Chapter 7: She Has Been Helping Him All Along—Not Me

Zhou Wan locked the clinic door.

The motion was light, almost casual, but it made one thing clear to me—
what she was about to say did not belong to therapy.

She walked to the window and pulled the blinds down, slat by slat. The city lights were sliced into narrow shadows that fell across the side of her face.

“The first time I met you,” she said, “wasn’t three years ago.”

I didn’t speak.

I had learned by now that this was not the moment to deny anything.

“It was earlier,” she continued. “Before you started to split.”

She turned to look at me.

“Back then, you were very certain.
You didn’t come to ask whether you were sick.”

“Then why did I come?” I asked.

“To verify something,” she said. “You asked me—if a person is repeatedly modified by the world, but refuses to accept the result of those modifications, what would happen?”

My breathing slowed by half a beat.

That wasn’t a question a patient would ask.
That was a question asked by someone who had already sensed the rules and was searching for their limits.

“And then?” I asked.

“Then you began to change,” Zhou Wan said. “Not in personality, but in—precision.”

“You started noticing details others ignored. You began knowing outcomes in advance. You started leaving records.”
She paused.
“You said you were paving the way for ‘the next you.’”

My throat tightened.

“That was him,” I said.

Zhou Wan nodded.

“Yes.
And that’s when I realized—you were no longer the same person.”

That sentence hurt more than I expected.

Not because she acknowledged the existence of the other me,
but because—
she distinguished between us so clearly.

“You helped him,” I said.

It wasn’t a question.

She didn’t deny it.

“Because he understands the cost better,” she said softly. “Every time you ‘restart,’ you consume the world’s stability.”

“What about me?” I asked. “What am I, then?”

She was silent for a long time.

So long that I almost thought she wouldn’t answer.

“You’re the variable,” she finally said. “The only variable that still hesitates.”

At that moment, the lights in the clinic flickered.

Not a power outage.
More like a system reloading a scene.

Zhou Wan looked up sharply.

“He’s here,” she said.

I didn’t even have time to ask how before the air changed.

Not temperature.
Not pressure.

But the sensation of being observed.

I knew, with absolute clarity—
I wasn’t alone anymore.

My phone lit up.

No vibration. No notification sound.

Just a single line of text, as if it had been forcibly pushed into the screen:

We don’t have much time.

I didn’t need to ask who it was.

“You’re interfering with reality,” I said quietly.

The screen lit up again.

You forced my hand.

The next second, I saw the clinic door—
simultaneously open and closed.

The handle trembled slightly, without actually turning.
Two possibilities layered on top of each other.

Zhou Wan stepped back, her face drained of color.

“This shouldn’t be happening so soon…” she murmured.

And suddenly, I understood.

He wasn’t waiting for the conditions for merging.
He was creating them.

By generating enough conflict to leave the system no other choice.

I picked up the notebook.

It was the only stable interface between us.

I flipped to the last page and wrote one sentence:

“What are you afraid of?”

This time, the response wasn’t words.

It was—
memory.

A fragment that didn’t belong to me was forcibly pushed into my mind.

I saw a street collapsing in a torrential downpour.
I saw a crowd making different choices in the same second.
I saw one version of me standing still, while another had already turned away.

And the final image was Zhou Wan.

Standing in the clinic, speaking to empty air:

“I’m sorry. This time, I choose him.”

I opened my eyes violently.

That wasn’t the future.
That was—
something that had already happened.

At last, I understood why he said:

You’ve already disappeared many times.

Not death.
But being judged unnecessary.

I looked up at Zhou Wan.

“You’ve already chosen, haven’t you?” I asked.

Her lips trembled, but she nodded.

“But this time,” she said, “you’re still here.”

My phone lit up again.

This is the final window.
Merge—or collapse.

I stood there, suddenly very calm.

Because I finally realized something—

He had never asked whether I agreed.

And now,
it was my turn to choose.