The Answer

Li Huowang sat numbly where he was, thinking over what he had just experienced.

He had clearly answered his mother's call. The other side had clearly known his name. Yet once it connected, the phone had actually been dead—there had not even been any battery left. So who had he just been talking to?

And if that had been his hallucination, did that mean the sightlines from before had been hallucinations too?

Did I, Li Huowang, really have a mental illness? Had I been sick from beginning to end?

Li Huowang shut his eyes in pain, clutching his head in both hands and raking his fingers through his hair.

He did not want to admit it, but he had no choice but to face it, because even he did not trust himself.

"I..." After struggling for a while, Li Huowang painfully found Yi Donglai's number in his contacts.

After a long stretch of ringing, Yi Donglai's voice came from the other end.

"Hello, Little Li? Did you call because something happened?"

Li Huowang clenched his fists, his voice carrying a faint tremor as he asked, "Doctor Yi, do you think it's possible that I have Paranoid Delusions?"

"What do you mean, 'is it possible'? Little Li, have you developed new symptoms again?" Yi Donglai's tone turned serious.

"I don't know whether they are or not. I just feel like someone has sent people to watch me. They seem to be plotting something. I've felt this way many times already."

"Never while you were hospitalized? These symptoms only appeared after you were discharged?"

"That's right. Never in the hospital. Look, that feeling is back again."

Li Huowang took out the mirror once more and began reflecting the view through it.

Yet this time, what appeared in the reflection was not Auntie