Chapter 655
Chapter 655
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 655
>Chapter Title: Star
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In the capital city that had just endured a calamity, Li Huowang lowered his head, staring at his shadow with a profoundly complex expression.
Ji Zai truly existed, yet his very existence hinged on Li Huowang himself.
Ji Zai was unstable. The moment Li Huowang convinced himself it was all a delusion, Ji Zai vanished.
Ji Zai commanded bewilderment—or rather, Ji Zai himself was bewilderment incarnate, forever teetering between existence and nonexistence, determined by a single thought.
No wonder Ji Zai had always urged him to hold steady. Li Huowang hadn't understood what that meant before, but now he did.
"Am I right?" Li Huowang suddenly spoke up, asking his shadow in a low voice.
But this time, there was no response from Ji Zai. It was merely a shadow, nothing more.
In the time it took Li Huowang to mull this over, Ji Zai had vanished once again.
This time, Li Huowang truly understood. He turned to leave, but just then, he spotted Shangguan Yuting stepping out from the nearby wall.
This was one of the illusions from the Astronomical Bureau, drawn over by the recent commotion.
Li Huowang stared at her intently for a moment before speaking. "I finally get what you meant before. You were actually helping to stabilize him. No wonder you said he must not be spoken of."
"What?" Shangguan Yuting looked confused by Li Huowang's words.
"Nothing. You're right—he truly must not be spoken of."
With that, Li Huowang ignored Shangguan Yuting completely. He threaded his way through streets strewn with corpses until he reached the side of a large well.
Beside the two corpses floating in the well was Li Huowang's reflection, with half a moon now peeking out from behind the dark clouds above it.
Li Huowang gazed at his reflection in the well, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and silently chanted something in his mind.
As Li Huowang chanted, everything around him began to warp slightly. Stones softened, reins turned slick with oil, and a weed at his feet writhed and twisted as it crawled out from the soil, scrambling to the right to evade him.
Moments after he'd stepped away from the well, Li Huowang slowly opened his eyes, and the weed grew back atop a brick.
"Is it you who's so unstable, or are all the Fates this unstable?"
"I don't know. Maybe some are. There are things I remember at times, but I can't tell you."
"Remember what I said before: I am you, and you are me. There is no me without you. Now tell me—who am I?"
"You are Ji Zai." Li Huowang replied with a hint of cold detachment.
"How did I come to be?"
"I don't know how you came to be. All I know is that you're useless, utterly unreliable when it matters most. Relying on heaven or earth is better than relying on you. From now on, I won't come looking for you. I'll figure everything out myself!"
"Very good. Hold steady. You'll protect yourself, and you'll keep helping yourself."
Li Huowang gave Ji Zai a deep look before turning to leave. But at that moment, he suddenly sensed something watching him.
He jerked his head up toward the starry sky overhead.
Li Huowang reached out, grasped the edge of the starry sky, and gently pulled it aside like a curtain, revealing the view beyond.
In one corner of his residential complex, a short old lady with graying hair and a red armband on the sleeve of her right arm was craning her neck toward his home, peering curiously.
"Son? What are you looking at?"
"Mom, someone's watching our house." Li Huowang's voice carried a trace of displeasure.
Sun Xiaoqin came over for a look and promptly yanked the dark blue starry-sky curtain fully closed.
"Hey, it's just Qi Dama from the neighborhood office. She used to hold you when you were little."
"Why's Qi Dama spying on our house? Does the neighborhood office have nothing better to do?" There was hostility in Li Huowang's voice. There was something off in her eyes.
No wonder he'd felt like someone was sneaking peeks at him these past few days—it was her.
"Sigh, it's nothing. The hospital probably notified them. This is a good thing, son—look at how many people care about you."
"Is that caring? She's scared this lunatic's gonna burst out and start killing people on the street." Li Huowang gripped the edge of the curtain and yanked it hard, covering the entire window.
Li Huowang had thought discharge meant freedom, but that wasn't the case at all. Neighbors in the complex and old acquaintances alike avoided him like the plague.
Now there was even Qi Dama surveilling him in the neighborhood. They called it discharge, but this was worse than being in the mental hospital. At least there, people were all nutty in their own ways—no looks of disdain, exclusion, or fear.
"Pa!" The desk lamp flicked on. Li Huowang sat at his desk and picked up his textbook to study.
He wanted to buckle down, to get into a university like Yang Na's. But it was incredibly difficult.
After all those ordeals and bouts of despair, he'd forgotten nearly everything from the books.
When Sun Xiaoqin saw Li Huowang actually sitting there with a book in hand, she panicked and rushed over to snatch it away.
"Son, you were playing games just fine before—why are you studying now?"
"Mom, since I'm better, of course I should keep going and take the university entrance exam."
"Son, don't put any pressure on yourself, okay? University exams aren't something you need to worry about right now."
"Mom, I'm a high school senior who's already been held back two years. If I don't aim for university, what am I supposed to do?"
"You don't need to do anything right now—just play, got it?"
"Here, your pocket money." Sun Xiaoqin stuffed several hundred-yuan bills into Li Huowang's pocket.
"Play whatever you want, buy whatever you want, eat whatever you want! Don't you have a few good classmates? Call them out to hang with you."
"Go for barbecue, hit up anime street, go... go pull an all-nighter at an internet cafe!"
At this, Sun Xiaoqin paused. "Oh, right—for your all-nighters, remember to tell me which internet cafe, and I'll bring your meds over."
She'd researched a ton lately. Most teen mental illnesses stemmed from overly strict family environments or crushing academic pressure.
Her son had clawed his way back after so much hardship—she couldn't let him end up back in the hospital.
"Mom, Mom, I want some time alone. Just let me have some quiet." Li Huowang pushed Sun Xiaoqin out of his bedroom.
In the scuffle, she deftly swiped every textbook from his room, not leaving behind so much as a pen.
"Remember—no studying! Play games! Want that 3D headset? I saw it and thought you'd like it."
(End of this chapter)