An Bao was deeply confident in himself. He believed that if he willed it, there was no difficulty he could not overcome, and nothing he could not achieve.
The visions had persisted for a year. He felt anxious about his insomnia, fearful of the hallucinations, and awed by the phenomena themselves.
One day, he overheard his mother and father discussing him. They said that An Bao's mother in Heaven missed her child dearly, but Heaven required An Bao to complete a trial before he could return. If he failed, the consequences seemed dire. Lately, An Bao had lost the drive to study, focusing only on intensifying his racewalking training, growing increasingly gaunt and weary. He yearned desperately to recover—even if it meant facing that seemingly absurd trial, he was confident he could prevail.
Amid the visions and hallucinations, he entered into a contract with many sources that emitted sounds like croaking toads. The terms of the contract were these: he would endure the torments of hell while remaining in a mortal body on earth; and his synesthetic abilities would no longer be limited to a select few—everyone would become his emotional regulator. However, Heaven would no longer grant him exceptional concentration. Instead, for the purpose of the trial, he would be provided with an ample cerebral cortex.