Doctor Li

1,358 words

Chapter 98: Doctor Li

Li Huowang stared at his attending physician, mulling over the question he had just been asked. “Which side’s world is unreasonable?”

His right hand, cuffed to the table, pointed at the hospital floor. “This world here is unreasonable. This side is fake.”

Upon hearing Li Huowang say such a thing, Doctor Li did not look surprised. Instead, he pushed the bridge of his glasses up with his index finger and continued his questioning. “Alright. Then why do you think this world is unreasonable? There has to be a reason, right?”

Li Huowang didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he stared blankly at the white ceiling tiles above.

“Earlier, when I took that kid hostage, the cops shot me in the head, didn’t they? So why am I still alive? Am I indestructible or something? Doesn’t that prove this whole world is fake?”

Li Huowang suddenly felt that arguing about this with someone inside his own hallucination was completely pointless.

“Xiao Li, that was just good luck. The officer missed. After all, who says everyone who pulls the trigger has to be a perfect shot?”

“Hah. Good luck. You actually believe something that improbable?” Li Huowang let out a cold laugh.

“Some people get struck by lightning. Others win the lottery. Good luck and bad luck go hand in hand. Why do you think reality is supposed to be fair and reasonable in the first place?”

“This world has never been reasonable. But why is it that when other people encounter these unreasonable things, they don’t end up suspecting the world is a hallucination the way you do? Because you’re not like them.”

With that, the doctor pulled his phone from his white coat pocket and played a video for Li Huowang.

“Why are you so dead-set that the other side isn’t the hallucination? If you really think about it, wouldn’t you say the things you encountered over there are even more unreasonable?”

“Danyangzi is dead!! Danyangzi is dead! You’re all free!! Come out now!!” On the phone screen, Li Huowang, strapped into a straitjacket, was shouting at an empty room.

Seeing he had Li Huowang’s attention, the doctor swiped his finger across the screen. A new video began to play, showing another Li Huowang in a straitjacket.

“Fake! It’s all fake! Those statues and that big Buddha, it’s all fake! It’s just a trick! They can’t fool me!”

“Maybe you should talk to my master?” “Heh... didn’t you understand? I said you should talk to my master in person.”

One video after another—all recordings of things Li Huowang had said in the past.

When the final video played, Li Huowang’s pupils contracted slightly. He saw himself on the screen, wearing a patient’s gown, his expression manic, a wrench in his hand. He was screaming wildly as he charged into a bustling shopping mall.

“Danyangzi! Don’t kill the kid! You can’t kill the kid!”

There was still a long progress bar left on the video, but the doctor didn’t play the rest. He put his phone back in his pocket.

“Look. Compared to all the things you encounter over there, the fact that you weren’t shot in the head is completely insignificant, isn’t it?”

Li Huowang’s mind began to waver again. His breathing quickened. But he had no desire to explain further. He closed his eyes again. “Fake… it’s all fake…”

“Alright then. Since you believe this side is fake, why did you hesitate when your mother begged you? Since it’s all fake, why didn’t you just take that piece of glass and stab her?”

Doctor Li’s tone began to harden.

“Since it’s all fake, why do you care if Yang Na gets a new boyfriend?”

He jabbed his finger into Li Huowang’s chest, one tap at a time.

“How much longer do you think she can hold on like this, while you stay crazy? Even if she doesn’t find someone else, can you really stand to watch her just silently wait for you like that? Can you give her the happiness she deserves? Are you even worthy of being her boyfriend anymore?”

Li Huowang’s eyes flew open, glaring at the doctor before him. “They’re fake!! But my feelings for them are real!! Even though I know they’re hallucinations, I just can’t abandon the emotions I have for them!!”

“You think I don’t want to go back to them? I can’t go back!! I transmigrated!! It’s been so long since I transmigrated!!”

“You say this world is real. Fine. Then let me ask you this—why does a mental hospital have a gastric lavage machine?”

At this, Doctor Li spread his hands with a slightly helpless look. “What’s so confusing about that? Patients like you often swallow things they shouldn’t. That machine is standard equipment in nearly every psychiatric hospital. If it weren’t for that machine last time, all that disgusting stuff you swallowed would have killed you.”

“Then why can eating that Black Tai Sui from over there suppress my hallucinations here?”

“You didn’t eat any Black Tai Sui. You ate a rat. Your condition has worsened!”

“It just conveniently gets worse exactly when I eat it? How are you so good at twisting explanations to fit like this?!”

“Xiao Li, you’ve got the cause and effect backwards. It’s because your condition worsened that you developed those corresponding hallucinations. The hallucinations change as your condition does. That’s precisely why they are hallucinations.”

Hearing this, a vicious look crossed Li Huowang’s face as he threw down his final, most crucial piece of evidence. “Fine! Let’s say you’re right. Then tell me this—how come I can bring things from over there to here? How do you explain that?”

“Oh? New symptoms? Tell me how you do it. Where is this thing? Let me see it.”

Li Huowang opened his mouth to say how he had given the jade pendant to Yang Na, but then he stopped.

“No. I can’t drag Yang Na into this. Even if it’s just a hallucination of her, I can’t.”

Li Huowang was afraid that if he faced a hallucination of Yang Na, he wouldn’t be able to hold on, that he would mistake this side for reality again. He had to cut off every possible connection to this hallucination as firmly as he could.

“Just wait. The next time I come back, I’ll show you something from that world. Then we’ll see how you keep twisting your explanations, you damn hallucination!”

Hearing the young man’s ravings, Doctor Li let out a helpless sigh.

“Xiao Li, I’m afraid there won’t be a next time. You’ve caused quite a few incidents now. Our hospital has taken some of the liability too; we’ve been hit with several lawsuits. So the director has personally ordered your transfer.”

“Transfer? Transfer where?” Li Huowang asked, stunned.

Doctor Li patted him on the shoulder. “Since you believe this side is all a hallucination, why do you care where you’re being transferred to? All I can say is, because of what’s happened, your family’s financial situation is not looking good.”

“This is the last time I’ll be your attending physician. I wanted to make one final effort, but it seems it was doomed to fail. To be honest, being your doctor has been incredibly frustrating, heh.”

Doctor Li reached up and took off his glasses. He studied the young man before him carefully, then reached out his right hand and ruffled his hair. The lines on his face softened considerably.

In that moment, they were no longer doctor and patient.

“Xiao Li, you’re a good kid. Even if your symptoms are terribly unpredictable. I hope that no matter what you encounter in your hallucinations, you won’t give up on yourself. Especially not by doing something like trying to cut yourself open the way you did.”

“Do you know? You almost died. They had to remove part of your intestines too. You need a stoma bag for six months before it can recover.”

“If there’s one thing more unbearable for the people who care about you than seeing you go mad, it’s your death. As long as you’re alive, they have hope. Understand?”

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Reading Guide Decoding

The Final Therapy Session: Reality vs. Delusion

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

This chapter is a deep dive into the novel’s central cognitive war, and it utilizes a real-world psychiatric theory: anosognosia. This is a condition where a patient is unable to perceive their own illness or disability. Li Huowang’s entire worldview is a form of this—he knows he’s in a mental hospital, but his brain has constructed a complete alternate reality (the Dao-Twisted World) to explain the evidence. Doctor Li’s strategy is a classic therapeutic technique called reality testing, where the therapist challenges the patient to provide evidence for their delusion. By systematically dismantling Li Huowang’s “proof,” the doctor isn't just arguing; he’s attempting to force a cognitive dissonance so strong that the patient’s delusion cracks. But in this novel, the delusion might be real, which is the whole point of the horror.

Another key cultural note is the dual-role of the term "transmigrated" (穿越). In modern Chinese web fiction, this is a standard trope: protagonist dies and wakes up in another body/world. Li Huowang uses this exact term to explain his situation to Doctor Li. The meta-horror here is that the doctor, as a character within the "real" world, has no concept of this trope. So when Li Huowang says, "I transmigrated! It’s been a long time!" it sounds like pure clinical psychosis to the doctor, but to the reader who knows the genre, it sounds like a perfectly plausible explanation. The novel weaponizes genre knowledge itself against the audience.

Anosognosia

A neurological/psychiatric condition where a person is unaware of or denies their own illness or disability, often a core feature of severe psychosis.

Transmigration (穿越)

A standard Chinese web novel trope where a character dies and wakes up in a different body or world. Li Huowang uses this exact term, weaponizing genre knowledge against the doctor who has no concept of it.

Chapter Overview

Get ready, folks, because this chapter is a full-on psychological cage match. Li Huowang is in his last session with his attending psychiatrist, Doctor Li, and it’s not a gentle chat—it’s a brutal, point-for-point debate about the very nature of reality. The doctor systematically dismantles Li Huowang’s "the hospital is fake" theory with cold, clinical logic, weaponizing his own past actions and his deepest emotional vulnerabilities against him. It’s a masterclass in the novel’s core horror: that the "real world" might actually be the one the reader wants to trust, and leaving it is the same as abandoning the people who love you. The stakes skyrocket when Li Huowang learns this is the last session—he’s being transferred, and his family is in financial ruin. The chapter closes not with a triumph of insanity, but with a deeply human plea: stay alive, for their sake.

Key Plot Points

Doctor Li directly challenges Li Huowang's claim that the hospital is the fake reality, using his survival of a bullet to the head as a simple case of "bad luck" rather than proof of a false world.
The doctor plays recorded videos of past Li Huowang episodes, showing him in a straitjacket shouting about Danyangzi and charging a mall with a wrench, exposing the chronic nature of his condition to himself.
Li Huowang's defense of his feelings ("My emotions for them are real!") is confronted with the painful reality of Yang Na and his mother—the doctor argues that his refusal to accept this reality is what is hurting them.
Li Huowang's ultimate challenge—bringing a physical object from the hallucinatory world—is met with a dangerous complication: revealing the jade pendant would implicate Yang Na, and he refuses to do so, unable to tell if his loyalty is protecting a real person or a hallucination.
The session ends with Doctor Li delivering the news of Li Huowang's forced transfer, revealing the family’s mounting debt from his care, and he gives a final, devastatingly human plea for Li Huowang not to harm himself.

Reading Guide

This is a "truth bomb" chapter disguised as a therapy session. It’s not about action sequences or supernatural fights—it’s a war of words where the battlefield is Li Huowang’s own sanity. The chapter asks a profoundly uncomfortable question: What if both worlds are true? The hospital is real, AND the Dao-Twisted World is real. Li Huowang’s condition isn't a lie; it’s a catastrophic, binary truth he is physically unable to hold in his head at the same time. Pay close attention to the doctor’s final gesture—removing his glasses, ruffling Li Huowang’s hair, speaking with genuine, soft affection. It’s the most human the doctor has ever been. This is the core emotional conflict of the novel: the monster isn't the entity in the temple; the monster is the fact that to save the people you love in one world, you must destroy their happiness in the other. The doctor’s final plea—"stay alive, for their hope"—isn't a cure; it’s a mission statement for a doomed soldier.