The ceiling fan in Room 402 groaned, lazily pushing the humid afternoon air over forty-five slumped shoulders.
Li Feng stared at the blackboard, but the chalk dust and equations were a blur. His thumb was rhythmically pressing into the side of his index finger—a phantom press of a 'Q' key.
"Li Feng."
The voice was sharp. Li Feng stood up so abruptly his chair screeched against the linoleum. The teacher, Lao Shi, squinted at him over her spectacles.
"The monitor is daydreaming?" she asked, tapping the mock exam reports. "You've been staring at that page for ten minutes. Is there a problem with the statistics?"
"No, Lao Shi," Li Feng said, his voice steady but his collar felt two sizes too small.
He felt the weight of his phone in his pocket—three short vibrations. A code.
The window was open.
"I was just... double-checking the curve for the class average."
"Sit. Finish it."
Li Feng sat, but he didn't look at the paper. He looked at the clock. 2:14 PM. ---
Two floors up, the library was a tomb.
Su Cheng sat in the farthest corner, hidden by a stack of "Advanced Theoretical Physics."
He wasn't reading. He had a screwdriver out, meticulously tightening the tension on his customized gaming mouse.
A shadow fell over his desk. A girl from his class stood there, clutching a notebook.
"Su Cheng? Can you explain this derivative?"
Su Cheng didn't look up. He adjusted his glasses, the light catching the lenses so his eyes were invisible.
"The answer is x=4," he said, his voice flat. "But if you're asking me, you haven't actually tried the problem. You're just looking for a shortcut."
The girl flushed and scurried away. Su Cheng's lip curled. Everything was a shortcut. Everything was easy.
He looked at his calculator—not at a formula, but at the gold-per-minute efficiency chart he'd programmed for their match.
He felt a dull ache in his chest. He was tired of being the "smart one." He wanted to be the one who didn't have to have all the answers.
At the rooftop--
"If you eat one more of those, I'm telling your mom you're the reason the grocery bill is up," Lin Kai mumbled, his eyes closed.
He was sprawled on the gym roof, his blazer bunched under his head.
Big Cat (Zhou Yan) stopped mid-crunch, a spicy gluten strip hanging from his mouth. He was sitting on the ledge, his long legs dangling over the edge.
"My mom loves me. She says I'm a growing boy."
"You're 188cm, Yan. If you grow any more, you'll be a skyscraper."
Big Cat grinned, the oil from the snack staining the corner of his mouth. He looked at his phone, his face lighting up.
"Hey, Han Jue says the 'God-Slayer' team just logged on. They're talking trash on the server. Saying we're 'schoolboy amateurs."
Lin Kai didn't move. He looked dead to the world. But then, a dragonfly drifted too close to his face. In a blur of motion—faster than the eye could track—Lin Kai's hand snapped up.
He held the insect gently between his thumb and forefinger, then let it go.
"Amateurs, huh?" Lin Kai's eyes opened. They weren't sleepy anymore. They were sharp, like a predator's.
"Let's go kill them."
They met at the back fence. Han Jue was already there, counting a wad of small-denomination bills he'd earned from selling "premium" study guides.
"You guys are slow," Han Jue hissed, tossing a bag of salt-and-pepper chicken to Big Cat. "I had to bribe the guard with a pack of cigarettes just to look the other way for five minutes."
"I'll pay you back after the prize pool," Li Feng said, vaulting the fence with a grace that didn't match his "perfect student" persona.
"You've been saying that since middle school, Captain," Han Jue joked, but he caught Li Feng's arm to help him down.
For the next three hours, they were gods. Inside the "Cyber Cloud" internet café, the air smelled of stale cigarettes, instant noodles, and adrenaline.
They didn't talk about exams or their parents' expectations. They talked in a language of cooldowns, rotations, and flanks.
"Big Cat, heal! I'm at 10%!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming! Stop screaming, you're hurting my ears!" Big Cat yelled, his fingers flying across the keys.
"Su Cheng, give me the numbers. Can we take the boss?" Li Feng asked, his face illuminated by the blue light of the monitor.
"64% chance of success," Su Cheng muttered. "Unless Lin Kai misses."
"I don't miss," Lin Kai whispered.
And he didn't. When the "Victory" screen flashed in gold, they roared, high-fiving and shaking the cheap plastic desks.
In that moment, they were the center of the universe.
The rain started as they left, a sudden, heavy downpour that turned the city into a watercolor painting. They scrambled onto the No. 14 bus, dripping wet and shivering.
"I'm telling you, that last play was all me," Big Cat said, taking the long bench at the very back. He wiped his fogged-up window with his palm. "I'm the soul of this team."
"You're the loud-mouth of this team," Han Jue countered, sitting next to him and checking his wet phone.
Li Feng sat near the window, watching the streetlights blur. He felt a strange, hollow sensation in his gut—the "post-game" blues.
He looked at his friends. Lin Kai was already nodding off against the glass. Su Cheng was staring at his hands.
"Hey," Li Feng said, his voice barely audible over the hum of the bus engine. "We're still doing this next year, right? Even after graduation?"
Big Cat looked up, his goofy grin softening. "Bro, obviously. Who else is gonna carry you?"
"I'm serious," Li Feng said.
"Don't get emotional, Captain," Han Jue teased, though he reached over and punched Li Feng's shoulder lightly. "We're the 'Five-Fold.' We don't—"
The bus driver slammed on the brakes.
The sound was a sickening, metallic scream. Li Feng's head hit the seat in front of him, but the real nightmare came from the left.
He looked up just in time to see a pair of headlights, bright as twin suns, grow massive in the side window.
Then, the world shattered.
The impact wasn't a stop; it was a violent, sideways heave. The bus didn't just crumple; it groaned and tilted, the floor falling away as the entire vehicle began to roll onto its side.
Glass. So much glass.
It looked like diamonds falling in slow motion as the side windows disintegrated. Because of the centrifugal force of the roll, Big Cat didn't fall to the floor—he was launched upward, his massive frame hitting the luggage rack before being thrown toward the ceiling as the bus went vertical.
Li Feng reached out, his fingers clawing through a cloud of glittering shards. He saw Big Cat's face—not laughing now, but frozen in a silent, wide-mouthed shock as he was suspended in mid-air, gravity losing its meaning.
Li Feng tried to grab his hand, but his fingers slipped against the slick, cold surface of the roof that was now where the wall should be.
"Yan!" he tried to scream, but the air was knocked out of him as the bus completed its roll.
The smell of burning rubber and ozone filled his lungs. Everything went white. Then, the white turned to gold.
Li Feng blinked. The smell was different. It wasn't the ozone and burnt rubber of the bus crash. It was the bitter, choking tang of medicinal herbs and cold soot.
He wasn't lying on the road. He was sitting on a throne of black wood that felt like a block of ice against his spine.
His head felt heavy—not from the crash, but from a cold, gold pin driven through his hair, anchoring a crown that weighed more than his school bag.
Every time he breathed, the stiff, embroidered dragons on his chest pressed into his ribs like a cage.
He wasn't cold anymore.
He felt a heavy, stifling weight on his shoulders. He looked down and saw layers of embroidered silk—crimson, gold, and black.
"Your Highness?"
Li Feng's head snapped up. The hall was cavernous, lit by flickering tallow candles that smelled of animal fat.
A sea of men in heavy, slate-gray robes were kneeling on the stone floor, their foreheads pressed against the freezing marble.
"The Northern General," a man with a voice like dry parchment whispered. "He has remained silent. The borders are freezing, and the army is hungry. If you do not sign the decree to seize his family... the court will think the Crown Prince has grown soft. The court believes... he is waiting for the right moment to turn his blade toward the capital."
Li Feng's heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. General? Camp?
He reached for his pocket—habitually looking for his phone to check the time—but his hand hit the cold, hard jade of a belt-pendant.
"Where am I?" he breathed.
The official frowned, a flicker of confusion crossing his face.
"You are in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Your Highness. We wait for your command. Shall we send the executioners to his family's estate? To... motivate him?"
Li Feng looked at his hand. It was shaking. On his thumb was a jade ring, cold and heavy. He looked past the officials, through the open palace doors, and saw a city that stretched for miles—a city of stone and fire.
"Where is the bus?" Li Feng whispered, his voice sounding deeper, older.
The official froze, his head lifting just enough to show eyes full of calculated malice.
"The... 'bus,' Your Highness? Is that a code for the Northern supply lines?"
"No," Li Feng said, his voice cracking. "Wait."
Miles away, the sound of the bus crash was replaced by the thundering of hooves.
Big Cat felt a violent wrench in his gut, like he'd been pulled through a straw. He opened his eyes and immediately choked on the smell of iron.
Blood.
He was upright, but he wasn't standing. He was strapped into a saddle. A massive, black warhorse was screaming beneath him, its coat slick with sweat.
"Die!"
A man in leather armor lunged at him, a jagged spear aimed at Big Cat's chest.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Big Cat yelled, his voice climbing an octave.
He tried to put his hands up, but one hand was fused to a heavy pole—a halberd.
He moved instinctively, a jerk of his body that he didn't command. The halberd swung in a lethal arc, the weight of the steel snapping the spear in half and sending the man flying.
Big Cat stared at the weapon. His hands were covered in thick, dark red stains. This wasn't a game.
He realized then with a jolt of horror that he was now wearing the skin of a man who wielded weapons others couldn't even lift.
The "God-Slayer" team wasn't here.
"General!" A soldier on a horse skidded to a halt beside him. The soldier's face was half-gone, a bloody mess where his ear should be.
"General, the left flank is breaking! They're terrified! You have to lead the charge! Show them why they call you the God of Death!"
Big Cat looked at the soldier, his eyes wide and watering. "I... I'm a student. I play cello. I—"
"General?" The soldier's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about? Your horse is literally stepping on the enemy commander's head. Look at me!"
Big Cat looked down. Beneath his horse's hooves lay a pile of bodies. The silence of the music room was gone, replaced by the wet, rhythmic thud of arrows hitting flesh.
"I want to go home," Big Cat whispered, his voice trembling. "Li Feng? Han Jue?"
"General!" the soldier roared, grabbing Big Cat's armored shoulder. "Focus! If you stop now, they'll slaughter us all! Pull yourself together!"
Big Cat looked at the horizon. He wasn't Zhou Yan anymore. He was a monster in black iron, and thousands of men were looking at him to tell them who to kill.