Chapter 417 - What If
"Where's my head?"
Li Sui thought Li Huowang was talking to him, so he hurriedly replied, "Father, I know where your head is. It fell on the ground while we were in the city. Should we go back and pick it up?"
Li Sui's words seemed to drain the life out of Li Huowang. The latter went limp and collapsed to the ground.
"Father? Father, what's wrong?" Li Sui nudged Li Huowang with his tentacles, but he received no response. Li Sui couldn't understand why his father had stopped moving.
Was it because he lost his head? But Father lost his head long ago, and he still managed to run for such a long time. It shouldn't be because he lost his head.
The little toy that Li Huowang gave Li Sui squirmed all of a sudden. Li Sui used his tentacles to fish out the leather doll, and it grew rapidly once it was outside. In the blink of an eye, it became as big as a human being. It had Li Huowang's face, but it was shriveled up with just a thin layer of skin.
The flat and thin "Li Huowang" crawled and put his mouth on the shadow that his corpse had cast. In the next moment, "Li Huowang" began sucking. The shadow was funneled into the doll's mouth, and it grew rapidly.
Moments later, Li Huowang with a complete body and head appeared next to his own corpse. Li Huowang exhaled sharply in fear as he looked down at his headless corpse.
Li Huowang was already blind even before his head fell off his shoulders, so he had no idea who took his head away. However, Li Huowang believed that it was most likely the resurrected Jian Zheng.
Sure enough, the Surveillance Bureau still had tricks up their sleeves. If it hadn't been for the relic that had sacrificed its life for him, he would have died for real.
I must be extremely cautious the next time I face the Surveillance Bureau. Their techniques are too mysterious and dangerous. I may end up dying if I become too careless against them.
Just as Li Huowang was engrossed in his own thoughts, the surroundings abruptly trembled. Li Huowang thought the members of the Surveillance Bureau had arrived and were converging on his location when everything went white.
Li Huowang found himself staring at an unlit fluorescent light in the ceiling. He looked down and saw that he had been restrained with a straitjacket.
"Back again."
The doll had allowed Li Huowang to come back to life, but Li Sui was still inside his previous body. In other words, there wasn't anything stopping the hallucination from engulfing him once more, and as expected, Li Huowang found himself back here.
"Li Sui, Li Sui..." Li Huowang’s voice was muffled by the cloth in his mouth. "Quick, come into my body and help me go back there."
Li Huowang immediately lifted his head and opened his mouth as wide as possible; the cloth covering his mouth stretched wide open as he struggled against it. The camera in the upper left corner flashed red and turned toward Li Huowang.
Li Huowang had no idea if Li Sui could understand him, as he couldn't speak properly. However, there was a high chance that Li Sui couldn't understand him at all, as he had yet to snap back to reality.
"Li Sui! Stop playing around and hurry up!" Li Huowang exclaimed. However, there was no response, and it made Li Huowang feel anxious.
Li Huowang was anxious, as the black spindle was in the abdomen of his corpse, so if everyone ended up seeing his new body, they'd immediately identify him as a Strayed One! His cover would get blown!
The door to the room was pushed open. Sun Xiaoqin walked in with a meal box, and she froze in her steps upon seeing Li Huowang. Moments later, tears of excitement flowed out of her eyes. "Son, are you finally awake? You're finally awake, right?"
Sun Xiaoqin rushed over and held Li Huowang's head to examine him.
Sun Xiaoqin then removed the cloth from Li Huowang's mouth; Li Huowang's mouth fluttered open, and he was just about to play dumb and act foolish, but the words got stuck in his throat upon seeing Sun Xiaoqin's worried face.
Li Huowang fell silent.
"It's okay, it's okay. The fact that you can understand me means that your condition is improving. You'll get better one day. Here, have some food," Sun Xiaoqin said, wiping away her tears and picking up the meal box from the ground.
Sun Xiaoqin opened the meal box, and it turned out to be a four-layered meal box containing protein, a vegetable dish, soup, and a serving of rice.
Sun Xiaoqin took out a plastic spoon and scooped up half a spoon of white rice. She then dipped it in the egg soup before picking up a piece of pork and bringing it over to Li Huowang's mouth.
Li Huowang had no idea what Sun Xiaoqin's actions meant in the real world, but he opened his mouth and ate it nonetheless.
"Great, my son really is the best. Mom knows that you always wake up hungry. My son really is much easier to handle compared to other parents."
Li Huowang swallowed the food and asked, "Mom, how did you get in?"
Sun Xiaoqin bit her lower lip upon hearing Li Huowang's question. Afraid of scaring her son, Sun Xiaoqin endured the excitement and said, "This place is called a hospital on the outside, but it's actually a prison. The food here is terrible, and I was afraid you wouldn't eat well, so I came to visit you.
"Visitors are usually not allowed, but the warden is an easygoing person. He immediately allowed me to visit you when I said that my son behaves the best with me at your side. I guess there are still good people in this world."
Li Huowang nodded and continued eating with relish. After chewing a few times, he noticed Sun Xiaoqin's strange behavior. Eventually, Sun Xiaoqin took a small amount of rice and used it to plug up the tiny microphone near them.
Sun Xiaoqin sat back down and explained, "I may not be by your side by the next time you wake up, son, so listen to me. If someone ever asks you about the gold, just tell them that it's from your grandmother's dowry. Do you understand?
"If you don't think it's going to work, then just stay silent. Never ever tell them that the gold was from your bed! There are many wicked people nowadays, so you must remember to never ever tell anyone about it!"
Li Huowang smiled helplessly and asked, "Mom, have you spent the gold?"
"What nonsense are you talking about? It was from your grandma's dowry! It must not be spent unless it's absolutely necessary! Don't worry, this place is funded by the government, and it's not that expensive.
"Your father is still doing his best to earn money as well."
"Mom, I gave you the gold so you could spend it freely. Don't save it. Anyway, this is all a hallucination, so I can have as much gold as I want—"
Li Huowang froze just then, and a terrifying question popped up in his mind as he stared at his mother. Li Huowang had always thought that this world was a mere hallucination, as he he could bring treasures here from the real world.
In addition, too many coincidences and unlikely things had happened to him so far.
However, Zhuge Yuan had said that the Strayed Ones could create something out of nothing. If his words were true, could it be that he had unknowingly used his power as a Strayed One to procure the gold and make those coincidences happen?
What if this world was real, too?
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