"You may take your bath now."
"My thanks."
A soft click.
Quan closed the door, sinking into the depths of the bathtub as well as his own contemplations. He closed his eyes, allowing his mind to wander through the labyrinth of existence.
Death, he mused, possesses a cyclical nature. At the very least, such was the decree of Eastern theological and religious systems. If the West offered faiths that promised a reunion with loved ones in some distant realm—be it the Underworld, Heaven, or Valhalla, provided one was a warrior who invoked the name of Odin before the fray—then the East spoke of return.
The rhythmic rush of water filled the room.
Quan immersed himself in the tub, the showerhead cascading incessantly until the water spilled over the porcelain rim in a steady overflow. He occupied a bathroom that might be deemed ordinary; it was not grand, yet it sufficed. Above all, it was meticulously clean.
But Quan was indifferent to his surroundings. Instead, his thoughts remained anchored to the events of the day. Presently, he found himself unable to subscribe to any single theory, for every hypothesis he constructed seemed to crumble under the weight of reality.
He had transmigrated, yet he found himself in a world where no "Golden Touch" or divine advantage awaited him. He had never harbored any fascination for such tales; indeed, he had always regarded the notion of transmigration as a refuse heap of fantasies for the foolish to indulge in a future that would never arrive.
Quan reassessed his current logic. Upon discovering that Ron was a compatriot, his emotions had surged with excessive fervor, leading him to a state of unconscious emotional dependence. He had lived under a shroud of stress for weeks—thirteen days, to be precise, since his arrival in this new world. It was all born of a death... his own.
"Steady yourself. Dwelling upon that day serves no purpose!"
Yet Quan could not refrain from clawing at his own neck. His skin was flushed a deep crimson, marred by a few frantic scratches. His frame was gaunt, though it bore the faint traces of past discipline; thin lines of muscle peeked through, yet his ribs remained prominent, and his back resembled a withered, shriveled leaf.
"Think, damn you, think!"
Quan reviewed the facts. Since setting foot in this world, one realization had begun to take root.
"Hypothesis One: Perhaps I am not a transmigrator at all."
The premise of this theory rested upon two pillars: language and neurological rationalization. He understood every word spoken to him. What did that imply? He was a son of Vietnam, most fluent in his native tongue; he was inept at English, unable to string together a single coherent sentence, yet here he possessed a perfect comprehension of a completely alien language.
He suspected a brain injury might have induced a form of linguistic recognition disorder. He recalled a particular condition: Alexia without Agraphia, an affliction where the brain, upon sustaining trauma, retains the ability to comprehend spoken language but loses the capacity to read, write, or manage linguistic structure.
On his first day, in a bid to verify his reality, he had written his name upon a scrap of paper and presented it to the locals. He discovered that when he spoke "Xin Chào" in Vietnamese, they understood; yet when he uttered "Hello," they met him with blank stares. Furthermore, the script he produced was not a recognized language, but rather a figment of his imagination drawn from some internal system.
"Then the second point may hold true, directly influencing my perception of speech."
This pointed toward the mechanisms of Rationalization or Confabulation. When the brain sustains damage—particularly in the frontal and temporal lobes—the capacity for logical control and memory retrieval is shattered. In such a state, the mind cannot endure "voids" of information; it automatically patches these gaps with whatever lies in the subconscious, be it fragments of cinema, tales of cultivation, or pure imagination.
It was entirely possible that his "past life" was but a grand delusion.
"AHHHHHHHHH!"
Quan let out a sudden shriek. It was not born of a philosophical crisis, but of a more immediate terror: a cockroach. A cockroach in the bathroom. And by the heavens, it had taken flight. It had come to punish him for his profligate waste of water.
"Why have you already soiled the garments I gave you?"
Ron returned with a fresh set of clothes for Quan, who had attempted to use his previous attire as a makeshift whip in a grand war against the insect. The skirmish had ended with the creature perched upon his leg, leaving a crimson welt from a stray strike of his own cloth.
Ron glanced at the injury and gave a helpless shrug. A faint smile touched his lips as he closed the door once more, granting Quan his much-needed privacy.