Chapter 657: Answer

Li Huowang sat numbly in place, pondering what he had just experienced. He had clearly answered his mother's call, and the person on the other end even knew his name. Yet, after connecting, the phone was dead, with no power. So, who had he been talking to just now?

If this was his hallucination, did that mean the previous sights were also hallucinations? Do I, Li Huowang, really have a mental illness? Have I been ill from the beginning?

Li Huowang closed his eyes in pain. He clutched his head with both hands, vigorously scratching his hair. He didn't want to admit it, but he had to face it because he no longer trusted himself.

"I..." Li Huowang struggled for a moment. With a pained expression, he found Yi Donglai's number in his contacts. After a long series of rings, Yi Donglai's voice answered on the other end.

"Hello, Xiao Li?" Yi Donglai asked. "Is something wrong?"

Li Huowang clenched his fists. His voice trembling slightly, he asked, "Dr. Yi, do you think it's possible I have paranoid delusions?"

"What do you mean, 'is it possible,' Xiao Li?" Yi Donglai asked. "Are you experiencing new symptoms again?" His tone grew serious.

"I don't know if it is," Li Huowang replied, "but I feel like someone is sending people to watch me. They seem to have some conspiracy. This feeling has occurred many times."

"Never during your hospitalization?" Yi Donglai pressed. "These symptoms only appeared after you were discharged?"

"Yes, never while I was hospitalized," Li Huowang confirmed. "Look, that feeling is back."

Li Huowang took out the mirror again and started reflecting. However, this time what was reflected was not Aunt Qi, but a woman — a woman holding a parasol, whose face he couldn't see. It was still spring, and a woman standing in the community like that was very strange.

"Is she my hallucination? A delusion I conjured? Or something else?" Li Huowang asked himself, puzzled.

Yi Donglai's voice was still speaking, but Li Huowang, whose gaze had grown resolute again, gently hung up the phone. "If it's truly a delusion, I'll accept it," he thought. "Whether I need to go back to the hospital or do something else, today, I must find out if this is really my imagination!"

Li Huowang put down his phone. After taking some items from a drawer and putting them in his pocket, he quickly descended the stairs. When he emerged from the building, the woman was still standing there. Li Huowang noted her position. He quietly circled around the left side of the building to get behind her and swiftly approached her. As he got closer, Li Huowang noticed more details. The woman was wearing high heels and was dressed too lightly, which was too out of place for the current season. As more and more unsettling details emerged, Li Huowang's eyes filled with increasing fear.

Li Huowang was close, getting closer. Just a few steps away, the door of a black car parked nearby in the community suddenly opened, and two dark figures darted out. One person pressed a liquid-soaked wipe over Li Huowang's face, while the other grabbed his arms from behind and began dragging him towards the car.

When he smelled the strong medicinal scent from the wipe, Li Huowang didn't panic; instead, he felt a surge of ecstatic relief. The heavy stone in his heart had finally lifted. "I'm not crazy!" he thought. "This isn't a hallucination! Someone is trying to harm me!"

As this thought just surfaced in Li Huowang's mind, he felt his consciousness blurring. The wipe contained a powerful sedative! Li Huowang opened his mouth wide and bit down hard on his own tongue with his molars. As agonizing pain and crimson blood filled Li Huowang's mouth, his consciousness instantly cleared.

The next moment, Li Huowang opened his mouth as wide as possible, engulfing both the wipe and the person's fingers in his mouth. Immediately, a bloodthirsty glint appeared in Li Huowang's eyes. His jaw trembled as he exerted force, and his teeth instantly bit through the person's fingers.

"Hiss!" The person gasped sharply, furiously punching Li Huowang's head, trying to pull his hand free. However, Li Huowang remained completely unmoved. The three struggling individuals ended up inside the car. The moment they were in the car, Li Huowang suddenly released his teeth, causing the person to violently slam against the car window.

Li Huowang opened his bloody mouth and stared chillingly at the strangers he had never seen before. "Do you know why I got into your car?" he snarled. "No matter who you are, once I'm in your car, it means that whether I kill you or cripple you, it's legitimate self-defense!"

Li Huowang, with one hand, pulled a utility knife from his sleeve and plunged it directly into the person's thigh. Just as the person cried out in pain and released their hands, Li Huowang, with a ferocious expression, tightened his grip on the utility knife and, mouth agape, lunged at the person in front of him.

The black SUV began to shake. As the shaking grew more violent, a car door suddenly burst open, and Li Huowang, covered in blood, tumbled out. Li Huowang watched coldly as the car sped away. He threw the blood-stained utility knife from his hand onto the ground, then pulled out his phone from his pocket and made a call.

"Hello, is this 110?" he said into the phone. "I want to report a crime. I've been kidnapped." He continued, "I killed one of the kidnappers. The other one is probably in bad shape too. They drove away in a black car, leaving from Wuyi Road."

Kidnapping was a serious matter, especially when the hostage killed the kidnapper. Soon, Li Huowang was taken to the police station for questioning and underwent a very detailed interrogation. While Li Huowang was being questioned, outside the door, Sun Jianye looked at Li Huowang's information displayed on his police device, a headache setting in. Beside him, Sun Xiaoqin was weeping.

"Ma'am, please don't worry," he told her. "Your son is fine. Please wait here for a moment; I'll go in and get a better understanding of the situation." After speaking, he entered the interrogation room with his apprentice and listened in on his colleague's questioning.

"Mr. Li," the colleague asked, "you're saying they came to kidnap you, right? Do you know why they would kidnap you? Have you offended anyone recently?"

Hearing this, Li Huowang, holding a disposable cup in both hands, fell into thought. After a moment of hesitation, he spoke: "I've killed a few people before. I think these people were their accomplices, and they came to get revenge on me. You might be able to start your investigation from there."

The interrogation room became very quiet for a moment. No one else spoke. Just as the atmosphere grew quiet, another uniformed person walked in. "The community surveillance footage has been retrieved," the person said, "but it doesn't show any kidnappers."

After Sun Jianye quickly reviewed the surveillance footage with his colleague, he looked at Li Huowang with a skeptical gaze.

"None?!" Li Huowang exclaimed. "How is that possible? Good thing I kept the evidence." He reached into his pocket, pulled out two fingers, and placed them on the table.