Detective Liu Wen tightened his coat against the drizzle as he ducked beneath the glowing sign of the Red Lantern Bar. The place should have been alive with music and laughter, but now it was quiet, shuttered off by yellow police tape. Rain dripped from the sign overhead, sizzling faintly on the electric tube.
Inside, the air was thick with the scent of stale beer and iron. Broken glass glittered across the floorboards, catching the dim light like tiny shards of frost. A jukebox in the corner flickered in silence, its neon glow casting the room in sickly hues.
At the center of it all lay the body.
The victim was slumped against the bar counter, head tilted unnaturally, shirt stained dark and heavy. His skin had taken on a pale waxen tone, lips parted as though frozen mid-breath. But it was the eyes—or rather, the absence of them—that made the room colder than the rain outside. Hollow sockets stared upward, black and empty, framed by rivulets of blood. Whoever had killed him had taken more than a life—they had taken his very gaze.
Liu crouched low, letting his eyes trace the scene. No shattered bottles near the head. No knife. No blunt object in reach. No gunpowder residue. It was as though the killer had carved into the man with invisible hands.
"Detective," an officer spoke softly behind him, "we swept the place. No murder weapon. No prints. Nothing."
Liu's eyes narrowed. "Nothing doesn't kill a man this brutally."
The officer shifted uneasily. "Locals say they heard screaming. Chairs overturning. But by the time anyone entered, the bar was empty. No witnesses, except the corpse."
The detective's gaze lingered on the ruined sockets. He felt the weight of the silence pressing in. This wasn't just a killing. It was a message.
And somewhere in the shadows of Shanghai's labyrinth of alleys, a murderer walked free—
weapon unseen, motives unknown.
Liu rose slowly, his coat whispering against the floor. The rain outside drummed harder against the windows, as though echoing the pounding of his thoughts.
"Seal the scene," he muttered. "This isn't the work of a drunk with a broken bottle." His eyes flicked once more to the victim's face. "This is a ritual. And it won't be the last."
***
The morgue was colder than usual that night. Detective Liu Wen stood over the stainless steel table, his breath misting faintly in the air. The second victim lay before him, pale under the harsh fluorescent light.
Dr. Yan, the coroner, adjusted her glasses and peeled back the white sheet with clinical precision. "Cause of death remains uncertain. Multiple lacerations, but none deep enough to be fatal. Blood loss is consistent, though."
Liu's gaze stayed fixed on the face—on the empty hollows where eyes should have been.
"And the sockets?" he asked quietly.
Yan hesitated. "That's the strange part. These weren't gouged crudely. Tissue was removed cleanly, almost surgically… yet there are no tool marks. No blade, no instrument I recognize could make an incision this smooth."
"No weapon at all," Liu muttered.
Yan nodded grimly. "Almost as if the eyes were simply… drawn out."
The words made something shift uneasily in Liu's stomach. He's seen hundreds of murder victims and the brutal ways they have been killed. But this… this was something else. Something that didn't belong to the world he knew.
"Detective," Yan added, lowering her voice, "there's more. The ocular nerves… they weren't cut. They were—burned. As though seared away by heat. But there's no sign of fire damage anywhere else on the body."
Liu said nothing for a long moment. His mind flashed back to the markings carved into the warehouse wall. Circles and lines, etched with intent. He remembered how the hairs on his arms had risen when he touched them.
"This isn't just a killer," he said finally. "It's a ritualist."
Yan frowned. "You think this is cult activity?"
Liu shook his head. His voice dropped to almost a whisper.
"No… this feels older than that."
—
Later, as he walked alone through the drizzle-soaked streets of Shanghai, Liu lit a cigarette, watching the smoke curl into the night. His thoughts refused to settle.
The man had been murdered...
No weapon. Ritual markings.
Liu felt a gnawing sense that he was staring at the edge of something far larger than the precinct could handle.
The rain quickened. Somewhere in the shadows, Liu thought he saw a flicker of movement—like a figure standing at the far end of the street, watching him.
He froze.
But when a car passed, headlights sweeping over the alley, the figure was gone.
Only the echo of footsteps lingered, vanishing into the night.
Liu exhaled slowly, flicked the cigarette into the gutter, and muttered to himself:
"Whatever this is… it's only just beginning."
***
The bell rang, a sharp metallic clang that set the classroom abuzz with scraping chairs and hurried chatter. Students rose in a wave, some stuffing parchments into bags, others already racing for the door. The faint glow of runes still shimmered on the blackboard before fading into dust.
Rang Chunghee lingered. His hands pressed flat against the desk, his mind still circling the same impossible truth—he was dead in one world and reborn in another. Each passing hour, every whispered rune, every glance at his youthful reflection in the window hammered the reality deeper.
He stood slowly, slinging a satchel over his shoulder. The silver-eyed girl beside him was already gone, swallowed by the stream of classmates flowing into the corridor. He hadn't even asked her name.
The halls emptied quickly, their echoes fading until the building felt eerily still. Outside, the sun was beginning to dip, casting the courtyard in gold and shadow.
Chunghee walked alone toward the tall iron gates at the school's edge, his steps measured, his thoughts heavy. If this is a second life… what am I supposed to do with it?
He didn't get far.
Something slammed onto his back. Hard.
"Wha—?!" His balance buckled, and before he could stop himself, he crashed forward, landing flat on the stone path with a dull thud. His satchel burst open, scattering papers across the ground.
"Ha!" a triumphant voice rang out above him. "Got you!"
He groaned, rolling halfway over. The weight on his back hopped off lightly, and there she was—the silver-eyed girl, her grin sharp enough to cut glass.
"Wh-what was that for?" he sputtered, pushing himself up on his elbows. His palms stung from the fall.
She folded her arms, tilting her head in mock seriousness. "You've been walking around like a sleepwalker all day. Barely listening in class, staring at your hands like they don't belong to you, and now dragging your feet like some ghost. I had to knock you back into reality."
He blinked at her, words failing for a moment. "…By tackling me to the ground?"
"Exactly," she said matter-of-factly. "It worked, didn't it?"
Chunghee rubbed his forehead, fighting back an exasperated sigh. Around them, a few straggling students snickered before hurrying on their way. Heat rose to his cheeks, though whether from embarrassment or irritation, he wasn't sure.
The girl crouched down, gathering a few of his scattered papers and handing them over. Her silver eyes softened just slightly. "Seriously, though. You seem… different today. Like your mind's been somewhere else entirely."
Chunghee stared at her, caught off guard by the sudden sincerity. For a moment, he almost told her the truth—that he wasn't who she thought he was, that his last memory was bleeding out on a sidewalk thousands of miles and another world away.
Instead, he forced a faint, awkward smile. "Maybe I'm just… still waking up."
She studied him for a beat longer, then shrugged. "Well, don't fall asleep again. You'll miss everything important." Her grin returned, mischievous as ever. "And next time you zone out, I will tackle you again."
Before he could protest, she skipped ahead toward the gates, humming as though nothing unusual had happened.
Chunghee stayed kneeling a moment longer, papers clutched in hand, watching her silver eyes catch the last light of the setting sun.
For the first time that day, despite the strangeness of it all, he felt the faintest flicker of something like belonging.