Half a month ago———

The endless drizzle of autumn weighed heavily on everything, soaking the streets and smearing the air with damp, grey melancholy.

Yan Zhou walked along the slick pavement, his worn canvas shoes slapping against the wet ground, schoolbag slung carelessly over one shoulder.

The rain wasn’t heavy, but it was steady enough to soak through his clothes.

"Bloody rain," he muttered under his breath, voice tight with frustration.

The cold drizzle kissed the bloodstains on his face, and Yan Zhou swore again, picking up his pace.

His footsteps splashed through puddles until, finally, he reached the battered apartment building he called home.

Fishing out a key, he let himself in.

The place wasn’t much warmer than the street outside, but at least it was dry.

Yan Zhou stood at the doorway for a moment, frowning deeply before stepping inside.

He tossed his schoolbag onto the frayed old sofa and took a sweeping look around — the disgust on his face only deepened.

He remembered, even now, the words his mother had said to him when he was thirteen.

> "Xiao Zhou, your father’s dead. You don't have a father anymore."

"Look at you — crying like a baby. It's just death. Stop embarrassing me. And don’t you dare tell anyone I’m your mother."

"Come here, I need to tell you something.

I’ve found someone else — a good man, rich too. From now on, don’t call me, don’t come looking for me.

You’re in middle school already; learn to be independent.

I’ll send your living expenses to your card once in a while.

This apartment’s in your name anyway — keep it."

Yes, when Yan Zhou had just started junior high, his father had died in an accident.

His mother, eager to remarry a wealthier man, had cut ties with him without a shred of guilt.

It had been nearly five years since then.

She only ever came back once in a blue moon.

The apartment — a cramped one-bedroom with a kitchen and bathroom — was technically spacious for one person.

Yan Zhou never bothered cleaning.

But today, when he returned, he found the place strangely tidy.

Even the instant noodles he hadn’t finished last night had been thrown out.

Apart from that woman, who else could it have been?

"Tch," he sneered, switching on the light to chase away some of the gloom.

Outside, the sky remained a solid sheet of grey.

The apartment faced away from the sun, and by mid-afternoon it was already dark as evening inside.

The heaviness pressed down on his chest.

Yan Zhou was painfully thin — tall, yes, just scraping 180cm, but hardly robust.

His hair was black and a little too long, now matted with blood and rain.

Bruises blossomed across his cheekbones, shades of blue and violet.

Yet none of it could fully mar the sharp, almost cruel beauty of his features.

There was a cold wildness about his eyes, the way his brows slanted and mouth set.

And beneath the oversized hoodie, his body was wiry with lean muscle — the kind earned not through gyms, but street fights.

He cleaned his wounds mechanically with disinfectant, then shuffled to the kitchen in his battered slippers, boiling a cup of instant noodles.

Flicking on the television, he sat there, eating alone, numbly watching the weather forecast drone on.

Eventually, even that became unbearable.

Yan Zhou stabbed the remote to shut it off.

As he slurped the last of the noodles, something nagged at him.

"Wait... that woman never sticks around longer than five minutes.

Why the hell would she clean the place?"

Suspicious now, he scanned the room more carefully — and spotted it.

A notebook.

Thick, worn, lying dead-centre on the coffee table.

He hadn't noticed it when he first came in.

"What the fuck is this?"

Frowning, Yan Zhou snatched it up and flipped it open.

The first page was a drawing — a pair of eyes.

Drawn in ballpoint pen, the gaze was disturbingly vivid.

The expression, a half-smile, half-mockery, was rendered with unnerving precision.

The moment Yan Zhou looked at it, his spine turned cold.

There was something predatory behind those sketched irises, something that watched him.

"What the fuck—"

He flipped to the next page.

A diary.

Each entry carefully dated with weather notes and a mood indicator.

The handwriting was wild but beautiful — the kind that could never have belonged to that woman.

Curiosity prickled under his skin.

He read a few pages.

The more he read, the darker his expression grew.

From blank indifference to curling rage, his hands practically ripped the pages as he turned them.

"Motherfucker!"

He shouted, face burning.

The entire diary was about him — only him.

Everywhere he went, everything he did, recorded in painstaking, obsessive detail.

Worse still were the author's sick, worshipful praises —

And at the end of every entry, disgusting, explicit fantasies spelled out in nauseating clarity.

Scenes of someone pinning Yan Zhou down, of exploiting his helplessness, of the thrill of overpowering him —

It read like some depraved porn script.

Only the victim was him.

Yan Zhou nearly vomited.

He forced himself through a few more pages, trembling with barely-restrained fury.

"Fucking son of a bitch!"

He roared again, tearing the notebook clean in two and throwing it into the bin.

Still seething, fists clenching helplessly, he stomped around the room, looking for something — anything — to destroy.

It wasn’t that woman.

Someone else had gotten into his apartment.

"Which sick bastard thought it’d be funny to mess with me?!"

Yan Zhou, eighteen, a third-year high school delinquent.

University? Future?

Not even a consideration.

Since his family collapsed when he was thirteen, he’d been on his own.

His mother alive, but as good as dead.

At first, she'd send him some money out of guilt.

Then less.

Now, nothing at all.

Weirdly, his school fees always seemed to get paid — probably the woman's doing, though Yan Zhou never cared enough to confirm it.

She’d come home only twice in five years, never staying more than a few minutes.

Yan Zhou had half-convinced himself she was dead.

But no — she was alive and thriving.

Whenever she bothered to show up, it was always the same:

Sell the apartment.

Get out.

No one cared what happened to Yan Zhou.

No one gave a damn.

By now, he’d embraced it.

Smoking, drinking, fighting, ditching classes — he’d perfected the art of self-destruction.

Teachers gave up on him long ago.

But at least, he thought grimly, he never did anything truly despicable.

Only fought when he had to.

Never touched drugs.

Never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.

That was his line.

Even if the world had long since crossed theirs.