When Kou Tong woke up, he found that he was back home. His whole body was tightly wrapped in blankets. He was a little hot, so he struggled unconsciously and was held down. Next to him, Huang Jinchen quietly said, “You’re running a fever. Stay still. Don’t let the heat escape. I’ll go get you some water.” 

The inside of Kou Tong’s head was a ball of paste, so he agreed without any objection and lay back down. 

Huang Jinchen went out and said something to someone, then came in carrying a cup of warm water. He first tried a mouthful himself before lifting Kou Tong by the shoulders, letting him lean against himself, and giving him the water to drink. When half the cup was gone, he took a little pill bottle from beside him and quietly said, “Take some medicine, too. Your mom gave you a shot to relieve inflammation.” 

Kou Tong was silent for a while, then belatedly said, “…She used to be a nurse.” 

“Yeah.” Huang Jinchen watched him take the medicine, then put the cup aside and lightly laid him down. “Go to sleep now.” 

Kou Tong frowned. His whole body was sore, like acid coming from the cracks in his bones. Each motion felt off. It had been many years since he had been sick at all. 

“Er-Pang,” he said, “I don’t feel well.” 

His voice was slightly hoarse, slightly nasal, a little breathless; it actually sounded a little soft. Huang Jinchen laughed softly, put his hands on either side of him, and lowered his head as if wanting to press their foreheads together. He asked, “Are you acting spoiled?” 

Kou Tong thought about it for two seconds, then decisively acknowledged, “Yeah.” 

Huang Jinchen rolled over and got in bed, squeezing in next to him, embracing him through the quilt. “Fine, then I’ll hug you while you sleep.” 

What kind of a lousy idea was this… Completely held by him, quilt and all, unable even to roll over, wouldn’t he be even more uncomfortable? Kou Tong’s eyelids were a little heavy, but he still turned his head to widen his eyes, slightly bloodshot from fever, in an expression of protest. 

But Huang Jinchen buried his head against the hollow of his shoulder and didn’t receive this signal. After a while, he said in a muffled voice, “The first time I carried out an assignment, the instructor said I was a natural born sniper. Throughout the whole process of pulling the trigger and confirming that the target was dead, my blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing all remained steady. When he said this, the expression he looked at me with was a little strange. It was praising me, but it was also very grave, as if he thought that me slaughtering my own kind like chopping a radish had some antisocial tendencies.

“Actually, I also think I’m a little antisocial,” Huang Jinchen said. “Of course, normally, I don’t want to blow up government buildings, and I don’t want to wait by the side of the road with a gun, taking down the even numbers and letting the odd ones go…including the years I was a planted agent in Utopia. When I received an order, I would carry it out. I didn’t have any feeling that I was deceiving anyone’s emotions. I didn’t feel nervous, guilty, conflicted, or anything like that. I always thought…that I wasn’t a normal person.” 

Kou Tong’s features softened. He wanted to free up a hand to pat him on the head, but Huang Jinchen held it down firmly; he couldn’t remove a single finger. 

Huang Jinchen’s arms holding him became tighter and tighter, so even through the thick quilt, Kou Tong had a feeling of being unbearably strapped down. The man’s body even began to tremble faintly. “But just now, you scared me to death… You fucking scared me to death!” 

Kou Tong’s heart suddenly gave a fierce twinge. He seemed for the first time in his life to feel this emotion that seemed to have physical substance, blazing yet hidden. It wasn’t playing along, wasn’t suggestive flirting; it was true and genuine…emotion. 

Ten thousand carefully prepared honeyed words probably all couldn’t compare to that hysterical low roar of “You scared me to death.” 

Kou Tong was dazed from fever and couldn’t clearly say what he was feeling, only that it was a little like the feeling of all kinds of emotions welling up, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy all mixing together in one pot, pouring heavily into his heart. For a time, he couldn’t clearly describe it. So he didn’t struggle again, only lay in Huang Jinchen’s arms and murkily fell asleep. 

This time, his sleep wasn’t very steady, all wild dreams. He didn’t quite know the time of day. He seemed to be awake, but he also seemed unable to wake up no matter what. 

Half an hour later, probably because of the heat, Kou Tong began to struggle unconsciously. Huang Jinchen held him tighter, lightly wiping the cold sweat from the corners of his pale forehead. Watching him frown, he felt sudden tenderness. 

Huang Jinchen felt that Kou Tong had always been the sort of person who could sleep until the end of the world if you only gave him a bed. He had never seen him frown in his sleep. He gently smoothed the center of Kou Tong’s brow with his fingers and patted his back time after time through the quilt… It turned out that this man who could give you a great sense of security with his voice alone also had such times of weakness. 

Only being beside this person gave him a feeling that…he was a real person. 

This made him suddenly feel a sense of danger. Huang Jinchen, looking at Kou Tong, couldn’t resist thinking: If you were gone one day, what would I do? 

His hands holding the edges of the quilt suddenly tightened. The veins on the backs of his hands stood out. In that moment, the look in Huang Jinchen’s eyes was almost vicious as he looked at the entirely unconscious Kou Tong. He seemed to have turned into a wild beast, ready to pounce and bite through Kou Tong’s neck. But in the end, he only leaned down and kissed Kou Tong on the forehead, then picked up the cup of water and a small cotton swab and lightly wet his lips, dry and cracked from fever. 

“Then I’ll kill you,” he announced gently and unfeelingly as he did this. 

After a while, perhaps pursued by nightmares, Kou Tong suddenly twitched and curled into a ball, a quiet sob in an altered pitch coming out of his throat. Dizzy from fever, he whispered unknown ravings. Huang Jinchen drew close and listened carefully for a long time, but he couldn’t understand anything. Kou Tong was about to struggle out of the quilt. He gathered up the raised corners of the quilt but felt that Kou Tong seemed to be trembling. 

Just then, there was a sudden sound. A localized earthquake seemed to begin around them. The whole apartment was “sewn up” with mirrors; the walls were hung full of them. In order not to frighten people, they were usually all covered up with cloth or wall stickers. Huang Jinchen raised his head and found that a piece of cloth had fallen from the wall. A crack had appeared in the mirror out of nowhere. The water in the cup on the table splashed out, leaving a small water stain. 

“Kou Tong…” Huang Jinchen stared fixedly at that crack and reached out to push Kou Tong by the shoulder. “Wake up.” 

He felt that he had enough previous examples to know what this was. This was just like the first time the two of them had gone into Lao Yao’s projection space and the space had suddenly collapsed, just like the projected street when He Xiaozhi had wanted to jump off the building…

“Kou Tong!” 

Kou Tong didn’t move, but someone pounded on the bedroom door. Huang Jinchen opened the door and found the whole household standing there, nervously asking, “What’s wrong? Is it a sudden earthquake? Isn’t Kou Tong awake yet? What are we going to do?” 

Without another word, Huang Jinchen wet a towel with cold water and stuck it to Kou Tong’s face. 

Kou Tong gave a start and immediately opened his eyes. At the same time, the moment his pupils began to focus and he woke up, the shaking in the room immediately vanished. 

Huang Jinchen put his hands behind his back and lightly waved to him. Kou Tong looked up and saw the cracked mirror in the room. His still vague expression cleared up a little at once. Then, in a heavily nasal voice, he asked as though nothing were the matter, “What’s wrong?” 

Huang Jinchen said, “It’s nothing, rest.” 

Then he used his glib tongue to talk the whole family into leaving and made them believe that this had only been a small earthquake, magnitude 4 and under. 

Kou Tong let out a breath and threw himself back heavily, lying back in bed. He was covered in cold sweat, clammy all over, but his head was much clearer. And waking up this time, he had an ominous premonition that it would be game over soon. 

After a while, Huang Jinchen opened the door and came in. He bent down and pressed his forehead to Kou Tong’s. “How are you?” 

“Much better. My head still hurts a little.” Kou Tong paused, then said, “I’m all clammy. It’s uncomfortable. Can I go shower?” 

Huang Jinchen pulled up a chair, sat down by the bedside, and wiped his face with a towel. “Hold out a little longer. Your mom said you can go shower when the fever is completely down.” 

Kou Tong closed his eyes and sighed softly. 

“What happened just now?” Huang Jinchen asked. Then he looked at Kou Tong’s expression and added, “Can you talk about it?” 

“It must have been a nightmare.” Kou Tong was worn out. His voice was very low. “I can’t quite remember clearly.” 

“Or you can’t talk about it?” 

Kou Tong considered it. There were some things that, if they were avoided, would be suppressed from the consciousness into the subconscious. When he was awake, he could balance out his own mental state, but in his dreams, there was no way to avoid. This wasn’t reality. In reality, no one cared what he dreamed in the middle of the night. But this was a precariously balanced world built of the accumulation of everyone’s consciousness projections. 

There was no way to avoid your own memories and emotions. The things that had happened had happened; this was a fact. 

“Go get a bowl of water,” Kou Tong said. “Cold water.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

“I’m going to try to resolve this problem,” Kou Tong said. He sat up laboriously. Huang Jinchen deftly shoved a pillow behind him. Kou Tong continued, “There are some things I don’t remember clearly and need to dig up. I definitely won’t be able to remember if I force myself, so I need to think of a way to make myself enter the specific time and circumstances of that period. When there’s an emotional resonance, it will be easier to remember. This normally requires the guidance of a professional and is under the professional’s control.” 

He raised his head and looked at Huang Jinchen. “You obviously aren’t a professional.” 

Huang Jinchen was unsatisfied. “But I’m still a living creature. I suppose I can do something?” 

“Yes, you can,” Kou Tong said. “Go get a bowl of cold water. If an earthquake like the one just now happens again, splash me awake with the water.”