Of course, although they don’t understand how to precisely control the physiological responses caused by electric shocks by adjusting parameters such as the intensity, waveform, phase, and frequency of alternating current, at the very least... they do know how to administer electricity in a way that inflicts prolonged pain without causing serious external injuries. For a “treatment facility,” this level of knowledge seems to be sufficient.

Oh, right, I haven’t introduced myself yet. My surname is “Ethan”, and my given name is just one character: “Logan”.

At the moment, I am undergoing “treatment” in a very famous “Adolescent Behavior Correction Center.” Today is my first day here.

So far, the process of infiltrating this institution has gone extremely smoothly. They didn’t suspect at all that the two people who look nothing like me are not my real parents, and their attitude toward checking various documents was as casual as a teacher grading summer homework... Except for being extra careful when explaining the fees and counting the money, their lax standards for admitting “patients” are truly astonishing. Compared to my previous experience applying to enter a psychiatric hospital, getting in here was as easy as checking into a budget hotel.

However, the real difficulties are yet to come.

It’s easy to go undercover in a psychiatric hospital, because at least 95% of the people there are genuinely ill. As long as you get through the door and successfully blend in, you can boldly do all sorts of suspicious things—if you get caught, you can always play crazy and muddle through.

But here, almost everyone is normal. If you want to blend in without drawing attention, you have to appear “ordinary.”

Ordinariness is a great quality.

Its significance to the entire human world is extraordinary.

Without it, our current social system would collapse instantly; without it, our civilization would not have been able to continue from the very beginning.

The human race needs ordinariness as much as it needs air and water.

From ancient times to the present, the operation and maintenance of human society have depended on those countless ordinary people; they muddle along, drifting with the wind, yet think highly of themselves, convinced they are unique.

Precisely because the majority of humanity is made up of such people, the Fifth Kingdom has been able to be inherited, develop, and prosper.

And what, then, is the significance of the existence of that rare handful of extraordinary individuals with high standards and insight, who act as well as speak?

Naturally... it is to trigger “change.”

Change is an illusion; in essence, it is merely a part of some cycle.

The end point of change is still ordinariness. The world that has been “repackaged” will ultimately be handed back to the ordinary people. Then, for a long time, they will believe that the world has changed, become different, become better... Even if there are still some bad aspects, those are just the growing pains brought by change, which will be resolved sooner or later.

But in fact, they won’t.

Nothing has changed; the cycle continues.

Even so, change is still necessary; it’s like a shot of “muscle relaxant,” or perhaps like a satisfying act of self-pleasure. It allows the world to relax and release a little from accumulated pain and pressure.

I am a changer, and at the same time, an inheritor.

If there’s anything I learned from “that person,” it’s probably the kind of life philosophy where you can nonchalantly say that your career is like helping the world get off.

In short, for me... being ordinary is very difficult.

Of course, it’s also very interesting.

If philosophy could summarize “theorems” like mathematics, there would definitely be one that says—the more difficult something is, the more interesting it is.

Overcoming difficulties gives people a sense of achievement and superiority; this kind of satisfaction is proportional to the degree of difficulty. But people still don’t like dealing with difficulties, because the process of overcoming them is always accompanied by the risk of failure, and the result of failure means... you’ve spent time and energy, only to end up with a deep sense of frustration and a mess to clean up.

I don’t like failure either, so I have to seriously turn myself into another person.

A normal person.

“Punishment or treatment?”

Another round of electric shocks ended, and that man once again asked me the same question with a serious face.

I really wanted to laugh, but I held it in. Not only did I not laugh, I even had to cry.

Fortunately... holding back laughter can also squeeze out tears.

A few seconds later, I adjusted my expression, and with a face full of emotion, I let out a howl filled with postmodernism and a strong sense of accusation: “Treatment! Ah—hahahaha...”

In the end, my tears still came out, and the uncontrollable laughter was masked by my sobbing.

Sigh, being an ordinary person is really exhausting.

Chapter One: Inspector

If space is infinite, and the distribution of matter is sufficiently uniform on a large scale, then even the most unlikely events are bound to happen “somewhere.”

According to this theory, there should be infinitely many inhabited planets, and on those planets, there could also be infinitely many people with the same appearance, name, and memories.

If countless regions as large as our observable universe truly exist, then every possible cosmic history would actually exist.

This is the so-called parallel universe theory.