The wind howls outside the window, clawing at the glass like the talons of a demon. A single candle trembles in the darkness, its flame casting warped shadows across the slatted blinds. Upon the altar stands a statue of a fox spirit, silent and watchful. Suddenly, a jagged bolt of lightning splits the night, and the idol's shadow shudders violently.
Wen Yuyan kneels on the floor, his hands shaking as he clutches a crumpled report card. His gaze is locked onto a single line. The bright red B+ burns into his vision like a double-edged sickle suspended over his heart, scraping against every nerve.
"In this chapter, what drink does Gatsby consume at the party?"
His mother's voice pierces through the walls.
"I really wish I had a son like theirs! He's about to enter Harvard Law School. I spent so much money sending you to private school, hiring tutors—and now the economy is collapsing too…"
An invisible boulder presses down on Yuyan's chest, crushing the air from his lungs. Old scars along his arms flicker in and out of sight beneath the candlelight. He wipes away his tears and grips the glass pendant at his chest.
A glowing triangular sigil of a glass tree is etched upon it. Inside, a ruby bird holds a sapphire fish in its beak.
"Next time," his mother says coldly, "can you get an A+?"
Yuyan says nothing. He walks into the bathroom and stares at his reflection, scrubbing his hands violently as if trying to wash away an invisible stain. The water gradually runs clear, ticking in rhythm with the clock. Outside the door, his mother's fists pound against the wood, her screams tearing through the house as she shouts his name.
He escapes through the window.
In the corner of his vision, his mother's figure twists in the storm—distorted by rain and fury—like a crimson specter reaching out with clawed hands from the upper floor. He drives headlong into the downpour, tears mingling with the rain as they stream down his face.
In the stained rearview mirror, yellow traffic lights blur into a smeared haze. Faces flicker in the glass—his parents, relatives, friends, classmates, bullies—each sneering at him.
Even though he is once a prodigy in every field.
Two hours later, he stands at the edge of Niagara Falls. Mist churns violently below. Behind him, his mother's red Nissan sits at a distance, hazard lights blinking on and off like a failing heartbeat. Streetlamps stretch into gray, human-shaped silhouettes, swaying against dark red stone.
Rain pours like another waterfall.
Eris is the first to leap from the police car.
The storm cannot obscure his eyes—crystal blue, deep as a starlit sea, pure as the divine gaze of angels described in scripture. They seem to cast the last remaining light upon a world already sinking.
His golden hair, soaked by rain, falls in fine strands like threads of molten light, as though brushed by holy water. At this moment, all color drains from the world, leaving only a single cascade of golden radiance.
The coarse brown rope around Yuyan's legs coils like a venomous serpent. Shapes stir beneath the water—phantoms beckoning. Sirens whisper in low, seductive chants, calling him into the abyss below. Iris screams his name, but it sounds distant, foreign, as if no longer meant for him.
Tears slip from Iris's eyes, clearer than any raindrop falling from the sky.
Time freezes like an old photograph sealed forever in memory.
In Iris's pupils, Yuyan catches a final reflection of himself—eyes locked with his own. An image etched eternally into his mind.
Soaked to the bone, clothes torn and heavy, Wen Yuyan lets out a final cry and leaps.
The azurite pendant in his palm pulses again. Blue crystalline light swells, engulfing everything—swallowing the waterfall itself.
Years earlier, he curls up in the most remote bathroom of an elite Catholic school, trembling like an injured stray. When knocking echoes at the door, he thinks they have returned.
But instead, a blond boy steps inside.
"You're the smartest person I've ever met," Eris says gently. "Hang in there. And… today's your birthday."
He hands Yuyan a small object wrapped in cloth.
"This is a magic glass stone from another world. My mother left it to me before she died. When things hurt too much, hold it. Maybe it can take you somewhere better."
"Somewhere better?" Yuyan scoffs. "Fairy tales are just stories."
"Then you probably haven't heard the legend of Niagara Falls."
"They say beneath the waterfall lies a sacred gate. At the bottom of the lake rests a massive blue azurite stone—an entrance to the azurite Realm, beyond this world."
Yuyan jolts back to awareness.
Distant sirens echo through the night. He moves forward in memory—only to be swallowed by the raging waters. He hears Eris crying out his name. He tries to answer, but continues to sink.
Pressure crushes him from all sides. His consciousness blurs. The massive glass stone of prophecy does not appear.
Regret coils tightly around his heart.
He struggles desperately, but the bindings do not yield. The rope tightens like a living serpent, dragging him deeper.
In a world where fairy tales never come true,
he realizes, at the very end—
this world deceives him once again.