Method

In the men's restroom of Kangning Hospital, Li Huowang panted heavily as he bent his head beneath the faucet, letting the icy water wash over it.

"Ji Zai. Ji Zai! You're Ji Zai!"

Qian Fu's voice from earlier echoed in his ears again. Li Huowang shut his eyes in anguish.

His head hurt—hurt as though it were being ground to pieces. Only beneath this freezing tap water could he feel the slightest trace of warmth.

Li Huowang raised his head from the sink and, through his dripping hair, looked at himself in the mirror: soaked like a drowned rat, with a face that grew more unfamiliar the longer he looked at it.

"What is Ji Zai? Wasn't Ji Zai the fake name Zhuge Yuan gave me in the hallucination? Why did he call me Ji Zai? Could it be that the world over there—"

Some vanished memories began to surface. Li Huowang's head hurt even more, and he lowered it beneath the faucet again, letting the cold water stream over it.

When Li Huowang raised his head again, he saw something bizarre. His reflection had not raised its head with him. Instead, it remained bent over with its head under the faucet, letting the cold water scour the back of its head.

Fear slowly surfaced in Li Huowang's eyes. It was not merely that his reflection had failed to mirror his movements—it was because the back of its head had a face just like the front! Both the front and back of its head bore the same face of Li Huowang.

"Gah—!" Li Huowang sucked in a sharp breath in fright and staggered back several steps. When he looked at the mirror again, it was normal. Other than Li Huowang's terrified reflection, there was nothing else. It had only been