A-Tuo stepped out of the library, dizzy and dazed, the weight of his textbooks making it hard to breathe. He rode his scooter back to the dormitory. Night had fully fallen, and the streetlights cast elongated reflections on the damp pavement, like ominous harbingers of something yet to come. An inexplicable sense of pressure settled over him, and his heartbeat quickened.
As he passed a narrow alley, something black flickered at the corner of his eye. Instinctively, A-Tuo stopped his scooter and turned to look at the spot. A strange unease tugged at him, compelling him to approach.
Lying on the ground was a feather.
It was an unnaturally black feather, so dark it seemed bottomless, as if it could swallow all light. It lay there quietly, out of place with its surroundings, as though some dormant force slumbered within it. A-Tuo’s heart began to pound. His fingers trembled slightly, yet he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out.
The feather was shockingly cold to the touch, like clutching death itself. As his fingers brushed across it, a faint electric current seemed to run over his skin.
He looked down at the feather—and then saw a name carved into it: "Li Wen-Yan."
“Li Wen-Yan…” he murmured. The name meant nothing to him, yet it stirred a strange, primal fear within his chest. He wanted to drop the feather, but his fingers were stuck, as if bound by an invisible force.
Suddenly, a strange sound echoed from upstairs. It was the screech of metal scraping against the floor, followed by a low, painful moan that sent chills down his spine. The sound came from the study room of the professor next door—it sounded like some kind of struggle.
A-Tuo jerked his head up, his heart racing. He instinctively pushed open the dorm’s door and crept toward the professor’s study. A thin line of light shone through the gap under the door, offering a blurry glimpse inside—but his body wouldn’t move, frozen by some unseen, malevolent force.
What he saw through the gap nearly defied belief.
The professor sat at his desk, his face pale and expression empty. In his hand, he held a gleaming metal blade, using it to pull off his own fingers—one by one. Blood dripped onto the desk like a foul red rain, soaking into the papers and books beneath it.
The professor’s face was twisted in agony, his lips trembling as if trying to speak, but no sound came out. Then, suddenly, his eyes locked onto A-Tuo’s through the gap in the door. In that instant, a cold dread pierced straight into A-Tuo’s bones. The professor’s eyes were bottomless, devoid of emotion, filled only with deathly silence.
“Run… now…” the professor’s lips moved, barely producing a whisper—but the voice carried a force that brooked no disobedience.
A-Tuo’s body refused to move. Fear engulfed him like a suffocating black mist.
Then, the professor collapsed forward, his face hitting the desk with a choking gasp. The room fell silent, as though sealed in eternal stillness.
A-Tuo stumbled backward, frozen, and then felt a sudden sting on his back. He instinctively reached behind—and instead of smooth skin, his fingertips brushed against something hard and bristly.
A feather.
He stood there, stunned, his heartbeat pounding like thunder in his ears. His mind went blank.
That feather… It shouldn’t exist.
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