The dim, yellow light of the study lamp stabbed into Lau Rhen's half-open eyes like a cruel needle.His pupils contracted, struggling against the glare, and his breath came slow and shallow.He sat there for a moment in silence — not because he wanted to think, but because thinking felt like pressing his skull into a grindstone.
A dull, throbbing ache pulsed behind his temples, spreading to the back of his head like molten lead cooling into iron.When he tried to straighten in the chair, the world shifted sideways for a moment.
'...uhhh!'The sound escaped his lips without thought.This pain was not ordinary.
It wasn't the mild, nagging pressure of skipping meals, nor the raw splitting headache after nights spent on schoolwork.No — this was deeper. It felt like the ache had sunk into the marrow of his bones, like something in his body itself was… wrong.
He pressed two fingers against the side of his head.A faint ringing hummed in his ears — no, not ringing.It was… whispering?
He forced his breathing to slow, listening.Faint, indistinct noises drifted through the silence of his room.They didn't belong to the wind outside, nor the creaking wood of the old house.Somewhere… far, yet close.
It was the kind of sound that burrowed into a man's nerves — something between a voice and the echo of a bell struck in another realm.
Lau Rhen narrowed his eyes.Something about him was different.It wasn't just the headache, or the whispers.There was a strange stillness in his chest, as though the space where his heart should be was weighing the world.
He was too dizzy to pinpoint it, but his instincts — sharpened by his years of quietly observing people — told him one thing:This was no coincidence.
He leaned back into the chair, trying to force his mind into order.
"let's see...." he muttered under his breath, the cold edge of his tone slicing through the quiet.
The headache pressed harder when he tried to gather his thoughts.Fragments came and went — moments from the day before, school, the blurred shape of his sister passing him in the hallway, the faint metallic taste in the air at dinner — all scattered, incomplete.
He closed his eyes.
In his past life — no, not past life, but in his past experiences — he had learned to retreat inward when faced with uncertainty.When he had visited the Offworld before, he'd sometimes deliberately slowed time in his mind, letting memories reassemble themselves like shifting tiles.
Now, he tried the same.
But the harder he concentrated, the more his thoughts turned to pulp, like a hand crushing marshmallows until they were nothing but sugar and air.
Hunger struck him suddenly.Not the lazy gnawing of missing breakfast — but an ache deep in the gut, sharp and demanding.A craving… for seafood?The salt of the ocean, the richness of shellfish, the chew of octopus flesh.
It was absurd.He'd eaten nothing from the sea in months.
Why!?
The questions multiplied, each more senseless than the last.Why the pounding in his head?Why the whispers?Why the strange cravings?Why did his body feel too aware of the space around him?
Where were his parents?His sister?Was he hallucinating? Dreaming?
The thought came unbidden —have i been transmigrated?
His lip curled in a humorless smile.The absurdity was almost comforting.
Reincarnation?A regression?Some wild harem world where every woman bowed at his feet?The nonsense webnovels he had devoured over the years had dug deep trenches in his imagination.
Yet… something inside him whispered it wasn't entirely impossible.
After all — ever since the off world had begun interlinking with Earth's reality, the impossible had a way of walking into people's homes uninvited.
Qi
That whispering wasn't sound at all.It was the pulse of Qi — the essence that made the world breathe.Every human carried it, but in such faint measure that most would never notice.And yet here it was, saturating his mind like an overfilled cup ready to spill.
Qi was not daoIn the common parlance of cultivators, Dao was the blazing sun — the energy that, in the Offworld, could be shaped, tempered, forged into techniques and strength.Qi, on the other hand, was the moon.It could not burn, could not destroy.It was the quiet tether between realms — the symbol of unity forged by the Buddha and the pacifist god when the realms had nearly torn themselves apart.
Qi was the order of the world.It linked the poorest beggar and the richest noble to the same threshold — the ability to step into the Offworld.
In that strange mirror realm, villages replaced cities, beasts replaced machines, and cultivation was the only true currency.But the Offworld was not a fantasy.It was as real as Earth, and perhaps more dangerous — for some who cultivated wrongly became reverted cultivators, their minds and bodies twisted beyond recognition.
Lau Rhen had always been different in the Offworld.While others floundered for years to sense even the faintest glimmer of Dao, his mind had cut through the mysteries like a blade through silk.Some called him lucky, others gifted.He called it Clarity — the ability to see patterns in chaos, the threads others ignored.
And now… this headache, this whispering, this unnatural flood of Qi — it wasn't random.
He gritted his teeth.His mind whispered again: Not a coincidence.
The craving for seafood twisted in his stomach once more.It wasn't hunger.It was… resonance.In the Offworld, certain beasts carried Qi signatures that reminded him of the ocean — sinuous, deep, unyielding.Why was that signature here, now?
His cold gaze swept over his desk, the shelves, the faintly dust-lined corners of his room.Nothing unusual — no shimmering portal, no drifting mist, no glowing talisman.
But the air…The air shifted.
He inhaled deeply.And for the first time in his life, his breath felt as though it were grasping.His vision sharpened without warning, colors deepening, shadows thinning.The paper on his desk was no longer paper — it was fiber, thread, pulp.His wooden chair revealed faint hairline cracks beneath its polished varnish.It was as if the world's skin had become transparent.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips, humorless, cold.So.This was how it began.
The headache pulsed again, harder, and the world swayed — not physically, but spatially, as if the room itself had drawn a long, slow breath.Something inside his skull clicked, like a lock turned by an unseen hand.
Before he could anchor himself, the floor dissolved beneath him.
There was no falling — only an instantaneous shift.The dim yellow light vanished, replaced by the soft silver hue of moonlight pouring through paper-thin curtains.The air was different — warmer, tinged with faint jasmine.
Lau Rhen blinked.
He was standing in another room.Not his own.And — judging by the faint, rhythmic breathing — not empty.
His eyes adjusted, picking out the outline of a bed, a desk cluttered with neatly stacked books, and a small lacquered box in the corner.A familiar scent lingered in the air.One he had smelled before — faint lotus soap, and the earthy trace of incense used for meditation.
Xao Xao.
Without thinking, he moved — silent, fluid — and slid himself beneath the bed.The cool wooden floor pressed against his palms as he lowered himself flat.
The breathing above him shifted slightly, as though she had felt… something.
He stilled, his gaze fixed on the shadows beneath the bed frame.Through the narrow gap, he saw her feet move faintly beneath the blanket.A pause.Then stillness again.
The air in the room was heavier here, as if Qi itself lingered around her.
She, too, was tied to the Offworld.He had known this before — they were close enough for such truths to have slipped through over the years — but here, now, in the dark, he could feel her presence there like a second heartbeat.
He waited.Time inched forward.
Sometime past midnight, the shift came.
Her breathing deepened, then slowed, until it matched the subtle rhythm of someone crossing the veil between realms.Her body in this world lay still beneath the covers.But in the Offworld…
The moonlight dimmed, replaced by a softer, golden haze — the glow of lanterns in a village whose streets were paved with stone worn smooth by centuries.Houses of timber and tile lined the narrow paths, and the air was thick with the faint scent of woodsmoke and steamed buns.Somewhere far off, a bamboo flute played a slow, wistful tune.
Xiao Xiao stood in the midst of it all, clad in flowing white robes embroidered with delicate plum blossoms.Her long hair, unbound here, fell like a curtain of black silk to her waist.
She was not the Xiao Xiao of their world — here, she was a student of an ancient sect, her eyes sharper, her posture straighter.
Lau Rhen, still hidden in her real-world room, could sense the delicate hum of her Dao cultivation in the Offworld — steady, refined, disciplined.The connection between them in this state was faint, but it existed.A thread of Qi linking observer and observed.
But as he reached toward that thread with his mind, something else stirred at its edge.
From somewhere beyond the lantern-lit streets, a presence began to watch her.It was neither human nor beast — its outline blurred, its form too wrong to name.It did not approach.It simply stood, head tilted, as if studying her with unblinking eyes.
Lau Rhen's own eyes narrowed in the dark beneath her bed.A hideous thing that could cross the gaze between realms was no ordinary threat.
His headache throbbed again — and for the first time since it began, he felt the faintest chill of unease creep into his otherwise cold mind.
The Offworld night was warmer than the one hanging above Earth.A mild breeze drifted through the lantern-lit village, carrying with it the mingled scents of grilled meat, ink, and wet earth.Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed far too early, as though mocking the concept of time itself.
Xiao Xiao walked at an even pace, white sleeves swaying with the rhythm of her steps.The embroidery on her robe caught the lantern light, the plum blossoms shimmering faintly with each movement.Her hair was pinned with a single jade clasp, the green stone reflecting soft gold under the street lamps.
Here, she was not the quiet classmate who smiled politely in the school hallways.Here, she was Disciple Xao Xao, student of the Misty Willow Sect, known among the elders for her flawless control of beginner-level Qi weaving.
Lau Rhen was not in the Offworld physically, yet his mind hovered at the threshold like a silent observer behind glass.From beneath her bed in the real world, he could feel the texture of the air there — heavier, denser, rich with the mineral tang of unrefined Dao.
The streets of this village curled like a labyrinth, lined with paper lanterns painted with cranes, tigers, and drifting clouds.Children ran past, laughing, their bare feet slapping against the smooth stones.A vendor poured tea from a pot shaped like a dragon's head, steam curling like ghostly fingers.
Everything was… vivid.Too vivid.
And yet, threaded through this vibrant tapestry, Lau Rhen sensed it again.The watching presence.
It lingered at the far edge of his awareness — like a single cold drop of rain in an otherwise warm bath.No sound, no movement, just a persistent weight that told him without words: I am here.
Xiao Xiao's gaze flickered subtly to her left, toward an alley half-swallowed in darkness.She did not stop walking.Her steps neither quickened nor slowed, but her fingers brushed against the small cloth pouch at her waist — the one where she kept her talismans.
Lau Rhen's eyes narrowed in the real world.So she felt it too.
As she turned onto a quieter street, the sound of the crowd behind her faded into the muffled hum of night insects.The paper lanterns here were spaced farther apart, leaving swaths of shadow between their warm halos.Somewhere in that darkness, the presence shifted.
It was not the shuffle of feet, nor the rustle of cloth.It was the bending of Qi itself — the way space warped slightly, like ripples on still water.
The creature finally allowed itself to be half-seen.
Lau Rhen caught fragments of it through Xiao Xiao's perception:A hunched silhouette, too tall for human proportions.Limbs that bent wrong, angles that spoke of a body assembled with disregard for symmetry.A head that tilted slowly, unnervingly, like it was tasting her with its gaze.
Yet it did not move closer.
Instead, it simply… mirrored her steps.When she paused, it paused.When she walked, it followed — never closing the gap, never revealing more of itself than shadow and suggestion.
Xiao Xiao stopped at the wooden bridge that crossed the village's central stream.The moonlight in the Offworld seemed sharper here, cutting silver lines into the water.
She turned her head, just slightly, eyes catching the vaguest glint of the thing's form.Her lips parted, but she said nothing.Then, without warning, she stepped off the bridge and into the deeper village paths, where even lantern light dared not follow.
Beneath her bed in the real world, Lau Rhen's pulse slowed, not quickened.He was cold, calculating, his mind already assembling the possibilities.
This thing — whatever it was — was not random.It had ignored the crowds, ignored the elders, ignored the bustling heart of the village…It had chosen her.
The headache behind his eyes throbbed again, sharper now, almost urging him to act.
In the Offworld, Xiao Xiao finally stopped in front of a small courtyard surrounded by bamboo fencing.She stepped inside, her robes brushing the threshold — and the moment her foot crossed, the presence outside vanished.No sound. No ripple.Gone.
Lau Rhen's eyes opened fully in the dark.The room was still.Her breathing above him had returned to the steady rhythm of deep immersion.
But his mind…His mind was already shifting, already arranging the threads of this night into a pattern that spoke of something greater.
Something that had just begun.
The silence in Xiao Xiao's bedroom was the kind that pressed against the ears — thick, almost humming.Lau Rhen lay motionless beneath the bedframe, his head tilted just enough to see the faint outlines of her legs dangling off the mattress.Her breathing was calm, almost too calm, the rhythm of someone deeply immersed in the Offworld.
In theory, the connection between realms was one-way for the physical body.Qi — the Essence of the World, the Order left behind by the Pacifist God and Buddha — allowed consciousness to travel between realms, not flesh and bone.Dao belonged to the Offworld, cultivated like a flame nurtured in the heart, growing brighter and sharper with practice.
Qi and Dao were the twin currents of existence — yin and yang — one useless without the other.A man could refine Dao to the highest heavens in the Offworld, but without Qi, he was nothing more than a phantom there, unable to bridge meaning between his two selves.Likewise, a man with boundless Qi but no Dao was an empty vessel — all connection, no growth.
But Lau Rhen…Lau Rhen had always seen the system differently.
He didn't just use Qi — he saw it.Not as the glowing threads described in cultivation manuals, but as living currents, coiling through the air like invisible rivers, swirling in patterns that hinted at intentions, memories, and ancient echoes.
It was this sight that made him notice it first.
At the far corner of Xiao Xiao's room, above a carved bookshelf filled with school texts and talisman paper, the air had begun to bend.No… not bend.Leak.
Like steam rising from a crack in the earth, faint strands of Offworld Qi were drifting into the real world.They shimmered faintly, unseen to mortal eyes, carrying with them the scent of rain on old wood — and something sharper, almost metallic.
His expression didn't change, but a slow pulse of focus tightened behind his eyes.Qi leaks weren't supposed to happen without deliberate formation arrays.The Pacifist God's original design had been flawless — the interlink between realms was meant to seal itself like a heartbeat, allowing only thought, never matter.
Yet here it was: matter.Or at least, the beginnings of it.
From the rift seeped motes of light that faded before touching the floor, and with them, the faintest outlines of something moving.Like fingers testing the edges of a curtain.
Lau Rhen's breath slowed to a near-stop.His right hand lifted slightly, fingers curling in a precise shape — a mudra not from any sect, but one he had discovered himself in a fevered night years ago.
The air obeyed.Qi coiled to his palm like water seeking a drain, spinning tighter and tighter until it formed a small sphere, no larger than a walnut.Within, strands of Dao gathered — not enough to attack, but enough to stabilize.
He flicked his wrist, and the sphere struck the leak without sound.For a moment, nothing happened.Then the shimmer stilled, the metallic scent fading like the last note of a bell.
The leak was gone.
Above him, Xiao Xiao shifted in her sleep, murmuring something too soft to catch.Her brow furrowed slightly, as though she had sensed the anomaly in her own way.But her breathing evened out again, and she sank deeper into the Offworld's embrace.
Lau Rhen closed his eyes, but his mind did not rest.
That rift had not been a coincidence.The creature that watched her earlier… the fact that it had stopped at her courtyard gate… the sudden emergence of a leak in her physical space…
It was all connected.
Qi was the essence of unity, but unity was only flawless until something learned how to turn it inside out.
The air felt colder now.Not because of the night, but because he could feel the truth pressing at the edges of his thoughts — a truth he was not yet ready to name.
And for the first time since he had awakened to this cursed clarity, Lau Rhen wondered if the Offworld had ever truly been separate from the real one at all.
The morning sun never reached Xiao Xiao's courtyard.Her house, like most in this old district, was built with walls of dark wood and eaves that reached low, keeping the light out and the shadows deep.Even in daylight, the place had a faint hush to it — as though sound itself was reluctant to linger.
Lau Rhen sat cross-legged on the floor beneath her bed, still and unreadable.He had not moved since the night before, and his breath was so steady that even a trained cultivator would have missed it entirely.
From above came the soft creak of Xiao Xiao shifting awake.She had returned from the Offworld just before dawn, her pulse faintly disturbed — a sign she had encountered something unusual there.
He heard the faint click of her wardrobe opening.Cloth rustled; the smell of dried herbs and sandalwood drifted down.A moment later, her bare feet padded across the wooden floor toward her desk.
She began humming — not quite a melody, just a quiet, habitual sound.And Lau Rhen, for reasons he could not explain, found the corner of his mouth twitch ever so slightly.
The coldness in him, the same ice that had settled into his bones since his "awakening," thinned a fraction.But only a fraction.
By mid-morning, Xiao Xiao had left for class, and Lau Rhen finally emerged.The room was neat, every book aligned, every talisman sealed in wax.But the place where the rift had appeared…
It still felt wrong.
Qi currents here had not returned to their natural state.They bent oddly, like threads snagged on invisible hooks.And when he looked deeper with that cursed sight of his, he saw faint shadows — not of things present, but of things that had been.
They were shaped like footprints, but too long, too narrow.And they ended at the wall where the rift had once been.
"This isn't a simple leak…" he murmured, voice low and flat.It was a trail.
And trails only existed if something had already crossed over.
He left the house silently, making sure no one saw him.The streets outside were lined with gingko trees, their summer leaves wide and full, but even here the air felt off.The ordinary people walking past him seemed unaffected — laughing, carrying groceries, living their fragile little lives.
But Lau Rhen's sight told another story.
In the spaces between them — the narrow gaps where no one walked — faint shapes flickered.Like thin shadows in the wrong direction.Sometimes they moved with the people, matching their pace.Sometimes they paused, tilting as though looking directly at him.
The Offworld isn't supposed to bleed into reality like this.Not without cause.
He knew the rules — better than anyone.Qi was the bridge, Dao the foundation.Qi could only carry consciousness; Dao could only shape the Offworld self.Nothing physical could pass without shattering both realms' balance.
Yet something had passed.And now, it was following him.
That night, Lau Rhen did not sleep.He sat on the bare floor of his own room, eyes closed, senses extended into the invisible.
Hours passed.The candle on his desk burned low, its flame flickering without wind.And then —
A sound.
Not from the street, not from the house.From behind him.
Slow. Deliberate.Like the soft scrape of claws over wood.
He turned — and there it was.
A silhouette crouched in the farthest corner of the room, barely lit by the dying candle.Its limbs were too long, its head tilted too far.It had no face.Only a smooth expanse of shadow where features should have been.
It did not move closer.It simply watched him.
And Lau Rhen, cold as ever, only said:"You shouldn't be here."
The thing's head tilted further, almost curiously.And then — without sound — it vanished.
He didn't move for a long time after that.Not because of fear, but because he understood what this meant.
The Offworld's boundaries were breaking.And whatever had crossed over… was learning.