Stars

Inside the capital city that had just survived a calamity, Li Huowang lowered his head, his expression profoundly complicated as he stared at his own shadow.

Ji Zai was real. But his existence depended on Li Huowang.

Ji Zai was unstable. The moment Li Huowang confirmed him as a delusion, he vanished.

Ji Zai held sway over Bewilderment—or rather, he himself was Bewilderment. He existed forever between being and not-being, caught in the gap of a single thought.

No wonder Ji Zai had kept telling him to hold on. Li Huowang had never understood what he was supposed to hold on to. Now he finally got it.

"Am I right?" Li Huowang suddenly spoke, his voice low, asking his shadow.

This time, Ji Zai did not answer. The shadow was just a shadow.

In the moment it had taken Li Huowang to think it through, he had vanished again.

Li Huowang finally understood something. He turned to leave, but then he saw Shangguan Yuting stepping out of the wall beside him.

One of the Sitian Jian's illusions. The commotion had drawn her in too.

Li Huowang studied her for a long moment, then spoke. "I understand what you meant before. You were just helping him stabilize. No wonder you called him the Unspeakable."

"What?" Shangguan Yuting didn't follow.

"Nothing. You were right. He is the Unspeakable."

With that, Li Huowang ignored her. He walked through a corpse-littered street, searching until he found a large well.

Floating inside the well, beside two bodies, was Li Huowang's reflection. Above that reflection hung the moon, half-emerged from behind the clouds.

Li Huowang stared at his own reflection in the well water, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and silently recited something in his heart.

As he did, everything around him twisted slightly. Stones grew soft. A rope turned greasy. A weed at his feet writhed, pulled itself free of the dirt, and crawled aside to get out of his way.

He had barely left the well's edge when, as Li Huowang slowly opened his eyes, the weed rooted itself again—this time on top of a brick.

"Is it just you who's this unstable? Or are all Siming like this?"

"I don't know. Maybe some are. I remember some things, sometimes, but I can't tell you."

"Remember what I said before. I am you, you are me. Without you, there is no me. Now tell me: who am I?"

"You are Ji Zai," Li Huowang replied, his voice cold.

"How did I come to be?"

"I don't know how you came to be. I only know you're useless—completely undependable at the critical moment. Relying on heaven, relying on earth—better to rely on myself. I'm not coming to you again. I'll figure everything out on my own."

"Good. Hold on to that. You'll protect yourself well. And you'll keep helping yourself."

Li Huowang took one long, deep look at Ji Zai, then turned to leave. But just then, he felt something watching him.

He jerked his head up, staring at the stars in the sky.

Li Huowang reached out, grabbed the edge of the starry sky, and gently pulled back a corner, revealing the scenery behind the curtain.

In a corner of his own housing complex, a short, gray-haired old woman with a red armband on her right sleeve was craning her neck, peering toward his home.

"Son? What are you looking at?"

"Mom. Someone's watching our house." Li Huowang's voice carried a hint of displeasure.

Sun Xiaoqin came over for a look, then reached out and yanked the dark-blue star-print curtains shut.

"Pfft, is that all? That's just Auntie Qi from the neighborhood committee. She held you when you were little."

"Why is Auntie Qi watching our house? Does the neighborhood committee have nothing better to do?" There was hostility in Li Huowang's voice. There was something else in that old woman's eyes.

So that's why he had felt watched these past few days. He hadn't expected it was her.

"Oh, it's nothing. I guess the hospital notified them too. This is a good thing, son. Look how many people care about you."

"She cares about me? She's scared the crazy guy is going to run out and kill someone in the street." Li Huowang grabbed the curtain corner and yanked hard, covering the window completely.

He had thought that being discharged meant freedom. But that wasn't the case at all. The neighbors, the old acquaintances—everyone gave him a wide berth, like he was a plague.

And now this Auntie Qi was watching him from the compound, keeping tabs. Saying he was discharged—it was worse than being in the psychiatric hospital. At least inside, the people were crazy. They didn't look at him with that disgust, that exclusion, that fear.

Click. The desk lamp came on. Li Huowang sat at his desk and picked up a textbook, trying to read.

He wanted to study, to get into the same university as Yang Na. But it was hard. After everything—the trials, the despair—he had forgotten most of the material.

Seeing him sit down and actually open a book, Sun Xiaoqin was alarmed. She rushed over and snatched the book away.

"Son, you were playing games just fine before. Why're you reading books all of a sudden?"

"Mom, if I'm better now, I should go back to preparing for the college entrance exam." Li Huowang reached for the book, but Sun Xiaoqin held it further away.

"Son, you don't need any pressure right now, you hear me? The college exams, that's not what you should be worrying about."

"Mom, I'm a senior in high school. I've already repeated a grade for two years. If I'm not thinking about college, what am I supposed to do?"

"You don't need to do anything right now. Just play, you know?"

"Here, this is your allowance. Take it." Sun Xiaoqin stuffed a few hundred-yuan bills into Li Huowang's pocket.

"Play whatever you want! Buy whatever you want! Eat whatever you want! Don't you still have a few good friends? Call them up and go have fun!"

"Go eat barbecue! Go to the anime street! Go… go pull an all-nighter at the internet café!"

She paused. "Oh, and if you're going to stay up all night, tell me which internet café, so I can bring you your medicine."

She had done a lot of research lately. Most teenage mental illness was tied to strict family environments and too much academic pressure.

Her son had barely managed to come back. She wasn't going to let him go back in.

"Mom. Mom. I just want some quiet. Let me have some quiet." Li Huowang pushed Sun Xiaoqin out of his bedroom.

In the scuffle, Sun Xiaoqin deftly scooped up all the textbooks from his room. She didn't even leave a pen behind.

"Remember, no reading! Play games! That… that 3D headset thingy—do you want one? I bet you'd love it."