Adam is tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep through the night—perhaps due to the long nap in the afternoonor the excessive tea atevening. Rising from bed, he throws on a coat and steps out onto the balcony. The streetlights softly tint the clouds with a thick, reddish hue. Yet, the moonlight manages to pierce throughit, and even at midnight, the outdoors is as bright as daylight.


    Adam gazes into the distance as the streetlights flicker a few times. Suddenly, the clouds thin out, and the moon''s shadow grows larger and brighter until the extinguished streetlights become indistinguishable. He suddenly feels it hard to breathe, as if his entire body is submerged in water. Losing his balance, he collapses onto the bed, his eyelids growing heavier and heavier.


    When Adam wakes up, it is already noon. The strange moon from yesterday still lingers in his mind. He takes out his phone to search for dream interpretations, but despite having full signal, there is no internet. He looks at the router, and the red light is on—it seems to be disconnected.


    Helpless, Adam calls his childhood friend, John. After a few rings, John answers. “John, where are you? My internet is out. I dreamed the moon fell last night, and I wanted to look up dream interpretations. Who would’ve thought the phone has no service, and the WiFi is also down?”


    “What? The moon fell? Are you joking? The moon is still up in the sky. Look to the northeast; that faint white outline there—that''s the moon. By the way, my internet is out too. My girlfriend wanted me to join her in a mobile game, and now I can’t reach her. Probably the city’s conducting maintenance.”


    “You’ve been dating for so long, and you don’t even have her phone number?”


    “Who remembers phone numbers these days? We all use messaging apps. My contacts list only has your number, Adam. With no internet, everything’s boring. Let’s meet up for a game of soccer.”


    “Sure, let’s meet at the city gym. I’ll hang up now and freshen up.”


    Adam packs his gear, including his sports clothes and a can of Yunnan Baiyao spray, then heads to the bathroom to freshen up. “Huh? Why is my face so pale? It even has a glow to it. Let’s try turning off the light.” In the dark, the glow disappears, but his face remains ghostly white, like a zombie. “Maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten anything in a while—no blood circulation. Weird things keep happening these days. I’ll get some food first.”


    After freshening up, Adam heads downstairs. It’s lunchtime, and the noodle shop is bustling. He takes a seat at a two-person table and orders a standard stir-fried pork with green chili noodles. Around him, people are discussing the internet outage. Work is stalled, entertainment is unreachable—suddenly everyone has free time.


    “Oh no, I forgot about the internet being down. Thankfully, my company has a day off today. Boss lady, I’ll go home to grab some cash and bring it right back,” says a woman in a black uniform as she rushes off. Adam realizes he can’t use digital payment either. He frantically searches his pockets but only finds ten yuan—two short of what he needs. “Wait, there’s a hundred in my phone case—I almost forgot. Might as well grab a few drinks for John too ”


    Adam gets up and heads to the fridge, grabbing two drinks and opening one. “Boss lady, this drink is expired—it has no flavor. Taste it yourself—it’s like plain water.”


    The boss lady takes a sip. “That’s impossible; this is a new batch. Oh, you’re right, it has no flavor. Go ahead and replace it.” Adam reconsiders, puts the second bottle back, and takes four bottles of water instead.


    When Adam arrives, John isn’t there yet. After jogging to warm up, Adam spends time passing the ball with a nearby child. John finally arrives, albeit tardily. “What? You tasted flavorless soda too? It’s so frustrating. On my way here, I bought a bottle of soda, and it had no taste—no bubbles either. If I’d known, I would’ve opened it in the store and tried it there,” John complains.


    “This is so strange. Anyway, warm up quickly. I’m the goalkeeper, and I’ve already loosened up. Just waiting on you now.”


    “Oh, losing internet and this? Bad luck, like biting your tongue while drinking water. I’m going to bring my A-game today and score double digits against you, Adam.”


    “Yeah, right. Even if leewere the goalkeeper, you wouldn’t score double digits.”


    The game begins. John, with his background as a winger, dribbles fast and steady, heading straight for the penalty area before shooting. “You think I’m a rookie goalkeeper? Trying to lob it into the top corner?” Adam leaps sideways, deflecting the ball out of bounds. In five-a-side soccer, corner kicks aren’t given—it’s a goal kick instead. Adam launches the ball upfield. His team’s striker stops it, dribbles past a defender, and scores, taking the lead.


    “Really? You’re going all out? Just you wait,” John mutters as he skillfully weaves through defenders and strikes a low shot towards the far post. Adam stretches out to block it, but it’s a fraction too late...


    The game lasts for two hours, with three breaks in between. The final score is 7:5, with John scoring six goals. If not for that infamous press conference where he publicly insulted his coach, John might’ve led the national team to the World Cup finals.


    After finishing the soccer game, it''s already past three and almost four in the afternoon. Saying goodbye to John, Adam begins to head home. The sky is overcast, with thick gray clouds layering overhead.


    Adam starts jogging and crosses the street. Just as he’s about to cross another road, he notices some movement nearby. Turning his head, he sees a man pushing a woman toward the lake in the park.


    In broad daylight, someone is actually doing such a thing? Adam rushes over and pushes the man away. However, having just finished the soccer game, he''s too exhausted, and the woman still ends up falling into the lake. Just as Adam is about to jump in to save her, the woman climbs out of the water herself and exclaims, “Hey, what are you doing?”


    “Huh? I saw him trying to push you into the lake, so I rushed to rescue you,” Adam explains.


    “Are you stupid? We’re shooting a video. Didn’t you notice the camera across the street?” The man rubs his arm, angrily scolding Adam.


    Adam notices a script lying on the ground, faintly reading the line Rain sounds shatter the lotus leaves.Remembering that there’s another park nearby with lotus flowers, Adam picks up the script and hands it to the man. Before he can say anything, the man pushes him away. “Get out of here! Who do you think you are? Don’t let me see you again. Go, go, go!”


    Unable to explain himself, Adam awkwardly leaves. The sky begins to drizzle with long, fine raindrops like strands of hair. If it weren’t for the cool sensation on his face, he wouldn’t have noticed the rain. As luck would have it, Adam arrives at the second park. The lotus flowers in the lake haven’t bloomed yet, and the leaves sway gently in the wind. “Let’s rest in the pavilion for a while! No need to catch a cold if it starts pouring,” he thinks.


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    The wind gradually stops, but the rain falls heavier, hitting the lotus leaves with a constant splattering sound.


    "Rain harder, rain harder, hurry and finish so I can go home," Adam mutters to himself. As if the rain hears his thoughts, it pours down in dense sheets, each drop forming lines, lines merging into streams, like the Heavenly River spilling down from the sky. The whooshing rain drowns out the sound of raindrops hitting the lotus leaves, and the dense rain even blocks out the wind entirely.


    Adam, overwhelmed by the awe-inspiring power of nature, breaks into a cold sweat. He recalls the moon from the previous night, pink and eerie rather than cute. Suddenly, he remembers the earlier script he picked up. There was another phrase before: "The moonlight washes away the colors." It’s "The moonlight washes away the colors; the rain shatters the lotus leaves."


    Adam gets home at around six o''clock. He quickly takes a hot shower, finally washing away the sticky feeling from his skin.


    The router''s light remains red, and his phone’s 4G signal drops to just two bars, still unable to load any page. Lying on the bed, probably worn out from the soccer game, Adam soon drifts off into a deep sleep.


    Sweet dreams don’t last long. Adam wakes up, feeling hot. His blanket and sheets are soaking wet as if they’ve been submerged in water. He drinks some water and notices the router’s light has turned gray. When he opens his phone, the screen is gray too.


    Suddenly, Adam notices a giant moon hanging outside the window. The only difference is that it is no longer pink but black-and-white, still as bright as ever.


    “John, wake up! Do you see this? The moon has fallen again. This time, it’s gray,” Adam immediately calls John.


    From the other end of the line comes a muffled noise, followed by a scream. “Ah! Crap! I can see the moon even with my eyes closed. I mean it, my eyes are closed!”


    You cansee it with your eyes closed? Adam closes his eyes, and sure enough, he can still see the moon hanging outside the window. He looks around and suddenly notices a swirl of rainbow-colored energy in the mirror. As he walks toward the mirror, the energy moves toward it as well.


    “John, there’s a swirl of colorful energy inside me. It’s like the inner power from martial arts novels. Am I about to awaken some super inner strength?”


    “Super inner strength? You? Keep dreaming. You’ve read too many novels. Why don’t I have any energy inside me? Try going to the bathroom—maybe it’s just something in your intestines.”


    “I think I can control this energy and make it move around inside my body. I can direct it wherever I want.”


    “Try releasing it and blasting that annoying moon away. It’s so bright I can’t sleep.”


    “I’ll give it a shot.” Adam channels the energy to his palms, but no matter how hard he tries, it won’t release. “It stops at my palms and won’t go any further. Maybe I need to spin it like a Rasengan?” Adam rubs his hands together for a while, but the energy still doesn’t rotate outside his palms.


    “There’s no energy outlet in your hands. Try releasing it from your asshole.”


    Adam hesitates for a moment, wondering if releasing the energy through his assholemight contaminate his inner power or cause him to lose control. Instead, he decides to channel the energy to his mouth.


    “Break!” A stream of energy shoots through the glass, hitting the moon directly. The colorful energy completely disappears, and suddenly, a female voice echoes in Adam’s mind.


    “You have successfully bound the server to the moon. The moon server has one player bound. The moon server is now full.”


    “What is this? It seems like I’ve bound to something. John, I think I’ve bound to some kind of system. It’s real.”


    “Really? I don’t feel anything at all. Could it be that getting hit by too many shots during the game triggered your system awakening? What can this system do?”


    “I only heard that I’ve bound to some system, but I have no idea what it’s for yet.”


    "..."


    "I just remembered—while taking shelter from the rain this afternoon, I suddenly comprehended the poem: ''The moonlight washes away the colors; the rain shatters the lotus leaves.'' Could this be the reason?"


    "Since when are there poems with six characters in a single verse? ''The moonlight washes away the colors'' feels oddly fitting right now. Wait—why can’t I see any colors all of a sudden? And hey, I’ve got a swirl of blue energy in my body. Let me try releasing it from my asshole."


    "Blue energy? What I’m seeing is rainbow-colored. Try releasing it—it might allow you to bind to a system."


    "Oh, it’s already bound! But it’s not a system—it says I’ve bound to the Earth server. I’m the first player bound to Earth, and my attributes are water and poison. How does this work? Can I make water fly? Come forth, Water Dragon! No use—it’s not working, I can’t control even a single drop. Could this all be collective hallucination?"


    Adam doesn’t hear what John says but starts pondering instead: "John’s blue energy—water and poison attributes. My rainbow-colored energy—could I be an all-attribute magician? Let’s try moving the water in this glass... Oh, it actually works!"


    Adam suddenly gets an idea and directs a stream of water toward the moon outside the window. The glass shatters everywhere, but the water stream doesn’t quite reach the moon.


    "Let’s try adding some force and rotation," he thinks. While Adam focuses on controlling the water, the moon descends slightly, appearing to stick to the window frame. The stream of water finally reaches the moon, causing it to flicker a few times. Then, a voice echoes in Adam’s mind.


    "The Spiral Water Sword has been uploaded to the server. Each person who learns this skill will return five energy points to you. Would you like to rename the skill? Would you like to keep the system notifications?"


    "No rename. No notifications," Adam responds without hesitation. "These are like pop-ups; better to blindly deny them and deal with issues later."


    "I didn’t expect to create a new skill just by trying randomly. Let’s see how much water I can control," Adam wonders.


    He turns on the faucet, continuously gathering water until the volume reaches roughly a bathtub’s worth—his apparent limit. Adam then writes in the air using water, sometimes forming the character for "big," other times the character for "one."


    After playing around for a while, Adam gains complete control over the direction and flow of water.


    "John, I just created a skill! John? John, are you listening?"


    Adam picks up his phone, but the signal has already dropped to zero. When he calls, there’s only a busy tone, not even the automated voice message.


    "Never mind. See you at the sports academy on Monday."


    Early the next morning, Adam wakes up and takes care of the broken glass from the previous night. After having breakfast, his vision remains gray, making it impossible to drive. He scans a code to rent a bicycle and rides to work.


    Strangely, cars on the street are driving normally, and there are no issues at traffic lights—everything seems perfectly orderly, with no signs of confusion.


    “Could it be that only John and I have lost the ability to see colors? Is losing colors the key to awakening?”


    At the sports academy, the students haven’t arrived yet. Adam goes to the office to check the schedule for the week. He has a full day of classes and an hour before the first one begins.


    Adam tries controlling the water in his glass again, and just like the previous night, it moves effortlessly at his command. He decides to spread the water over his clothes as a thin layer, which keeps him pleasantly cool.


    Not knowing where this magic comes from, Adam reflects on the strange events of the past few days. He opens a notebook and writes down his thoughts: “Recent strange occurrences:1.Lost the ability to taste sweetness.2.Lost the ability to perceive colors.3.A mysterious connection between ancient poems and awakening.4.The moon falls at night; bound to the moon and the Earth.”


    "Well, John lost his ability to perceive colors after understanding the phrase ''The moonlight washes away the colors,'' and he saw energy within his body. He bound to Earth. I experienced binding too, but it’s to the moon. It’s probably because my energy hit the moon, while John’s hit the Earth. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Also, the energy is different—John’s blue energy represents water and poison, while mine is rainbow-colored, which likely means all attributes. I should try spells of other attributes later to verify this."


    After thinking it through, Adam focuses his energy on the dumbbells in the office. The three-kilogram ones, five-kilogram ones, and even ten-kilogram ones all start floating in the air.


    "What an incredible feeling. It’s like I can see the molecular structure of the dumbbells. Left, up, put down. Let’s see how it works on wood—ah, the desk is rising too!"