In that instant, you could hear the sound of Expert Huang’s teeth grinding from three meters away. But Dr. Kou’s nerves were truly too crude. He probably wouldn’t have turned his head even if an iron bar were being filed down to an embroidery needle. 

He Xiaozhi, however, gave an inexplicable shudder. The invigoration Dr. Kou had just filled him with nearly drained away. He hesitantly pulled his arm out of Kou Tong’s hand and said in a voice like a mosquito’s hum, “I’ll…I’ll try my best.” 

Yao Shuo looked at Kou Tong and rudely said, “So your goal now is to find some way to get that so-called ‘Magician’ into a mirror, but even if he sees you pass through a mirror and vanish with his own eyes, I think that even with only a brain made of paper, he still won’t obediently come near the mirror.” 

Kou Tong pleasantly explained, “It doesn’t necessarily have to be a mirror. It can be anything reflective, for example a puddle…” 

Before he could finish, Yao Shuo once again rudely interrupted him. “So how can you guarantee that you’ll trap him on the second time axis? Last time, the mirror broke the instant you went in. How are you going to ‘break’ a puddle?” 

His tone was very aggressive. Even if used to scold his son, this kind of scolding would be about enough to produce a teenager with adolescent problems.

Hearing it made Huang Jinchen feel very unhappy. Without even thinking, he returned, “If we can’t break it, can’t we use mud to smear it? The elderly shouldn’t let their thinking become too rigid.” 

Kou Tong’s initial intent had been to let Yao Shuo’s remark pass with a smile, but midway someone had come forward to “stick up” for him, so he could only maintain a not quite smiling expression, inhale deeply, pretend he hadn’t heard anything, and change the subject. “Mom, why don’t you take Manman to bed? It’s not good for a child to stay up late.” 

How wise and kind, Huang Jinchen thought, moved. 

Manman was very sleepy. Kou Tong’s mom picked her up and looked at Kou Tong, wanting to speak but holding back. She always seemed to faintly sense something. Sometimes Huang Jinchen thought that she didn’t seem like a person but a part of Kou Tong, placed in the outer form of a woman he missed. 

The dead couldn’t live again. This was common sense that every ordinary person understood. 

Half-pulling, half-supporting, Kou Tong pushed her towards the bedroom and quietly said, “There are so many men here, there’s no need for you to worry. Go to bed early, or else you’ll get wrinkles. Never mind that a few crows won’t bring the sky falling down, if it really does fall down, I’ll be here to hold it up.” 

Kou Tong’s mom suddenly stopped in the doorway and quickly looked at Kou Tong. Unexpectedly, there was wetness shining in the eyes of the mother and son who astonishingly found themselves facing each other. Kou Tong froze. A sharp stinging pain suddenly came from his forearm. He automatically covered it, watching his mom put Manman down. The door in front of him closed gently. 

“No one understands better than the subject himself what the truth is, so after the conscious subject has been in the Projector for a certain length of time, he will understand more clearly than anyone else what deep meaning these seemingly bizarre things represent.” 

This was a sentence he himself had written on the title page when the big boiler had been in planning. 

…Concerning those things you thought you didn’t know but in fact knew. 

Kou Tong’s shoulder was suddenly patted. He quickly returned to himself and looked at Huang Jinchen standing there with a smile that showed a mouthful of small white teeth, saying, “Dar…” 

He had only said half a word when his expression suddenly changed. He took Kou Tong by the shoulder, quickly glanced down, then a little stiffly pulled him into the study. “Come over here.” 

Just as he finished speaking, he rudely slammed the door right in front of Yao Shuo and He Xiaozhi’s faces. 

Huang Jinchen’s expression was so grave it was a little frightening, but his movements were very light as he unclasped Kou Tong’s hand from his forearm. 

“Let go,” he said in a tone that was almost an order. Kou Tong sucked in a small breath and slowly let go, revealing his whole arm. The blood had nearly leaked through the cracks between his fingers. It was soaking the sleeve of his shirt. 

Huang Jinchen leaned down, rolled up his sleeve with extreme caution, then frowned fiercely. 

For some reason, the old scars on Kou Tong’s forearm had all opened, as though someone had gone over them once more with a knife… No, it was as if time had run backwards to the moment his skin had just been cut and the scars had been wounds. The reek of human blood came off of them. The contrast made the skin of his wrist look almost ghostly pale. It was appalling. 

“Don’t move.” As though dealing with a major incident, Huang Jinchen didn’t take the time to ask why these wounds had mysteriously appeared. He pressed Kou Tong into a chair. “Shh, let me look—is there a first-aid kit for treating wounds?” 

“In the drawer under the desk,” Kou Tong said. 

Huang Jinchen deftly pulled out the first-aid kit. With familiar ease, he stopped the bleeding for him and treated the wounds. He was unusually nimble. This time, he didn’t deliberately lighten his movements, because while Kou Tong could handle a bit of pain, he couldn’t handle it if the blood kept flowing. 

When the bleeding had stopped, he bandaged his arm. Then Huang Jinchen finally asked, “Does it hurt?” 

Kou Tong shrugged. “Within the bounds of endurance.” 

Huang Jinchen thought back to the appearance of those wounds and suddenly felt that they rather hurt him. So he quickly changed his focus. He asked him, “What’s going on? When did it happen?” 

“Just now,” Kou Tong said quietly after a long silence. “Ordinarily, the space won’t take the initiative to harm a conscious subject, unless…” 

“Well?”

“Unless, for some reason, the conscious subject is on the verge of collapse.” 

When Kou Tong said this, he was unusually calm, so calm that it took Huang Jinchen a moment to catch up with what he meant. Then he half-crouched at Kou Tong’s feet and put a hand over Kou Tong’s forehead, gently brushing aside the hair in front of it. “What’s wrong? Will you tell me?” 

Kou Tong was silent again, as if making a slow and difficult choice. After a while, he shook his head gently but firmly. “No, I don’t really want to talk about it.” 

Huang Jinchen sighed. The expression on his face wasn’t as open as usual. He lowered his gaze slightly, stared at Kou Tong’s forearm seemingly unconsciously for a long while, then slowly stood up off the ground. Then he sighed. 

Kou Tong raised his head to look at him. Huang Jinchen pulled out a tissue and very naturally pulled over Kou Tong’s other hand, slowly wiping away the bloodstains between his fingers. 

“I’m a little hurt,” he said. 

Kou Tong laughed softly. His lips were pale, making his smile seem a little weak. But Huang Jinchen didn’t look at him. He only said with his eyes lowered, “Really, I’m a little hurt. It’s like I was showing my love for you and came eagerly trotting over, and you said, Where the hell did he come from, why won’t he fuck off and mind his own business? and kicked me away.” 

Kou Tong said, “I didn’t. I accepted.” 

Huang Jinchen languidly raised his eyelids and looked at him, immediately putting a stop to everything Kou Tong was going to say next.

Then he turned and headed out. In that moment, Kou Tong actually read a bit of loneliness from his figure. He was like a big dog, obviously very sturdy, that still whimpered and tucked its tail between its legs at a gentle kick from its owner. For no clear reason, he suddenly felt a little sorry.

Kou Tong lowered his head, then raised it. He said, “I can’t say.” 

Huang Jinchen’s steps paused. 

“If a person is aware that he’s a little psychologically unbalanced and can actively face it and seek a means to resolve it, we usually believe that he’s healthy.” With some effort, Kou Tong moved the arm Huang Jinchen had wrapped up tightly. “So apart from some pathological changes to physiology, many psychological problems begin with a fact we are unwilling to face.

“Being unwilling to face something is an instinctive means of self-protection, because we subconsciously believe we can’t handle this problem and will endure great harm. This is also why some people, when forced to touch the truth they have avoided, will collapse.” 

His tone was very flat, so flat he hardly seemed to be talking about himself. “Therefore, at times like these, we’ll ordinarily stop the operation of the Projector. It’s only responsible for ‘finding the problem.’ Resolving the problem needs to happen in the real world. But now I can’t get out, and I can’t collapse. This seven-person collective consciousness projection is very balanced, and also very fragile. If that balance breaks, I’m concerned that something I can’t control will happen.” 

Huang Jinchen was silent for a long moment, then nodded. “All right.” 

Then he pointed outside. “I have an idea we can discuss with them about how to deal with that Magician.” 

—This amounted to accepting his explanation, agreeing and being reconciled. 

“He is the beginning of everything, possessing unparalleled creative force. From a certain point of view, he has some attack capabilities. This is perhaps the reason why the little girl uses him to spearhead her attacks.” 

Huang Jinchen had changed the bullets in his gun to a different type—according to his own assertion, these were “ghost fire bullets.” When each bullet was fired, it exploded whatever target it touched first, lighting up a string of flame, and the flame-hastening crows gave up their lives serving as fuel for the fire. 

The fire sent thick smoke up into the night sky. And the person doing the shooting didn’t stick around for a single second, disappearing in the blink of an eye. 

“The crows hastening the flames are like ultimate darkness and ultimate light. The two have a fierce mutual attraction for each other and mix together. And when the fire overpowers the crows, these paper things won’t extinguish the flames but instead make them burn more and more fiercely. This will become a closed loop, one side defeating the other. This is what the Magician doesn’t want but has no way to prevent. If the balance is broken and mutual dependency is impossible, mutual destruction becomes inevitable.” 

The Magician’s form suddenly appeared in the night sky that would soon see the break of day. A woman’s scream came from far away: “Kill him! Kill him!” 

But Huang Jinchen’s form disappeared once more—no one knew where he came from, nor how he hid himself. 

The Magician’s body was suspended in the air. All of a sudden, he “floated” in a certain direction. Countless crows followed him. 

“His original form is a craftsman, peddler, or performer, so his means of attack aren’t face to face. He must be skilled at deception and enjoy deliberate mystification.” 

Countless crows suddenly brushed past a big tree, actually slicing off the crown of the tree. The man’s agile form was revealed. As soon as Huang Jinchen was exposed, he jumped almost at once from the tree and quickly rolled aside and shot at the Magician. 

A hit. 

When the ghost fire bullet touched its target, it began to burn, but the Magician stood unmoving at a distance of less than ten meters from him, allowing the tongues of flame to encircle his body.