The rain had stopped by morning.
The air remained heavy, soaked with moisture and the faint smell of mildew. Water dripped from the edge of the old house's roof, one drop at a time, striking the concrete ground like a slow, impatient countdown.
Lin Xingchen stood in front of the bathroom mirror for a long time.
The face staring back at him was still ordinary.Black hair. Slightly gaunt features. Dark circles faintly visible beneath his eyes.
If not for the clarity of his memories, he might have convinced himself that everything from the previous night had been nothing more than a dying hallucination—his brain's final attempt to cope with fear.
But the body did not lie.
Beneath his skin, a subtle heat pulsed steadily, as if something had been embedded deep into his bones, slowly merging with his flesh.
He lifted his right hand.
The ring finger was bare.
No metal. No ornament.
Yet he knew it was there.
Star Bury.
The moment the name surfaced in his mind, his temple throbbed lightly. A strange sensation spread through his nerves—not pain, but a dangerous sense of intimacy.
Lin turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face, forcing himself to breathe steadily.
Today, he still had to go to class.
Because in this world,even if you nearly tore space apart last night, attendance was still mandatory the next morning.
The academy stood not far from the port district, yet it felt like a different universe altogether.
The streets were clean. Trees were neatly trimmed. Students moved in groups, chatting casually, faces filled with an unshakable confidence about the future.
As Lin Xingchen passed through the school gate, he felt a momentary dissonance.
As if the filthy alley from the night before had never existed.
"Lin Xingchen."
Someone called his name.
The voice was clear, carrying a hint of impatience.
He turned.
Su Qinghe stood near the entrance of the teaching building.
White shirt. Light blue jeans. Her hair tied loosely behind her head. Morning sunlight streamed in from behind her, outlining her profile in soft gold.
She was the kind of person who looked normal anywhere.
And for the first time, Lin realized—
He was no longer part of that normality.
"You didn't reply to my messages last night," she said as she approached, brows slightly furrowed. "Didn't you say you were just going to buy medicine?"
Lin opened his mouth.
He wanted to explain.
But there was nowhere to begin.
How could he say—A bullet stopped in front of my face, and the universe spoke to me.
"My phone died," he said instead.
Su Qinghe studied him for several seconds.
"You look terrible," she said quietly. "Seriously."
She paused, then added, "Let's have lunch together. My treat."
Lin nodded.
As she turned and walked away, he watched her back, a strange feeling tightening in his chest.
It wasn't attraction.
It was something heavier.
A reluctance to let her get close to something already collapsing.
The first class was Advanced Physics.
The professor wrote formulas across the blackboard, eventually shifting the topic toward black holes.
Singularity.Event horizon.Irreversible collapse.
Most of the students were already checking their phones.
Lin Xingchen sat perfectly upright.
Because the moment the professor sketched the warped-space diagram—
his chest trembled.
Not pain.
Resonance.
The abstract lines became disturbingly vivid in his eyes, as if they carried physical weight.
As if he had once touched them.
Lin looked away, heart slowly accelerating.
Then he felt it.
A gaze.
Not from a student.
Not from the professor.
But something… untraceable.
Watching.
He glanced toward the back of the classroom.
Empty.
Yet the sensation did not fade.
The bell rang. Students stood, the room filling with noise once more.
Lin closed his notebook and prepared to leave—
when information unfolded directly inside his consciousness.
Not a voice.
Data.
As if someone had forcefully injected instructions into his mind.
—Unregistered Star Meridian Adapter detected.—Status: Unaffiliated.—Task Initiated: Entry Assessment.—Time: 23:30 tonight.—Location: Old Library, Underground Level.—Consequence of refusal: Unassessed.
Lin stopped walking.
He stood among the crowd, yet felt completely separated from them.
A task.
That single word triggered his instincts.
This meant one thing—
None of this was accidental.
Someone had been waiting for him.
And they clearly had no intention of asking for consent.
At noon, Lin and Su Qinghe sat near the window in the cafeteria.
She talked about club activities. About exams. About the mundane frustrations of student life.
Lin listened, but his attention kept drifting.
He realized that it was becoming increasingly difficult to fully engage in conversations like these.
Not because they were meaningless.
But because—
The scale had changed.
He watched her lips move while memories of terrified faces from the alley surfaced in his mind.
The invisible ring.
The cold notification—
Soul Integrity: 97%.
"Are you even listening?" Su Qinghe suddenly asked.
Lin blinked. "Yeah."
She looked at him seriously. "Lin Xingchen, something's wrong with you lately."
"If something happened, you can tell me."
He stayed silent for several seconds.
Then said softly, "Some problems… don't get solved by talking about them."
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Night arrived quickly.
11:20 PM.
The campus was quiet.
Lin Xingchen stood in front of the old library, staring at the sealed side entrance.
By day, students called it the "haunted building."
By night, no one came near it.
He checked the time.
11:29.
The second hand ticked forward—
and the door opened silently.
A narrow gap.
Darkness spilled out like a mouth that had been waiting.
Lin stepped forward.
From deep within the shadows, a low, unfamiliar voice emerged:
"You arrived earlier than we expected."
Lin Xingchen crossed the threshold.
He knew—
From this moment on, there was no turning back.