A Way

Chapter 688: A Way

Inside the men’s restroom of Kangning Hospital, Li Huowang gasped for breath as he shoved his head under the faucet, letting the cold water pound against his scalp.

“Ji Zai... Ji Zai! You are Ji Zai!”

Qian Fu’s voice echoed in his ears again, a phantom replay. Li Huowang’s face twisted in pain as he squeezed his eyes shut.

His head throbbed—the kind of pain that felt like his skull was being crushed. Only under the icy tap water could he find a sliver of relief.

He lifted his head from the sink and stared through his soaked hair at his reflection in the mirror—a drowned rat, a face that grew more alien the longer he looked.

“What is Ji Zai? Wasn’t that just the fake name Zhuge Yuan gave me in the hallucinations? Why did he call me that? Could it be that the other world...”

Fragments of lost memories began to surface, and the ache in his head intensified. He dunked his head under the faucet again, letting the cold stream wash over him.

When he raised his head a second time, he saw something strange. In the mirror, his reflection did not lift its head with him. Instead, it stayed bent over, face under the faucet, letting the water run over the back of its skull.

Fear crept into Li Huowang’s eyes. Not just because the reflection wasn’t mimicking him—but because the reflection’s back of the head had a face on it, exactly like the front. The head had identical Li Huowang faces on both sides.

“Hah—!” He gasped, stumbling back several steps. When he looked at the mirror again, everything was normal. Only his startled face stared back. Just a trick of the mind.

“What’s going on? Could it be that the other world is real, and everything here is...?” A nameless dread surged up, and Li Huowang instinctively wanted to grab hold of something.

But then anger flared inside him, burning away the fear in an instant.

“Fuck! Trying to fool me again, are you? I’ve fallen for that trick too many times! I don’t believe it! I’m crazy, not stupid!”

If Qian Fu had seen Yi Donglai’s paper, then learning the name “Ji Zai” from it proved nothing at all.

Besides, Yi Donglai had treated him well, and he hadn’t had a relapse in a long time. That was enough to prove the visions were just symptoms of his illness. That settled it.

His anger mounting, Li Huowang clenched his right fist and slammed it into the mirror. Watching his reflection shatter into jagged pieces gave him some relief.

“Bad luck! I knew I shouldn’t come to this place. Haven’t solved my problem, and now I almost got dragged in by that lunatic Qian Fu!”

He held his bloodied hand under the faucet, rinsing off the gore, then started picking out the glass shards one by one. As he worked, his thoughts returned to Qian Fu.

Whatever that guy called him, one thing was certain: Qian Fu wanted his help.

The madman had asked to be rescued, promising that once he was out, he would help Li Huowang deal with the people watching and kidnapping him.

“Should I... do it?” Li Huowang hesitated. Qian Fu was raving—how much of what he said was real was hard to tell.

But regardless of how insane Qian Fu was, the threats against him were real, no doubt about that.

And they would keep coming. If he didn’t find a way to deal with them, he would never have peace.

“Could it be that if I get Qian Fu out, he’ll actually be able to help? Maybe the mad talk is just a mask—I need to see through to his essence...”

“Holy shit! What happened? What did you do?” A man’s startled voice came from behind.

Li Huowang turned to see a hospital orderly standing in the restroom doorway, staring open-mouthed at the shattered mirror and Li Huowang’s bleeding hand.

“You’re asking me? Who am I supposed to ask? Your hospital’s mirror is total crap! I was washing my hands and it suddenly exploded!” Li Huowang snapped, sounding righteous in his indignation.

The mirror in the restroom had burst, and it had injured a patient’s hand. A whole mess of trivialities.

Fortunately, being in a psychiatric hospital meant medical care was convenient. Soon his hand was bandaged, and he slipped it into his pocket as he walked out of Kangning Hospital with Yang Na.

By the time they reached the exit, Li Huowang had made up his mind: he would get Qian Fu out.

Never mind how unreliable or crazy Qian Fu seemed, or how his words didn’t connect. If those people had tried to plant a needle in his food to drive a wedge between him and Qian Fu, it meant one thing at least: the two of them were on the same side.

Whatever the enemy wanted to stop, he would do it. Maybe there would be unexpected gains.

But helping a mental patient escape from a psychiatric hospital was no easy task. The only saving grace was that Qian Fu was just a regular, severe case, not a murderer.

“Huowang! Look at the sky. The weather is really nice today—clear blue, not a single cloud.”

Hearing Yang Na’s voice, Li Huowang looked up. The warm sunlight fell on his face, making him feel comfortable. The foul mood from earlier improved a little.

Then he felt amused at his own thoughts in the restroom. How could something so real be fake?

“Yeah, the weather is good today. Too bad it can’t be like this every day.” Li Huowang walked toward the rideshare car waiting at the hospital gate.

He didn’t know who was watching him or what they wanted, but right now he was filled with fighting spirit. Someone was trying to come at him—he had to strike back. No matter who they were.

The rideshare car started moving. All the way, Li Huowang’s mind was occupied with one question: given his identity, how could he get his mad ally Qian Fu out?

Based on his experience, smuggling a severely ill patient out of a mental hospital without anyone noticing seemed harder than reaching the sky.

But just as they arrived at the entrance to his neighborhood, a memory from the past gave him an idea.

Actually, the matter was both hard and easy. Kangning Hospital was a private institution. If he could cut off Qian Fu’s medical expenses, the hospital would kick him out without Li Huowang having to do anything himself.

“Xiao Li, you’re back? How did the follow-up go?” Aunt Qi sighed with relief when she saw him.

Li Huowang looked at the old woman with the red armband, considered for a moment, then said, “Aunt Qi, I need to go to the hospital again tomorrow.”

“Again? Why this time?”

“I’m almost out of medicine. I need to pick up a refill. If I don’t take my meds, I’m liable to relapse.”