Mirrors and the Bronze Man

"Useless."

A faint, crackling voice sounded beside Xu Yuan's ear.

With no room to dodge, the dark figure suddenly passed through the blazing flames, flickered, and appeared on the other side of the corridor.

It even reached out and pressed lightly against the air.

The Sword Qi and pill fire vanished together.

While it was making its move—

Xu Yuan turned and sprinted for the exit.

I gave it everything I had, but that dark figure can teleport!

Damn it, it can pass straight through flames, too!

It snuffed out both attacks I launched at full strength with barely a gesture!

How the hell am I supposed to fight that?

This is way beyond anything I imagined!

At the end of the corridor was a window.

Smash through it.

Jump straight down from the third floor.

That's my only way out!

Xu Yuan was still thinking when the dark figure appeared again at the edge of his vision—

"You exceeded my highest expectations."

The dark figure sounded impressed.

Xu Yuan's heart sank. He stopped short.

It had caught up too quickly.

The monster was elusive, almost unreal, and terrifyingly powerful.

No high school student could handle it.

Yet it seemed to have no real desire to fight.

It's almost as if...

It's testing me?

"What are you? What do you want?"

Xu Yuan held the Short Blade before his chest and asked in a low voice.

"A little hint."

"I'm not actually in this hospital."

"If you can find me from that clue, I'll give you an answer you'll be satisfied with," the dark figure said, floating leisurely in the corridor.

Not here...

How is that possible?

If you're not here, who have I been fighting?

What a ridiculous attempt to sound mysterious!

Xu Yuan was about to answer with a sneer when something occurred to him. A shudder ran through his whole body.

"Impossible..."

He muttered under his breath, then sprang up and charged like a madman into the restroom at the end of the corridor.

Leaning over the sink, he pressed his face close to the cold mirror and pulled apart his eyelids.

His left eye.

Inside the eyeball—

Dense black incantations had gathered into the shape of a person.

That monster is on my eyeball!

That's why it isn't in the hospital!

That's why the flames and Sword Qi couldn't hit it, no matter what!

Silence fell all around.

A chill crept up Xu Yuan's back.

A dark figure has grown inside my eye?

How did I not notice a thing?

A low chuckle sounded beside his ear.

"Sharp. Very good."

"Then—"

"Let's begin. Consider it your reward."

In the mirror,

Xu Yuan saw endless black runes seep from his pupil. They linked together, forming an inverted cross.

Mist spread across the entire mirror, blurring everything before his eyes.

Xu Yuan sniffed.

From somewhere beyond the windows, the smell of burning plant ash crept in and coiled around him.

Fire.

The scent of fire mingled with the plants, as though some ritual had been completed. A strange, rotten stench rose from beneath the ground, bubbling with a "gurgle, gurgle."

A force like rippling water swept silently through the surroundings.

Xu Yuan froze.

The mirror—

The restroom mirror had disappeared.

A dim, hazy light shone through where it had been, as though an unknown room lay deep within the mirror.

"Go."

A voice urged him beside his ear.

No.

I'm not going into that damned place.

Xu Yuan spun around and started out of the restroom.

"Go. You're in trouble, and this is your only chance."

The voice urged him softly.

Xu Yuan stopped.

"How do you know I'm in trouble? I'm doing just fine," he said.

"Because you don't know... things have happened..."

The dark figure spoke in broken phrases.

Xu Yuan went still.

Three days from now, a flying sword would pierce his body.

The body's original owner had not even known why he was killed, but this dark figure seemed to know something.

"What's going to happen? Tell me."

Xu Yuan waited.

The dark figure said nothing.

It was as though it had vanished again, making no further sound.

A choice.

That was all Xu Yuan had before him.

What should I choose?

Leaving this place would be simple.

But the shadow had already taken root on his eyeball.

I don't know if gouging out my eye would make it disappear.

What if it moves to another organ?

And as for running—

Where could I run?

Maybe that's why the original owner was pinned to death by a sword three days from now?

The answer was right before him.

Should I run?

Run now, wait three days, and then get pinned to a bridge?

Xu Yuan tipped his head back and exhaled. Then he walked back and stood before the space where the mirror had been.

Rolling mist filled it.

He could not see what lay inside.

Waves of cold pierced his body, stirring an ominous, instinctive urge to flee.

"Go."

The voice urged him softly.

Xu Yuan gritted his teeth, tightened his grip on the blade, and climbed onto the sink. Bent at the waist, he crawled into the mist-covered space.

The passage was narrow at first, barely wide enough for a person.

After several dozen steps,

Xu Yuan slowly straightened his back.

The mist grew thicker.

A boundless sea of fog stretched around him.

In the deathly stillness,

he could see nothing.

Xu Yuan took a few more steps and spotted a broken section of wall ahead.

"You..."

He read the character aloud.

The character for "you" was carved into the broken wall, but the rest had long since disappeared.

I have no idea what this place is.

Clang.

A soft sound rang out.

His foot had struck something.

Xu Yuan looked down.

It was a bronze man.

The bronze man lay on the ground, a strange smile on its face and its hands joined in an unusual seal.

On closer inspection, dozens of black holes dotted its body.

Xu Yuan stared at the bronze man.

That dark figure led me here.

Now what?

A mist-shrouded world stretched endlessly in every direction.

Only the bronze man lay here.

This is too strange!

Xu Yuan steadied himself and tried his utmost to stay calm.

Everything that appears has its own underlying logic and reason to exist.

This bronze man.

Even this almost blank world.

Why do they exist?

Suddenly,

the whisper sounded again:

"There isn't much time... you need to master... this... quickly..."

Master what?

"You mean this bronze man? Who are you?" Xu Yuan could not help asking.

"...Learn it... if you want to live..."

"...Almost out of time..."

The voice gradually faded.

Everything fell silent.

It was gone.

Xu Yuan looked around, hoping to see the dark figure again.

But it never reappeared.

Only a fierce wind blew in from the distant horizon.

The wind was so powerful that it swept the ash from the ground high into the air, joining earth and sky in a vast wall that shut out everything.

He could no longer see a thing.

Xu Yuan distinctly felt the scents of fire, plant ash, and rot that had surrounded him slowly fading away.

The power was fading.

—The power that made up this strange world was slowly dissipating!

But as the wind swept over the Bronze Man, the holes in his body suddenly began to give off a series of rhythmic sounds.

The wind—

It flowed through dozens of holes inside his body, and sound came out.

Xu Yuan froze. Disbelief flashed across his face, and he blurted out:

"What kind of technique is this?"

The Bronze Man had twenty-seven holes in his body.

The flow of wind was like the flow of a kind of power—

If the wind were replaced with spiritual energy, that would mean the energy formed a working circuit through the twenty-seven holes.

To cast any technique, spiritual energy had to form a circuit like that inside the body!

And there was more.

Combine that circuit with the secret hand seal that guided it—

And a complete technique was born.

The Bronze Man had already shown him a bizarre hand seal!

The answer was plain as day.

The other party had brought him into this world to show him this technique!

The next instant—

The entire world went dark.

Xu Yuan heard his own voice ring out beside his ear:

"What kind of technique is this?"

He opened his eyes.

He was sitting on a chair beside the corridor, holding a copy of Senior Year Artifact Refining Exercises (Volume One). It was open to page 19, where he had been working on a fill-in-the-blank question.

An incandescent bulb hung from the ceiling, flooding the corridor with harsh light.

Patients talking, a delivery rider running, a nurse calling out loudly, and a voice from the TV news all reached him from the far end of the corridor:

"We interrupt with a news update."

"Scientists have discovered a comet approaching our planet."

"According to orbital calculations jointly conducted by the observatory and space probes, the comet will reach near-Earth orbit in approximately seven years..."

Xu Yuan stopped listening.

He sat rigidly where he was. Once his breathing had steadied a little, he took his phone from his pocket and opened his call history.

There really had been a call a few minutes ago.

A call with his mother.

Which meant—

The shadow had silently waited for him to finish the call before attacking!

Everything that had just happened was no illusion.

It had all been real!

(End of chapter)