Cold

The cold, rotting orange tasted like mold and the peculiar stench of spoiled fruit.

But Li Huowang, starving to the point of desperation, couldn't afford to care. Right now, this orange was more precious to him than any delicacy in the world.

One rotten orange down, feeling slightly better, Li Huowang suddenly stood up. In the pouring rain, he shouted anxiously in all directions, "Clan Head Bai! Don't be afraid. I'm having an episode. I'm sick, I have an illness!"

A middle-aged man holding an umbrella saw the disheveled Li Huowang, quickly pulled his wife close, and hurried away with a fearful expression.

The others reacted the same way. The street, already nearly empty because of the rain, was suddenly deserted.

Li Huowang ignored all of this completely. He knew the situation on the other side, in reality, was critically urgent.

Over there, he was nothing but meat on a chopping block. He had to find a way to save his own life!

Yet the heavy rain continued all around him, giving him no feedback at all, which filled his heart with intense irritation.

According to the pattern he'd observed before, the activity in that reality should have been twisted into some kind of change in this hallucination.

"Clan Head Bai! Where are you? Please, give me some sign! I can't see you right now!"

Just then, Li Huowang saw several men holding umbrellas walking toward him. His eyes lit up.

Li Huowang, in his broken leather shoes, stepped through the muddy puddles and rushed toward them. "Clan Head Bai!"

Li Huowang, suddenly leaping out of the downpour, clearly startled the man.

"Clan Head Bai, you remember it was me who saved your people before! Are you really going to lay hands on someone who saved your lives?"

Feeling that wasn't enough, Li Huowang added another sentence.

"Besides! Bai Lingmiao is already carrying my child. Whether you accept it or not, I'm half a member of the Bai family now!"

"What kind of madman is this? You scared me." The man with the black umbrella quickly stepped back twice, then, his face wary, tried to go around him.

How could Li Huowang let him leave? He quickly stepped forward, spreading his arms to block the man's path.

"Clan Head Bai, if you don't believe me, you can ask Er Niang herself!"

Seeing Li Huowang like this, the man said helplessly, "Brother, give me a break, okay? Take pity on me. I still have to go to work and pay off my mortgage."

"What did you say? Sorry, Clan Head Bai. I'm stuck in a hallucination right now. Anything you say will get twisted into something else in my head."

"Tell you what, Clan Head Bai. I'll just stay right here and not go anywhere. Give me a moment. I'll be back to normal soon."

Though the man couldn't understand a word Li Huowang was saying, when he heard Li Huowang wanted to follow him, he was terrified.

"Ah, damn it, a lunatic has latched onto me!" The man didn't care about anything else. He turned and ran for his life.

Anxious, Li Huowang lifted his foot to give chase, but after only a few steps, he stumbled and fell to the ground.

The bodily sensations he had ignored while talking came flooding back.

Cold. Li Huowang's lips were purple from the cold. His teeth chattered uncontrollably. He was so frozen he couldn't even feel his own fingers anymore.

Lying in the rain, Li Huowang felt his entire body go limp and weak, without a shred of strength.

He wanted to ignore these false perceptions, but the instinct for survival made him struggle to his feet. Shrinking his neck and hugging himself, he pressed close to the eaves and stumbled forward.

"Get lost, you lunatic! Keep coming and I'll beat you to death!"

"Hey! Ah! Don't track mud all over my shop's carpet!"

"Mom! Hurry! There's a crazy person at our door!"

Accompanied by these voices, Li Huowang, shivering violently, staggered onward.

Looking around at everything, his panicked heart calmed a little. Since I'm not dead yet, the lie I just made up must have worked.

But no sooner had one wave subsided than another rose. His head began to feel heavy and dizzy. It seemed the drenching rain had given him a high fever.

"If I die... in this hallucination... what happens over there in reality?" Li Huowang's weak voice was laced with uncertainty.

Just then, through the heavy rain, Li Huowang saw the opening of a bridge tunnel up ahead. It was very small, but just big enough to shelter from the rain.

As Li Huowang gritted his teeth and charged forward, he narrowly brushed past a yellow school bus. A small face was pressed against the window, watching his back.

The moment he arrived under the bridge tunnel, the chaotic sounds around him stopped abruptly. Gasping for breath, Li Huowang leaned against the wall and slowly slid down.

Though he was no longer in the rain, Li Huowang's body felt no better. Why is it taking so long this time? Why haven't I gone back yet?

As Li Huowang waited for the time to pass, he suddenly noticed something on the ground further in. He struggled to drag himself over.

In a corner of the bridge tunnel, several plastic bottles with straws lay next to some aluminum foil, accompanied by a near-empty lighter.

Li Huowang reached out with his nearly numb hand and picked up the red transparent lighter.

Click. Click. Shivering violently, Li Huowang tried to light it, but it wouldn't catch.

Just as his head was growing foggier, a small red flame weakly flickered to life.

"Light." Li Huowang smiled, the reflection of the flame in his eyes. His smile was like that of an innocent child.

Looking around, he picked up one of the red plastic bottles with a straw and carefully placed it under the flame.

The red-and-white straw caught fire, the flame spreading steadily down into the bottle.

When several bottles were burning, forming a small, smoky campfire, Li Huowang cautiously brought his frozen hands close to it.

The fire from the burning plastic stank, but it was warm.

The heat of the flame slowly transferred from Li Huowang's palms, warming his body. Gradually, his trembling stopped. His lips changed from black back to purple.

"Who!" His scalp tingling, Li Huowang spun his head around sharply and saw a little girl in small rain boots standing at the mouth of the bridge tunnel, holding an umbrella.

She was a very cute little girl, only about seven or eight years old, with double ponytails and a red cherry hair clip.

Her big eyes were first filled with confusion and curiosity. But upon seeing Li Huowang's appearance, they shifted completely to fear.

"Layue Shiba?" Li Huowang's expression flickered darkly as the words slipped out involuntarily.

This was the child he had taken hostage back at the kindergarten.

From the backpack on her back, he could tell she had graduated from kindergarten and was now in first grade.

"No... she's not Layue Shiba anymore. She should be a projection of something else from reality. The reed marsh had no one else... she must be one of the Bai family."

Li Huowang thought for a moment, then started walking toward her.

But the moment he moved, the little girl, like a startled deer, let out a panicked shriek and ran away.

When Li Huowang reached the mouth of the bridge tunnel, he found a piece of Dove chocolate on the ground that the little girl had dropped.

Li Huowang picked it up and put it in his mouth. The chocolate was delicious, very sweet. That special, fragrant sweetness reminded him of Yang Na, of the chocolate she had given him on Valentine's Day that year.

"Why was I abandoned on the street? Have I been given up on by my family?" A bitterness swelled in Li Huowang's heart, one that even the chocolate couldn't dissolve.

Sniffling, his nose stinging, Li Huowang turned around and walked back toward the campfire.

He crouched down again, staring blankly into the flames, muttering to himself, "It's just a hallucination anyway... this is fine... this is fine..."