The clock on the wall said 3:17 a.m.
Xu Lie stared at it.
Red digits.
Steady.
Normal.
Then, for a single blink, the seconds stopped.
Not slowed.
Stopped.
The "7" hung in the air, frozen, while the world around it kept moving. A nurse walked past the door, her steps crisp, her shadow sliding across the floor. But the clock did not change. 3:17. 3:17. 3:17.
Xu Lie sat up in his bed, heart hammering. He rubbed his eyes, hard, until stars burst behind his lids. When he looked again, the clock had moved. 3:18. As if nothing had happened.
He exhaled, slow, shaky.
*Just the drugs. Just the madness. Just another hallucination.*
He had been in this psychiatric ward for three months. Diagnosis: severe schizophrenia, dissociative episodes, delusions of another world. They said he was broken. They said he was lying to himself. They said the other world — the one with the bleeding sky, the floating cities, the people who repeated the same words over and over — was not real.
But Xu Lie knew better.
Because sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he was not in this room.
He was in a place where time did not flow.
Where moments hung in the air like shards of broken glass.
Where he was not Xu Lie, but something else.
Something cracked.
***
The second thing he noticed was the man in the corner.
He had not been there a moment ago. Now he sat in the old wooden chair, hands folded on his lap, staring at the wall. He wore a long, gray coat, too long for this world, too old. His face was thin, pale, with deep hollows under the eyes. But it was not his face that frightened Xu Lie.
It was his stillness.
The man did not blink. Did not breathe. Did not move at all. He was like a photograph, frozen in a single second.
Xu Lie opened his mouth to call a nurse. But before he could speak, the man turned his head.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
Like a film played at half speed.
His eyes met Xu Lie's.
And in that instant, the world cracked.
***
The ward vanished.
Xu Lie was no longer in the hospital.
He stood in a ruined city, under a sky that was not sky, but a shattered mirror of floating moments. Below him, people moved in loops:
- A woman screaming, her mouth open, her hands clawing at her face, over and over.
- A child running, laughing, then tripping, then running again, then laughing, then tripping.
- A man with no face, dragging a sack of bones, whispering the same words in a broken voice: *"They are stealing your past. They are stealing your past. They are stealing your past."*
Xu Lie looked down at his hands.
They were not his hands.
They were older, cracked, covered in scars that pulsed with a faint, sickly light. On the back of his right hand, a single character was carved into the skin, glowing faintly red:
**裂** — *Lie* — *Crack*.
A voice spoke behind him.
*"You are late."*
Xu Lie turned.
The man from the corner stood there, still in his gray coat, still not blinking. But now he was taller, his coat longer, his presence heavier, like a shadow given weight. In his hand, he held a small, jagged piece of glass — a fragment of time, floating in the air.
*"You were supposed to wake up yesterday,"* the man said. *"But you fought it. You clung to that lie they call 'reality.'"*
Xu Lie's throat was dry.
"Who are you?" he croaked.
*"A guide. A reminder. A wound."*
The man tilted his head.
*"You are Xu Lie. The Void Crack. The one who walks between broken moments. But you have forgotten. You have let them drug you, lock you, make you believe you are mad."*
Xu Lie shook his head.
"No. I'm not mad. I'm not—"
*"Then why can you see this?"*
The man raised the fragment of glass. Inside it, Xu Lie saw a scene:
- A young boy, maybe ten years old, standing in a courtyard, laughing as his mother called him inside.
- The boy turned, smiling, and said: *"Coming, Mom!"*
- Then the fragment flickered, and the boy's face twisted in pain, his mouth opening in a silent scream, his body burning from the inside out.
- The courtyard collapsed into static.
Xu Lie gasped.
He remembered that courtyard.
He remembered that voice.
But he could not remember his mother's face.
*"That is your past,"* the man said. *"A moment they have taken from you. A memory they are feeding on. And if you do not wake up, they will take the rest."*
Xu Lie's hands trembled.
"What do you want from me?"
*"I want you to choose."*
The man stepped closer.
*"You can stay in that ward. Let them drug you, let them tell you you are mad, let them erase you piece by piece. Or you can take back what is yours. You can steal time. You can become what you were always meant to be."*
Xu Lie swallowed.
"How?"
*"By accepting the first lie."*
The man's voice dropped to a whisper.
*"Say it. Say: 'I am not mad.'"*
Xu Lie hesitated.
If he said it, he would be admitting that the other world was real.
That he was not insane.
That everything the doctors told him was a lie.
But if he did not say it, the man would vanish.
The courtyard would stay stolen.
His mother's face would stay forgotten.
His breath came fast.
His heart pounded like a drum.
And then, in a voice so low it was almost a thought, he whispered:
*"I am not mad."*
***
The world shattered.
The ruined city exploded into a thousand floating fragments.
The screaming woman, the laughing child, the faceless man — all of them froze, then shattered like glass, scattering into the void.
The man in the gray coat smiled, a thin, cold smile.
*"Good,"* he said. *"Now, steal a second of time, or be erased."*
Xu Lie looked around.
Nearby, a man in tattered robes stood frozen mid‑step, his mouth open in a silent scream. A single second of his life hung in the air, glowing faintly, like a thread of light.
Xu Lie reached out.
His fingers closed around the thread.
A scream tore from his throat.
***
He woke up in the hospital bed, drenched in sweat, his heart racing, his hands clenched into fists.
The clock on the wall read 3:19 a.m.
The nurse walked past the door, her steps crisp, her shadow sliding across the floor.
The man in the corner was gone.
Xu Lie looked at his right hand.
On the back of it, the skin was unmarked.
No scars.
No character.
No **裂**.
But when he closed his eyes, he could still feel it.
The crack.
The wound.
The lie.
And deep inside, a single, terrifying thought echoed:
*"I am not mad."*
***
The next morning, the doctors came.
Dr. Lin, the head psychiatrist, stood at the foot of the bed, clipboard in hand.
"Sleep well, Xu Lie?" he asked, voice smooth, professional.
Xu Lie did not answer.
He was watching the clock.
3:19 had become 8:03.
But the seconds… the seconds did not feel right.
They were too long.
Too heavy.
Like time itself was dragging.
Dr. Lin frowned.
"You're staring at the clock again. Hallucinations?"
Xu Lie finally looked at him.
"No."
"No?"
"I'm not mad."
Dr. Lin's smile tightened.
"That's the illness talking. You know that, don't you? You're sick. You need treatment. You need to accept that this world is real, and the other world is a delusion."
Xu Lie said nothing.
He remembered the courtyard.
He remembered the boy's smile.
He remembered the static.
And he remembered the man's words:
*"They are stealing your past."*
***
Later, in the common room, Xu Lie sat by the window.
Outside, the city looked normal.
Cars moved. People walked. The sun shone.
But when he focused, he saw it.
A flicker.
A crack.
A single second, frozen in the air above a crossing guard's head.
A fragment of time, glowing faintly, like a thread of light.
Xu Lie's breath caught.
He could see it.
He could see the wound in time.
And deep inside, something cracked open.
Something old.
Something hungry.
Something that whispered:
*"Steal it."*
***
That night, the clock said 3:17 again.
Xu Lie did not look at it.
He closed his eyes.
And in the darkness behind his lids, he reached out.
Not for the clock.
Not for the ward.
But for the thread of light above the crossing guard's head.
For the stolen second.
For the first wound.
For the Dao.
And as his fingers closed around it, a single, silent scream echoed in the void:
*"I am not mad."*