Zhao Wen woke at four in the morning.
Not because of a sound.
Not because of a dream.
His eyes simply opened.
The room was dark, familiar, unchanged. The faint glow of the digital clock on his desk read 04:02. The air felt wrong—cooler than usual, thinner somehow. Breathing took more effort than it should have, as if the room had quietly lost something essential.
He lay still, listening.
Nothing.
No footsteps in the corridor. No voices from neighbouring apartments. Only the low hum of the city far below, muted through closed windows.
After a moment, he sat up.
His chest felt tight—not pain, not panic. Pressure. The same strange sensation he had felt on the mountain that day, when the fog had closed in and the world had seemed distant and unreal.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood.
The balcony curtain stirred faintly.
Zhao Wen frowned. There was no wind forecast tonight. He walked over and slid the balcony door open.
Cold air washed over him.
The city lay below, silent and indifferent. Streetlights. Empty roads. No movement on the balcony. No shadow clinging to the railing. Nothing out of place.
He exhaled, feeling foolish.
When he turned back—
Someone was sitting in his chair.
Zhao Wen's mind went blank.
The man sat casually, as though he belonged there, posture relaxed, hands resting loosely on his knees. The dim light outlined his silhouette but left his face indistinct. There was no sign of forced entry. No broken lock. No displaced furniture.
Zhao Wen staggered back a step.
His legs trembled.
Robbery made no sense. He owned nothing worth stealing. Revenge made even less sense—his life was small, orderly, uneventful. The questions spiraled too quickly to grasp, crashing into something colder and more primitive.
How did he get in?
Zhao Wen took an involuntary step backward.
"Come and sit," the man said.
The voice was calm. Not loud. Not threatening.
That frightened him more than shouting would have.
Zhao Wen's instincts screamed at him to run. He turned sharply, lunging for the balcony—
The door shut.
Not slammed. Not pushed.
It simply closed.
Zhao Wen froze.
His breathing turned shallow. His thoughts spiraled. How? The question had no answer his mind could accept.
Ghost.
The thought came unbidden, absurd and yet terrifyingly convincing. Urban legends he'd half-laughed at as a child rose from the back of his mind. Stories told in dorm rooms, whispered and exaggerated.
I'm dead.
His hand brushed the table as he backed away. His fingers closed around the small knife left from earlier—bread and jam, forgotten. The blade trembled in his grip.
"Sit," the man said again.
Zhao Wen obeyed.
He lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, knife hidden awkwardly against his thigh, heart pounding so loudly he was sure the other man could hear it.
The figure leaned forward slightly, just enough for his face to catch the faint light from the street outside. He looked ordinary. Too ordinary. No hollow eyes, no twisted grin—just a man with steady eyes and an expression that carried neither malice nor kindness.
"You were on the mountain," the man said.
Zhao Wen swallowed. "I… yes."
"Did you wonder," the man continued, "why your body reacted the way it did?"
The words cut through the fear like a blade.
Zhao Wen stiffened. "What reaction?"
"You felt it," the man said. "Breathing becoming easier, then harder. Cold that didn't hurt. Pressure without pain."
Zhao Wen's grip tightened around the knife.
"…Who are you?" he whispered.
"That question can wait." The man's gaze did not leave him. "Do you want to know what happened to you on that mountain?"
Silence stretched between them.
Zhao Wen's mind raced. Every rational explanation he'd accepted earlier now felt thin, incomplete. Weather didn't explain the way his body had felt aligned, as if something inside him had briefly clicked into place.
He had no answer.
The man asked "Do you believe in Gods. Or maybe Immortals ?".
"I used to think about things like that," Zhao Wen said hoarsely. "Gods. Immortals. When I was a kid."
"And now?" the man asked.
"Now I'm doing a PhD," Zhao Wen replied bitterly. "I study things that can be proven."
The man nodded once. "Then you understand the value of evidence."
He reached into his sleeve and placed a small object on the table between them.
It was a token. Plain. Unmarked. Cold to the eye, though Zhao Wen hadn't touched it yet.
"If you want answers," the man said, "this will guide you."
Zhao Wen stared at it. "And if I don't?"
"Then you will forget this night," the man replied calmly. "In time."
Zhao Wen looked up.
The chair was empty.
The room felt suddenly too quiet, as if sound itself had pulled back. His chest burned as he dragged in a breath, then another. His eyes darted toward the balcony—still closed, still locked.
The token sat on the table.
Real.
Solid.
The tension holding his body upright snapped.
Zhao Wen collapsed backward onto the bed, consciousness fading as exhaustion finally claimed its due. His fingers loosened, the knife slipping harmlessly onto the sheets.
The token remained where it was.
Waiting.
Far away, unseen and unnoticed, Lin Yuan withdrew his attention.
The thread had been found.
Now, it was only a matter of whether it would be pulled.
End of Chapter 36