Chapter 418
Chapter 418
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 418
>Chapter Title: Another Possibility
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“I... where’s my head?”
Hearing Li Huowang’s question, Li Sui thought he was asking her and quickly replied, “Dad, I know. It fell off back in the city. Are we going back to pick it up?”
Li Sui’s words seemed to drain the last bit of life from Li Huowang. His body went limp, and he pitched forward, sprawling flat on the ground.
“Dad? Dad, what’s wrong?” Li Sui anxiously prodded Li Huowang’s corpse with her tentacles, but got no response. She couldn’t understand why her dad had stopped moving.
Was it because he had no head? But Dad had been headless before and still ran so far. It probably wasn’t the missing head.
Just then, Li Sui noticed some movement from the little toy her dad had given her.
She picked up the small leather figurine with her tentacle, and the moment it was exposed to the air, it began to grow. It quickly stretched to the height of a person, its face identical to Li Huowang’s, though its body was deflated, just a thin layer of skin.
This flat, lightweight version of Li Huowang instinctively crawled to the ground and pressed his mouth against the shadow beside his own corpse, sucking hard.
As the shadow was drawn into his belly, the skin pouch inflated like a balloon. In moments, a naked Li Huowang with a head appeared beside his own decapitated body.
Staring at the headless corpse on the ground, Li Huowang, who had escaped death, let out a gasp of lingering fear.
When his head had been taken, his eyes were blind—he hadn’t seen who did it. More than likely, it was that Supervisor who came back from the dead.
The Surveillance Bureau truly had backup plans. If not for this magic artifact as a precaution, he might have really died there.
“Next time I face the Surveillance Bureau, I must be extra careful. Their methods are too bizarre and dangerous. One slip-up, and they’ll kill me.”
As Li Huowang pondered this, everything around him began to tremble. Just as he suspected Surveillance Bureau agents were lying in wait, the entire world flashed to a stark white.
Li Huowang, dressed in two restraint jackets, lay quietly on the hospital bed, staring blankly at the unlit white energy-saving bulb overhead. “I’m back again.”
It dawned on him slowly: he had returned to life via borrowed skin, but Li Sui was still in the belly of his previous body. Without her suppressing the hallucinations, this false world had predictably reappeared.
“Li Sui, Li Sui.” With his mouth stuffed, Li Huowang’s words came out muffled. “Quick, get in my belly. Help me go back.”
After speaking, Li Huowang craned his neck, opening his cloth-stuffed mouth as wide as possible.
The camera in the upper left corner of the ward, its red light blinking, swiveled toward Li Huowang strapped to the bed.
Perhaps because his mouth was blocked and his words unclear, Li Sui didn’t bring him back to reality.
“Li Sui! Stop dawdling! Hurry up!” Seeing no response, Li Huowang grew anxious.
He had neither Li Sui nor the black spindle in his belly now. If anyone took notice of him, his identity as a heart elemental would be exposed!
With a “clang,” the ward door was pushed open.
Sun Xiaoqin entered carrying a meal box. Seeing Li Huowang staring fixedly at her, tears welled up in excitement.
“Son! Son, are you clear-headed? You’re finally clear-headed, right?” Sun Xiaoqin rushed over, cradling Li Huowang’s head and examining it closely.
Once Sun Xiaoqin removed the cloth strip from Li Huowang’s mouth, he prepared to play dumb and fool them. But facing her worried expression, the words stuck in his throat.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Recognizing people is good—it means your condition is improving bit by bit. You’ll get better someday. Come on, eat first. Let’s eat.” Sun Xiaoqin wiped her tears, picked up the lunchbox from the floor, and held it close.
She twisted open the four-layer box, revealing one meat dish, one vegetable, one soup, and a staple.
She scooped half a spoonful of white rice with a short-handled plastic spoon, dipped it in the egg drop soup, then added a piece of pork belly, bringing it to Li Huowang’s lips.
Li Huowang opened his mouth, letting the spoon slide in with whatever this stuff was from the “real” world.
“Good boy. My son’s the best. Mom knows you always open up for meals at this time. Compared to patients in other beds, you’re so much easier to care for.”
After swallowing, Li Huowang asked, “Mom, how’d you get in here?”
Hearing her son respond at last, Sun Xiaoqin bit her lower lip hard. But fearing she’d scare him back into madness, she held back her excitement. “This place calls itself a hospital, but it’s really a prison. The food’s awful, so I came to take care of you, worried you weren’t eating well.”
“By the rules, it wasn’t allowed at first. But the warden’s a decent guy. I just said my son behaves best with me around, and he agreed right away. There are still good people in this world.”
Li Huowang nodded silently and opened his mouth again for more food. After a few chews, he noticed Sun Xiaoqin acting strangely, glancing around.
She scooped a handful of rice from the staple and went to the nearby vent with the fine mesh, stuffing the grains into the speaker spots to block them.
Then Sun Xiaoqin sat back by the bed and whispered into Li Huowang’s ear as softly as possible, “Son, if you wake up next time and I’m not here, if anyone asks about the gold, say it’s Grandma’s heirloom dowry! Got it!”
“If you really can’t, just shut up and don’t talk about it. Never say you took the gold from under the quilt! People these days are no good! Don’t say it, no matter what!”
Li Huowang gave a helpless smile. “Mom, did you spend the gold?”
“You silly child, what are you saying? That’s your grandma’s heirloom dowry! Can’t touch it unless it’s a last resort!”
“Don’t worry, this is government land. It won’t cost much. Your dad can still earn.”
“Mom, I gave you the gold—spend it. Don’t skimp. It’s all an illusion anyway. I can get as much as I want—”
Li Huowang froze mid-sentence. Looking again at his mother, a chilling question leaped into his mind.
He’d always thought this world was fake because he could bring gold and jade from the “real” world, and too many coincidences and abrupt events happened here.
But if Zhuge Yuan was right, and heart elementals could cultivate truth from falsehood, create from nothing—what if those gold pieces and sudden events were unconsciously altered by his own heart elemental powers?
Or, put another way: what if this “real” world was actually real too?
(End of chapter)