Prologue : The Archive of Dying Embers
Time is not a line. For Xiao Zhan, time is a circle of sharpened wire, and he has been bleeding against its edges for a century.
They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. But what do they say about the man who has to watch someone else die, over and over again, until the color of blood and the sound of a flatlining heart monitor become as familiar as a lullaby?
The first time it happened, Xiao Zhan thought it was a nightmare. The second time, he thought he was losing his mind. By the fiftieth time, he realized he was a prisoner of fate, cast in a tragic play where the script never changed, only the scenery.
He had seen Wang Yibo die in the neon-soaked streets of Seoul. He had held him as he took his last breath in a cold hospital wing in Beijing. He had watched him disappear beneath the churning waves of a stormy sea, and he had heard the bone-chilling silence of a heart that simply decided to stop beating in the middle of a quiet night.
Every time the world reset—every time Xiao Zhan woke up back at the "Origin Point"—the pain didn't reset with it. It accumulated. It settled into his bones like lead. He was a library of tragedies, an archive of every way a human soul could be crushed.
The lessons were always the same:
Love is a target.
Fame is a cage.
The world will always try to take what is beautiful.
As the ninety-ninth loop flickered out like a dying candle, Xiao Zhan didn't pray for a miracle. He didn't ask for another chance to be a star or to win the hearts of the masses. He stood in the void between lives and made a silent, desperate vow.
If the world wants to kill him, then the world cannot have him.
In the hundredth life, Xiao Zhan would not be a hero. He would not be a legend. He would be a thief. He would steal Wang Yibo away from the lights, the cameras, and the destiny that kept demanding his blood.
Even if Yibo hated him for it. Even if they had to live in the shadows of the earth where the sun never reached.
Because a life in the dark was still a life. And Xiao Zhan was finally ready to burn the script.
