The next morning, sunlight passed through the dormitory’s specially made porthole, casting a bright patch of light across the floor.
Time during vacation always passed with particular languor. Bai Yu did not rise early for physical training as he usually did, but, for once, slept until he woke naturally.
After a simple wash, he was just preparing to go to the library and spend the afternoon there as he had yesterday, when the dormitory doorbell suddenly rang.
Who would it be at this hour?
Most of his teammates should still be catching up on sleep, or relaxing in their own ways. An Mu would not look for him like this either. With a trace of doubt, Bai Yu gently pulled the door open.
Standing outside was Lu Yueqi.
Today, the girl wore a simple white dress. In her arms, she held tightly to a square object wrapped in cloth. She looked somewhat nervous, her bright eyes carrying a hint of unease and appeal. When she saw Bai Yu open the door, she let out a breath of relief, then said in a small, awkward voice, “Bai Yu… sorry, did I disturb your rest?”
“No,” Bai Yu shook his head and stepped aside to let her in. “Did something happen?”
Lu Yueqi entered the room and, at Bai Yu’s gesture, sat down on the sofa. She placed the thing in her arms on the coffee table, her hands twisting together nervously as if she were organizing her words.
“Um… I didn’t mean to come bother you. I know you just finished a very dangerous mission and should be getting proper rest…” She paused, took a deep breath, and seemed to make up her mind. “But I encountered something very strange. I didn’t know who to go to, and then I… thought of you.”
Bai Yu poured her a cup of warm water and listened quietly.
“Recently… I keep having dreams.” Lu Yueqi held the cup and said in a low voice, “They’re not the kind of nightmares where ghosts chase me, just some very fragmented, very chaotic scenes. There are always strange symbols in the dreams, and some voices I can’t hear clearly. Every time I wake up, my head hurts terribly. At first, I thought it was just because what happened before had put too much pressure on me, but the day before yesterday, I went home. I wanted to move some important things over, but when I was sorting through my grandfather’s belongings… I found this.”
She reached out with a slightly trembling hand and unwrapped the cloth-covered object on the coffee table.
Inside was an extremely old diary.
The diary had a hard cowhide cover, its edges already badly worn. There was no writing on it, only a peculiar circular symbol branded into the surface with a hot iron. The symbol was formed from many irregular lines interwoven together; it looked both like a tightly shut eye and a twisted vortex.
The moment she saw that symbol, Lu Yueqi’s face turned even paler.
“This is it… the symbol that keeps appearing in my dreams… exactly the same as this.”
Bai Yu’s gaze grew grave.
He reached out and took the diary that exuded a stale, decayed smell. It felt very heavy in his hand, unlike ordinary paper. He could sense that the diary itself contained some kind of unusual “information.”
Bai Yu gently opened the diary to the first page.
The handwriting inside was in a very classical vertical format, written with a fountain pen, elegant yet forceful. But the contents made one shudder.
“The third day of the ninth month, rain. Failed again. The depiction of the ‘Door’ remains incomplete. What it lured here were only a few insignificant ‘wandering souls.’ They are hungry, yet timid, not even daring to approach the offerings. Useless things.”
“The first day of the tenth month, clear. Today, I caught sight of the ‘Honored Guest.’ Though it was but a fleeting glimpse, the magnificence of its form and the majesty of its voice were far beyond the reach of those mongrels. I know that the path I seek is the correct one. I must be more devout and draw a more perfect ‘Door’ to respectfully welcome the descent of the ‘Honored Guest.’”
Bai Yu’s brows furrowed tighter and tighter. The owner of this diary seemed to have been conducting some sort of dangerous summoning ritual. This so-called “Door” was most likely a passage connecting reality to some unknown dimension.
His fingertips lightly brushed over a complex symbol on the page, also branded there. Just then, an icy breath abruptly appeared behind his ear.
“What laughably crude imitation.”
Bai Yu froze for an instant.
A figure dressed in an exquisite black formal suit silently emerged behind him.
It was none other than Hei Yan.
He bent down slightly, a connoisseur’s faint smile on his pale, handsome face, his gaze falling with great interest upon the diary in Bai Yu’s hand.
“Ah!”
Lu Yueqi let out a short cry of alarm. Like a frightened rabbit, she sprang up from the sofa and retreated several steps in succession, not stopping until her back pressed against the wall. Only then did she look in terror at that elegant “ghostly figure” with a hollow cavity where his heart should have been.
She had seen him before. That night, after Bai Yu saved her, this terrifying and powerful existence had briefly appeared.
“Don’t be afraid.” Bai Yu’s voice rang out in time. Though his tone was calm, it carried a power that soothed the heart. He did not turn around, as if he were already accustomed to Hei Yan’s appearances.
Lu Yueqi bit her lower lip hard, forcing herself to calm down. She knew this “ghostly figure” was a part of Bai Yu. Though he was frightening, he did not seem like he would harm her.
Hei Yan completely ignored Lu Yueqi’s existence, as if she were nothing more than an uninteresting furnishing. All of his attention was on that diary.
“An ignorant mortal actually dared attempt to depict the runes of the ‘Gate of the World-Rift’ with such crude strokes.” He extended his slender finger and tapped at the symbol on the diary from a distance, his tone filled with contempt. “He had no idea what he was doing. He thought he was respectfully welcoming a deity, but in reality, he was merely opening a crack in the wall of his own home that could never be fully shut, inviting those ravenous ‘Visitors’ lost in the gaps between dimensions to come and feast.”
“Visitors?” Bai Yu asked softly.
“Things more pure than Malignant Nightmares, yet also more chaotic.” Hei Yan gave a soft laugh. “They have no fixed forms and no clear rules. They only obey the instinct to ‘devour.’ The owner of this diary was like someone lighting a candle in a pitch-black sea. What he attracted would not be limited to moths.”
Bai Yu’s expression sank completely.
He closed the diary and looked toward Lu Yueqi, who was still shaken.
“Your grandfather… how did he pass away?”
Lu Yueqi’s body trembled, and she answered quietly, “He… he went missing. Many years ago, Grandfather suddenly disappeared. My family searched for a long time but couldn’t find him. In the end, they could only handle it as a missing person case. This diary was found in a very hidden compartment in his study.”
Missing.
In the Investigation Bureau’s files, that word was often equated with the worst possible outcome.
Bai Yu understood. Lu Yueqi’s grandfather had most likely been devoured by the “Visitors” he himself had summoned. And this diary was like a beacon continuously emitting a signal; it was not merely a relic of the past, but a threat that had persisted to this day. The reason Lu Yueqi had begun having those strange dreams was very likely because the “Dreamer” trait within her body had resonated with this diary, allowing her to “see” the things behind that crack as well.
“Can this diary stay with me for the time being?” Bai Yu looked at her and asked in an extremely serious tone. “It’s very dangerous. Keeping it by your side may bring you even more trouble.”
“Of… of course!” Lu Yueqi nodded without hesitation. She could not wait to get rid of this hot potato at once. The reason she had come today was precisely to ask Bai Yu to help her deal with this enormous problem.
“Thank you, Bai Yu.” Genuine gratitude appeared on Lu Yueqi’s face, and much of the fear in her eyes also dispersed. With Bai Yu here, she felt incomparably at ease.
After seeing Lu Yueqi off, Bai Yu closed the door and returned to the living room alone.
Hei Yan’s figure had already become much more solid. He sat elegantly on the sofa, holding the diary in his hand, slowly turning through it page by page as if appraising a rare treasure.
“Interesting. Truly interesting.” He let out a satisfied sigh. In the eyes he turned toward Bai Yu, a sickly, fanatical light flickered. “Though this mortal was foolish, his obsession was unexpectedly pure. The forms of these ‘Visitors’ that he recorded are only a narrow glimpse through a tube, but they still provide us with an excellent catalogue of collectibles.”
His gaze stopped on a certain page. There was no writing on that page, only an extremely bizarre drawing—it was like a tower piled together from countless twisted arms and eyes.
“Look. What marvelous chaos, what a despairing structure.” Hei Yan’s voice was filled with delight. “A dust-sealed work of art is waiting for us to unveil it.”
Bai Yu did not speak. He only quietly looked at that diary, and at the bizarre tower upon its page that made one’s SAN value plummet.
His brief vacation had ended ahead of time.