Zhang Lu's eyes burned.
The cheap desk lamp buzzed like an angry mosquito, casting a sickly yellow cone over scattered pages and half-crumpled notes. It was past three in the morning—again. The apartment lay dead silent, broken only by the distant clatter of a late-night delivery scooter rattling through the street below.
His phone had gone dark hours ago. He hadn't even bothered to charge it.
What was the point?
Tomorrow would be the same hell on repeat: a twelve-hour cram session, another mock exam, another lecture from his parents about *"wasting time on trash stories instead of preparing for the future."*
Zhang Lu rubbed his temples and scrolled down one last chapter.
**Chronicles of Mysteries.**
He'd read it three times already. Yet Anthony's arc always dragged him back in.
A tragic genius born of a fallen house. A mother rumored to be a goddess, gone without explanation. A missing father stationed at the empire's frozen frontier. A lazy but lovable little brother to protect. Always on the edge of uncovering truths the world didn't want revealed.
Anthony was never the protagonist.
He was the one who learned too much—and paid for it.
Zhang Lu envied him. Twisted as it was, Anthony's life *meant something*. Every step mattered. Every choice echoed.
Unlike this.
"If I could just…" Zhang Lu muttered, voice hoarse. "Live in a world like that. Anything would be better than this."
His head dipped forward.
The words on the screen blurred. Beside his elbow sat a cheap novelty hourglass he'd bought on a whim—plastic frame, dull glass. The sand inside had long since run out.
Darkness crept in from the edges of his vision. Slow. Gentle.
Then absolute.
---
Nothingness.
No dreams. No light.
Only a dull, endless pressure behind his eyes.
*Am I dead?*
The thought drifted up—half terrified, half numb.
*Did I finally study myself into a stroke?*
He tried to move.
Couldn't tell if he had arms.
Couldn't tell if he was breathing.
Panic surged—then dulled, smothered by the void.
And then—
**Light.**
A thin gray sliver, like dawn sneaking through cracked blinds.
Zhang Lu groaned. The pressure sharpened into a proper headache—the kind you got from collapsing face-first onto a desk.
Relief crashed over him.
*Not dead. Thank God.*
He blinked, waiting for the familiar chaos of his bedroom: peeling posters, laundry mountain, the glow of his computer monitor.
Instead—
Dust motes drifted through pale, watery light.
The air smelled old. Paper. Mildew. Something faintly metallic.
His cheek was pressed against wood—solid, worn wood, not cheap particle board. His neck screamed as he lifted his head.
The room was wrong.
Shelves packed with leather-bound journals climbed toward a sagging ceiling. A single grimy window let in weak light, its warped glass streaked with age. Cobwebs clung to the corners like funeral veils.
No posters.
No computer.
No refrigerator hum.
Zhang Lu's heart stuttered.
"What the hell…"
He pushed back from the table. The chair scraped loudly in the silence. His hands—slimmer, paler, cleaner than they had any right to be—braced against the edge.
A brass lantern rested beside an open book, its glass clouded with age.
The book wasn't his phone. It wasn't even a printed novel.
It was hand-bound. Yellowed. Uneven.
Dizziness slammed into him.
Memories—*not his*—flooded his mind.
A rain-soaked city.
A cramped apartment with a broken heater.
A little brother—Orion—sprawled across a threadbare couch, complaining about empty cupboards.
A silver-haired woman with winter-cold eyes, smiling sadly before vanishing forever.
Graduation day at Ivory Imperial Academy.
A warm diploma.
Then the news: *Mother is dead.*
Father gone years earlier, stationed at the Dark Castle on the frozen frontier.
Debt. Odd jobs. Forbidden texts. Chasing rumors of god-touched relics just to buy bread.
Zhang Lu clutched his head.
"No—no, that's not—Orion? I don't have a brother named Orion."
The memories didn't stop.
He could taste last night's thin stew. Feel the chill of the broken heater. He knew—*knew*—the exact contents of the jar beneath the loose floorboard.
Forty-seven coppers.
One bent silver.
He stood too fast. The room tilted.
"Orion?" His voice cracked—deeper than it should've been. Smoother.
"Hey. If this is some prank, it's not funny."
Silence answered.
Oppressive. Suffocating.
Zhang Lu staggered toward where a door should've been—only to find a narrow archway leading into deeper shadow. Shelves boxed him in from every side, turning the room into a maze of forgotten knowledge.
He called again. Louder.
Nothing.
His pulse thundered.
Desperate, he searched the table for something—*anything*—modern.
There was only the lantern.
The journal.
And a small hand mirror, propped against a stack of papers.
Ornate silver frame. Tarnished with age.
He didn't want to look.
He looked anyway.
The reflection stole his breath.
Dark hair fell in unruly strands over a pale forehead. Sharp cheekbones. A narrow jaw. Eyes the color of rich coffee, nearly black in the dim light.
Cold. Handsome. Untouchable.
A crisp white shirt beneath a fitted black vest. A long black cape draped over the chair like spilled ink.
It was **Anthony**.
Exact.
Even the faint scar on the left eyebrow—the one the author mentioned *once* in chapter 142.
Zhang Lu dropped the mirror. It clattered but didn't break.
He backed into a shelf, dust raining down.
"This isn't real," he whispered. "I hit my head. I'm in a coma. VR malfunction. Something."
He pinched his arm—hard.
Pain flared. Immediate. Vivid.
No waking up.
The memories pressed harder now.
*Anthony's* memories.
And his own.
Blending.
Cramming for exams under fluorescent lights—and poring over forbidden grimoires by candle stub in this very room.
Modern exhaustion layered atop a world where gods played games with mortal lives.
Zhang Lu slid down the shelf, knees drawn to his chest.
"Transmigration," he whispered.
Ridiculous.
Perfect.
"I've been… isekai'd. Into Anthony."
Anthony.
The man who uncovered the first real clue behind the goddess murders.
The man who died horribly in volume three.
A dry laugh escaped him.
"Fantastic. From one grind to another—only this one comes with actual death flags."
He forced himself up.
Panic wouldn't help.
If this was real—and the weight of the cape, the ache in his legs, the dust in his lungs said it was—then he needed information.
The journal.
He flipped it open.
Anthony's handwriting—elegant, hurried.
**Yesterday's entry:**
*The dreams worsen. Mother's voice calls from beyond the veil.*
*"Find the lantern bearer."*
*The hourglass runs backward in my sleep.*
*I woke with sand on my pillow, though I own no such glass.*
*Orion laughed. Said I read too many grimoires.*
*But the attic wall spoke again last night.*
**EVERYONE DIES.**
Zhang Lu's stomach dropped.
He turned.
The stone wall glowed faint blue.
Fresh letters, burned into the surface.
**EVERYONE DIES.**
The lantern flickered to life on its own.
Golden flame bloomed within the glass—steady, warm.
Watching.
In the novel, this lantern revealed hidden truths.
It also attracted things that should never be seen.
Zhang Lu's fingers closed around the handle. Cool. Solid.
"Okay," he said softly. "If I'm Anthony now… then I know how this story ends."
He lifted the lantern.
"And I'm not dying on schedule."
The bell tolled below—deep, mournful.
Dawn. Or curfew.
Time moved strangely in this city.
Zhang Lu straightened the cape across his shoulders. It settled like it belonged there.
First: find Orion.
Second: understand the warning.
Third: survive long enough to rewrite the ending.
He stepped into the archway.
Behind him, the words pulsed once.
**EVERYONE DIES.**
Zhang Lu didn't look back.
"Not everyone," he muttered. "Not today."
The stairs creaked as he descended, lantern light cutting into the dark.
Somewhere below, the city was waking—full of gods, secrets, and death.
And for the first time—
He was part of the mystery.