Denial
Even Wen Yi was startled by her sudden outburst, a flicker of hesitation flashing across her face.
Xiao Li looked like she was on the verge of a breakdown—her hysterical state made people instinctively want to keep their distance.
But Lu Congxing remained remarkably calm. The man behind him was watching intently, ready to seize her at the slightest move.
“There is evidence.” Lu Congxing pulled out his phone and opened a video.
“In the hotel where Wen Yi was staying, the only people who entered her room were you and a cleaning lady.”
A surveillance video began to play, showing Xiao Li walking into the room with a smile on her face and a backpack on her back. She was Wen Yi’s assistant, so it wasn’t unusual for her to have a keycard to Wen Yi’s hotel room.
This wasn’t information he should have been able to access—if not for Zhai Huokang’s help. As a member of the Supernatural Response Team, he had the authority to retrieve such footage and had sent it to Lu Congxing earlier that morning.
Lu Congxing deliberately softened his tone to break through her psychological defenses. “If the police get involved, do you really think you can fool them?”
He was bluffing. After all, they couldn’t arrest someone just for leaving a doll behind.
Unfortunately, Xiao Li, already on the brink of a breakdown, didn’t notice the trap. She lifted her head and scanned the room with a dark expression. “Fine! Yes, I admit I put the doll there! So what? You’re still fine, aren’t you?”
The last sentence was nearly a scream.
Wen Yi was in disbelief. She never imagined that the one trying to harm her would be the assistant she had been closest to over the past three years.
She let out a bitter laugh, a thousand thoughts racing through her mind, but in the end, she only asked one word: “Why?”
The assistant stared her down, her once timid appearance now replaced with a frightening intensity. At some point, she had even removed her signature round-framed glasses. “Because I hate you, of course.”
Her face was still plain—so ordinary that no one would notice her on the street.
She started speaking to herself, completely ignoring the others. “You’re so stupid. How can someone like you survive in the entertainment industry? Do you really think you were given that black-and-red PR strategy because of talent?”
“I worked so hard. I’m the one who deserves to be in the spotlight. I understand this industry better than anyone. I was just missing one chance. If you disappeared, it’d finally be my turn.”
It was the first time Wen Yi had felt such naked malice from someone so close to her.
She was stunned.
Xiao Li’s words were disjointed, illogical. It was as if she were lost in a world of her own delusions and persecution.
Wen Yi asked, “Who gave you the doll?”
Even though she had clearly misjudged her assistant, she was still certain Xiao Li was just an ordinary person. There was no way she could have made such a dark and sinister voodoo doll herself.
But Xiao Li acted as though she didn’t hear the question, muttering to herself with trembling hands pressed tightly over her ears, shutting out the world.
He Zhouyan’s expression turned cold. “Who created the realm?”
Strangely, the moment he spoke, the entire room went silent. Xiao Li looked up in fear. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
The atmosphere in the hospital room grew tense. Everyone except Lu Congxing could feel the pressure He Zhouyan was unconsciously exuding.
The realm had placed the cub in danger. Just thinking about it made He Zhouyan want to lose control.
If he had gotten back a little later that day, would the cub have been trapped even longer? Would they have faced even greater danger?
Xiao Li, under immense pressure, was crumbling. Standing at the edge between life and death, her emotions—which were about to explode—completely collapsed. She burst into sobs.
“I don’t know! I really don’t know what you mean by ‘realm’! Someone just gave me that voodoo doll and said I could use it to shift someone else’s luck!”
She looked nothing like the mysterious, eccentric person she was just a moment ago.
Lu Congxing frowned. “Who gave you the voodoo doll?”
Xiao Li’s face twisted with anger as she looked over, but the moment she met He Zhouyan’s eyes behind Lu Congxing, she fell quiet and timidly answered: “I—I don’t know. One night, I dreamed someone told me to have the doll watch the person I hated, and it would transfer their luck. I thought it was just a dream, but when I woke up, the doll was right beside me.”
Lying in bed, Lin Yang couldn’t help but sneer: “And you really thought you could walk away unscathed after using something so evil?”
Xiao Li’s face paled even more. Her expression twisted, as if caught between fear and restraint.
Lu Congxing remained calm. “Was the person in your dream a fortune-teller wearing clothes with the word ‘天’ on them?”
He didn’t know what answer he expected, but when Xiao Li slowly nodded, a weight seemed to sink in his chest.
That man seemed to be everywhere. Every step they took—he had already been there.
But when did it start?
The rattle from the Xiang family? Or even earlier? He had used the people closest to them, setting trap after trap. But for what?
Was the establishment of the firm part of his plan? Had everything happening at this very moment—every scene, every conversation—already been orchestrated by someone?
A sharp pain surged through him, as if a blade were scraping against his bones, its edge licking at his brain. Overwhelmed by the chaos and disorientation, he had no choice but to shut his eyes, stumbling back slightly.
Xiao Li’s voice suddenly sounded as if it were coming from far away: “You don’t know? You don’t know…?”
“You don’t know, hehe?”
The words coiled around him like a curse. What made Lu Congxing’s expression change wasn’t Xiao Li’s odd behavior—it was the fact that the voice was identical to his own.
He looked up again, only to see Xiao Li’s face had turned into his own.
Smiling, it asked, “You don’t know?”
At some point, the hospital room’s lights had dimmed to an eerie blue-black, flickering strangely as they cast their glow upon the identical face opposite him, tinting it the same unnatural hue.
The bed where Lin Yang had been lying just moments ago was now empty. One of the table legs was broken, cobwebs clung to the corners.
Only his own shallow breathing filled the room.
He raised his hand. The version of himself with the pallid face mirrored his movement.
Like a reflection in a mirror.
A smirk tugged at the corner of Lu Congxing’s lips. The ghostly fire in his palm flared suddenly, and then—without hesitation—he punched forward with a forceful strike, carrying a fierce gust.
Though there was no tangible contact, the air ahead of him cracked like shattering glass. Piece by piece, it fractured—taking with it the doppelgänger before him, breaking apart into nothingness.
It was still the same hospital—only now it looked like it had been abandoned for ten years.
This was a parallel dimension.
He seemed to be the only one thrown into it. He tried calling out for Yingying, only to realize that all connection to reality had long been severed.
All he could do was walk forward. The corridors, once bustling with doctors and nurses, were now eerily empty.
Only the echo of his footsteps accompanied him.
He stopped in front of an operating room, halting as he heard sobs and cries coming from within. He stood still, trying to make sense of the sounds.
The noise of needles piercing flesh, scalpels slicing through skin—all of it reached his ears.
But when he pushed open the door, there was nothing. Just an empty, filthy operating table.
As if the sounds had all been an illusion.
Yet when Lu Congxing turned his head, he saw a mirror.
A mirror so pristine, so clean, that it felt completely out of place in this ruined dimension.
The sounds had actually come from the mirror.
Or more accurately, from the dimension beyond it.
Lu Congxing stared at the mirror. He couldn’t see the dimension on the other side, and that dimension couldn’t perceive him either.
Maybe, at some point, the two dimensions would briefly connect. But that moment wasn’t now.
He stepped out of the operating room, shut the door behind him, and continued walking—until he finally stopped in front of a wall covered in posters introducing the hospital’s doctors and tips for disease prevention.
The only difference from reality?
All the words were reversed.
Or rather, this parallel dimension itself was reversed.
The backward writing made Lu Congxing irritable. He spun around sharply and launched a perfectly-timed back elbow without hesitation.
It was a strike strong enough to tear out someone’s organs—but the person who appeared behind him out of thin air caught it effortlessly.
His tensed body instantly relaxed at the familiar voice behind him, and the ghostly flames he wielded dulled from searing to harmless.
“This time, I didn’t lose you.”
The man sighed and gently wrapped his arms around him from behind.
Lu Congxing blinked, momentarily dazed. He looked up, confused and childlike. “You came?”
He Zhouyan’s voice was firm: “I came.”
He pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of Lu Congxing’s eye, full of quiet reassurance.
Like comforting a child who had just taken a fall, Lu Congxing’s voice carried a hint of vulnerability even he didn’t realize: “I think I know who created this realm.”
He Zhouyan stroked his hair softly. “Mm. Good boy.” The usual edge in his demeanor faded completely in front of the cub.
Like a clumsy big dog who didn’t know how to comfort someone—just gently smoothing things out the only way he could.
But Lu Congxing had never been the kind of child who needed someone to coddle and soothe his wounds. So the moment of vulnerability was brief. When he looked up again, he was back to his calm, composed self.
He asked, “Is the voodoo doll from the Southern Abyss?”
He had never doubted the man—but at this moment, his heartbeat still sped up for a couple of seconds.
The sound of it thundered in his ears.
He Zhouyan lowered his head, his gaze dark and unreadable. “Yes.”
Just one word, but Lu Congxing’s expression shifted instantly. He lowered his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because a cub doesn’t need to know about things like that,” He Zhouyan replied after a pause. “That’s for the old folks at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs to worry about.”
“The things of the Southern Abyss keep emerging. This has something to do with me, doesn’t it?” Lu Congxing pressed on.
The blue ghostly flame sensed the shift in its master’s emotions and spiraled upward, leaving an enchanting mark on the right side of his face. It seemed as if it had always belonged there, constantly shifting—resembling a dragon, a phoenix, or the essence of all things in the universe—making him appear like an incubus from a Western legend.
Lu Congxing gently placed his hand on He Zhouyan’s shoulder, revealing his unmarked left side. “You said that day you’d found a clue about my father. Is he still alive?”
His voice trembled slightly before regaining composure. His expression was hard to read. “Or rather… is that person really my father?”
The face from his memories had completely faded. He couldn’t even remember when it started—but now, he couldn’t picture his father at all. Like his memories had been rewritten. No matter how hard he tried, not a single detail came back.
For the first time, he began to doubt everything before the age of sixteen.
Looking at the guarded young man in front of him, He Zhouyan was suddenly reminded of the very first time they met.
Standing cold and expressionless by the strange lake of the Southern Abyss, unfazed even in the face of the terrifying, starving ghost at the bottom of the temple. That was when He Zhouyan had first fallen for him.
He could have given a safer, more carefully worded answer—like the ones the Bureau always used to pacify—but when he looked into Lu Congxing’s calm and determined eyes, he finally just shook his head and whispered in his ear:
“Don’t deny who you are.”
Don’t deny who you are.