Chapter 770
Chapter 770
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 770
>Chapter Title: Projection
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Seeing the other side glance at him before taking the phone to a distance and whispering, Li Huowang furrowed his brows in thought.
“If these siblings are Ba Hui and Chen Hongyu is the Rotten Si Ming, then who is Qing Wanglai among the Si Mings? Does he know something about this world?”
With so many Si Mings around, they definitely knew what was really going on with him right now.
After finishing the call, Ba Nanxu's expression turned ugly as she hurled the phone over.
“Finish your call and get the hell out! Don't ever step foot in my shop again! I try to help and you repay me with shit!”
Li Huowang caught the phone and stared at the two siblings shoving the counter back into place before slowly raising it to his ear.
“Hello?”
“It's me, Qing Wanglai. Yang Na told me what just happened. Calm down first—tell me exactly what's going on. What have you been through? Why did you suddenly snap like this?”
Li Huowang hesitated for a moment, but recalling what he'd said about the projection theory, he struggled briefly before finally starting to explain, slow and steady.
“I finally get it now—who I am, what all this really is, why everything's felt so off. It's because this isn't the world I used to live in anymore!”
After listening to Li Huowang's account, Qing Wanglai fell quiet for a beat before speaking up.
“Li Huowang, I think I see what you mean now. Your emotions are all over the place because you believe everything here is fake, right? That your real girlfriend and your real parents are off somewhere else? You think you've crossed over somehow? That none of this is real?”
Staring at the utterly lifelike Yang Na standing right there beside him, Li Huowang's face twisted in torment as his breathing grew labored.
“Isn't that right? Didn't you say it yourself?”
“True, I did say the whole world is a projection. But a projection isn't the same as something fake.”
“Like I told you before—we've got blood, flesh, thoughts. We're real. We're real projections. You get it?”
“So what makes you so sure your past wasn't a projection too? See what I'm saying? When I talk about projections, I mean you've been one your whole life, from childhood right up to now.”
“You've always been right here. Yang Na is the same Yang Na you've always known. Your parents are the same parents you've always known. No need to feel lost—they're just projections of the other side, same as you and me.”
“They're all projections? My entire past was a projection?”
Memories flickered through Li Huowang's mind—kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school.
“Those were all projections?”
“Impossible! Absolutely impossible!”
“What makes it impossible? Nothing's impossible—you just never realized it before.”
“Don't sweat it. Smart people who get it are few and far between. Look around—besides the rare few who figure out they're projections, billions of others just stumble through life in a fog.”
Li Huowang went quiet on his end of the line, so Qing Wanglai kept soothing him.
“Relax, you didn't cross over anywhere. They're the same people they've always been, right there by your side. Nothing's changed at all. You just need to wrap your head around this idea.”
It beat the hell out of his earlier despair. Everything was still the same, projections or not.
After a long silence, Li Huowang finally spoke up.
“Proof? I need proof that my past and my present are both projections. You can't just talk your way into convincing me—I don't buy it!”
“Then do you have proof your past wasn't a projection?”
“I do!”
Li Huowang's ironclad certainty caught Qing Wanglai off guard.
“Oh? Let's hear it.”
“Even though I'm a Si Ming now, I'm one that was forged through cultivation—which means my old self sure as hell wasn't a projection!”
“.”
Silence blanketed both ends of the line.
“Li Huowang, let's stick to the facts here. This argument's going nowhere.”
“Screw it! I'll sort it out myself!”
With that, Li Huowang hung up.
For all his words, though, his mood was clearly lighter than before.
Qing Wanglai's hypothesis—that his past and present were both projections—didn't faze Li Huowang one way or the other. He didn't care about himself. He just needed his family now to be the same ones from before, whatever they turned out to be.
It sounded ridiculous, but Li Huowang had been neck-deep in far more ridiculous shit lately. For now, he tabled the question. He'd find his own answers.
He wiped the blood off the phone screen with his clothes and handed it back to Yang Na.
He looked at her, words on the tip of his tongue, but held them back.
If she was a totally different person from the old Yang Na, asking would be pointless anyway.
“Let's go. We'll talk once we're home.”
Supporting Yang Na, Li Huowang headed for the door.
Right as he reached it, he spun around to face the Ba siblings.
“Ba Hui, we're old friends by now. If you can help me out here—help me get to the bottom of this—I'd ally with you. Save you from getting jumped solo with nobody to back you up.”
“Their target's the Si Mings. Other ones are already dead. You really think you won't be next?”
“Fucking lunatic.”
The siblings blew off Li Huowang's nonsense and slammed the door in his face.
“Weird. Ba Hui obviously knows me—he's even met me multiple times. Am I really off base here?”
He mulled it over for a few seconds before shaking his head.
“No—they're definitely Ba Hui! He even tipped me off before. Can't be wrong! But... why won't he talk to me?”
“Could it be... the projection? Does it warp what gets said? Hang on—what the hell even is this projection? Why'd it pop up right after I became a Si Ming, like some barrier between us?”
Remembering the people who'd jumped him earlier, Li Huowang's face hardened.
He'd been too wrapped up in his own identity to think about them before.
If this crew were Si Mings from White Jade Capital, then who the hell were those attackers?
His brow creased at the thought of something powerful enough to threaten so many Si Mings.
“Li Huowang, let's head home. Take your meds quick—is this because you skipped them lately?”
“Meds? I've finally figured myself out! And them too! They have to be Yu'er God—no doubt!”
With everything clicking into place in his mind, Li Huowang led Yang Na away from the bustling pedestrian street.
(End of chapter)