“Why.”

A city at 2 a.m., a black beast curled beneath neon.

As people drift home, the buzz thins to blinking lamps where a moth waltzes in fire.

Zhaomingming stared at that moth, a pinprick for her thoughts.

She still wore her autumn-winter school uniform, twin ponytails like inked ribbons.

Moonlight fell like a blade on her face, cold and silver.

She sat alone in a thin alley clenched between two tall buildings, a seam in concrete.

Hugging her bag, she perched on the trash can at the dead end, like a sparrow on rust.

The moth mirrored itself in her stark black-and-white pupils, two quiet ponds.

Black specks rose like silt from a clear lakebed, clouding upward, bit by bit.

“Mm.”

The girl let out a low groan, a pebble dropping into water, and clutched her belly.

She didn’t lift her shirt; she knew a new “nail” had been driven into her skin.

Or call it an impurity— a stain that marks a [World] shifting underfoot.

This worldline was a one-way road to a single terminus, a straight rail.

Midway, forks sprouted like weeds in spring, paths splitting into shadow.

Any ending not that “only ending” blooms a wound on her body, a red flower.

Is pain something you can build a shield against, like layers of ice?

If you hurt enough, does the ache stop ringing like a bell?

People mistake that for strength, a badge forged from grit and myth.

But pain is pain; carve it ten thousand times, the ten-thousand-and-first still burns.

Zhaomingming never chased these empty thoughts; they were fog, not fire.

Think all you want; the next stab still lands like a knife.

“When did it start?”

Zhaomingming grabbed her ponytails, knuckles pale, and muttered to the night.

When did I start having these feelings, these reeds in wind?

Feelings that don’t push this [World] forward, that don’t turn the gears?

Was it that dawn I met Yexiaobai, breath of wet grass and pale sky?

When I realized that even if the [World] refreshed, someone would still remember me?

Was it the moment I learned I’m No. 07498, a stamped tag on a new thread?

Not any other Zhaomingming that could be swapped like a card?

No, maybe earlier— further back, like a river seeking its source.

“Further back— trace it?”

Her thought snapped; her pupils shrank to needles of midnight.

A vast malice draped her like a wet cloak; moonlight turned to cold rain.

But if she traces further, it’s no longer her “memory,” not her lantern.

She bit her lip; the awareness struck like a bell, deep and raw.

Not her memory— lightning split a black world, revealing deeper black, strange lights.

Zhaomingming’s breath quickened, a rusted bellows working in the dark.

She and her predecessors knit into a net, threads braided into one name.

They condensed into one Zhaomingming, a distant witness behind a windowpane.

She watched Yexiaobai and Mu Xiaowei in silence, storing scenes like pressed flowers.

But as No. 07498, she was peeled from that sister-network, a single wire.

Under this lone ID, her memory starts at creation, a sharp timestamp.

Before that lies the memory of countless Zhaomingmings, unknown numbers in fog.

If she is Zhaomingming, she owns all bonds, all strings of light.

If she is 07498, she’s days old, a hatchling blinking at dawn.

Does she even have the right— the name— the face in the glass?

“—to be Zhaomingming?” Another voice rose inside, like a shadow behind a curtain.

Zhaomingming bit harder, eyes trembling like ripples under wind.

She knew these facts; why do they shake now, a quake at night?

Cold sweat fell like rain; who’s jamming her frequency, a hand on the dial?

While terror clutched her chest, a data-stream spun up, a hidden engine.

The [World] system began a self-check, a soft hum beneath the floorboards.

It scanned the current-number Zhaomingming for [Update], a blue bar filling.

“No!!”

A more solid fear pressed in, a wall moving closer.

She sensed it; she drank air deep, then screwed down the lid tight.

She lowered everything: heartbeat, blood flow, temperature, breath, stones sinking in a lake.

“Calm, calm, calm—”

She slid toward deathlike stillness, playing dead under a hunter’s gaze.

The [World]’s grip on itself slackened to an unprecedented low tide.

A gust slid through the alley; a beer can rolled, a dull tumble.

Iron kissed uneven bricks, clacks like teeth on cold porcelain.

Muffled male voices, heavy breaths, drifted from the alley’s mouth like smoke.

A shadow twisted in lamplight, ink swirling in a bowl.

…

…

“Who’s that?”

“No idea.”

“—No?”

Their voices floated from a seam in the [World], a hairline crack.

A boy in black hair, black eyes, long black coat, and a sword.

He sat cross-legged in a pure-white space, snow without sky.

Around him, countless mirror shards drifted like slow, silver fish.

Each shard reflected corners of the [World], rooms and rain and faces.

In his left-hand shard lay Zhaomingming’s alley, ash and light.

In his right-hand shard, a rolling can, a tin comet.

His hands bled; the shards were razors, edges and faces both.

No matter how he held them, it was bare palms full of blades.

“Demon King, you’ll die like this.”

He didn’t look at the talking long sword, iron sighing in silence.

Inside the blade was the sealed [Deity] from the [Hero King] [World], a captive star.

“No— you’re not the Demon King anymore. Keep this up and you’ll die.”

“So what?” Blood streamed like threads; bone glinted white through red.

His hands didn’t budge; his will was iron nailed to wood.

Even with the pain-resistance leftover from the Demon King state, he was near his edge.

In him, only scraps of Demon King power remained, cinders in ash.

“Let me handle it.” The voice was a woman’s, earnest and hushed.

“Lina, you know what?” the boy said, a smile like a paper cut. “A couple tricks for writing novels?”

“Wha—t?”

“First, trust human imagination— picture this.”

“A man and a woman enter a hotel room; hours later, they walk out satisfied.”

“You don’t need to spell the middle; trust the reader’s lantern.”

“What are you even saying?” She stared, unease rising like chill water.

She remembered being a [Deity] facing a Demon King, rules shattered like glass.

It felt the same— off-beat, no script, cards thrown into wind.

“Sigh, so slow?”

“You—!”

“Whatever. You’re the only one I’ve got.” He sighed, face paling like paper.

He didn’t drop the thorn. “You asked who that was, right?”

“Who knows.”

“I borrowed a sliver of light and sound from some instant in this [World].”

“And I sent it to Zhaomingming’s instant, like a moth nudged toward flame.”

“I don’t know who he is.”

“Then what meaning is there? In the end—”

“In the end, you don’t understand what I’m doing, do you?” Ye Weibai cut clean.

“Mm—!” She shut her mouth, hatred pooling like ink under ice.

She had never forgiven this man, not once, not in any dawn.

He broke into her [World], cracked her rules, shattered the endless [Cycle].

He dragged her from the throne, sealed her in this battered sword, a coffin of steel.

He pushed her into today’s pit and kept humiliating her, thorn after thorn.

How could she not hate him, a heart full of iron rain.

“Remember what I said our goal was?” Ye Weibai’s voice dropped like a drum in fog.

After a long, dull silence, she answered. “To find this [World]’s [Beginning] and [Ending].”

She couldn’t bare her fangs; she had to play bowed, a velvet mask.

It wasn’t time to tear it, not yet, not in this snow.

“Right. To parse this [World]’s [Cycle], we need [Beginning] and [Ending].”

“But before that, we need the character holding the head of the main thread.”

“Isn’t that Yexiaobai?” She looked at the drifting shards, a swirl of scenes.

Nine in ten showed Yexiaobai, a face lit like morning.

“By logic, it should be Yexiaobai.”

“After all— he’s loved by many for no reason, like a star without orbit.”

Ye Weibai studied another self in a shard, two faces in one glass.

Yexiaobai matched his high school look, skin and bone and smile.

But only the face; in heart and everything else, they were two rivers.

He paused, a beat like a held breath. “Whether he is or isn’t— depends on the next scene.”

Ye Weibai raised his eyes to Zhaomingming’s pane, a window of ash.

There, he had quietly set a few bits of light and shadow, soft seeds.

He took advantage of the [World]’s defenses at their lowest ebb, a slack tide.

It was the most he could intervene, the longest arm he could stretch.

“Next— who will appear?— or will no one appear?”

Let me see, Mingming.

…

…