[Cthulhu] A Strange Dream in the Red Chamber

After an accident during a folk-customs research trip, graduate student Zhen Baoyu met an untimely end. When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on a soft couch in the Jia household, having become Jia Baoyu, the boy born with a jade in his mouth.

His memories of his former life were gone, and his head throbbed violently. Apart from retaining a few basic facts, Baoyu's mind was filled with nothing but a vast, swirling fog.

Who am I?

He asked the girls sobbing by his bed.

Who am I?

He asked again when Jia Mu and the other elders rushed into the room.

Baoyu, you're Baoyu!

They all said this through their tears as they hung the cold jade around his neck.

It's the lifeblood you share with your companion. Why do you keep throwing it away whenever you lose your temper? And look what happened: you've hit your head and gone stupid!

Baoyu listened in a daze, his mind unable to function amid waves of confusion and pain.

Who am I?

Late that night, he asked the person in the bronze mirror.

His reflection gave no answer.

But the psychic jade hanging around his neck, cold as stone, slowly opened a gigantic eye covered in mucus.

Note: 1. This is a Cthulhu-style Dream of the Red Chamber fanfic. Baoyu is the protagonist, and there is no romance. The Disenchantment Fairy is a very idle incarnation of Nyarlathotep.

2. May include some graphic and disturbing descriptions.

Theme: When the false is taken for true, the true becomes false; when the true is taken for false, the false becomes true.