Lu Wenchuan on the hospital bed looked exactly like Lu Wenchuan standing in the Dark Channel.
The same wounds, the same gauze, the same blood-soaked cuffs. The only difference was that the man on the bed had his eyes closed, his face so pale it held no trace of life, his chest so still it seemed to have stopped moving long ago.
Standing outside the door, Lu Wenchuan saw his own corpse, and his brow shifted slightly.
"It's pretty good at scaring people."
Xu Zhihan said nothing.
He stared at the hospital bed, his fingers slowly tightening as blood flowed again from the fresh cut in his palm.
Lu Wenchuan looked at him.
"It's fake."
Xu Zhihan's voice was very low. "I know."
"You don't look like you know."
Xu Zhihan raised his eyes.
"Shut up."
Lu Wenchuan paused, then actually shut up.
Song Zhixia's transmission suddenly cut out, and the Deputy Captain's voice vanished too. The lights in the Dark Channel went out one by one, but the ward beyond the narrow door was blindingly bright. White fluorescent tubes, white sheets, white walls. An electronic clock hung on the wall, its time frozen at 1:17 a.m.
Xie Wu stood beside the hospital bed.
This time, he was no longer an afterimage. Half his face was blank, the other half an old face stitched together with black threads. His body looked pieced together from many White Membranes, fragments still falling from its edges.
He looked down at Lu Wenchuan on the bed, his voice soft.
"Look. He's much quieter now."
Xu Zhihan stepped through the door.
Lu Wenchuan reached to grab him, half a beat too late.
"Xu Zhihan!"
Xu Zhihan had already entered the Life-Taking Room.
The door did not close, but the instant he stepped inside, it separated