There was a time when Lin Rui knew exactly how this story would unfold.
Back then, this world made sense. It existed inside a screen, contained within paragraphs and dialogue, shaped by his keyboard and revised at his will. Everything followed order. Every character had a role. Every betrayal served a function. Every death carried a purpose. Nothing happened without reason, nothing existed without meaning.
The story had been clean and structured.
Not like this.
Not like the endless skies of Tughril, stretching wide and indifferent above him. Not like the dust clinging stubbornly to his boots and heavy robes. Not like the cold wind that cut through layers of fur and silk into his bones, reminding him again and again that pain here was not fictional.
He remembered clearly the night he finished the story.
It was raining outside his apartment. A bowl of noodles sat untouched beside his laptop, long since gone cold. He had been rereading the final chapter over and over, staring at the screen long after the words stopped changing.
At the time, the ending felt settled. Perfect. As if it could not be altered.
Shen Han killed Kabil and completed his revenge for Princess Lian Zhi's death.
With Kabil gone, the war came to an end. Kazrail ascended fully as Khan. The Tughril khanate stabilised. The Hua Empire flourished. Borders were secured. Peace followed.
All at the cost of one woman's life.
Lin Rui stared at the blinking cursor at the end of the final sentence. Satisfaction settled slowly into his chest, mixed with exhaustion. It was finished. Finally.
He didn't hate her. Not really. Princess Lian Zhi had always been… expendable. Fragile, obedient, easy to move, easy to discard when the story required it. She wasn't a hero. She wasn't remarkable, except for the way she prompted action in others. She existed to awaken him, Shen Han, the real centre of the story.
And that was precisely why she had to die.
The story required it. The ending demanded it.
After a long moment, he finally clicked Send, forwarding the completed manuscript to his editor. He leaned back in his chair and reached for the mug beside his laptop. The coffee was cold, bitter, and oddly comforting. He took a slow sip and let the cold liquid settle in his chest.
The room felt too quiet.
Fatigue came gradually. He rose from his desk and moved to lie on the couch. The weight of the night and the long weeks of writing his latest masterpiece pressed down until his eyelids grew heavy. The caffeine did nothing to help.
Eventually, he gave in.
The last thing he remembered was the faint sound of rain, the bitter taste of cold coffee on his tongue, and his own quiet breathing as sleep pulled him under.
Then, without warning, the world shifted.
There was no flash of light, no fantastical swirl, no dramatic warning. Only the sensation of falling, as though the floor had vanished beneath him.
When Lin Rui opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the air.
It was too dry, too hot, burning his chest every time it filled his lungs. His body felt heavier than he remembered. His hands were stronger, calloused was seen in places where they had never been before. A scar ran along his shoulder, one he did not remember earning. Voices spoke a language that felt ancient, and yet he understood.
Someone knelt and called him Your Majesty.
Panic surged, and for a few moments, he said nothing. He watched, listened. The voices around him, the titles, the bows, everything felt familiar, yet strange.
He rose slowly, unsteady at first, ignoring the voices and people kneeling before him. He caught his reflection in a polished metal surface nearby.
The face staring back at him was unmistakably his.
The same eyes. The same bone structure. And yet, something felt different, something had changed. His body had been honed into something sharper, leaner but undeniably stronger.
"Your Majesty, the court has waited for you."
The voice snapped him back from his thoughts.
He did not respond. Instead, he let the situation play out, allowing the men guiding him forward to take the lead. From their clothing and posture, he assumed they were guards. They escorted him into a vast hall that looked like something taken straight from a historical film.
"This must be a dream." He muttered under his breath, making sure the guards couldn't hear him.
"I was so invested in writing The Tragedy of Tughril so much that it appears in my dream now."
He looked around and saw people in ancient costumes lining the hall on both sides. Most of them appeared well past middle age. They bowed so deeply until their foreheads nearly touched the floor. And at the end of the hall, he saw a grand throne. The servants gathered around it bowed as well, as if urging him to sit on it.
And he did.
Then a woman spoke from the seat beside him.
Her posture was composed. Her face revealed nothing, calm as stone, yet her eyes were alive, holding a quiet command that needed no explanation. She studied him for a moment before speaking.
"You are awake earlier than expected, Kazrail."
The name poured over him like cold water.
"Kazrail?" he repeated carefully, testing the sound.
"I am still your mother, whether you like it or not." A faint smile touched her lips, but her eyes remained fixed on the court ahead, as though she were performing her role. "And I will not call you 'Your Majesty, Great Khan,'" she added dismissively.
Her words sealed it.
This dream is his story. He had fallen into his own story.
He scanned around him and confirmed it. And so as the rest of the day following it. The world was exactly as he had written it. Every corridor, every whisper of the court, every danger and scheme fit perfectly into place. He did not remember living this life, but he knew it intimately because he had created it.
For a time, he went along with it, treating everything as nothing more than a dream.
Until he felt pain for the first time.
It wasn't intentional. A foolish mistake. A maid was just being careless once. Tripping over as she poured tea into his cup, causing the hot liquid to burn his hand. The pain was sharp enough to make him wince, brief but undeniably real.
Dreams were not supposed to hurt.
Once the shock began to fade, certainty followed.
If this were his story, then it had rules. And if it had rules, then it had an ending. All he had to do was follow it.
He remembered every betrayal, every death, every moment of triumph and despair he had typed onto the page.
Kazrail, the Great Khan of Tughril, would survive, bloodied but unbroken. The khanate would stabilise, the foreign princess would die, and the story would march forward as he had designed it.
And when the final chapter concluded, he would wake again in his apartment, rain on the windows, cold noodles waiting, the manuscript saved, and the world restored to its rightful way.
Or so he believed.
That belief became his anchor, and for a time, it was enough.