Chapter 530: The Future in the Mirror

I was a rather sentimental person. I hadn't changed my phone number since I was expelled from the police academy; all told, I'd been using it for five years. When I pressed the last digit, the busy signal in the receiver suddenly changed. My heartbeat quickened. 'Will someone answer?'

My own phone hadn't come with me into the Dream Realm; it should still be back in the hospital room.

"No one answering?" I let out a breath, not entirely sure why I felt so relieved. I checked the Underworld Live Show Phone. The stream hadn't disconnected, and no calls were coming in.

'Looks like I guessed wrong. The Live Show Phone's number is different from my personal one. That's strange, then. How did Ye Bing manage to call the Underworld Live Show to ask for my help?' I carefully searched every corner of the telephone booth but found nothing.

Standing there, I recalled a specific detail. Before the live stream began, when Ye Bing called the Live Show, she hadn't known I was the one on the other end. 'This is getting complicated. Where did she get the number?'

I hung up the receiver and pushed open the glass door of the booth, looking out toward the Lightless District.

'The architectural layout is very similar to No-Lights Road. Could that be the true headquarters of the Underworld Live Show? Did Ye Bing find my contact info there?' Riddled with doubts, I hurried away from the three-way intersection. It was too empty here; lacking any buildings for cover, I would be easily spotted by any passing thoughts.

I had no idea how long the night in the Dream Realm would last. The idiom "long nights bring many dreams" was perfectly appropriate here. I hurried back to the three-story blue building where Chu Men was hiding, intending to get him so we could leave together.

Chu Men had been very cautious when we first chose this house. He said that in dreams, blue was a relaxing and vibrant color that symbolized the sea and the sky, so he had determined this building wouldn't be too dangerous.

I pushed open the wooden door. The first floor looked like a shared apartment; although it was crowded and packed with belongings, it gave off a cozy feeling.

"Chu Men?" I called up the stairs. When a few seconds passed with no response, my brow slowly furrowed. 'Don't tell me something went wrong at a time like this!'

Stepping fully inside, I used my Judging Eye to sweep over the furniture and clutter piled up in the room. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

Moving cautiously, I reached the stairs in the northeast corner of the building and slowly headed up. The layout of the second floor was roughly the same as the first, except for the many human-shaped shadows inside the walls and floor.

I had seen too many of these things along the way to be surprised by them anymore.

'At this stage, they can move through the walls, but they can't step out yet.' I walked past the human-shaped shadows. These discarded memory fragments involuntarily followed my movements, like willow catkins caught in a pedestrian's wake. I had no idea why. 'They don't seem malicious.'

Of course, the key word was "seem." In this completely unfamiliar and bizarre city, I certainly wasn't going to gamble with my life by making contact with these unknown entities.

When I reached the deepest part of the second floor, I finally found something. At the foot of the stairs leading to the third floor lay two shattered mirrors.

'Judging by the outlines, one is a makeup mirror and the other is a round mirror. There's no place to set a mirror around this staircase, so someone must have brought them here. Could it be Chu Men? Why would he be messing around with mirrors for no reason?' Looking up, I suddenly spotted a nail driven right above the doorframe. I compared it to the hanging loop on the round mirror's frame and instantly understood. 'In some local customs, people like to hang a small, wrapped mirror above a door to ward off evil spirits.'

At that thought, a wave of unease washed over me. 'The mirror hung on the doorframe to ward off evil shattered. Even stranger, a makeup mirror broke right here at the exact same time. Did Chu Men do this? He's a master hypnotist with a profound understanding of dreams; he should know that mirrors are completely taboo in the Dream Realm.'

Regardless of my suspicions, I couldn't just abandon Chu Men here and leave alone. After a moment's hesitation, I headed up to the third floor.

The third floor was a large hall with scattered decorations. To my surprise, just like the first building Chu Men and I had entered, there was a mirror sitting dead center in the room.

The mirror was as tall as a person, facing away from the door.

"Old Chu?" I called out, spotting Chu Men's shoes through the gap beneath the mirror.

Walking around to the front, I immediately saw him standing perfectly still, staring blankly into the glass. "Are you alright?"

Chu Men didn't answer. His expression was unnervingly calm, as if his entire mind had been captivated by something, leaving him unable to spare a single shred of attention for anything else.

I followed his gaze, my eyes falling on the mirror in front of him.

It was a very ordinary mirror, but the reflection it cast was somewhat terrifying.

The Chu Men in the mirror looked as though he had been dead for a long time. Formalin had soaked his skin pale yellow, and there were multiple stitched seams across his face. I had seen this exact method of corpse preservation during my live stream at Jiangcheng Medical College.

The version of him in the mirror had been turned into a specimen, and one heavily used by students at that—a "gross anatomy teacher."

"Old Chu, wake up!" No matter how loudly I yelled, Chu Men remained motionless. He stared fixedly at himself in the mirror, looking at the corpse that had been made into a specimen.

"Why does the reflection look different from the person? Chu Men, we have to go! Mirrors just reflect illusions anyway; everything you're seeing right now is fake!" Afraid he was sinking deeper, I tried to forcibly drag him away, but his feet seemed rooted to the ground as he stood rigidly before the glass.

After a long time, he finally opened his mouth slightly. Like a fish washed ashore, he shambled forward and muttered mindlessly, "Is this my ending?"

"What ending? Chu Men, what happened to you in this room? Hurry up and come with me! Everything in the mirror is an illusion—whatever you do, don't let it pull you in!" Taking Chu Men's state as a warning, I didn't dare linger in front of the mirror as I desperately tried to persuade him.

"You're wrong," he murmured. "Dreams don't need to disguise themselves. Dreaming is a completely natural psychological phenomenon. Dreams don't lie, nor do they distort or conceal. They're always trying their best to express their meaning; it's just that our conscious selves fail to recognize and understand it. What I'm seeing now is my true self—a specimen sliced open by strangers! I've always pursued the eternal life of consciousness, but I don't want my body treated like this. Everything is already predetermined. It can't be changed. This is my ending."

Chu Men had succumbed to some kind of obsession. He was speaking incoherently, repeating the same words over and over.

'Everything is predetermined? Could this mirror show what a person looks like when they die? Can it show the future?' I looked up almost instinctively to glance at my own reflection. Just one look, and I couldn't pull my eyes away—the me in the mirror was wearing a hospital gown. Neither my clothes nor my skin had changed, but my entire face was covered by a ghastly white Paper Doll Mask!

It wasn't just resting on my face; it looked as if it had grown into the flesh itself, utterly impossible to peel off.

'An Underworld Live Show Examiner? No, the examiners all wear matching uniforms.' My Adam's apple bobbed as I remembered someone else who had worn a Paper Doll Mask and suffered a deeply tragic fate. I remembered when I had completed eight live streams to save Jiangcheng and passed the evaluation to return to No-Lights Road. Back then, I had met a madman in another room on Basement Level 4. That was the person who had handed me the note about Xia Chi, and their dreadful ordeal was still vivid in my mind. They had been trying desperately to escape the room they were locked in, wearing a Paper Doll Mask. They had almost made it out, only to be dragged back in by a dozen reaching hands.

I had never managed to guess that person's identity. But thinking about it now, it was highly likely they were also a Streamer for the Underworld Live Show.

'Will I become like them one day too? Locked in a pitch-black basement, every trace of my existence erased.' Another voice seemed to echo in my mind. My thoughts spun out of control, racing toward a dark conclusion. 'Is this my final ending? Is this mirror truly showing the future? Is everything predetermined? Is the future impossible to change, leaving me with no choice but to accept it?'

My body involuntarily stepped forward. As if my soul had been hijacked, an invisible force influenced me, drawing me closer and closer to the mirror. Only when the tip of my nose was nearly touching the glass did I stop. I looked at myself in the mirror. The bewilderment in my eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a flash of blood red. I suddenly raised my left hand, wreathed in merit, and smashed it into the glass!

"Whoever you are, get the hell out of my mind right now! Preaching about predestined fate to a fate usurper? What a joke!"