2026, a totally 'normal' year on earth when oil prices shot up. But what did that have to do with Michael?
He was just some unemployed, lazy bum with no purpose in life. Day after day he'd just lie around at home scrolling through his phone and living off inheritance money. He didn't even go outside so of course he wasn't spending money on gas.
Sure, he was lazy but he did know a bit about finance. With the assets he inherited, he had ways to spend for a hundred years and still not run out.
"So damn boring. No interesting news today."
The young blonde man sat up in bed, stretched, then tossed his phone aside. His sky-blue eyes combined with his harmonious features could be considered handsome.
But his physique was kinda hard to look at. He had no muscle tone, a pale complexion, and dark circles under his eyes. Clearly, this was the result of an extremely unhealthy lifestyle.
He scratched his back, stumbling toward the bathroom. He kept yawning nonstop like someone who'd just stayed up all night scrolling on their phone. Looking closely at the corner of his mouth, there was dried drool there from who knows when.
Just as he opened the bathroom door, his phone suddenly let out a notification sound. This unfamiliar noise made him have to turn his head back to look.
"Weird. Who the hell is it? It's been a long time since I last heard this sound."
If his phone had this kind of notification sound, it definitely meant someone had messaged him. But his friends last contacted him like ten years ago.
He hadn't deleted them or blocked messages. It's just that he stayed cooped up at home so no one wanted to hang out with him anymore.
As someone who knew a fair bit about finance, his mind immediately went to the only possible scenario.
"No way, someone wants to borrow money? Digging up friends from a whole decade ago? Ha ha, that's actually pretty interesting."
For a homebody like Michael, having someone actively reach out to him was already considered interesting.
It wasn't that he liked being the center of attention or enjoyed talking to others. He just found it strange that no one had contacted him in the past ten years and now, suddenly, someone was texting him.
As for borrowing money? If they borrowed a little, he'd just give it. If they borrowed a lot, he'd block the message.
Just as he picked up his phone, before even unlocking the screen, his eyes went wide. His trembling hand, from who knows when, made the phone fall onto the bed.
"How… how is that possible?"
He definitely wasn't mistaken. That account name, even after twelve years, he still remembered clearly who it belonged to. It was the account of a friend he used to be really tight with before he chose to become a shut-in.
"Didn't he die a long time ago? Could his account have been hacked?"
Thinking about a deceased friend he respected having their account hacked by someone else, Michael's expression suddenly turned unusually serious.
He might not be a billionaire now but he was still a multimillionaire. Catching some nobody hacker wasn't impossible.
"Hmph, I don't know who you are but you're messing with the wrong guy. Daring to hack the account of… of… What the hell?"
Michael held his head, his face looking extremely uncomfortable like he'd just accidentally swallowed a fly. In that moment just now, he wanted to say that friend's name but he couldn't remember it at all.
He wasn't someone with a bad memory. He still remembered a lot of things from when he was three years old until now. But he didn't know why when he thought about this friend, his mind became hazy.
"Damn it, what's wrong?"
He paced back and forth, scratching his head. In the past ten-plus years his mind had never been this strained.
Things got even weirder. At first he couldn't remember that friend's face. The harder he tried, the more he couldn't even remember his build.
If he couldn't remember who that friend was, he'd try remembering people connected to him. But the harder he tried to remember, the more people he forgot.
He traced back from elementary school to college, and yet he couldn't remember a single person. As if everything he'd experienced was fake. And that he actually didn't have any friends at all.
Michael got so pissed he kicked the nearby table hard. A drawer accidentally slid open, making him suddenly remember he kept the graduation photo in there.
"F*ck, I can't have memory loss. This has to be from staying home too long. Just looking at the photos will definitely bring everything back."
As soon as he opened the drawer, he saw the corner of a wooden photo frame. He excitedly pulled it out but immediately got so shocked he dropped the frame on the floor.
The glass on the outside shattered, the photo falling out with it. The weirdest part was that the photo was just pitch black like it had been burned.
"No, no way…"
Michael's pupils trembled. At this moment, he felt like his whole life might be fake. If everything was fake, then was he even real? Of course he wasn't about to accept that easily so he immediately opened the window.
Seeing that outside people were still crowded and cars were still running steadily, his mind relaxed a bit. Suddenly he remembered something related to the photo.
"Scared the hell out of me. I remember now! Back then I saw the photo was wrinkled so I used an iron on it. But I accidentally burned it black. Since I'm super lazy, I didn't bother asking friends for a copy to redo it, so I just put it back in the frame and threw it in the drawer. If it was still good, I'd have hung it on the wall ages ago."
Figured it out, finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. Earlier he almost thought, after staying home for ten years, he'd discovered everything in the world was fake.
"Oh, but if it's not fake, then do I actually have memory loss? No way, I'm still young. How could I have that?"
"Guess I should go see a doctor."
His eyelid twitched a few times. If he totally couldn't remember anything anymore, the feeling would probably be no different from the whole world being fake.