The next morning, Lin Yuan sat through his lectures. Heard nothing.
He wore black cotton gloves. In September. The girl in the front row turned once, glanced at his hands, then turned back. He didn't care. She wasn't looking at him. She never was.
Under the desk, he opened his phone's front camera.
The gold ring around his pupils. Still there. Flickering. Like breathing.
He'd Googled it last night. Skin disease. Iris heterochromia. Then he'd turned off the phone and stared at the ceiling until 3 AM.
His phone buzzed.
A text. The number looked like garbage code. No words. Just an image: a dark gold badge with a dragon.
Below it, one line:
"Lanshan College, History Department, Basement Level 2. Tonight at 10. Don't come, and you'll regret it."
Lin Yuan stared.
He wanted to type back "wrong number." But he didn't. Because the scale on his hand — the one under the glove — got warm the moment he thought about ignoring it.
---
He skipped his afternoon class. First time.
Back in the dorm. Seniors out. Room 607 smelled like instant noodles and old sneakers. He lay on his bottom bunk, holding the five-cent coin.
His grandmother's.
Three years ago. County hospital. She was thin as paper. She'd pressed the coin into his palm and said, "Yuan, you're not ordinary. One day, someone will come for you."
He'd thought it was the fever talking.
Now? Not so sure.
He ran his fingernail along the coin's edge. A thin gap. He pried.
The coin didn't open. But it cut his finger. A drop of blood fell onto the metal — and vanished. Soaked in. Like water into sand.
The orchid on the coin began to move. Petals twisting. Turning into an eye. A gold eye.
The coin got hot.
He tried to drop it. Fingers wouldn't let go. Heat spread up his arm, into his chest. Something answered — a resonance, like two tuning forks struck at once.
Ding.
Then it stopped.
The coin looked normal again. Orchid. Emblem. Ordinary.
But Lin Yuan knew something had changed.
He checked his phone. 5:00 PM.
Five hours.
---
At 9:40 PM, he stood in front of the History building.
Wind strong. Ivy rustling against the walls like whispers. Third-floor windows dark. No lights. No guard. The whole building felt like something people had forgotten.
He pushed open the door.
The lobby was dark except for the green glow of exit signs. He used his phone light. Bulletin board. Class schedules. Lost-and-found posters. Normal. So normal it made him feel stupid.
He walked the corridor. No stairs. No basement entrance.
At the very end, behind a fire extinguisher, he found a door.
Painted the same white as the wall. If his light hadn't hit it from the side, he'd never have seen the seam. Shorter than normal — maybe a meter eighty. Black iron handle. No keyhole. Just a round indentation.
He pushed. Nothing. Pulled. Nothing. He hit it with his shoulder. The door boomed. Like something sighed inside.
Then he looked at the indentation.
Looked familiar.
He pulled out the coin. Pressed it into the groove.
Click.
The door slid up. Not swung — slid. Like a garage door. Dust fell.
Behind it: no stairs. A ramp, sloping down into darkness. His phone light couldn't reach the end. Rough concrete walls, wet in spots. Air smelled of mold and old iron.
Lin Yuan stood there. Heart pounding.
He could turn back. Go to the dorm. Throw the coin away. Pretend the scale was a rash. See a doctor. Take pills. Forget all this.
He turned around.
The scale on his hand burned. Not painful. Just — warm. Like someone calling his name from behind.
He stopped.
Facing the dark ramp. Back to the moonlight.
"You always have a choice." The voice in his head was his own.
He took a step.
---
One hundred and twenty-eight steps down. He counted.
Then light ahead. Warm yellow. Like candlelight.
At the bottom, a massive wooden door. Two meters tall. Carved with dragons. Not the western kind — no wings. Eastern dragons, coiled around clouds and fire. But their poses weren't peaceful. They looked like they were trying to break out.
Eyes inlaid with gold stones.
Lin Yuan pushed. The door opened easily.
He walked in.
The library. The one from his dreams. Shelves stretching up into darkness. Books glowing — warm yellow, cold blue, pale green. Air smelled of old paper and sandalwood.
But this time, someone was there.
Not the boy. An old man.
(Continued in Part 2)