Section 1: The Door That Splits the Stillness
The night had barely settled, yet the sky above Ningcheng University's back mountain didn't feel like night—it was like a thin membrane of time peeled back. The rift hung high, silently blooming with a faint blue glow, like an eye gazing from the depths of the cosmos, watching the world below without a sound. Ling Yu held his breath, staggering closer to the crack. The light was icy, piercing to the bone, yet it brought an odd clarity, as if his soul were laid bare under an unseen gaze. His heartbeat quickened, and the notebook slipped from his hand—only to hover in midair, held by some unseen force. From the rift, a thread of light descended, weaving into a translucent door. Mist churned beyond it, whispers rising like a tide.
Images flashed in his mind—his mother's gentle smile, the voice calling "Ruiya"—pushing him forward. He drew a deep breath, muttering to himself, "I can't stop now." As his foot stepped out, the ground trembled, the air rippling as the door slowly creaked open.
This light wasn't starlight, moonlight, or any known physical phenomenon. It lacked waves, lacked warmth, yet it forced a bone-deep awakening, as if his soul had been suddenly exposed to itself. For those slumbering within the rules of normalcy, the rift was imperceptible—it didn't belong to this world.
Ling Yu stood at the cliff's edge, his eyes fixed on the gaping tear, hearing a summons beyond sound itself. That presence needed no words—it simply was—and he answered it. From the moment he left his dorm, he knew the Ling Yu of this night would never return to his old life.
Beneath his feet lay a frozen sea of stars—not a reflection, not an illusion, but a foundational layer revealed only when time itself was severed. The starlit expanse was silent as ice, as if the entire universe waited beneath the cliff for him to gaze, to fall, or to become part of it.
His breathing grew ragged, his chest heavy under an invisible weight. He raised his hand to check the time—his watch's hands were locked at 3:33 AM, the second hand frozen on the number 3, as if the universe itself had paused its rhythm.
The wind died, and even the distant city lights were swallowed by darkness. This wasn't night—it was the collapse effect where a higher dimension clashed with this reality. All rhythmic pulses vanished, leaving only his own existence tangible.
He had dreamed of this.
In that dream, he stood here, watching the starry rift crack open. A shadow, resembling him, emerged and spoke:
"This is neither a beginning nor an end, but the convergence of your countless fates."
Upon waking, he'd thought it a fatigue-induced delusion. But now, he realized it wasn't a dream—it was an echo of memory. From the future, the past, from the countless "him" he had been, might become, or could never be.
Ling Yu didn't flee. He knew he had no choice left. He stared at the rift, the light sliding down like threads weaving a door that unfurled. Beyond it lay mist, voices, gazes… and something waiting.
His ears trembled—not from sound, but from the "breath" of space itself, as if a vast will peered through the door, selecting him, assessing if he was ready for a deeper reality.
He inhaled deeply, whispering, "I'm here."
It wasn't courage or resolve, but a recognition from a deeper self—buried in every dream, every lost moment, every unexplained "disorder" of his past.
His foot took the first step.
The sound didn't land on rock but echoed into a structure of consciousness. The ground quaked lightly, the air rippling as if a door… was opening.
That step ignited something unseen. The air around the cliff warped, and a stream of blue light poured from the rift, flowing like water or fiber optics, tracing a winding path in the air.
Ling Yu's body was pulled, yet his mind stayed sharply alert. He neither fell nor floated—he was drawn into a realm behind time, beside space, a dimension unobservable to ordinary minds, accessible only when "fate permitted."
The scenery around him began to crumble. He saw his university campus dissolve into a ghostly mirage in the distance—buildings, roads, trees—melting into twisted geometric light, like memories stripped to raw data fragments.
Then, everything turned pure white.
Not emptiness, but an oversaturated state where color, sound, and time compressed into a "field of observation." He stood there, no walls, no ground, only countless gazes piercing him—formless yet more invasive than any stare.
For a moment, he felt like a naked consciousness, every memory and secret laid bare. Images surged—his childhood watching his mother's back by her sickbed, crying alone in unnoticed nights, doubting his purpose in studies and future—all not as recollections, but as something watched, analyzed, selected.
Suddenly, a voice rang in his mind:
"Identification complete. Host authentication successful."
The tone was calm, emotionless, yet carried undeniable authority. In that instant, Ling Yu felt a system locking his soul unlock, like layers of a spiritual firewall dismantling, allowing a force to seep in.
He opened his eyes to find himself in an endless corridor.
Not a building, but a passage of consciousness, its walls woven from flickering light bands and data streams. Floating in the air were countless transparent "windows"—each framing a different "him."
Some fought in alien worlds, others pondered in futuristic towers, one sat in a robe meditating amid infinite galaxies, gazing like a god. These weren't fantasies—they were real versions of him across parallel fates.
"This is the Fate Core Observation Station," the voice returned, now with warmth and form.
A man appeared before him, nearly identical in appearance, save for silver-blue flames burning in his eyes like miniature universes. Clad in a robe of conscious energy, he stood tall, his presence restrained yet powerful.
"I am you, and the you yet to become."
Ling Yu opened his mouth but found no words. This state was familiar—encountered in dreams, in moments of lost consciousness, where he'd met this "self" countless times without true dialogue. This time was different.
"You are crossing the Bridge of Fate, entering the layer of multiple selves. Among us, you are the first to open the 'Reincarnation Rift,'" the man said, his voice low yet echoing with ancient resonance, as if born with the universe itself.
"Next, you will face three choices—each will rewrite your life's destiny and shape the future of us all."
Ling Yu drew a deep breath, gazing at the windows of his alternate selves. Some rose to greatness, others fell to ruin, yet each was a real possibility.
Fate, he realized, was never just the future's design, but the sum of every choice made now.
And he stood at the first crossroads.
To be continued…
Ling Yu fell silent for a moment, his feet moving forward as if drawn by a force from the depths of his subconscious. It wasn't a choice of will, but a summons from the flow of fate—he felt every cell in his body aligning toward an inevitable pull.
The Observation Station trembled. The floating parallel windows flickered, swept by an unseen energy wave, each flashing into sharper focus.
One "him" battled in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, eyes glowing red as he clashed with espers.
Another sat meditating atop a sea of clouds, stars orbiting behind him, transcending humanity itself.
Yet another walked alone through a black door, where countless versions of himself cycled through fall and redemption.
Each future was a rift in fate, and his choice now would determine which one truly opened.
"You have only one chance," the silver-eyed man said, his tone laced with faint pity and respect. "When you choose, remember—this isn't you deciding fate, but the version of your consciousness determining which fate can connect with you."
Ling Yu's gaze hardened.
"What are my three options?" he finally asked, his voice hoarse yet clear, carrying a calm beyond his years.
The man extended a hand, and three glowing orbs materialized.
In the first, Ling Yu saw himself traveling back in time, altering someone's fate in a campus accident, triggering a butterfly effect that reshaped the world order. On this path, he rose as a "time cultivator," mastering the flow of moments.
The second orb revealed a futuristic tech metropolis. There, he was a rebel leader, infiltrating a consciousness network to dismantle an AI-controlled fate system—a consciousness hacker, a traitor to destiny, teetering between order and humanity.
The third orb swirled with chaos, an indecipherable void. He glimpsed himself falling into an "unnamed world," joining hundreds of souls from other timelines in an experiment on the essence of reincarnation. He would be deconstructed, then reassembled.
He stared at the three orbs, each a fathomless door leading to a future beyond his current imagination.
"Choose one," the silver-eyed man commanded, his tone brooking no argument.
Ling Yu's fingers hovered over the orbs, his mind racing through risks, values, reconstruction potential, and possibilities of ruin. Yet a gut instinct grew stronger.
He recalled his mother's words:
"Some doors, once opened, can't be unpassed. Some paths, untraveled, leave you wondering if they were worth it."
Drawing a deep breath, he touched the third orb—the chaos, the nameless door.
"You've chosen the undetermined fate," the silver-eyed man said, a slight pause in his voice before adding softly, "Good."
The orb shattered into silver fragments, raining like light into his forehead. Ling Yu's body shuddered, a tearing pain ripping through his consciousness. He felt his memories being encoded, compressed, wrapped—like a message prepared for delivery across the multiverse.
His vision went black, and he plunged into endless void.
He closed his eyes, his consciousness flaking like snow, yet a fleeting image flashed: a short-haired woman stood beside him, her gaze gentle yet sad, whispering, "Ling Yu, remember me…" Another figure emerged, long hair cascading, holding a shattered word rune before vanishing into light, leaving the name "Qingyin." His heart clenched—the pain wasn't his, yet it surged from deep memory. He murmured, "Who are you?" The image shattered, and he fell into the infinite void, the descent endless.
It wasn't the weightlessness of a high fall, nor the jolt of waking from a dream, but the peeling of his "self" from the world's framework, even the concept of "falling" blurring away. He seemed not to move toward a direction but to be "erased" within a dimension.
His consciousness flaked like snow, memories flowing backward like a river. He saw his birth, learning to speak, writing his name for the first time, dreaming of "another self" in a sleepless night—all replayed silently, then dissolved into light points drifting into boundless darkness.
Just as he thought he'd fade completely, a voice whispered:
"You have activated the undetermined fate protocol. Encoding complete. Transfer in progress."
The next second, he opened his eyes, lying on a bed that wasn't his.
The room was alien—outside, a lavender sky stretched over floating crystal mountains; the air hummed with whispers, walls etched with flickering runes. This wasn't Earth, nor any world in his memory.
He wore a gray tactical suit hugging his skin, a faint heat pulsing on his forehead—the "mark" from the orb's absorption, now a miniature star ring slowly turning beneath his skin.
His mind still unsteady, a system prompt echoed:
"Mission Code: Primary Soul Source. Transported to the Mixed-Dimensional Junction. Prepare to receive initial data."
He looked up as the wall beside him cracked open, a door silently forming.
Behind it stood a woman in a white robe, her starry eyes both familiar and distant. She gazed at him, her voice soft:
"Welcome back, Fate Rewriter."
To be continued…