Bashe

“Whose are they? Who the hell are they? I’m a Siming—so what are they? Are they Siming too? Are there that many Siming in the White Jade Capital? What are they going to do to me?!”

The uncertainty about what was real, combined with his instinctive wariness toward potential enemies, sent Li Huowang’s mind into a frenzy.

He was already reaching for the survival knife strapped to his back, ready to defend himself, when he suddenly felt a cold piece of metal press against his waist.

A sharp, numbing pain shot through his body, convulsing violently as the crackling sound of electricity filled the air.

“Who! Who’s attacking me?!” Li Huowang trembled with rage as he twisted his body around with difficulty.

The next thing he saw was Yang Na’s tear-filled face. Seeing him staring at her, she sobbed as she pulled another stun gun from her bag, shoved it under his clothes, and held the switch down firmly.

“You are you!! Why?!”

Her lips were pressed tightly. She had no choice. Li Huowang was in the middle of an episode, and if she didn’t stop him now, the pedestrian street would end up soaked in blood.

If he hurt innocent people—or worse, if what happened before repeated itself—Li Huowang would be stuck in a mental hospital for the rest of his life.

The truth was, she hadn’t secretly packed the stun gun in her bag for self-defense. She had brought it specifically for this: to stop him the next time he snapped.

Their eyes locked. Amid the crackling of the stun gun, Li Huowang’s trembling mouth opened. “St-stop…”

Yang Na’s grief and the overwhelming pain of the electric shock slowly pulled Li Huowang back from the edge of reality-blurred confusion.

Tears streaming down her face, she shook her head firmly instead. She pressed the two electrodes deeper into his flesh, determined to knock him unconscious.

“I said… stop!” Li Huowang’s hand suddenly gripped the back of hers, then released just as quickly. The current jumped across to her body. Under the violent shock, Yang Na’s hand went slack, and the stun gun clattered to the ground.

Li Huowang scooped up the device and caught Yang Na as she collapsed, pulling her into his arms. Whether he was comforting her or himself, he kept repeating, “It’s okay… I’m okay… I’m okay now…”

Seeing the two of them holding each other with no further abnormal behavior, the disappointed onlookers lowered their phones, their recording apps already open and ready.

“Miss, are you okay? Is he threatening you? Do you know this scar-faced guy? Want us to call the cops?” A few well-meaning young men approached Yang Na with concern.

Tears still falling, Yang Na shook her head and buried her face in Li Huowang’s chest. “No… I’m his girlfriend. We were just breaking up…”

At the sound of a young couple’s spat, the remaining bystanders lost interest entirely. They dispersed, returning to their stroll down the pedestrian street.

Li Huowang wrapped an arm around Yang Na and staggered back toward the staircase. When they re-entered the tattoo parlor, the two of them collapsed onto the couch.

The Ba siblings, who had been watching, didn’t throw them out. Instead, the brother closed the door, temporarily halting business.

Li Huowang’s body twitched involuntarily every now and then—a lingering side effect of the electric shock.

But he wasn’t paying attention to that. The external trouble was temporarily resolved, but the deeper problem remained. His mind was completely lost.

“Is it all fake? If you’re fake, whose projection are you? And if you’re fake… why do you feel so real?”

Li Huowang stared at Yang Na’s tear-streaked face, asking himself the question. The emotion in her eyes tore at his heart.

He leaned in and kissed her without thinking. He needed to know—what was real, and what wasn’t.

He didn’t care if he was a projection. What he cared about was whether the woman in his arms was the same Yang Na who had once sat with him on the rooftop, watching the stars.

Just then, the couch shook violently as someone kicked it. “Kissing pretty hard there, huh? Want to strip naked and put on a show for us? You got condoms? Need to borrow some?”

Li Huowang jolted upright, glaring at Ba Nanxu. “Stop playing games! What did you mean earlier? Who stole something from me? And is this world real or not?!”

“Didn’t you want me to be your Heart-Pan? Fine! Just tell me what’s really going on, and I’ll give it to you!”

Li Huowang had been resisting this reality. Because if everything was just a projection, then his parents, Yang Na, everything he’d experienced since getting out of the hospital—none of it was real.

He really had crossed over. He could never go back. Everything he’d ever known was gone forever.

Hearing this, Ba Nanxu let out a light laugh. “Heh heh heh. I’ve been blind. I was wrong earlier. You picked the right guy to talk to when you found Qing Wanglai. You’re even crazier than he is.”

A flash of white light, and two survival knives appeared in Li Huowang’s hands. His pupils trembled, his expression twisting into a snarl. “Tell me everything you know, Bashe! I still have a score to settle with you for what you put me through.”

Ba Nanxu snorted. She let go of her cigarette, and the burned-out butt fell to the floor, trailing smoke. “Threatening me with a knife, huh? Don’t pull that shit with me. I was burying bodies before you even had hair on your balls.”

“Stop pretending! I’ve already recognized you! You’re Bashe! I can feel it—that familiar gaze!”

“I’m pretending what? I’ll say it one more time: Put. The. Knife. Down. One… two… three…”

A whoosh came from the side. An alarm bell went off in Li Huowang’s head. He instinctively ducked just as a massive glass display case swung past, inches from his skull. If it had hit, he would have been dead or crippled.

And the one holding the glass case was none other than the giant, Ba Shengqing.

Half-crouched, Li Huowang spun around, raising his knife toward Ba Shengqing’s thigh. But at that moment, a sharp pain stabbed him in the lower back.

Even without turning around, Li Huowang knew it was Ba Nanxu’s doing. But he didn’t dodge. He drove the knife forward, gambling on trading wounds.

Just as blood was about to be spilled, a scream stopped both sides cold. “AAAHHH!! EVERYONE STOP!!”

They both turned to see Yang Na sitting up, holding her phone in its Doraemon case high in the air. “Qing Wanglai’s calling you! He wants to talk! We can work this out! Don’t fight!”

At that, both sides slowly backed off.

Li Huowang reached behind him and pulled a sharp, cone-shaped earring from the flesh of his lower back.

“Tch. Fucking psychopath.” Ba Nanxu walked over and took the phone. “Hey, Qingzi. You’ve got some nerve taking on a piece of work like this. Did you know I was going to find him? Is that why you threw him at me—to jerk me around?”