Another Xue Yan

Li Wei vaguely smelled alcohol and disinfectant, but when he suddenly opened his eyes, he found himself lying in an emergency room.

"Young man, you're awake?"

A voice rang out, and Li Wei saw a middle-aged woman in a nurse's uniform standing nearby, seemingly tidying up some medical equipment.

"I'm not trying to criticize you, but you're not a child anymore, yet you're acting like young people, fighting in the street. If you hadn't met a kind person, you'd probably still be lying in the road right now," the middle-aged woman continued.

From these two sentences, Li Wei roughly understood what had happened. He had encountered some teenagers on the street, gotten into an argument, then a fight broke out, and finally, he knew nothing more.

Afterwards, a kind person must have taken him to this hospital. He touched his head, which was still bandaged.

Li Wei sighed deeply, then tried to summon the Black Paper again, but the result was still disappointing. Everything felt so real, so completely out of place with the Shadow Street world Li Wei had previously experienced. Suddenly, a terrifying thought popped into Li Wei's head: could everything he had experienced before have been a dream?

Could it be that Shadow Street never existed, and it was all just a dream?

Zheng Yutong, Xue Yan, and Nina all just my illusions? Were Mordor and Pluto King also figments of my imagination? If what I experienced was a dream and an illusion, then the dream was far too long, and the illusion far too real.

"No, no way, how could it be a dream?" Li Wei pounded his head hard with both hands, trying to calm himself down and force that terrible thought back into his head.

However, it was to no avail.

Li Wei's somewhat crazy behavior startled the middle-aged nurse standing nearby. "Young man, what are you doing?"

She abruptly ran out halfway through her sentence, clearly afraid that the young man was either insane or had self-harm tendencies. She was just a nurse, and she couldn't bear the responsibility if anything happened to the patient.

Soon, the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor. A refined-looking young doctor walked in, followed by two other people: a middle-aged nurse who had just run out, and a young woman.

"What's going on? What did this person say? Have you found his name? No history of mental illness... If he's a madman, then he should be sent to a mental hospital." The young doctor said, glancing at Li Wei, before trying to examine Li Wei. However, Li Wei disliked what the doctor had said earlier.

And over a long time, Li Wei's habit of disliking things has been...

"Roll"

Li Wei glared fiercely at the young doctor to release the pressure in his heart. With Li Wei's keen observation skills, he could tell that the young doctor was just putting on an act. In the other person's eyes, there was only disgust when he looked at him. He had no intention of really examining him. He was just putting on a show.

Because the doctor's eyes kept glancing to the side, in the direction that happened to be where the young woman was.

Is he using this excuse to curry favor in order to demonstrate his professional ethics?

Utterly boring

Li Wei didn't care about any of that; he just wanted to leave this place immediately and find a quiet place to relax.

"Miss Xue, look at you, you went to so much trouble to save this person, yet you act like a madman. Sometimes, good people don't get rewarded." The young doctor kept his distance from Li Wei and even stood protectively in front of the young woman, as if afraid that this 'madman' would harm her.

Li Wei sneered inwardly; he had no time to pay attention to these people.

After getting up from the emergency room, Li Wei was about to leave when the woman, who was being protected by the young doctor, said, "Sir, wait a minute. Back then... I was there. You actually wanted to kill those thugs, didn't you?"

The woman's voice was very pleasant, but it stunned Li Wei because it sounded very familiar.

Turning his head, Li Wei saw that the ridiculous doctor was still blocking his way.

"Get out of my way, you little punk!" Although Li Wei no longer possessed that immense strength, he had still cultivated the imposing aura of a powerful figure. His glare alone was enough to terrify the young doctor.

The middle-aged nurse standing nearby was also too frightened to speak under Li Wei's gaze. She had met many people, from the lower class to the upper class, and even had a relationship beyond friendship with a secretary of the municipal party committee due to her work. She had also met important figures, but none of them possessed the same imposing presence as this young man before her, as if he were not a madman, but a powerful figure who could decide the life and death of tens of thousands of people with a mere wave of his hand.

The young woman who had spoken earlier was now curiously observing the man. A few hours earlier, she had encountered him on the street; he had looked distraught, like a gambler who had lost all his wealth. Afterward, during his altercation with the thugs, she had clearly sensed a murderous aura emanating from him.

As substantial

Although the man was eventually knocked to the ground, two of the thugs he had brutally beaten passed out.

What kind of man is he?

How could there be someone in this world who acts so recklessly, with such a murderous aura? It's even more intense than my grandfather's! But my grandfather spent his entire life fighting on battlefields of blood and fire. How could a man in peacetime possess such a fierce spirit?

Out of curiosity, she took the man to the hospital.

As she sized up Li Wei finally saw the woman's face clearly. In that instant, a smile appeared on Li Wei's face. The smile was warm, as if he had seen a family member, and he even had a strange feeling.

Does the other person absolutely know me?

"Miss Xue, what's the point of talking to this madman? Can't you see? He's truly insane." The young doctor was terrified by the look in his eyes, as if he had suffered a great humiliation.

It's utterly unacceptable for a doctor with a formal position at a municipal hospital to be threatened by someone from a lower class.

"Nurse Zhang, go, go call the people from the mental hospital and take this madman away!" The young doctor revealed a sinister smile. He wanted revenge. Although he didn't know this man, that didn't stop him from getting his revenge. As a doctor, he had countless ways to punish disobedient patients.

Li Wei didn't even look at him; instead, he stared intently at the young woman.

In the end, Li Wei was not treated as a mental patient, nor was he taken away. He was sitting in a high-end sports car, with the young woman in the driver's seat.

"Where do you live? I'll take you home," the young woman said softly, her hands gripping the steering wheel. Although she had short hair, it couldn't hide her beauty.

Li Wei didn't speak. He recognized the woman the moment he saw her. Xue Yan, a woman he knew very well, someone he had been through many missions with, and Li Wei knew her strengths and weaknesses like the back of his hand.

However, Li Wei saw unfamiliarity in Xue Yan's eyes. Yes, the other party clearly did not recognize him. In other words, she was not the Xue Yan he knew before, or perhaps the Xue Yan he knew before was just a figment of his imagination.

The woman driving the sports car in front of them was the real Xue Yan.

"Lihua Community is very close to here, thank you."

In the end, Li Wei didn't say anything. His mind was in complete turmoil, and he began to think that perhaps he really had just had a dream.

I'm still that office worker toiling away for a living, still that ordinary person suffering unfair treatment from my boss but not daring to fight back, still that... mortal.

If that's the case, then the real Xue Yan in front of him naturally wouldn't recognize him, and the reason she saved him was merely an accident or a coincidence.

"Lihua Community, I know that place, hold on tight."

Xue Yan curled her cold lips, seemingly wanting to show off her driving skills, but in her heart, she wanted to scare the man in the passenger seat. She really wanted to know if everything he had done before was just an act or if he was truly hiding his true abilities.

The sports car made a sharp turn on the street, its tires screeching against the ground, and the car body generating centrifugal force due to its rotation. Anyone without relevant training would show fear at this speed; it's human instinct, and even the best actor couldn't hide it.

Throughout the entire process, Xue Yan's slender eyes secretly observed the man beside her, but the result disappointed her greatly. This man was like a rock, his expression and eyes both unusually calm.

"Interesting"

A hint of surprise flashed in Xue Yan's eyes, but she remained calm. Soon, the sports car stopped at the entrance of a very dilapidated residential area, surprising some of the residents at the entrance, who had never seen such a high-end sports car before.

Soon, a man opened the car door, got out, waved to the people in the car, and walked into the residential area.

Staring at Li Wei's retreating figure, Xue Yan felt for the first time that there was something about this man that attracted her. You see, her family background was extremely special, and since childhood, Xue Yan had almost never had similar feelings for any man. Even her grandfather, a bigwig in the military, seemed unable to compare with this man in terms of aura.

Or rather, there's simply no comparison.

She took out her mobile phone, dialed a number, and soon, she heard a voice on the other end of the line.

"Hey, help me look up someone. His name is Li Wei, male, around 24 years old, lives in Lihua Community, XX City. Yes, I need the most detailed information..."

Li Wei pushed open his bedroom door. Everything inside was the same as before. Li Wei closed the door and lay down on the bed, exhausted, staring blankly at the ceiling.

In the end, he didn't say anything to Xue Yan, whom he had met by chance, or rather, he didn't want to cause any trouble before he had figured out some things.

"Shadow Street, the real world... which one is real? And am I awake from a dream, or am I still dreaming?"