The darkness had no floor.
Or rather, it did. Zhao Wei could feel it—solid beneath his feet—but he couldn't see it. For the first few seconds, he couldn't see much of anything. Just black. The kind of black that pressed against his eyes and made him wonder if they were even open.
Then, slowly, light appeared.
Three doors.
They stood before him in a row, each one distinct, each lit from within by a soft, sourceless glow. They looked ordinary enough—the kind of doors you might find in a school hallway, an apartment building, or a hospital corridor—but Zhao Wei understood immediately, the way one understands things in dreams, that they were not ordinary at all.
These three doors hold what I want most.
The thought arrived fully formed, not quite in his own voice, yet not entirely foreign either. He turned to look behind him, but there was nothing—no Gate, no Xue Lian, no grey sky of the Beyond Realm. Just the three doors, the darkness, and the particular silence of a place that was waiting to see what he would do.
He stepped toward the first door.
Gold.
Mountains of it.
Coins, bars, and ornaments—all piled together, shining with a blinding glow that seemed almost unreal. For a brief moment, his heart trembled. With this… he could return to Earth. He could pay off every debt. Clear the rent that had piled up like a suffocating shadow. He could buy a small house—nothing grand, just enough for peace.
More importantly, he could save his brother.
He imagined it vividly: hospital bills paid without hesitation, the best doctors, proper treatment, medicine that didn't require counting every rupee. His brother smiled again, free from pain. The two of them live quietly, finally free from struggle.
A normal life.
A happy life.
His fingers twitched.
But then reality crashed down like cold iron.
He couldn't even go near him.
Not in this body.
Not as he was now.
An undead.
Even if he became rich… what would it change? Even if he owned the world… he still couldn't stand beside his brother.
Wealth without presence.
Comfort without warmth.
Life without the one person he wanted to share it with.
"…What's the use?"
The golden light suddenly felt hollow—meaningless.
Slowly, he turned away. Without touching a single coin, he stepped back from the first door and returned to the space, leaving the glittering fortune behind.
Two doors remained.
The second one.
Before he could reach it, something changed. A sound—small, quick, and delighted, like a child calling across a room. Then the door closest to him simply became something else.
He blinked.
It was a door he knew.
He was sure of it before he could figure out why. The particular scuff mark along the lower panel. The way the handle sat slightly lower than average. The faint memory of a smell—cleaning products and chalk dust—and the specific trapped warmth of a room that had held too many people for too long.
Where have I seen this?
He reached out and pushed it open.
Sound poured through before light did.
Laughter. Chair legs scraping. Someone arguing cheerfully about something that didn't matter. The comfortable ambient noise of a classroom during break, when the teacher wasn't watching, and everyone had permission to be themselves.
Zhao Wei stepped through.
The classroom was exactly as he remembered it: rows of identical desks, windows along the far wall overlooking a concrete exercise yard, and a wedge of grey Beijing sky. The board at the front still carried the faint ghost of yesterday's lesson.
Two boys sat at nearby desks. One had his chair tipped back at a dangerous angle. The other leaned across the aisle with the eager energy of someone who had just thought of something excellent to say.
"Hey!" The leaning one grinned. "You were in the bathroom so long we thought you'd drowned in the toilet."
"Be honest with us," said the other, adjusting his glasses with a studious air. "It was diarrhea, right? Just between friends."
"Even a tiger comes when you're talking about it! Look who finally showed up!"
Zhao Wei stood in the doorway, unable to move.
You guys.
The words formed in his throat but stopped there. He knew their faces so well he could have drawn them from memory. He knew which one laughed too loudly at his own jokes and which one went quiet when he was genuinely worried. He knew they had been in the same class for two years, and that neither of them knew anything real about his life—about Zhao Ming, about the hospital bills, about the part-time jobs that left him too tired to stay awake through fifth period.
This familiar classroom. The voices of his friends. Things he hadn't appreciated. Things that had made him happy without him realizing it.
Around him, the classroom moved and breathed. Someone at the back complained that the break was almost over. Two girls near the window settled a dispute with rock-paper-scissors. The ordinary machinery of a school day ticked along without him.
I always kept one thing hidden from all of this.
The thought rose quietly.
I always wanted, just once, to hang out with them freely. Like a normal person. Without somewhere else, I had to be.
"Zhao Wei, are you just going to stand there?" one of them called.
He smiled. It came out smaller than he intended.
"Sorry, guys." He raised a hand. "I have to get going."
"What? Already? Why are you being like that?"
"Was it something we said?"
"Hey, Zhao Wei! Is that guy off to his part-time job again?"
He heard the voice from the corridor behind him—a classmate passing by, already moving on to something else. He didn't turn around. He took one last look at the classroom, at the two boys who would probably forget this moment by tomorrow, and felt something settle in his chest.
Not grief.
Something quieter.
Thank you.
He reached back and closed the door.
One door remained.
The third one.
He pushed it open without hesitation.
"Zhao Ming, wait for me!"
A child's voice—his own, younger—chased a small figure down a sunlit corridor that shifted and blurred before he could fix it in his memory.
Then it was gone.
He was standing in front of the last door.
It was the plainest of the three. Just a door. Dark wood, unremarkable handle. But something about it pulled at the center of his chest in a way the others hadn't—a quiet, insistent tug, like a thread that had been tied there a long time ago.
He already knew.
He opened it.
The apartment was exactly as he had left it: small, cluttered, and warm with the smell of cooking oil and dish soap. The kitchen light was on. At the counter, a boy in a worn school uniform stood with his back to the door, busy at the sink.
He turned.
Zhao Ming's face broke into the widest grin.
"Bro? Why are you back so soon?"
Zhao Wei's throat tightened.
"Zhao Ming," he managed.
"I'm fine, by the way, before you ask. I went to the hospital today like a good boy. Come on in. I made egg rolls."
He reached out toward his brother.
"NO—!"
The word tore out of him. He wrenched his hand back.
"I… I have to go back to work."
"Can't you stay? Just for today?"
He looked at his brother's face.
I can't touch him.
If I stay… he'll get worse.
"Actually," Zhao Ming said, his voice flickering, "I… didn't go to the hospital. I'm sick, brother. I'm—"
A cough.
Then blood.
"Zhao Ming!"
He moved forward, then stopped.
I can't.
"Bro… please, stay. Just for today."
He ran.
"Zhao Ming, wait for me! I'll be back! I swear!"
Darkness.
Light.
Hard ground.
He landed in front of the Gate.
Xue Lian and Bai Feng were watching him.
"O-hu," Bai Feng tilted his head. "Didn't select anything? What a unique kid."
"There was nothing I wanted there," Zhao Wei said.
"What I actually want… is the Phoenix. And to go back. Back to the human world. To Zhao Ming's side."
A symbol blazed above the Gate.
"That symbol is—!!" Bai Feng gasped.
"Onus?!"
The Gate's voice shook the world.
"This is the result of the child's choice. The results of the test cannot be altered."
"The door to Onus shall now open."
Chains moved.
Light exploded.
Zhao Wei stepped forward.
"I approve of their passing."
"This is one world's end."
"And the start of another."