Morning came quietly.
Not with the crow of a rooster or the bustle of people starting their day, but with pale light creeping through the gaps between tree branches and the thin mist rising from the river.
Luo Yanxue woke with a dull ache in his back and a familiar, empty feeling in his stomach.
Hungry again.
He sat up slowly. The place where he had slept was cold and slightly damp. The embers from last night's fire had turned into grey ash.
For a moment, he simply stared at the silent forest.
No voices.
No footsteps.
No smoke from the village.
It was as if the entire world had been abandoned.
He stood and stretched his stiff limbs. His body still felt weak, but it was better than yesterday. At least now he could move without the world spinning.
He walked back toward the small cluster of wooden houses.
Up close, the village looked even more desolate. Doors hung crooked on their hinges. Some had fallen completely, leaving dark, empty rooms inside. Broken pottery lay scattered on the ground. A child's wooden toy, half-rotten, lay in the dirt.
Life had once been here.
Now, only traces remained.
He stepped into one of the houses.
The air inside smelled of dust and mold. A simple wooden bed stood in the corner, its straw mattress torn. On a low table lay a cracked bowl and a pair of chopsticks.
Nothing useful.
He searched two more houses. The same result.
Whoever had lived here had either taken everything when they left… or died with nothing to take.
A faint heaviness settled in his chest.
This body's parents… did they die here? Of hunger? Of sickness? Or something worse?
He did not know.
And the broken memories in his mind refused to answer.
He left the village and returned to the river.
Food came first.
He repeated yesterday's routine: digging for worms, setting up his crude fishing line. His movements were slightly more practiced now, slightly more efficient.
As he worked, he noticed something odd.
The ring in his pocket felt… warm.
Not uncomfortably so. Just a gentle heat, like a small stone that had been lying in the sun.
He frowned, pulled it out, and examined it.
The metal was clean now, washed by the river yesterday. In the morning light, the strange patterns on its surface were clearer—lines that curved and intertwined in ways that did not resemble any script he knew.
"Is it reacting to body heat…?" he muttered.
He slipped it onto his finger.
The fit was perfect.
Too perfect.
A faint sense of dizziness washed over him, so brief he might have imagined it. Then everything returned to normal.
He shook his head and focused on fishing.
Minutes passed. The line moved.
Another small fish.
Not much, but enough.
As he pulled it from the water, he did not notice that the surface of the ring shimmered faintly, as if responding to something unseen.
Nor did he notice that, deep within the ring, the barren land had darkened slightly, the soil no longer completely dry.
A change had begun.
And he was standing at its very center, unaware.