient Europe an aristocrat had squandered great wealth to defend. When you walked in from the outside, it felt just like you were a king coming back to your palace.

Three hours before, even if Xiao He was beaten to death, he wouldn’t have believed he could come to a place like this.

But at this moment, he was sitting on a soft, expensive sofa, looking at the black words against the white paper of the contract.

Everything was so wonderful that he felt like he was dreaming. Nothing felt real at all.

But he’d pinched his thighs until they were red, and an ache was still slowly spreading in them. The man in an expensive suit in front of him was still calmly continuing his introduction.

“Mr. Xiao, if you sign this non-disclosure agreement, we will give you a down payment of one million RMB in advance, and we will pay the remaining 29 million after the perfect completion of the task.”

One...one million RMB! No, wait...it was a full thirty million!

Xiao He sat there steadily, but his palms were already full of sweat.

The savings on his debit card had never gone past four figures in his life, but now a full thirty million was waiting for him to earn it, right before his eyes!

This was an even faster way of earning money than selling your kidneys!

But...there was such a good thing in the world? And he was fortunate enough to stumble across it?

Xiao He closed his eyes, forced himself to calm down, and went over the whole matter again.

***

Xiao He was twenty-six years old. He had graduated from college two years ago and was self-employed. Both his parents were still alive, and there was no one too outrageous in his family. He had a twin sister.

To go into a little more detail, Xiao He was born in a small town by the sea. His parents had steady jobs, and they were as close to each other as they’d been ten years ago. They were a standard well-off family, a very ordinary household of four.

If you insisted on hearing about something that made them different from the crowd, it would probably be Xiao He’s little sister. She’d been a top student since she was little, from elementary school to college, and afterwards, she entered a secret national research institute.

But to tell the truth, this didn’t have much to do with Xiao He.

Xiao He and Xiao Rong were twin brother and sister, but besides crawling out three minutes earlier than his little sister when he was born, he’d never been able to compare to her after that.

But Xiao He had a good temper, and he didn’t mind being overshadowed by his sister. He was fine either way. After all, it wasn’t every older brother who had such an amazing little sister. He shared in some of the glory!

It was just he’d been kind of annoyed recently. At twenty-six, he wasn’t old, but he wasn’t a child either. His mom and dad were very worried about him never having dated.

Their daughter was married to her career, their son had better not marry his computer as well!

That’s right...Xiao He was a proper youngster from the eighties, an otaku who had two jobs. His infatuation with 2D entertainment had already risen to the level where he could make a living out of it.

So that so-called self-employment was just writing some webnovels and earning some fees, making only enough to support himself.

He couldn’t stand his parents’ nagging, so he packed and went out the door recently. His excuse was that he was going to visit his sister, but he was actually seeking refuge.

Xiao Rong was comfortably off because of her job, and her house was spacious. The two rooms and the hall were covered in a thin layer of dust because their owner wasn’t often at home.

This wasn’t the first time Xiao He had come here to cadge a meal, so he’d already prepared a key. He opened the door calmly and checked in with his bag.

Funnily enough, just when Xiao He had settled in, he found that his little sister’s apartment’s Wi-Fi password had been changed.

As an otaku, how could he not have access to the internet? This was something he absolutely couldn’t take!

What’s more, his little sister was a workaholic. If he waited for her to come back, he probably wouldn’t be able to go online for three days.

It was a good thing there was a guest computer in the house. Xiao Rong had let him use it before, and Xiao He had no qualms about starting it up. He’d wanted to steal the Wi-Fi password, but as soon as he opened the computer, a series of questions popped up on the log-in interface.

As Xiao He looked at the questions, he complained silently. He didn’t understand the world of a top student. He was just logging on to a computer, did it need to check his credentials like this?

But Xiao He had a good temperament. He had nothing to do, so he might as well start earnestly answering the questions.

Speaking of the questions, they were really just like a psychological questionnaire. It was all about his favorite color was, what his learning capability, communication ability, and various hobbies were...it went voluminously on for almost a hundred questions. Xiao He actually answered all of them in one go.

After he finished, he let out a breath. A line of words popped up on the screen. “Compatibility: 99.999%.”

Xiao He was speechless. It was actually so high, but what did this compatibility mean? Could this be a questionnaire for finding a blind date?

Man, Xiao He was interested now. That inflexible little sister of his was looking for a partner?

This idea had just flashed through his mind when he heard the electric kettle whistling from the nearby kitchen.

The water he had boiled was ready. Xiao He got up in a hurry and went to the kitchen.

He poured out the hot water. Xiao He patted his starving stomach, got out a packet of instant noodles, put them in the bowl, and whipped a meal together.

After he ate his fill, Xiao He took a glance at the dust-covered room, and couldn’t stand it anymore. He took a rag and started cleaning up.

His little sister was good at everything, but her ability to take care of herself was zero. If he didn’t help her clean up a bit, she probably wouldn’t think of coming home even when the year ended.

There were janitors at the research institute. She only needed to take care of her room and she was fine.

After working hard, Xiao He glanced at the empty refrigerator, sighed, and got ready to buy some food.

Something like instant noodles seemed novel enough if you ate it once, but eating it for a long time was just masochistic.

But just when he opened the door, before he had even taken a step out, he saw the elevator open, and a crowd of men in black poured out.

Xiao He was given a scare, and his conditioned reflex was to break into a run. The gang of black suits had already rushed over, and they took him by the arms without explanation, dragging him out of the house and into a car. They drove like mad the whole way…

Until they arrived at this gorgeous, unusual castle.

“Mr. Xiao, please be assured that we have no malicious intentions. It was just that we’ve searched for too long without finding someone with such a high degree of compatibility, so we were a little anxious, and picked you up in a hurry. Please forgive us if we’ve offended you in any way.”

No malicious intent, like hell! Forgive you my ass! Xiao He was calm on the surface, but he was letting loose thousands of “fuck you’s” inside.

Luckily he had a good temper. If it was someone more irritable, they’d already have flown into a rage, okay?!

How was this picking him up? This was clearly kidnapping him! How was this “if” they’d offended him? Clearly they’d already offended him to the point where they were on his wife’s bed!

Xiao He was furious until the man in a suit continued, “Please take a look at this information. If you’re willing to accept, we’ll pay this amount in full after you complete the task. If you aren’t willing, we’ll send you back to where you were, and as psychological compensation…” The man took a small silvery-white box from below and pushed it in front of Xiao He. He said, “You can take all of this cash.”

Just as he finished speaking, he deftly undid the clasp, and the silver box opened. There were two rows of brand-new bills inside.

Xiao He did a few calculations. Judging by the standard that each dozen was ten thousand yuan...this, this had to be at least one hundred thousand!

***

2 hours and 45 minutes for 1,578 words, or 10.4 minutes for every 100 words. This novel has shorter chapters than Runaway Guide, thank God, an average of 5 pages on Google Docs compared to Runaway Guide's 7, but it's rather trickier to translate. Welp, I needed a challenge. 🤷‍♀️

Xiao He's name is 萧禾, pronounced Xiāo Hé. 萧 means Chinese mugwort, or desolation. 禾 means grain. One of my pet peeves about translated cnovels has always been that it's impossible to tell the names apart in pinyin, or how to pronounce them, or what they mean.

Mugwort, used as a food ingredient and as a material for moxibustion.

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