The grey sky above Beijing pressed down like a held breath.
Zhao Wei stood on the edge of the rooftop, the wind tugging at his torn jacket, and stared at Xue Lian. The look in his eyes wanted to be anger, but was slowly bleeding into something far more desperate. Below them, the city hummed and rumbled in its usual way—indifferent, enormous, alive with the noise of millions of people who had no idea that a boy was standing on a rooftop trying to decide whether to believe a demon sorceress.
"Is it true?" he asked. His voice came out quieter than he intended. "That even if a person steps into the Beyond Realm… they can still come back?"
Xue Lian met his eyes without blinking. "I do not lie."
"That's not an answer to why I should believe you."
She remained silent for a moment. The wind moved her dark hair across her face, but she didn't bother to push it aside. Then she spoke: "Yes. It is possible. But acquiring the key is no easy task."
"What key?"
"Having it means you will have full control over your powers." She watched his face shift. "Complete control. No accidents. No… collateral damage."
He felt the word land before he fully understood it. Control. His powers. That meant—
A small, wet cough reached him, followed by the soft thud of a body hitting the concrete.
Zhao Wei spun around.
Zhao Ming had crumpled to the rooftop floor. His thin frame was curled inward, both hands clutching his chest as if trying to hold something inside. His face had gone the colour of old paper. His lips moved, but nothing came out—just another cough, then a gasp, then a terrible stillness.
"Zhao Ming!" Zhao Wei was at his brother's side in two steps, dropping to his knees. He grabbed the boy's shoulders, shaking him gently at first, then harder. "Hey. Hey, stay with me. Zhao Ming, look at me—look at me!"
Zhao Ming's eyes fluttered open, unfocused, like a candle flame struggling against a wind it couldn't see.
"Please get up." Zhao Wei's voice cracked. "Come on. We're going to the hospital, okay? Peking Union. They'll fix it. They fix everything there. You told me yourself—you said the doctors were… Zhao Ming, please, just get up."
He slid an arm under his brother's back and hauled him upright, looping Zhao Ming's limp arm over his own shoulders. Every part of his body screamed—his ribs, his torn shoulder, the bruises layered over bruises from the last two days. He ignored all of it and stood.
"Stop."
Xue Lian's voice was flat. Not cruel. Just absolute.
Zhao Wei didn't stop.
"Move." The word came again, sharper this time. "It would be better if you set him down. Step away from him."
He turned. The rage that surged through his chest was clean, hot, and simple—the only simple thing he had felt in hours. "Are you out of your mind? That's my brother—Zhao Ming."
"I know."
"Get lost." His voice dropped to a low, shaking growl. "I will not let you lay a single finger on him. Not one. Do you understand me?"
Xue Lian looked at him the way a doctor looks at someone still arguing about a terminal diagnosis. "I am not the one hurting him, Zhao Wei."
"Don't you dare—"
"The person harming him," she said, pausing to let the words settle, "is you."
The rooftop went quiet.
Zhao Wei's grip on his brother tightened. "What did you just say?"
"Even as we speak," her voice remained steady, almost gentle, which somehow made it worse, "you are absorbing his life force."
"That's…"
"Does your body feel lighter than it did an hour ago?" She tilted her head slightly. "Your shoulders were badly injured when you carried him just now. Are they still? Can you still feel the pain?"
He became aware, suddenly and horribly, that he couldn't.
The burning ache that had been screaming through his left shoulder since he had thrown himself off that building—it was fading. The heaviness in his legs was gone. His lungs, which had felt like crushed paper, were drawing full breaths again. His body was knitting itself back together with a speed that had nothing natural about it.
And in his arms, Zhao Ming felt lighter too. Not because he had relaxed.
Because there was less of him.
"Can you not feel it?" Xue Lian asked softly. "The rate at which your body is recovering?"
Something cold moved through Zhao Wei's chest—slower than ice, deeper.
"No." The word came out barely above a breath. "No, that's not… I'm not… I would never—"
"You are not doing it intentionally. That is the nature of what you are now. Your body will always seek what it needs to survive. And right now, you are surviving at your brother's expense."
Zhao Ming's head lolled slightly against his shoulder.
Zhao Wei looked down at his brother's face—the closed eyes, the shallow, stuttering rise and fall of his chest. He looked at the thinness of the boy's wrists and the blue-grey tinge around his lips. He thought about how long they had been on this rooftop. He thought about every minute.
"Because of me," he whispered, "Zhao Ming is…"
He couldn't finish the sentence.
What came out of him next was not a word. It was the kind of sound that lives underneath language, below thought, in the place where a person keeps the things they cannot afford to feel. It tore out of his chest like something had been ripped loose and echoed into the grey Beijing sky.
"ZHAO MIIIIIING—!"
He sank to his knees, holding his brother against him and pressing his forehead to the top of Zhao Ming's head. His whole body shook.
"I'll do anything." The words fell out broken and desperate. "I'll go to the Beyond Realm. I'll go anywhere. Just please. Anyone but him. Take anything else. Anything." His hands fisted in the back of Zhao Ming's jacket. "Anyone but Zhao Ming."
He looked up. His eyes found Xue Lian.
"Save him."
Silence.
Then Xue Lian looked away. Something moved across her expression—there and gone too quickly to name.
If I obtain citizenship, she thought, if I learn to control what I am and properly contain what leaks out of me, then this won't happen again. He won't be a drain. He won't be a danger.
She said aloud, "I'll take you to the Beyond Realm."
Bai Feng, behind her, let out a wheezing laugh. "Mmmhaha! Well, now. Good choice, boy. You'll live under the magnificent and all-knowing rule of the Beyond Realm—a fine life, truly."
"But," Zhao Wei said.
He had gently set Zhao Ming down. He was standing now, his face still wet, but his eyes were clear. He closed them once, as if making a promise to himself.
"No matter what." His voice was quiet and certain. "I will return here. No matter what happens over there, I will come back."
He opened his eyes.
"I will return."
Xue Lian raised one hand. Between her fingers, something dark curled and gathered—a thread of shadow that widened into a spiral, then a vortex, then a hole in the air that had no bottom, no edges, and no light at all.
It breathed.
Zhao Wei stepped forward. The pull hit him immediately—not like wind, but like gravity pulling sideways, as if the world had tilted and he was simply falling in the only direction available.
"Augh—!"
The spiral seized him, and the Beijing rooftop vanished.
Sound came first—a grinding, shrieking noise like iron being torn from iron, coming from somewhere enormous and close.
Then ground. Zhao Wei's feet hit something solid, and he stumbled, catching himself on one knee with his head down. His lungs pulled in air that tasted of dust and electricity.
He raised his head.
The world was nothing like Beijing.
Darkness filled the sky—not the darkness of night, but a heavy, structural dark, as if the sky itself were made of something solid. The ground was cracked and pale. In every direction, the landscape stretched into nameless shapes—formations of stone and shadow, and hanging chains as thick as tree trunks looping between objects that might have been ruins or might have been architecture. It was impossible to tell.
And directly in front of him: a gate.
Enormous. Made of crossed beams bound in massive iron chains, the whole structure towering into the dark sky. It carried a weight that was not merely physical but ancient. It radiated the feeling of something that had been waiting for a very long time.
"EEEEHH—!" Zhao Wei scrambled back a step. "What… what is THAT?!"
From behind him came a wheezing chuckle. "Kekeke. A bit early to be surprised."
Around them, in the edges of the shadows, Zhao Wei became aware of shapes. Not quite figures. Things. Watching.
A low murmur rippled through them: "Mmm… the future heiress to the Demon lineage, Lady Xue Lian… and that must be her servant…"
Then, quieter, directed at him: "And the infamous child…?"
Zhao Wei's skin prickled. Does it know me?
The Gate spoke. Its voice came from everywhere at once—vast and resonant, like a sound produced by something with no throat.
"Don't make that face. Word of you has spread throughout all of the Beyond Realm. An undead human—even Lady Xue Lian causes such things. There exists something even she fears, doesn't she?"
"How about," Xue Lian said coolly, "you shut your mouth and perform your assigned function."
A sound like grinding stone—something between amusement and offence—answered. "Ah. Still, such boldness from Lady Xue Lian. But there is a message. From Him."
The air shifted slightly. Even Xue Lian went still.
"He requests a direct account of recent events. From Xue Lian herself. He awaits her in Onus."
Zhao Wei glanced sideways at Bai Feng, then back at the Gate. "…Who," he said carefully, "is Him?"
Neither of them answered. The silence was its own kind of answer.
The Gate's attention shifted. It settled on Zhao Wei like a physical pressure.
"As for the child, he must be tested. You know the law, Lady Xue Lian. Before the Door of the Beyond Realm opens to any newcomer, their potential and level must be measured."
"Wait—" Zhao Wei held up a hand. "A test?"
Bai Feng brightened immediately, holding up one stubby finger like a teacher. "Every citizen of the Beyond Realm undergoes it. The results determine which school you are assigned to." He counted on his other hand. "In the Beyond Realm, school is everything. There is a school for every kind of ability, every level of power. The school you're placed in decides your entire future—your rank, your resources, your life."
Zhao Wei stared at him. "School."
"You're telling me that in a world full of demons and monsters and giant iron gates, the thing I have to worry about most is a school placement test."
"Well," Bai Feng said thoughtfully, "when you put it that way, it does sound—"
"That is extremely unfair."
"Yes."
Xue Lian spoke quietly from behind them both. "You need to enter the school. It's the only way to obtain the Phoenix Key."
Zhao Wei looked at her. Then up at the Gate. Then down at his own hands.
If I go to school… then I can get the Phoenix Key. And if I get it, I control my power. And if I control my power, Zhao Ming will be safe.
"Shall we dispense with explanations," the Gate intoned, "and begin?"
Zhao Wei squared his shoulders, rolled his neck, and set his jaw into the expression that had gotten him through every fight, every bad day, and every impossible thing since he was old enough to understand that impossible things kept happening to him anyway.
"Tell me what I have to do." He planted his feet. "I'll take whatever you throw at me."
"Oh? Such spirit." Something in the Gate's voice shifted—almost warm, almost amused. "Good. But this test does not involve fighting. There is no enemy to defeat here, child."
"Then what…"
"You need only find what you desire most."
Zhao Wei blinked. "What I… want?"
"Find it. And choose."
The ground lurched. The darkness around the Gate surged forward—no longer shadow, but something with mass, with hunger, with teeth. Before Zhao Wei could finish drawing breath, it swallowed him whole.