War

Yang Xiaohai let out a breath only after Li Huowang had left, his posture relaxing just a little.

The group ate and chatted idly. There wasn’t much to talk about, so the conversation eventually drifted back to the beggars lurking by the door.

“I don’t remember there being this many beggars on our road. Where are they all coming from?”

Hearing Bao Lu say this, Yang Xiaohai immediately grabbed a piece of flatbread, dunked it in his thin porridge, and headed outside with his bowl. “I’ll ask them for you.”

Gouwa watched him go and remarked to the others, “That kid’s really sharp. If he didn’t have to go home, I’d be tempted to take him in as a son.”

“Take him in as a son? You mean take him back to be your servant, don’t you?”

Caught out, Gouwa didn’t care. He just laughed it off.

When Yang Xiaohai stepped outside, the beggars by the door stared hungrily at his bowl, thrusting out their own chipped vessels. A few even started singing the Lotus Song, a beggar’s chant.

Yang Xiaohai ignored them. Instead, he walked toward the little beggar who had fallen earlier.

The boy was huddled in the corner of the wall, pitiful—just like Yang Xiaohai himself had been not so long ago.

“I’ll ask you something. If you answer, this flatbread is yours.”

Seeing the flatbread in Yang Xiaohai’s hand, the filthy-faced little beggar nodded frantically.

“Where did all you beggars come from?”

“The east! We all came from the east! I’m not really a beggar. I fled here with my parents.”

“I was stolen by slave traders on the road. I escaped halfway and ended up a beggar.”

Yang Xiaohai fished the sodden piece of flatbread from his pocket and handed it over.

The little beggar didn’t care that it was hot. He grabbed it with both hands and shoved it into his mouth.

“Why did you flee? Was there a disaster back home?”

The little beggar slurped down some of the porridge clinging to the bread and nodded. “Yeah. There was a disaster. If it had been a flood or a drought, my dad wouldn’t have abandoned the fields and run. But this time it was war.”

“Look at all these people—they’re all here because of the war. It was a huge one. The soldiers charged into the villages and grabbed everything they could see. I heard several villages were wiped out.”

As Yang Xiaohai asked more questions, a shadow fell over him from behind. It was Gao Zhijian.

“Th-this isn’t… isn’t w-war refugees,” Gao Zhijian stammered. “Th-this is… this is a routed army!”

“Gao-shixiong, so there’s really a war going on?” Yang Xiaohai looked up at the man’s broad chin.

Seeing that Yang Xiaohai didn’t mock his stutter the way others did, a flicker of warmth appeared in Gao Zhijian’s eyes.

A thick, calloused palm, bigger than Yang Xiaohai’s head, landed on top of the boy’s head and patted it gently. “Th-that’s… th-that’s right.”

Yang Xiaohai turned back to the little beggar, who was intimidated by Gao Zhijian’s size. “There really is a war? How come I haven’t heard about it? You said you came from the east? Do you know where exactly the fighting is?”

“I don’t know. I just remember my home was in the east.”

Seeing that the little beggar clearly had no useful information on this, Yang Xiaohai shifted his gaze to the older beggars.

“Hey, you two out there, what’s so interesting about chatting with beggars? Get back in here and finish your meal. We still need your bowls to wash.”

Hearing this, Yang Xiaohai tensed immediately. “I’ll wash the bowls! I’ll do it!” He turned and hurried back inside.

The little beggar watched Yang Xiaohai’s clean cloth shoes disappear, then looked down at his own frostbitten, purple feet. Deep envy filled his eyes. “I wish they’d buy me too…”

“Cao Cao-shixiong, the beggars are here because of a war in the east.”

“So what if there’s a war? What’s it to us? Bao Lu was just asking. Don’t treat his words like a royal decree. He’s not the Emperor.”

—

Li Huowang lay on the clean white hospital bed, his expression caught between hesitation and struggle.

Judging by his surroundings, his hallucination had shifted from the ICU to a normal ward.

In his hand, he held a round, translucent jade pendant. It was his—strung on a cord and worn around his neck.

He remembered giving it to Yang Na. But now, inexplicably, it was back around his own neck.

Li Huowang no longer bothered to wonder how it had returned. He was thinking about something else now. Words the doctor had spoken to him before.

“By the way, Xiao Li, you said earlier that the reason you think this world is fake is because you can bring things from that world here. Have you ever tried sending something the other way? From here to there? You might get a different result.”

Li Huowang held up the round jade pendant, studying it. Finally, he made up his mind. He clenched his fist around it and tucked it into the front pocket of his hospital gown.

“I’ll try. It won’t hurt to try. And if it works…” he thought to himself.

But then another question surfaced, stopping him cold.

“If it does work… then what does that mean? Does it mean Bai Lingmiao’s side is the fake one? Or that both sides are real?”

Li Huowang didn’t know. But regardless, he decided to try first and figure out the meaning later.

Time crawled by, second by agonizing second. Li Huowang waited silently for the result. It was unbearable—each minute felt like a year.

After a nurse came in to change his medication, Li Huowang finally felt the hallucination around him begin to dissolve.

The moment he was back in the antique-furnished room of the other world, his hand flew to his chest. When he pulled out the jade pendant, his face froze.

Forgetting to put on his clothes, Li Huowang jumped out of bed and searched frantically. When he looked at his hands, he was looking at two identical round jade pendants.

“Two? How can there be two? Why are there two?”

His mind was a mess. He had considered the possibility of bringing something back from the other side, but he had never expected this outcome.

“Huowang.” A soft woman’s voice came from outside the door. It was Yang Na’s voice.

Li Huowang stared at the door in shock. How could Yang Na be here? Wasn’t she someone from the hallucination?

“Li-shixiong.” This time it was Bai Lingmiao’s voice. A creak sounded as the door was pushed open from the outside.

Seeing the “thing” that walked in, stitched together from the two of them, Li Huowang’s face twisted in sheer terror.

“No… no, NO!”

Li Huowang shot upright in bed, drenched in cold sweat.

He looked around at the antique, dark-wood furniture and finally understood. A day’s thoughts become a night’s dream. Everything he had just experienced was a dream.

As he lay back down, a stray thought surfaced from somewhere in his mind.

“Was it really just a dream?”